“You broke in?” Roberta demanded.
“Tom told me about the extra key. That’s why I phoned,” Bonnie said. “We went in to look around.”
“Find anything?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know,” Bonnie said.
Shep said, “Not really. We thought you could help.”
“We’ll help the police, not you,” Roberta said.
Tom ignored her. “How?”
“In the upstairs office we saw that a couple of drawers had been emptied,” Bonnie said. “Was that you?”
“Don’t tell them anything, Tom!”
“Yes, that was me,” Tom said. “It was mostly Harris’s financial papers, bills. We’re keeping everything up to date until he comes back.”
“We were hoping there might be a diary, or some notes that Harris had made,” Bonnie said.
“You see, sir,” Shep said. “I know in my brother’s case that he wrote letters and kept notes. It’s kind of natural when you run into something strange.”
“I see what you mean. I haven’t really looked closely at what we brought back. “I’ll bring the box down, if you like, and we can go through it.”
“That would be great,” Bonnie said.
Tom patted her on the back and left the kitchen. Roberta stared at Bonnie until Bonnie looked away. When Tom finally returned, the silence was oppressive. Bonnie could hardly breathe.
“This is it,” Tom said. It was a computer-paper box, half full of files and envelopes. He put it down on the table. “Can I help?”
“Sure,” Shep said.
He reached into the box and pulled out everything. He split the pile into three smaller piles, pushed one toward Tom, and one toward Bonnie. Across the table, Roberta held her head high.
“What are we looking for again?” Tom asked.
“Personal notes. A diary. Poetry. Anything out of the ordinary. Toss the bills and bank statements and stuff like that back in the box.”
They concentrated on their task. Bonnie flipped through her pile quickly. Electric bill for July, a cable television bill for the last quarter, at least five different notices from Madison Motors that Harris’s 91 Audi was up for inspection. She stared at those thoughtfully before tossing them in the box. She found one of Evan’s report cards near the bottom of her pile. The boy had rated A in math, but nothing more than B in anything else. In physical education he rated a D.
An excellent reader, Miss Raddison had noted. Personable and friendly, wrote Mrs. Gunn, Evan’s science teacher. A bright boy, but easily distracted, suggested Ms. Underhill, the history teacher. A pleasant, courteous, but very shy boy, said Miss Kelvin, the health teacher. Poor effort, possibly due to illness, came from Mr. Park, the physical education instructor.
“What does this mean?” she asked. “It says he was ill or something.”
Roberta reached across the table and snatched the report card from her hand. “Evan was not ill. He’s just not a very physical boy, that’s all.”
Bonnie turned away from her hard glare and continued to look through her pile.
Both Shep and Tom finished soon after. Shep puffed his cheeks. “Nothing.”
“I told you,” Roberta said smugly.
Bonnie felt herself tottering on the edge of crying again. She squeezed her hands in her lap. Shep touched her leg.
“Don’t worry. We’ve got enough to go on.”
“We do?”
He nodded.
“And what might that be?” Roberta demanded.
“I’d rather not say,” Shep said.
“You’re talking about my son and my grandson! You had better say.”
“Oh, leave him be, Robbie.”
Shep stood and pulled Bonnie to her feet. “If we have any news, we’ll call,” he said.
Tom led them to the door. Roberta followed. “Please, keep in touch,” Tom said. He kissed Bonnie on the cheek.
“I will,” Bonnie said in a choked voice.
It was full-fledged rain now. Shep led her to her car. He opened the door and put her in, then waited for her to roll down the window.
‘I’ll meet you at your place.”
“Damn it, how can I trust you?”
“You can.”
He opened his jacket, pulled out a notebook, and tossed it into the passenger seat.
“I found this in my pile. Keep it as collateral.”
Bonnie looked at him incredulously. “But you said …”
“I didn’t want it getting back to Peterson until we’d had a chance to look at it. No sense fighting the cops. I’ll meet you at your place in an hour or so, and we’ll look it over.”
Bonnie nodded, surprised to silence. How had he managed to take the notebook under Roberta’s hawklike eyes?
“You okay for driving?”
“I think so.”
“Okay.”
Before he could move away, she placed a hand on top of his. “Thanks for your support in there. If I’d been alone, she’d have destroyed me.”
He nodded and went to his car. Bonnie started the engine. As she released the parking brake, Roberta approached the car, smiling warmly. An apology, Bonnie thought. Impossible. She rolled down the window.
Roberta leaned closer. Still smiling.
“I don’t ever want to see you again. Never. Do you understand?”
Bonnie rolled up the window without answering. As she drove away, Roberta waved, still smiling. Through her tears and the rain, she found it difficult to drive, after all.
With the heat on to keep the window defogged, Shep felt worse than he had at the Laws’ house. Despite not having touched a drop in a day or two, it was the hangover from hell. His stomach churned. Sweat soaked through his shirt and into his jacket. He kept burping, and painful indigestion burned in his chest.
He stopped at a strip mall off I-35 and found a pay phone. In the book he found the address for the Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner’s Office. He wrote it down in his notebook, then ducked into the 7-Eleven. He brought a bottle of apple juice to the counter.
