By the time Chris, Emily Lindstrom, and O'Sullivan reached the crime scene, squad cars had cordoned off the entire street. Grim looking uniformed cops-men and women alike-stood next to their squad cars waving long silver flashlights and rerouting traffic. Car passengers seemed equally divided between those who were irritated at being sent two blocks out of their way, and those who were irritated because they couldn't get a closer glimpse of all the trouble.
O'Sullivan took a big PRESS card (black letters on white cardboard for easy reading), set it up behind his steering wheel, and pulled up to one of the uniformed cops.
"I'm O'Sullivan from Channel 3."
The cop-a trim black man-leaned in and said, "There isn't much room in there with the ambulance. Why don't you pull over by that tree there."
"Thanks."
The cop nodded and went back to his job.
After they'd parked and got out, Chris looked at the display past the yellow police tape. The old buildings of the neighbourhood were awash in the splashing red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles. On the other side of the barricades the police had set up stood at least twenty cops, some in uniform, most in suits.
There wasn't a smile to be seen anywhere. Reporters from TV stations were busy with mobile lights and cameras trying to get interviews with officers who clearly had no intention of saying anything at this point. It was too early to know what had gone on here. Ordinary citizens stood on the edge of the perimeter. Most of them looked shocked. Death is always hard to accept but sudden violent death is even tougher-it reminds everybody of how fragile life truly is. One moment you can be walking down the street happy and content, the next you can be on the sidewalk bleeding to death from a stab wound or a gunshot. And no amount of prestige or wealth can save you from the unexpected, either.
Then Chris saw the teenage girl the police were leading out of the bookstore. Chris's heart broke for her. Not only was the girl in shock, but even from ten yards away you could hear the low, moaning animal noise that violent death prompts from those forced to witness it.
The girl was drenched with blood and now, as she held her hands to her face as the TV lights bore in on her, her lovely, soft face became streaked with blood, too.
It was then that Chris noticed the girl's limp. She wondered if this was the result of the murder that had taken place inside the bookstore.
"Jesus," O'Sullivan said when he saw the girl trapped in the glare of the lights.
Then before Chris knew what he was doing, O'Sullivan vaulted a barricade-he might be thirty pounds overweight but he was surprisingly nimble-and ran over in front of the lights. He started waving his arms and blocking the girl with his body so the police could more easily help her into the waiting squad car.
Chris smiled, thinking that this was just the kind of move that proved he was first a human being and second a reporter. Much as she liked some reporters, she didn't find many of them all that admirable as human beings.
Once the girl was in the car and speeding safely away, O'Sullivan turned reporter again. The Channel 3 team-two camera people and the station's reigning hunk who didn't look any smarter than usual-came trotting breathlessly up to their boss, awaiting his commands.
Rather than stand around, Chris decided to start soaking up some colour. Even if she'd been demoted to daily calendar lady, she still recognised a good-if bleak-story when she saw one.
She spent the next ten minutes familiarising herself with the scene in general. She wondered what the motive for the killing had been. Robbery seemed unlikely. Certainly the Alice B. Toklas Bookstore wouldn't have contained enough money to justify such slaughter. (Though, of course, if the killer was a junkie, he might well have murdered these people for a few dollars.) And from what she was gathering, a young white middle class boy had been murdered inside.
A few people in the crowd recognised her and pointed and smiled. You might not get much money as a local TV reporter but you got about all the fame you could handle. Grocery store, record shop, movie theatre-it didn't matter-wherever you went your public awaited you. Of course, not everyone loved you. She'd been spit at, given the finger to, and cursed out loud. And this was all during her off-duty hours.
The crime scene was laid out, as usual, to keep the maximum number of people out and let the minimum number of people inside the yellow crime scene tape. Two uniformed officers stood logging official people in and out, writing down.what they were wearing so that if later there were questions about fibres or blood or latent fingerprints, they'd know if any of these belonged to police personnel. She'd seen some crime scenes that had been limited to two or three people, police identification officers-who did diagrams and snapped photos and gathered all sorts of evidence-and one person from the coroner's office. All the activity was directed by a police commander on the scene (and many times not even the commander was let inside the yellow tape) and a commander back at the precinct. The object was to survey and catalogue the crime scene and get out before anybody had a chance to disturb or disrupt evidence. Understandably, uniformed police officers kept not only Chris but all the other reporters away as well.
