Was that Bill? Was it even possible?
The figure lurched forward again, still at a crouch, raised a hand, tapped one finger on the window.
Tap, tap, tap.
It — he — Bill — stared at her through rheumy, bloodshot eyes. The sagging mouth opened wider, the tongue lolled. Vague, half — formed sounds emerged.
Is he trying to speak to me?Alive… is it possible?
Tap, tap, tap.
"Bill?" she croaked, her heart a jackhammer in her chest. The crouching form jerked. The eyes opened wider, rolling before fixing on her once again.
"Can you talk to me?" she said.
Another sound, half moan, half whine. The claw — like hands flexed and unflexed; the desperate eyes locked on hers imploringly. She stared at him, utterly paralyzed. He was repulsive, feral, barely human. And yet, beneath the caking of blood and the matted hair, she recognized a puffy caricature of her husband's features. This was the man whom she had loved like no other on earth, who had completed her. This was the man who, before her eyes, had killed Caitlyn Kidd.
"Speak to me. Please."
Fresh sounds issued from the ruined mouth now, sounds of increased urgency. The crouching figure brought its hands together, lifted them toward her in a beseeching gesture. Despite everything, Nora felt her heart break with the piteous gesture, with the deep longing and sorrow that overwhelmed her.
"Oh, Bill," she said, as for the first time since the attack she began to weep openly. "What have they done to you?"
The figure on the fire escape groaned. It sat for a moment, looking at her intently, motionless save for the spastic gestures that occasionally racked its frame. Then, very slowly, one of its claw — like hands reached out, grasping the lower edge of the window sash.
And then lifted it.
Nora watched, the sobs dying in her throat, as — slowly, slowly — the window inched up until it was half open. The figure bent low, easing itself beneath the frame. The hospital gown caught on a protruding nail and ripped with a sharp sound. Something about the unexpectedly sinuous movement reminded her of a wolverine sneaking into a rabbit's den. The head and shoulders were inside now. The mouth yawned wider again, a thin rope of saliva swinging from the lower lip. A hand reached for her.
Instinctively — without conscious thought — Nora shrank away.
The extended arm paused. Smithback looked up at her from his position half in, half out of the window. Another whine emerged from the muddy mouth. He lifted his arm again, more forcefully this time.
At the gesture, a stench of the charnel house wafted toward Nora. Terror rose in her throat and she backed up on the bed, drawing her knees to her chin.
The red — rimmed eyes narrowed. The whine turned to a low growl. And suddenly, with a violent thrust, the figure forced itself through the half — open window and into the room. There was a splintering of wood, a crash of glass. Nora fell back with a cry, tangling herself in the bedsheets and falling to the floor. Quickly, she struggled out of the sheets and rose. Bill was there with her, in the room.
He gave a cry of rage, lurching toward her and swinging the truncheon.
"No!" she cried. "It's me, Nora—"
It was a clumsy move and she dodged it, backing up through the doorway into the living room. He followed, reeling forward and raising the truncheon again. Close up, his eyes were whitish, cloudy, their surface dry and wrinkled. His mouth opened wide again, the lips cracking, exhaling a dreadful reek that mingled with the sharp odor of formalin and methyl alcohol.
Nnnngghhhhhaaaah!
She kept backing up through the living room. He lurched toward her, one hand reaching out, fingers spastically jerking. Straining toward her, reaching, closer and closer.
She took another step backward, felt her shoulder blades touch the wall. It was as if the figure was threatening and pleading with her at the same time, the left hand reaching out to touch her as the right hand raised the truncheon to strike. He threw his head back, exposing a neck with huge raw cuts sewn up with twine, the skin gray and dead.
Nnnnggggghhhhhhaaaah!
"No," she whispered. "No. Stay back."
The hand reached out, trembling, touched her hair, caressed it. The smell of death enveloped her.
"No," she croaked. "Please."
The mouth opened wider, foul air streaming out.
"Get away!" she said with a rising shriek.
The twitching hand traced a dirty finger down her cheek to her lips, caressed them. She pressed her back against the wall.
Nnngah…
Nnngah…
Nnngah…
The figure began to pant as the convulsive, twitching finger rubbed her lips. Then the finger tried to push inside her mouth.
She gagged, turning her head away. "No…"
A pounding came at the door — her screams must have brought someone.
"Nora!" came a muffled voice. "Hey, are you all right? Nora!"
As if in reaction, the upraised hand clutching the truncheon began to shake.
Nnngah! Nnngah! Nnngah!
The panting turned into an urgent, lascivious grunting.
Nora was paralyzed, speechless with horror.
The right hand swept down in one spastic motion, the truncheon crashing onto her skull — and the world ended.
Chapter 40
D'Agosta sat in the passenger seat of the squad car, the black mood that had settled over him refusing to dissipate. If anything, it seemed to grow darker the closer they got to the Ville. At least he didn't have to sit in the back with the annoying little French Creole, or whatever the hell he was. He glanced at the man covertly in the rearview mirror, lips tightening in disapproval. There he was, perched on the seat, looking like an Upper East Side doorman in his swallowtail coat.
The driver halted the cruiser where Indian Road turned into 214th, the crime — scene van following them coming to a rattling stop behind. D'Agosta glanced at his watch: three thirty. The driver popped the trunk and D'Agosta got out, hefted out the bolt cutters, and snapped the padlock, letting the chain drop to the ground. He chucked the bolt cutters back into the trunk, slammed it, and slid back into the car.
"Motherfuckers," he said to no one in particular.
The driver gunned the Crown Vic, the tires giving a little screech as the car lurched forward.
"Driver," said Bertin, leaning forward, "watch those starts, if you please."
The driver — a homicide detective named Perez — rolled his eyes.
They halted again at the iron gate in the chain — link fence, and D'Agosta took another small joy in cutting off the lock and tossing it into the woods. Then, to make sure the job was done well, he cut through both sets of hinges, kicked the iron gate down, and dragged the two pieces off the road. He got back in the car, puffing slightly. "Public way," he said in explanation.
Another screech of tires and the Crown Vic jerked forward, jostling the passengers. It climbed, then descended, through a dark, twilight wood, ultimately nosing out into a dead field. The Ville rose up ahead, bathed in the crystalline light of a fall afternoon. Despite the sun, it looked dark and crooked, wreathed in shadow: a haphazard jumble of steeples and roofs like some nightmare village of Dr. Seuss. The entire construction had accreted around a monstrous, half — timbered church, impossibly old. The front part was surrounded by a tall wooden stockade fence, into which was set a single wooden door of oak, banded, plated, and riveted in iron.