No, he wasn’t going to think about Constance Dane. But he would, if he had to, tell Rodney Roash just how close the man had come to wearing an ice shroud.
“Officer Osgood is bringing food from the diner on his way back from his task,” Water said. “He’ll return soon.”
“Ma’am.” Grimshaw stepped out of the way.
The bathroom door opened. Roash stuck his head out, spotted Water, then ducked back inside.
Not the best choice of rooms to hide in if Water was annoyed with you.
Grimshaw didn’t actually see her leave. As she moved past him, she just wasn’t there anymore.
He hoped that was true.
He coaxed Roash out of the bathroom, located a couple of ratty towels he and Osgood used to wipe their shoes if they’d been out in the wet or in mud, and gave them to Roash to put under the shoes so his socks wouldn’t get wet when the shoes started to thaw.
Osgood returned, looking like a man who had slept at his desk. He took a travel mug of coffee and one of Helen Hearse’s breakfast specials to Roash, then divided the rest of the food he dug out of the delivery box.
“Do you need to go back to the boardinghouse for a couple of hours and get some sleep?” Grimshaw asked.
“No, sir. I’m all right.”
What else would a rookie say? Then again, Osgood was young enough that it might be true.
“Is Viktor coming in?” Osgood asked after they’d been eating in silence for a couple of minutes.
“Don’t know. Yesterday was hard on him, losing a friend that way,” Grimshaw replied. “Harder still because he didn’t respond to the bait and Karol did.” The timing of that was still something he needed to piece together.
Osgood looked up. “Someone tried for both of them?”
He nodded. “And used a recording of Kira calling for help to lure them into the building.”
“Huh. If someone was aiming for Viktor, they used the wrong lure.”
Grimshaw swallowed his coffee and kept his tone casual. “Viktor doesn’t get along with Kira?”
“Oh, they get along fine, but . . .” Osgood took a bite of toast and chewed slowly. “It’s like . . . if someone called and said Pops Davies was trapped in a building, I wouldn’t forget procedure, wouldn’t stop thinking like a cop. Not the way I might if someone told me Paige was trapped in a building. Karol seemed more keen to show his devotion to Kira, and Viktor wasn’t interested. That’s all.” The rookie shrugged and went back to the serious business of eating.
Interesting, Grimshaw thought.
When they’d all finished the meal, Osgood collected the dishes and took them and the delivery box back to Come and Get It.
Accepting that his knee required at least another day to heal before he could pretend it was back to normal, Grimshaw settled in to answer phones and read through the information the mayor’s office had provided about Sproing’s new residents.
It didn’t surprise him that a number of newcomers had lived in other towns in the Finger Lakes area. He made note of anyone who had come to Sproing from any of the places that had killings similar to the ones here.
Then he came across one name. He looked at it for a long time.
Ellen C. Wilson. He hadn’t known what the C stood for—until now. And until now, he hadn’t had any reason to think she had some connection with the academics who had come to Sproing to observe Trickster Night.
Observe? Or do something more?
He looked at the list of Ellen Wilson’s previous residences and considered how they tallied with some of the killings in other towns. Nothing in the information compiled by the mayor’s office to indicate if she’d ever taken courses at a college, but that didn’t mean anything. People were self-taught in any number of subjects, and it would be easy enough to do if a relative actually was enrolled at a college and taking courses that could become the twisted foundation for experimenting with other people’s minds.
Was all the whining and complaining and the particular way she pitched her voice simply the woman? Or was it all calculated to achieve a specific result?
Maybe she was behind some of what was happening in and around Sproing, but not all of it. He didn’t think she was the one who had persuaded Adam Fewks to put on a costume and pretend to be the Crowgard bogeyman.
But she might have a partner. Or a competitor?
Were all these deaths being tallied on some kind of scorecard?
Grimshaw carefully closed the folder and made sure all the papers inside were aligned so that no one would realize he’d found a possible connection between Ellen C. Wilson and at least one of the academics who had come to Lake Silence for Trickster Night.
Then he went back to the cell and said, “Professor Roash? Tell me again how you ended up coming to The Jumble for Trickster Night.”
CHAPTER 79
Vicki
Moonsday, Novembros 5
I was going to have to do something about food. Like, buy some, unless I was willing to talk to Bobcat and Cougar about letting my guests share whatever was left of the dead donkey. Which by now might be only a hoof and part of an ear. Since I wouldn’t be convinced that some butter and strawberry jam would turn those bits into a tasty, or even tolerable, meal, I doubted I could convince anyone else.
I pulled out a jar of peanut butter and a sleeve of crackers. Add a bit of jam to that and you had breakfast. Or lunch. Maybe not dinner since I was feeding adults, but I could tout PB and J as a valid choice for the other two meals—especially if the alternative was donkey bits and butter.
Really needed to drive to Sproing and buy whatever food Pops Davies might have left on the shelves. Or I could ignore token good nutrition and buy pizzas so we could all eat ourselves into a carb coma.
Ian Stern walked into the kitchen, saw me, and hesitated. He looked around, as if making sure we were alone.
My heart began to beat a little harder. I hoped he wouldn’t notice, but a psych doctor would notice things like that. Wouldn’t he? Maybe not. A Sanguinati psych doctor would—if there was such a thing—since all Sanguinati noticed little things like heartbeats.
Focus, Vicki.
“How are you feeling today?” Ian asked.
“Okay. Fine. How are you?”
He came closer. And closer. My heart beat harder.
“I’m concerned. You’ve been nervous since the phone call yesterday that made you ill.”
“I’m fine now. All okeydokey.” Yep, the phone call had made me nervous. Plus there was that tiny bit of excitement when a couple of my friends almost got blown up, and one of the Sanguinati youngsters did get blown up.
He shook his head. “I have a feeling that you’re suddenly uncomfortable around all of us, human and terra indigene, rather than just wanting to see the backs of some of your guests.”
Darn Intuit with a psych degree. “I . . .”
“I think you’re right to be uncomfortable,” Ian continued. “I don’t think it started out that way, but you’re now at the center of whatever is going on—and I have the uneasy feeling that someone wants to . . . disrupt . . . the center.”
“Is ‘disrupt’ a fancy way of saying ‘kill me’?” I hadn’t had enough coffee yet to have this kind of discussion. Not when mulling over breakfast was a challenge.
He seemed about to answer, then looked thoughtful. “Maybe not deliberately, but . . .” Hesitation. “Has there been a drug problem in Sproing? There always seems to be a little of this and that around the colleges, but I wouldn’t think the sale and use of substances could stay hidden long in a small village.”