This was the front of the store. She decided to try her luck in the alley, where the investigation was limited to one side of the pavement.
Two white coated men from the Medical Examiner's office stood by a wall examining a great stain of blood. The men recognised her and nodded as she walked past. Probably they didn't yet know she was now the daily calendar lady. They probably still thought she was a crack reporter. They probably didn't know how old she was, either. Too old to be anything but a calendar lady. But that was self-pity and that was one thing she always tried to spare herself. She had her health, her good if not brilliant mind, her good if not gorgeous looks, and there were one hell of a lot of people on this planet who had one whole lot less. She considered self-pity the most unbecoming of all feelings and whenever she felt herself slipping into it she bit her lip till she drew blood.
She drew blood right now.
She walked past the light in the centre of the alley, into the chill gloom near the misty light at the opposite end.
The place reeked of garbage and other filth. Near a light pole she could see the carcass of a cat that had been eaten up by some kind of scavenger. Most of the belly was gone. Its front paws and jaw were frozen in a position of extreme terror and pain. She loved cats. The poor little thing.
When Chris got back to the front of the bookstore, she found that the reporters had doubled, perhaps tripled in number. Uniformed police officers held them at bay ten feet on the other side of the yellow tape. The number of onlookers had increased, too. There was a carnival atmosphere now. Among the gloomy faces you saw a smile or two. Know-it-alls in the crowd pointed things out to newly arrived spectators. The slaying had gone from a numbing, depressing experience to one of novelty and even thrills. By now it wasn't a human experience-a life with a history and loved ones-but rather just one more titillation for the tube.
She found O'Sullivan barking at his reporters, ordering them to try to outflank the officers so they could get a better shot of the store interior. His moment of humanity-seeing that the teenage girl was protected from the wolf pack of reporters- had passed and he was once again his familiar self, a news director in a competitive TV market very worried about ratings and determined to get some kind of edge on his foes at the other stations.
So now, instead of walking up to the crime scene commander, she bypassed him and went over to O'Sullivan.
She had to wait until he was finished intimidating his troops.
He turned to her and said, "Channel 6 is going to beat the hell out of us on this story. They're up to something. I know it." O'Sullivan always said this. Then he narrowed his eyes and said, "Where's Lindstrom?"
"On the other side of the barricade."
Some of the people in the crowd had recognised her. They were pointing and waving. She waved back. Anything except face O'Sullivan's scrutiny.
"Where you going after this?"
"Emily wants to talk to the Fane girl."
"You think you can get in to see her?"
She crossed her fingers. "Hope so." Then she gave him a most unprofessional kiss on the cheek and left.
Five blocks from the bookstore, Richard Dobyns was hiding in the deep shadows of a five-storey all-night parking garage. He was on the third floor.
Crouched in a corner of the place, he was slowly becoming aware of smells: leaky motor oil, fading cigarette smoke, his own sticky sweat, and the chill breeze off the nearby river smelling of fish and pollutants.
He was slowly becoming aware of sights, too: the way the perfectly waxed hood of a new Lincoln shone in the starlight through the open wall, the stars themselves inscrutable and imperious, and closer by the concrete floor slanting down into shadows. There were only a few cars left on this floor. The place looked deserted and lonely in the dim and dirty overhead light. Occasionally, from down below, he could hear footsteps and cars starting up, and then a laugh or two.
He wanted to be one of them. One of those everyday normal people getting into an everyday normal car going home to an everyday normal wife and kids. All his life he'd wanted to be everyday and normal yet he never had been quite-not in high school where he'd been the nerdy editor of the school newspaper or in college where he'd been the nerdy editor of the literary. He'd always felt the outsider, walking around with a nervous insincere smile on his face, and knowing a sorrow even he couldn't quite define.
Well, given what he'd done in the past twenty-four hours, now he was the ultimate outsider-
He tried to keep images of the teenage boy from his mind.
My God, he'd-
His breath still came in spasms.
Leaning back against the rough concrete wall, he felt his chest and belly heave as breath ripped upward through his lungs.