The clerk, a middle-aged Sikh wearing a turban, rang it through and took his money. Shep opened the bottle and swallowed half of it.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“What?”
“You look unwell.”
“I’m fine.”
“If you want to sit down a moment, I have a chair here.”
“No. I’m fine. Thanks.”
He finished the juice and left the bottle on the counter. The clerk watched as he got in his car and drove away. Shep swore softly. He detested the concern of others. It felt too much like pity.
Fifteen minutes later he parked half a block from the M.E.’s office. When he walked through the front door, his hair was dripping rain. He pressed it back with his hand.
Before he approached the reception desk, he studied the list of names on the wall. He picked one at random, then smiled at the woman at the desk.
“Can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Bentley,” Shep said. “I’d like to see Dr. Robertson.”
The woman, who was at least ten years Shep’s senior, eyed him as if she were flipping through a catalog of naked men.
“Lieutenant Bentley, of?”
“Metro, homicide,” Shep said, fishing.
“And this concerns?”
“A case. Please. It’s important.”
She pursed her pink lips and dialed a number on her phone. “Send Dr. Robertson to the front, June.” She hung up, then smiled at Shep. “Have a seat. He’ll be out soon.”
Shep thanked her and sat down. He crossed his legs and closed his eyes. The nausea had lessened, but he was still sweating. Hopefully, the doctor would think it the rain. He muffled a burp in his hand.
Shortly, an older man wearing a white smock came through a door behind the desk. The receptionist nodded toward Shep. Robertson came round the counter and regarded Shep suspiciously.
“Lieutenant Bentley?”
“
Yes, sir,” Shep said.
He pulled out his wallet and flashed his Chicago badge and ID. Before Robertson got a good look he put them away.
“What’s this about, Lieutenant?”
“Actually, sir, I’m not even sure you can help. Lieutenant Peterson of Metro directed me toward you.”
“Peterson? Lieutenant Peterson of homicide?”
“That’s him,” Shep said.
Robertson grinned. “I guess he still figures I owe him because of the Thompson case.”
“That’s what he said,” Shep said. “Said you’d be happy to lend a hand.”
Robertson wasn’t smiling any more. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but it’s not going to work. That was a Chicago badge, Peterson’s in Missing Persons, and there is no Thompson case. Who are you?”
Shep blushed and grinned. “Got me.”
“If you have any business with me, go through channels,” Robertson said. “Otherwise I’m going to call the real police, and have you arrested.”
“Please, listen to me for a minute, sir. My name is Shep Thomas. I’m from Chicago. An ex-cop, and now a private investigator. I really do know Peterson, but from the wrong end of the stick, I’m afraid. We’re working on the same case, and he doesn’t like it. Neither do I, for that matter, but I don’t have any power to make trouble for him.”
Now Robertson did smile. “Peterson. Nasty, sometimes.”
“Sure is,” Shep agreed.
“What do you want?”
Shep handed him the plastic shirt wrap. Robertson took it, held it up to the light, and frowned.
“What’s this?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I found it while looking for a client.”
Robertson sat down. With his pen, he reached into the wrap and pulled out the film within. He bent close to it, then touched it.
“This is …”
He looked like a kid who has caught the biggest bullfrog in the pond. Stunned with delight, yet worried about some sort of bite.
“It looks like…”
He upended the wrap and dumped the wet film onto the floor. Then, with the tips of his fingers, he started poking and prodding. Within a minute he had spread the pile across the tiles.
“This is human skin,” Robertson said, his voice very quiet.
Spread out, it formed the shape of an upper torso, arms ending in flapping shreds, neck a jagged tear.
“That’s what I thought,” Shep said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Never?”
“Never. This kind of desquamation is unheard of.”
“Desqua…”
“The shedding of skin. Look here, it’s come off in one piece. There’s a split in the back here, see, but otherwise it’s intact! Where did you get this?”
“In a house.” Shep rubbed his chin. “This couldn’t be psoriasis could it? Hives or something?”
Robertson snorted. “Not from this planet, it couldn’t.”
“Leprosy. Eczema?”
“Mr. Thomas, look. This is not the result of any known disease. Desquamation has two basic causes. Either because skin growth is occurring too rapidly as a result of a disease process, where the upper layers of cells just flake and fall off. That’s psoriasis and the like. Or because the skin is dead, as in sunburn. What we’ve got here is something else. This is massive, homogeneous desquamation. No flakes. One piece. It can’t happen in humans, only in …” Robertson shook his head and laughed softly.
“Only in what? When does it happen?”
“Snakes do it. Some lizards.”
“Oh.” Shep felt cold all over.
Shep, she’s not human. She’s an animal, Shep. No, not even an animal. Something else. Something worse.
Robertson scratched his head. “Would you mind if I kept this? I’d like to look more closely, run some tests.”
“Sure.”
“Can I contact you?”
“No, but you can contact Lieutenant Peterson. He’ll be interested, I think.”
