“Oh,” she said softly, smiling slightly at him, “some people find me quite... useful.”
He didn’t answer that. He twisted around to face Latovsky and said, “She told the truth, Dave. She did see it, but she wasn’t there. She’s not withholding evidence, isn’t guilty of depraved indifference. Let her go.”
He faced front, started the car, and drove them back to his building’s parking lot. It was empty at 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday except for Latovsky’s dinosaur Olds, which he’d bought before his divorce and now, with alimony, couldn’t afford to unload for a new, more economical car. Next to it was a bright red, new LeBaron that avoided the Greek diner look of the bigger Chryslers.
As he pulled into the almost empty lot, he noticed how shoddy the professional building of Glenvale looked. It was at least eighty years younger than the buildings downtown, but the cement facing was streaked with yellow, all the fixed windows needed washing, and the metal around them, which had started out gunmetal gray, had a yellowish look as if it were coated with grease or on the verge of rusting. Suddenly, for the first time, everything in his life—his office, and the building, and his freezing kitchen—seemed shoddy to him. He pulled up next to Latovsky’s car. She asked, “I’m free to go?” Latovsky nodded, and she opened the back door and started to slide out, putting her hand on the back of the front seat for leverage. As she did, her knuckles grazed Bunner’s collar and she suddenly stopped moving and sat stiffly on one haunch, with one leg halfway out of the car.
“Doctor,” she said quietly.
“What?” he snapped.
“You’re supposed to go to a party tonight....”
The Spring Fling dinner dance at the country club. He’d almost forgotten about it, but Mary had bought a new dress and sent his tux to the cleaners for the occasion.
“What about it?” he asked. His voice had scaled up at least an octave and sounded almost pubescent.
“Don’t go,” she said.
“Why not?” he cried in that shameful adolescent voice.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just knew there was a party and you were going... and shouldn’t. Well...” She smiled feebly. “If that’s all...”
“Of course that’s all,” he croaked, and noticed Latovsky didn’t say anything. Was probably thinking about some way to make use of her to get the son-of-a-bitch who’d murdered five women and seemed to be laughing up his sleeve—up his cupcake, Mary would say (it was one of her favorite phrases)—at all of them. Dave was a fool, Bunner thought. This woman was a jinx, should wear a red P on the front of her clothes. For Pariah.
Real scientific, he thought. His old prof, Arthur Gibson, who’d done some of the original work on the biochemistry of schizophrenia, would really love that one.
She climbed out of the car and went to the red LeBaron. She should sell that pin and buy herself a Porsche, he thought. But she probably didn’t have to. Could probably buy five Porsches, peel off the two hundred thou in big bills and never miss the cash.
Bitter, he thought. Very bitter, and not like him. But he couldn’t help it. He hated her.
Latovsky started to get out too.
“You’re going after her, aren’t you?” Bunner asked.
Latovsky nodded. “Maybe she saw something...”
“Who sups with the devil needs a long spoon,” Bunner said sententiously. At least his voice had stopped squeaking. Latovsky settled back in the seat and looked at his old friend. “You know,” he said quietly, “you doctor types are all a bunch of egomaniacal control freaks, and the second someone else gets a little power, you fucking go to pieces.”
“That’s a shitty thing to say.”
“Yeah. But true, and you know it. You’re too decent and honest at heart not to know it. Maybe she ‘saw’ something”—he managed to put quotes around the saw with his voice—“maybe she didn’t. I don’t think she did, or she’d’ve said so by now. But I’d be an asshole not to ask, now wouldn’t I?”
Bunner nodded morosely, and Latovsky said, “There is a party tonight, isn’t there?”
Another nod.
“And you’re supposed to go,” Latovsky said.
“Yes.”
“If I were you, I’d stay away from it, Bunny.”
“But you’re not me,” Bunner said, and he reached across Latovsky and popped the Caddy door open, wanting Latovsky out of there before Bunner said something that might damage their friendship. He liked and trusted Dave Latovsky more than anyone he knew; besides, causing trouble between them would be like giving that shabby bitch climbing into the red car even more power.
Underneath his pointless, irrational anger, he sort of knew he’d forget about her before long, or be able to put what had happened today into some kind of perspective. Maybe even wind up being interested in her, wishing her well, or something a lot more benign than what he was feeling now. But his feelings never had a chance to mellow because he ignored her advice and went to the party that night.
4
The red LeBaron was in the driveway next to the beige Civic that must belong to the husband. Latovsky parked next to it, then went up the porch steps and rang the bell.
Klein didn’t look happy to see him.
“She’s been up all night, just like you have, Lieutenant.”
“I know. This won’t take long.”
He had one question and he couldn’t rest until it was answered, it there was an answer. Klein sighed, then stepped aside to let him in. “She’s in the kitchen,” he said, “making tea. We’re going to drink tea and talk about our lives. Lieutenant. May not mean much to you, but it does to us.”
“I said I’d make it fast. Where’s the kitchen?”
She was at the counter holding a steaming kettle in one hand and looking up at the ceiling. Two thick mugs with teabag tags trailing out of them sat on the counter.
She glanced at him, didn’t seem surprised to see him, then looked back at the ceiling. He followed her eyes and saw an old device screwed into the ceiling next to the light fixture.
“What is that?” she asked.
It had been painted over so many times the details were lost but he knew what it was.
“A pulley,” he said.
“For what?”
“You’re not a country girl.”
“We live in the country.”
“Not on a farm.”
“No. It’s not a farm.”
“This house must’ve been converted from a barn. Lots of houses around here were and the pulleys were used to raise sacks of grain or feed. It was usually bolted through a beam, or the ridgepole in some cases. Beam in here, I’d say from the height of it. Anyway, when they did the remodeling, they didn’t want to weaken the beam by unbolting the pulley, so they just painted it and left it.”
“I see.” She shuddered.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“I hate this room,” she said, and he looked around in surprise. It was just a nice old-fashioned kitchen, mostly white like his mother’s kitchen.
She looked away from the pulley. “Want some tea?”
“Why don’t you go sit down. I’ll make it,” he said.
“I don’t have any more to tell you.”
“Just one more question. Give me the kettle.”
She handed it to him, their fingertips brushed, and he jerked back suddenly, almost dropping the kettle.
“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I didn’t see anything.”
“It’s not that.”
“Oh, I think it is. There’s sugar in the bowl on the table and honey next to it, if you want. Sam and I take it straight.”
She left the room and he brewed the tea, letting it steep an extra minute because the Kleins looked like they needed it strong. Then he found a small tray in a cupboard under the counter and brought in the mugs.