And then he felt the thing inside him shift.
Not a major shift, just a small one as if adjusting position.
He put his hand to his stomach.
And felt it.
Moving now; twisting.
He put his head back against the concrete wall again and closed his eyes. A shadow cut his face perfectly in two. He'd gone unshaven and his beard was a stubbly black. His dark hair was wildly messed up. And now a single silver tear slid down the curve of his cheek. It rolled to his dry lips and settled there feeling hot and tasting salty. He did not open his eyes or move his head for long minutes.
Our Father who art in heaven-
And then he heard the voices.
Man and woman.
Young, probably about his age.
Coming toward him.
His eyes came open. He looked momentarily as if he were coming out of a very deep trance. The dark eyes flicked left, right-
Coming toward him.
"Come on, admit it. You thought she was cute."
"Well-"
"It's all right, David. I won't get jealous. She's a movie star, not somebody you can call up for a date."
The man chuckled. "Right, you won't get jealous. Remember the night I told you I thought Demi Moore was so good looking?"
Now the woman laughed. "You just happened to catch me on an off night."
"Sure," the man said. "An off night."
They walked a few steps in silence then, and there was no doubt where they were heading. The Lincoln with Dobyns hiding on the other side.
If he waited till they came around to his side, they would be at an advantage, standing over him-
He had to move now-
He sprang up off the concrete floor to his feet, running around the rear end of the Lincoln right toward them. The door leading downstairs was perhaps thirty yards behind them.
This was the only thing he could do.
When they saw him appear, like some berserk jack-in-the-box abruptly popping up, they both screamed.
The man was brave. He pulled the woman to him protectively.
Dobyns ran right past them, his footsteps echoing flap-flap-flap in the empty parking garage, all the way to the door, then faster flap-flap-flap as he took the stairs down to the ground floor two at a time.
Three blocks away, in an area that was mostly shadowy warehouses long left deserted, he found a phone booth glowing in the blackness.
He fed change into the phone and then dialled a certain number with trembling fingers.
"Hello."
Right away, she said, "Please, Richard. Please just turn yourself over."
"I take it the phone is tapped."
"Richard, please, the police have assured me that-"
He laughed. "I'll bet they've assured you of a lot of things, haven't they?"
"Richard, I-"
"I'm sorry, honey. I can't turn myself over. I can't. There's no other way to explain it."
"But-"
"I need you to do me a favour."
"Richard, there's a detective standing-"
"I know there's a detective there. I just need to talk to Cindy a minute. Just put her on the phone. Please do that for me."
There was a long pause on the other end. Then a little girl's voice, more sombre than he'd ever heard it, said, "Hi, Daddy."
"Hi, pumpkin."
"There are policemen here."
"I know, honey."
"They want you to talk to them. They promised Mommy that they won't hurt you."
"I know, sweetie. But it's you I want to talk to. I-" But how could he explain to anybody-even to himself-the terrible darkness that overcame him when the thing inside wanted him to kill? "Do you know how much I love you?"
"Yes, Daddy. And I love you."
"That's what you've got to remember, pumpkin. How much we love each other. Okay, sweetheart?"
"All right, Daddy."
"Now I've got to go. I'm sorry but I do."
Cindy started crying. "I love you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy." He could hear the terror in her voice and hated himself for putting it there.
His wife took the phone. "Richard-"
"Take care of Cindy, honey. You'll both make it through this somehow, darling, I know you will."
And then he hung up and faced black night again.
It was time to return to the tower.
Once they got rolling in the car again, Emily Lindstrom spoke. She'd been quiet for nearly twenty minutes.
"It's always different from on TV, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"Oh, just the reality of it," Emily Lindstrom said. "Even when you see the body bags, you don't smell the blood and the faeces and you don't see the eyes of the youngsters standing around and gawking."
"No, you don't."
Emily sighed, put her head back. "Tonight brought everything back. The way it was with Rob, I mean."
"I'm sorry."
"You shouldn't be sorry. You're the best friend I've had since this whole thing started years ago." She looked over at Chris and smiled. "Even if you don't believe it."