When he left the building, Robertson was on his knees, poking the skin back into the shirt wrap. Shep bowed his head into the wind and rain and walked back to the car. Before he had opened the door the nausea hit him again, this time with such force that he nearly bent over. He managed to remain standing, but vomited down the door of the car.
Passersby in the street watched him in horror.
Shep climbed back into the car. He started the engine and rolled down the window despite the rain that spattered his face. He rubbed his neck. The skin felt puffy and warm. A drop of fluid squeezed out onto his finger.
He held it up to his face. The smell was sweet, like overripe banana. He wiped it on his pants, and started the car.
Damn it, he thought. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Chapter Nineteen
Bonnie held the front door open as Shep came up the steps. His car was parked badly at the curb, rear end jutting into the street. He looked as if he’d been walking in the rain. His hair was plastered to his scalp, his jacket soaked across the shoulders. His eyes had a panicky cast to them.
“You’re soaked! You look terrible!”
“Empty stomach, that’s all.”
“Coffee’s on. Come into the kitchen.”
She was, she admitted to herself now, surprised to see him. When he had sent her home alone, she thought he had ditched her, had thought the notebook lifted from the Law’s house was nothing more than a ruse to keep her quiet.
Shep sat down heavily, and the chair creaked beneath him. He wiped rain or sweat from his brow.
“Did you look through the notebook yet?”
“Uh huh. Cream, sugar?”
“Both. Anything interesting?”
“I don’t know. It rambles a bit. Kind of mushy.” She put the coffee down in front of him. “I couldn’t really make sense of it.”
Shep sipped the coffee. He visibly relaxed as the hot brew entered him.
“Same as my brother’s. Did he mention the creche?”
“Why don’t you just read it?”
“Sure. Sure.”
He sipped the coffee some more until the mug was empty, then pushed it toward Bonnie. She filled it up for him. This one he took at a more leisurely pace.
“Where’d you go, anyway?” she asked.
“Medical Examiner’s office. With the stuff we found under your ex’s bed.”
“And?”
“Human skin.”
Bonnie felt the coffee sloshing in her stomach. “What?”
“One great big piece of human skin. As if it had been shed. One piece. He said you don’t see that kind of desquamation in humans.”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“Desquamation. That means …”
“I know what it means. How big a piece was it?”
“Torso.”
“Oh, God, that’s awful.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just, I saw Evan peeling some skin the other day. He said it was poison ivy or some sort of rash.”
Shep lowered his head. He looked away.
“Is something the matter?”
“I don’t know. Let me see the notebook.”
She went into the living room and when she came back he was sitting up straight. She put the notebook in front of him, then moved a chair to sit beside him. When he opened the book, she read it with him.
The notebook was actually a three column ledger. The wire spine was full of the tattered edges of early pages torn out. The handwriting was cramped, but neat, almost tentative. Medium point, ballpoint pen.
June 12, Evan met Constance for the first time today. I’m not sure how they got along. He went up to his room and stayed there most of the evening. She says it’s possible. She says maybe. Oh, God, please. Make it yes.
“Who is Constance?” Shep asked.
“I don’t know. Nobody I know.”
“The redhead?”
Bo
nnie shrugged. That was her guess, but she did not want to say so, fearing she would simply sound jealous.
There were four subsequent dated entries, leading up to July 4. All were short, fairly succinct, all related to the mysterious Constance.
June 19. Evan looks okay. But he’s scared. So am I. Constance says don’t be frightened, but we both are terrified. I will go first. He can’t be alone in this.
Bonnie shook her head as she read that again.
June 23. Some things now seem so pointless. In the face of this, I mean. Life is so precious. To keep it, I’d give up anything. The price does not seem so high. I pray that Evan feels the same way.
“He sure goes on, doesn’t he,” Shep mumbled.
“Oh, it gets better.”
June 28. It’s worse now. Constance says don’t worry. Feel nauseated. She says don’t see doctor. Evan frightened. I haven’t told him yet. I can’t.
“Wonder what he’s talking about,” Shep said softly.
July 4. They’re wrong. Not all change is for the better.
“That just doesn’t sound like Harris. I mean, we’re talking about a real-estate broker here. He just never thought like that, or talked like that. Not when I knew him.”
Shep flipped the page. Blank.
“That’s it?”
“Flip one more.”
Shep did so. The next page was undated, the handwriting a muddle. Line after line of script of differing sizes. Some lines were neat and compact, like the dated entries. Others were printed, block style. Others were scrawled, barely comprehensible. Sentences ended in mid-thought, with no punctuation, to be picked up again or abandoned.
“Wow.”
“See what I mean? I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.”
Shep bent closer to the page, shaking his head. “That’s strange all right.”
Changes, changes, changes I don’t want to know. Keep the door closed. Keep the door closed. Keep the door closed.
It goes on and on like that,” Bonnie said.
Shep was very pale. “He sounds mad.”
“As a hatter.”
The next page was more of the same. Then:
Wait
Wait
Wait
“It goes on like that for two pages.” Shep flipped the page. The word “wait” ran down the center of the paper, into the next page. It ended halfway down.
Nightscape Page 18
