“Hey,” Mark replied, trying to inject a light note into his tone, which he was very far from feeling. “He was the last person to see the victim alive, right?”
“That’s not funny, Mark,” Anne said, her voice tight.
Her words stung, and Blakemoor instantly regretted his attempt at humor. “Look, why don’t you just let us take the cat down and have someone look it over, all right? I can see exactly why you’re so upset, but we don’t know that there’s any connection at all between this and—”
“Don’t we?” Anne interrupted, her shock at the sight of the dismembered cat fading in the face of the detective’s obvious attempt to dismiss what had happened. “I didn’t see Shawnelle Davis, but I did see Joyce Cottrell. I found her, remember? And you can’t tell me that poor Kumquat wasn’t mutilated exactly the same way that she was. So first there was Shawnelle Davis, whom I admit I don’t know, but next was my next-door neighbor. Now it’s my daughter’s cat. This is literally in my backyard, Mark. I want some answers.” She turned to Lois Ackerly. “I know what you think about what I’ve been writing—” she began, but Ackerly silenced her with a gesture.
“What we might have thought yesterday doesn’t mean a thing today,” she said. “We’re going to take this seriously. Whether this creep had anything to do with Richard Kraven or not, it sure looks like he’s trying to copy his style. If this had been reported from somewhere else in town, we would’ve sent someone out to take a cruelty report. But after what happened last night, believe me when I tell you that we want to know what happened to this cat just as badly as you do.”
Anne’s jaw setting and her eyes narrowing, still not positive that Ackerly was doing anything more than placating her, she turned back to Blakemoor.
“We’ll call you,” he promised. “We’re not going to take the cat to the pound. We’re going to have the same medical examiner look at it who worked on Davis and Cottrell—”
“Davis and Cottrell?” Anne cut in, her reporter’s instincts suddenly surging. “Are you saying you are treating them as being connected?”
Mark Blakemoor and Lois Ackerly exchanged a look, then Mark sighed. “Off the record, of course we are. The M.O.’s aren’t identical, but they’re close enough that we aren’t about to rule out a serial killer. And very much off the record,” he went on, his eyes moving to Kumquat’s bloodied corpse, “I’m going to tell you that I’m going to have a very hard look at what happened to your cat. But if you write so much as a single word implying I’m investigating a cat’s death as a murder, I swear I’ll make sure no cop ever talks to you ever again. About anything. Clear?”
Anne hesitated, then nodded agreement. “Clear.” She glanced around, then, satisfied that she was still alone with the two detectives, said, “What should we do?” Her gaze fixed on Kumquat’s body. “Is this a warning? Does it mean he’s coming after me or one of my kids next?” Her eyes were troubled, a mirror of the emotions churning within her. She shifted back to Mark Blakemoor. “I’m scared. I’m really scared.”
Again Blakemoor had to resist the impulse to put his arms protectively around her and gently stroke her hair. And again, when he spoke, he was careful to keep his tone perfectly even, the matter-of-fact inflection of any policeman talking to any frightened citizen. “Let’s not get too worried until we know what’s going on,” he told her. “This could be someone’s idea of a sick joke, or someone just wants to scare you and figured out the best way to do it. For now, we’ll make sure you have a steady parade of cars going by all night, and if anything frightens you — anything at all — call 911. I personally guarantee there’ll be someone here in less than a minute.”
“But my kids,” Anne said, the last of her hard reporter’s shell cracking. “What about my kids? What should I tell them?”
“If it were me,” Lois Ackerly said, “I think at least for tonight I’d tell them we think a raccoon did it.” When Anne started to object, Ackerly pressed on. “Look, there’s no sense scaring your kids to death. You’ll be worried enough without them having nightmares about it. Tomorrow we should be able to tell you a lot more.”
Before Anne could ask anything else, the back door of the house opened and Glen emerged, carrying a white plastic garbage bag.
Though she hated herself for it, and felt utterly disloyal, Anne did nothing to break the silence that fell over the two detectives as her husband approached. Instead, turning finally away from the grisly remains of her daughter’s pet, she returned to the house.
As Glen handed Mark Blakemoor the plastic bags he’d finally found in one of the kitchen drawers, he felt the detective’s eyes boring into him. Though no words were spoken, none were needed. Desperately, Glen tried to sort out exactly what had happened. Was it really possible that he himself had disemboweled his daughter’s pet?
But he had no memory of it.
Except that there was a memory — a vague memory — of a dream.
He’d been in a place of darkness, but there had been a pool of light.
In the middle of the light, something had been happening.
He’d moved closer, wanting to see, but there had been something in the way, something blocking his view. He had a fragmentary recollection of trying to move in the dream. To get away? To see? He couldn’t remember.
Then another fragment of the dream floated up into his consciousness. Red. Bloodred. And with the memory of the color came a strange sensation in his fingers. Warmth. No, more than warmth. Heat. His hands felt hot, and slimy.
Shuddering both at the memory and at the strange feeling in his fingers, Glen slid his hands into his pockets as if to hide them, then quickly pulled them out again. What was wrong? He had nothing to hide — he couldn’t even remember what the dream was about.
All that had really happened was that Mark Blakemoor had given him a look that made him feel guilty.
Still, a coldness seized Glen that had nothing to do with the damp chill of the afternoon.
Who was the stranger in the dream?
Could someone have come into the house while he slept? He remembered yesterday, and the inexplicable appearance of the shaver and the fishing rod. He must have bought them, but he couldn’t remember!
Could he also have killed Kumquat and not remembered that, either?
It wasn’t possible. Surely he hadn’t done this to Kumquat. He couldn’t have! It had only been a dream!
Or was he losing his mind?
Anne found Heather and Rayette still in the living room, still on the sofa, Heather crying quietly as Rayette did her best to comfort her.
Kevin was nowhere to be seen, but Anne was pretty sure she knew where he was: up in his room, watching from his window as Lois Ackerly and Mark Blakemoor finished their work.
Knowing there was nothing she could say to Heather right now, Anne went into the den, dropping morosely into the chair in front of her computer. For a moment she simply sat there, her eyes focused on nothing, her mind numbly trying to sort out all the events of the day, futilely attempting to make sense of the utterly senseless.
Write it, she finally told herself as her thoughts continued to tumble chaotically. Write it all down. It’s the only way to put it in order.
She switched on the computer and waited while it booted up. The orders issued by the autoexec file scrolled by, then the familiar Windows screen appeared. But instead of stopping to await her orders, the computer kept working.
Her word processing program opened, but still the computer didn’t stop.
An image appeared, framed in the familiar border of a graphics box. Inside the frame was a note:
Too bad about the cat.