Chris braked for a red light. Full night was here now. You could tell how raw the wind was by the way the young spring trees bent and swayed, and the way storm windows rattled on the aged houses of this neighbourhood. "Who said I didn't believe you?"
"Then you do?"
"Well," Chris said.
Emily smiled again. "I don't blame you. A cult buries the bones of murdered children somewhere and a hundred years later a serpent-"
"By the way, what's the difference between 'snake' and 'serpent'?"
"Technically, none," Emily said, "but you're changing the subject."
"I am, aren't I?" Chris said, and pulled away from the stoplight.
They drove another five minutes in silence. The homes got bigger, cleaner. The electric lights in the gloom looked inviting. Chris wanted to be inside one of those places, feet tucked under her on the couch, a good movie on HBO and a bowl of popcorn on her lap.
"There's even an incantation."
"Oh?" Chris said.
"Yes. If you say the words at the right time, you can force the serpent to leave the person's body"
Chris shuddered. "I don't think I'd want to be around to see that. Would you?"
Emily stared out the window at the blowing darkness. "Have a chance to destroy the thing that destroyed my brother's life? Oh, I'd want to be around, Chris, believe me."
They now reached a long strip of fast-food places. The night sky was aglow with neon red and yellow and green and purple. Teenagers in shiny cars drove up and down the strip, followed occasionally by a police squad car.
"I was right, wasn't I?"
"About me believing you?"
"Yes," Emily said.
"May I reserve judgement?"
"Sure. You may do anything you please."
"I like you."
"And I like you."
"And I want to believe you."
"And I want you to believe me, too."
"But I need time to see how things go. Can you blame me?"
"No," Emily said, and looked out the dark window again. "No, I can't blame you."
"We'll be there in a little bit," Chris said, changing the subject again.
"At Marie's?"
"Yes. I just hope her mother will let us see her."
Emily said, "So do I. And I hope Marie saw that Dobyns was under some kind of trance when he killed that boy." She bit her lip. "The police wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to tell them about Rob."
Chris could see how the stress was getting to Emily now. Emily looked older suddenly in the dashboard light, and no longer so poised or self confident.
"Do you think we could stop at Denny's for a cup of coffee?" Emily said.
"Sure."
"I guess I need some coffee right now."
There was a Denny's two blocks ahead.
Her first impression was, This is not my daughter. This is someone else's daughter. There has been a mistake. A terrible mistake.
Kathleen Fane watched as two uniformed policemen led the Marie impostor up the carpeted steps to the second-floor landing of the apartment house. They moved the girl very carefully, very slowly, as if she were a piece of extraordinarily precious sculpture that might break at any moment.
Even from several feet away, Kathleen could see the blood that was splattered all over her daughter. She had seen people involved in car accidents who hadn't looked so bloody. The scene at the bookstore must have been horrible beyond description.
Marie's eyes were the worst part. 'Shock' was the clinical word. But it came nowhere near describing the deadness of the once beautiful blue gaze. Mother and daughter alike had regarded Marie's eyes as her most attractive feature but now they were terrifying.
As Kathleen walked out in the hall toward her daughter and the policemen, she hoped to see at least some faint flicker of recognition in Marie's eyes. But nothing; nothing. The girl didn't even look up when Kathleen reached out and took her arm.
Kathleen tried not to cry-she knew this was a difficult time for the police officers as well as for Marie and herself-but she could not hold back completely, silver tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
"Good evening, ma'am," the stouter of the two officers said.
"Thank you so much. Thank you so much," Kathleen said, taking Marie from them. The girl's limp was still decidedly pronounced. In fact, her mother wondered if it wasn't worse now. Then, "When I asked about the boy they said they weren't positive that he was- Is he-?" She tried twice to say the word 'dead.' Neither time would her tongue and lips quite form the word.
The taller of the two officers-the slender one-nodded. It was easy to see the grief in his eyes. Obviously police officers were no more exempt from urban horrors than anyone else. The officer told Kathleen about taking Marie to the hospital, about the doctor's examination of the cut on her neck, and of her state in general.
Kathleen took in a breath sharply, thinking of the poor boy's mother. It made so little sense. You send your kids off for what's supposed to be a night of light work and lots of fun and a few hours later, one of them is dead and the other has totally withdrawn from reality.
