“Figure of speech, Toby,” I said. “Just a figure of speech.” I kept a straight face, but it wasn't easy.
“My bank account never balances,” he pronounced with great dignity, “because I don't have one.” He began to giggle. “But I had one once, and I couldn't keep it balanced on the end of my nose to save my ass!” He broke himself up with that one.
While our captive entertained himself, I told Hester about my conversation with the county attorney.
“I figured as much,” she said. “Shit.”
“Oooh, lady,” came from Toby. “The 'S' word.”
“Go balance your checkbook, Toby,” she said. That got him laughing quietly to himself, and he left us alone for the moment.
“Do we want the county attorney here for Junkel? On the off chance that he might let us interview Toby in his presence?”
She shook her head. “Not at this point.”
Toby started to sing in a thin voice, using what he evidently thought was an English accent.
“D'ye ken Dan Peale with his teeth so white?
He sleeps in the day and comes out at night,
His unearthly powers give the mortals a fright
Till he goes back to his coffin in the morning.”
Hester and I looked at each other. He sang it again, in a quavering voice, keeping time with his foot.
“D'ye ken Dan Peale with his teeth so white?
He sleeps in the day and comes out at night,
His unearthly powers give the mortals a fright
Till he goes back to his coffin in the morning.”
He stopped, and looked at us. “He's gonna kill me, 'cause I failed him twice, and you don't get a third chance. Not from old Dan Peale.” His eyes darted about the room. “In the crypt, he told me to kill her, and I couldn't. He told me to keep her dead, and I couldn't do it right. He's going to kill me now, 'cause I failed him.” He spoke in a calm, steady voice. “Plonk, plonk, plonk,” he said. Just like that first night in the woods.
“He was born in 1604 in London fucking England, and he never, never dies.”
It was creepy.
I glanced at Hester, and mouthed “Crypt?”
She nodded.
“It's all right, Toby. Don't worry,” said Hester. “Wait till your attorney gets here. Quietly.” Her tape was obviously still running.
“Not my attorney. Their attorney,” he said, suddenly getting petulant on us. “He'll save me, all right, but he'll just be saving me for them.” He looked beseechingly at Hester. “Don't let 'em kill me, lady. Please?”
“Now you're putting me on,” I said. “Just wait for Mr. Junkel.”
“Don't I wish I was.”
“Yeah. Hey, why'd you run on us the other night? Just curious, no charge or anything.” I really was interested in why, and there wasn't anything that an attorney could glom onto with that question.
He tittered. “Well, I forgot to lock the fuckin' door, didn't I?”
“Yeah, you're just not fast enough,” I said. “But why'd you run?”
He positively giggled. “Toby wins,” he got out. “Yes!”
I tried another tack. “And who's this 'they' you keep referring to?” I tried to keep it matter-of-fact, but there was a tinge of anticipation in my voice, I'm afraid. It was a justifiable question, though, even in the light of Miranda. Our knowing who was going to “kill” Toby was in his own interest.
He regarded me for a moment, suddenly quite calm. Sober, in a way.
“Vampires all over the world,” he said. “That's who 'they' are.”
He was lying again.
“I mean the 'they' you were just talking about,” I said. “The ones represented by Junkel.” And we all knew who at least one of those clients would be. I really expected him to say “Jessica Hunley.” Of course, that would have been a truthful statement, and I should have known better.
“Corporate America,” he said, looking me right in the eye.
“Can't help you unless you play it straight,” I said. Hoping against hope that he'd tell.
He suddenly cocked his head, squinted, and then began to breathe more rapidly. The dope again.
“You're the one,” he said, to me. “You're the reason. I heard you say that Edie was telling on us. You said so. So I had to make sure she stayed dead.”
I was taken aback for a second, both by the accusation and the sudden mood swing, until I remembered that I had said something about Edie, and speaking to us. Holy shit. I'd meant at the autopsy.
Before I could say anything, he said, “I fucked that up, too. You're supposed to stake 'em through the heart, then cut off their head, then burn 'em. That's what you gotta do, and I… ” Tears, now. Big ones. “I couldn't do that.” He got blubbery. “I luh, luh, loved Edie!”
While he cried, Hester looked questioningly at me.
“I said something about Edie's dead body giving us information at autopsy, the other day, and I remember the look on his face.” I spoke very softly. “Well, at least I do now, for sure. He looked kind of shocked. Now I know why, I guess.” I looked at Toby, who was pretty self-involved at the moment. “Where do you suppose the 'crypt' is? The basement?”
“That'd be my guess,” she half whispered back.
“But there was no blood evidence down there… ”
“He said he couldn't kill her there,” said Hester, staring at Toby. “Probably wouldn't be, then… ”
Well, sure, Carl. Pay attention. “Ah,” I said, tapping the side of my head with my finger. “Thank you.”
“He called and told me I'd be really strong,” came from Toby. We both looked at him. “He said I'd have his strength. I did, too, boy. I did. I hit that stake once, and it went right into her chest.” The tears had stopped, but his nose was running. He grinned, an evil grin if there ever was one. “Slicker 'n shit. One powerful hit, was all. He was so fuckin' right.” Then a worried frown came over him. “But I couldn't take her head off. I just got… weak.” His face screwed up, tears started again, and he went back to referring to himself in the third person. “Toby's a failure. But he tries!”
Hester pushed a piece of scratch paper over to me, with one word written on it. “Committal?” I nodded. It looked like we'd have to.
“The first time we killed her, she knew it, and she asked me for help,” he said, and this time the crying that he did was nearly hysterical. He lurched to his feet, and came right at Hester. She started to step to the side, and I started for him, and he tripped on the chair leg, and went facedown on the carpet with a resounding thud. He just laid there and cried. “Help!” he wailed, into the greenish gray nap.
“The first time we killed her” I mouthed to Hester. She was wide-eyed, and nodded.
“Where were you, you and Edie, the first time you killed her?” I really hated to ask, but we just had to know where she'd been killed.
He stopped crying instantly, and turned his head so he could see me. “No fuckin' way, dude. No way. That's between me and her and Dan.”
Well, it had been worth the try, I thought. Probably couldn't have used it anyway, at least not against him.
I picked up the phone and dialed Dispatch, while Hester knelt down by his head. “This is Houseman. We need an ambulance back here, to transfer one subject to the Maitland Hospital.”
“Is it ten-thirty-three?”
“No, but ASAP would be real nice.” Crap. Once there, the diagnosis would probably be of a psychotic episode, or something. The committal process to the Mental Health Institute at Independence would take about two hours. Then one of us would either have to haul him the fifty miles to the mental ward, or one of us would have to go with him in the ambulance. The Board of Supervisors would crap, because, since he was in custody, Nation County would have to pay the bill. And, since he was in custody, we might have to either hire a cop to watch him down there, or send one of ours to stay. Those damned complications, as they say, complicate things. But it needed to be done. Not that I was all that altruistic, or anything. If we didn't commit at this point, and we did have a murder suspect on our hands, we could well lose the case. We were going to need excellent medical testimony as to the fact that Toby was totally tweaked on either meth or ecstasy, or some combination thereof, and not insane. We really needed not insane.