"Shouldn't she be at the hospital?" Kathleen said, just before taking Marie inside.
"The doctor said she'll be all right tonight but that you should call your family doctor in the morning. He gave her some medication." The officer handed Kathleen a small brown plastic bottle.
"Thank you, officers," Kathleen said.
She took her daughter inside. There were three locks-a dead bolt and two chain locks-but ordinarily she only used one of them. She used to laugh about how paranoid the previous occupant of this apartment must have been. But tonight, without any hesitation, she used all three locks. And she knew that she would for the rest of her life.
The couch made into a comfortable double bed. Kathleen plumped it up even further with two layers of blankets and a nice clean peppermint-striped sheet with matching pillowcases. She then put two heavy comforters on the bed. Then she helped her daughter lie down.
Earlier, Kathleen had given Marie a long, hot shower. She'd even washed Marie's hair and blow-dried it. As a final touch, trying for anything that would get the girl to speak, she sprayed on some of the expensive perfume Marie had given her for Christmas. In her best sheer white nightgown, in her best dark blue robe and matching corduroy slippers, Marie looked very pretty.
Once her daughter was on the couch with the covers pulled up over her, Kathleen went to the kitchen and fixed them a snack, leftover slices of white turkey meat with light daubs of yellow mustard on rye bread, a big dill pickle each, a scattering of chips and two glasses of skim milk turned into the pauper's malted milk with the help of Kraft Chocolate Malt.
She set the two plates on the coffee table in front of the couch and then sat down. "Now you eat what you want, hon. Or nothing at all. It's up to you."
Everything was fine now except for Marie's eyes. They hadn't changed. They still stared off at some horrible private vision.
Kathleen picked up her sandwich. Maybe if she ate, Marie would do likewise. She took a bite from the sandwich, swallowed it, and raised a chip to her mouth. She smiled at her daughter. "I know I'm supposed to be on a diet, hon. No need to remind me."
Marie said nothing. Still stared down at the bed in which she sat.
After two more bites, Kathleen said, "Know what I think I'm going to do? Call Dr. Mason. Tell him everything that's going on and see what he's got to say." She smiled and leaned over and kissed her lovely daughter on the cheek. Marie sat there statue still. If she was aware of her mother's presence, she gave no hint at all.
Kathleen got up and went over to the alcove between living room and dining room. There, in the corner, was a leather chair and light for reading, and next to it on a small table filled with books was a phone.
She found Dr. Mason's number with her other emergency numbers in the back of the telephone book. She didn't get Dr. Mason, of course, she got a somewhat crabby sounding young woman who seemed displeased that anybody would call Dr. Mason at this time of night. Reluctantly, the young woman took the message and said that she'd have Dr. Mason call back. Kathleen wanted to say something catty-she always curbed her tongue when people insulted her; simply accepted their unkindnesses-but she decided this would be the worst time of all to be self-assertive. What if Marie heard her? An atmosphere of tension and argument would be all the girl would need at a time like this.
Kathleen went back and finished her sandwich. Marie said nothing. Stared.
Once, Marie made a noise. Kathleen almost leapt out of her chair. Was Marie about to talk? No. Marie settled down again, this time even closing her eyes, as if she were drifting off to sleep.
When the phone rang, Kathleen jumped from her chair and strode across the room with only a few steps.
She caught the receiver on the third ring. "Hello."
No sound. A presence-you could tell somebody was on the other end of the line-breathing. Listening. But not talking.
"Hello," Kathleen said.
The breathing again. The listening.
"Who is this please?"
She almost laughed at her politeness. Here it was the worst night of her life-her daughter could easily have become the victim of a senseless slaughter-and she was saying please and thank you.
"If you don't say something, I'm going to hang up."
"Not. Done."
A male voice said these two words.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Not. Done."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Marie."
"Yes? What about Marie?" She could hear the panic in her voice.
"Not. Done."
Then the male caller hung up.
It was clear enough what he'd been getting at.
His work with Marie was not done yet. The work that had started back in the bookstore.
Now Kathleen hung up.
She immediately dialled 911 for the police.
After he hung up, Dobyns leaned forward in the phone booth and pressed his forehead against the glass.
He could see his reflection.
He stared at it the way he would the face of a stranger who, for some reason, looked familiar.
He would not hurt the girl anymore. He would go back to Hastings House and sneak into the tower and rid himself of the being that rode inside his stomach. He would let nobody stop him; nobody.
He stumbled from the phone booth, alternately cold and hot, alternately euphoric and depressed. He was sorry he had called the Fane woman. The thing inside him had taken control again-
He still remembered Marie Fane's eyes in the bookstore.
She could have been his own daughter a few years later-
He staggered through the shadows.
Back to Hastings House and the tower.
Somehow he would rid himself of-
But just then nausea worked its way up from his stomach into his throat and he knew the thing was moving again, demonstrating its dominance.
He kept stumbling forward-
O'Sullivan had started out as a newspaperman back in the glorious days of Watergate. That era had been one of the few in American history when journalists were esteemed and exalted by their fellow citizens, even if they had worn flowered ties and wide lapels and sideburns that reached to their jawlines.
O'Sullivan had been glad to take advantage of all this glory, even if he was little more than a glorified copy boy. Night after night he'd stood drinking white wine in the fashionable singles bars of those days declaiming on the subject of the journalist's responsibility to the democracy Anybody who had even an inkling of what he was talking about thought he sounded pretty silly and full of himself, but-to miniskirted insurance company secretaries (bored with guys who hit on them with little more than a few gags lifted from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), O'Sullivan sounded pretty good, especially after the young women had had more than their share of drinks.
A few years later, going nowhere as a reporter on the paper, O'Sullivan had some drinks with Channel 3's then news director and decided what the hell, to try it as a TV guy. Understand now, O'Sullivan had been thirty pounds lighter in those days, and most of his Irish dark hair was intact, and he still had a warm feeling for most people that came across as a kind of ingenuous charm. In other words, he worked pretty well on the tube. He was appealing if not downright handsome, he had a nice 'gonadic' voice (as one of the more eloquent news consultants once described it), and he found that he sort of liked the limitations of the form-cramming everything you could into a minute or a minute-and-a-half report. On the paper you might have two or three thousand words to tell your story; on the tube you had a max of three hundred.
He rarely thought of these things anymore except when he went over to the newspaper. Even late at night, when there were mostly just kids working, O'Sullivan got The Stare.
The Stare is something that newspaper journalists always visit on television journalists. It transmits, in effect, the notion that TV people aren't really reporters after all and that they couldn't report a parking meter violation with any accuracy or style.
O'Sullivan stood on the edge of the newsroom now, letting the six or seven folks who had the graveyard shift aim The Stare at him.
O'Sullivan missed the clackety-clack of the typewriter days. Now everything was word processors and they didn't make any respectable journalistic noises at all.
At this time of night, the vast room with its teletypes and desks, its paste-up boards and overloaded photo desks, was quiet and dark. Now that they'd had their fun flinging The Stare at him, the reporters went back to their work on the phones and their computer screens.
They knew him from his occasional appearances on TV but he didn't know them. There was a whole new generation at work here and not a friendly face among them. Who could he get to let him into the computer morgue?
From behind him then came a thunderous flushing noise from one of the johns. A few moments later the tune of Eleanor Rigby was whistled on the air and a tall, gaunt man bald on top but with shoulder length hair in back came strolling out from the men's room. Despite his white shirt and conservative necktie, his little granny-glasses and his PEACE NOW button on the pocket of his shirt said that he still wished the era of Flower Power were upon us. He was obviously O'Sullivan's age or thereabouts but there was something youthful about him, too, some vitality and wryness that too many meetings with too many TV consultants had drained from O'Sullivan.
"Hey, O'Sullivan."
"Hey, Rooney."
"You must be slumming."
O'Sullivan grinned. "You're right. I am."
"Still going out with Chris Holland?"
"Sometimes."
"I envy you that."
"What's wrong with your wife? Last time I looked, she was a pretty nice woman."
"Dumped me."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, so am I actually." For a moment pain tightened Rooney's gaze and then he said, "Whatever happened to that beer you were going to buy me last year when I let you go through our morgue?"
"How about adding it to the other beer I'm going to buy you for letting me use the morgue tonight?"
Rooney smiled. "TV has made you a ruthless, cynical sonofabitch, hasn't it."
O'Sullivan patted his stomach. "No, TV has made me a chunk-o who picks up a Snickers every time he has an anxiety attack."
"Why don't you come back to the newspaper? They don't pay us enough to afford Snickers."
"Maybe that's a good idea."
Rooney clapped him on the back. "Actually, it's good to see you, O'Sullivan. You're not half as big an asshole as most people think."
Laughing, O'Sullivan followed Rooney down the hall to the computer morgue. Rooney opened the door, pointed to the coffee-pot in the corner of the big room that was laid out with computers much like viewers in the microfilm room of a library. Here was where the newspaper stored decades of information on thousands of local subjects.
"You got to leave a quarter for each cup of coffee, though," Rooney said. "You remember Marge? The little black woman who runs this room?"
"I remember Marge all right."
"She runs a tight ship. She'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth if you take a cup of coffee without leaving a quarter for it."
"Don't worry. I will. She scares the hell out of me."
Rooney smiled and left, closing the door behind him.
Hastings House was built just before the turn of the century. In the photos from that time, the place looked about a tenth the size of its present form. A couple of stiff looking gents in top hats and long Edwardian coats could be seen, in one photo, turning over shovelfuls of dirt to get the project started-and then a year later standing in the same top hats and long Edwardian coats on the steps of the new building.
In the background, the tower was clear and impressive in the winter sunlight. Constructed of native stone, with a kind of turreted top, it rose against the sky with medieval grace, though the stories from the time quickly noted that the tower could not be used because of faulty construction.
In 1912 patient escapes tied to murders began. The first such incident involved a man named Fogarty. He had managed to walk away from the facility and had, several hours later, accosted a woman in her home. After raping her, he took a knife and began what the paper vaguely described as 'a series of mutilations.' She was found dead, at suppertime, by her two youngest children who had been 'down the road playing.' He had also been suspected of killing a four-year-old girl, but her body was never found.
Reading this, O'Sullivan sighed. Most people like to look back on past times with a patronising nostalgia. People were so much simpler then, they like to think. And life was so much easier, a Currier and Ives world of humble, pleasant people leading humble, pleasant lives. Well, to cure that nonsense, just sit down and read through some old newspapers as O'Sullivan was doing tonight. The Currier and Ives nonsense gets quickly buried. People then were just as petty, mean, and scared as they are now.
After twenty minutes, O'Sullivan went over and dropped a quarter into the change by the coffee-pot. It was like dropping money in the votive candle slot. Not unlike God, Marge demanded her due.
Then O'Sullivan got down to real work. And odd as it sounded, some of the things the Lindstrom woman said didn't sound half as crazy as they had over the phone earlier tonight. Not half as crazy at all.
By the time he was finished, O'Sullivan had deposited more than a dollar in the change box, and emptied his bladder three times.
During her fifth cup of coffee, Emily Lindstrom said, "Sometimes I wonder if it's just my vanity."
"Your vanity?"
"Ummm. With Rob. You know, the family honour and all that. Just not wanting people to think my brother's a killer."
"I'm sure it's more than that."
Emily sighed and looked around Denny's. A nearby sporting event must have let out within the past half-hour because the restaurant had suddenly filled up with what looked like father-and-son night.
Emily sipped her coffee and said, "After we talk to Marie Fane, I want to try and find Dobyns."
"Oh?"
"I told you about the incantation."
"Yes."
"I want to see if it works."
Chris's gaze dropped to her own coffee.
"I appreciate you not smiling."
"Why would I smile?"
"Incantation. It's not a word you hear very often in modem day society."
"I suppose not."
Emily leaned forward with more urgency than she intended. "There really was a cult, Chris. And there really is a serpent. As unlikely as it sounds."
Chris wasn't exactly sure what to say but then the sweaty, overworked waitress leaned in and gave Chris the bill and saved her from saying anything at all.
Five minutes later they were out in the parking lot. The nice spring night was suddenly as cold as early November.
Abbott was saying to Costello, "They ain't gonna cook our goose. They're gonna cook somethin' else." And then he pointed to his rather formidable posterior.
They were standing outside this big metal pot that was boiling over as a group of natives (Africans, supposedly, and cannibals to boot) were licking their chops at the prospect of eating up two white boys dumb enough to give them trouble.
The movie was Africa Screams and it was made long after Bud and Lou were hot and that was pretty obvious because of all the cheap sets and nowhere actors. Kathleen Fane had seen this movie when she was about Marie's age, a time of her life she was resolutely sentimental about (how shiny and fine most things are remembered or anticipated) and God knew she needed something to put up against the horrors of tonight, of her dear sweet precious daughter Marie who'd nearly been murdered a few hours ago.
Murdered. My God! What must that boy's family be going through right now?
The Chief now goosed Lou with a spear.
Lou looked into the big boiling pot and made a face.
Kathleen giggled.
It wasn't all that funny, of course-Bud and Lou were sort of like Jerry Lewis, once you got past fifteen they kind of lost their magic-but the face he made was so clean and childish and wholesome, so redolent of her innocence, that she giggled out loud.
And then immediately felt guilty.
What if she woke Marie up?
Kathleen was in the small room they used as a combination sewing room and den. There was a nice big bookcase filled with all the Doubleday Book Club editions she'd taken over the years (Book of the Month Club and Literary Guild were too expensive) and a wall full of photos of when there'd been three of them. Now, she got up and went to the door and looked out into the living room, at the frosty moonlight that fell through the window onto the couch. Marie was still asleep. Kathleen sighed gratefully.
She went back into the den and turned the sound even lower, pulling the rocking chair even closer to the screen.
As she settled back into the movie, she started thinking again about the anonymous caller. She was glad she'd called 911. Talking to the police officer had made her feel reassured. When she told him what had happened to Marie tonight, he got very sympathetic (even over the phone he had a bedside manner that many doctors would envy) and said that it was better to be safe than sorry (which actually sounded kind of cute coming from him, a manly cop) and that he'd have a car immediately begin cruising past her house and checking for anything untoward. That was the word he'd used. Untoward. It was a nice, strong word and helped reassure her even more.
Lou now started making his famous chittering noises (he only chattered when he was afraid) and shaking his head NO! when the Chief suggested he step into the pot and become the dinner for all these hungry natives.
She set her head back, feeling the blanket she'd knitted cosy and warm against her spine.
Everything had changed tonight. What Marie had witnessed would alter her in some irrevocable way forever. Every other event in her life would be measured-good or bad-against this one.
Thinking this, Kathleen felt a mother's fury pounding through her bloodstream.
She wanted to take the man who'd done this and-
The phone rang, startling her.
For a moment she had to gather herself. It was like coming up through water, the sunlight and sounds almost harsh on the senses.
She'd been so engrossed in imagining what she'd like to do to the man that-
The phone rang again. The fourth time.
She rose from the rocker and went to answer it.
"Hello," she said.
A pause. A hesitation.
My God, it was the same caller who'd earlier-
"Mrs. Fane?"
"Yes."
"It's me. Sergeant Milford. You called me earlier."
A sigh so profound she felt her knees weaken. "Oh, hello, Sergeant."
"I just wanted to check and see how things are going."
"He hasn't called back"
"Good. We're going to have a patrol car posted outside the apartment house the rest of the night."
"Thank you. I appreciate that."
"How's your daughter?"
"Sleeping."
"That's the best medicine. For right now, anyway."
"I suppose that's right." She hesitated. "Is it natural for me to be angry at a time like this?"
"Very natural."
"I've never felt like this before."
"I've got kids, too. I can't imagine what I'd be like."
"I always thought I was against the death penalty. But that was just because murder had never touched me personally. After tonight-"
"People can get their minds changed about a lot of things, sometimes." He coughed. "If you'd like, I could try you again in a half hour or so."
"Oh, that's all right. I'll probably be asleep by then. But I really do appreciate your interest."
"Take care of yourself, Mrs. Fane. I'll check in with you tomorrow."
"Thank you, Sergeant."
She hung up and went back to her rocker. The call had the same effect on her as a glass of warm milk. She was very sleepy.
She had just settled into the last part of Bud and Lou's unlikely adventure when her daughter screamed.