“I see.” he said. He didn’t want to discourage Rule, but the truth was he had a better chance of finding the Woman-in-the-Woods killer from Lydia Rodney’s list, generated by the vision of a psychic, than from the inner workings of the killer’s mind, even if he knew them.
“Point is,” Rule said, “if that’s the case, if the killing’s only a means to some other end, then he isn’t gonna get sated with it and stop like I’ve read some of them do. He’s going to go on and on until he achieves that end or gets too old to get it up.”
“Or we get him,” Latovsky said.
It was quiet on the other end.
“I guess you don’t think that’s going to happen, George.”
“He’s cool and careful and I have my doubts,” Rule said.
They said good-bye and hung up. Latovsky tried Bunner, got the tape again, then made himself a cup ot instant coffee and unfolded the thick cream-colored sheet of stationery with Mrs. Alan Rodney engraved at the top.
The names on the list were standard American: Forbes, Fuller, Rice, Everett, even a Smith with the letter J, probably for John.
The list started in 1955 with the Forbes family.
Multiple intercourse, maybe three times in half an hour, meant the killer was young, early thirties at the outside, Latovsky thought. Abigail Reese had been forty and a school teacher. Maybe she’d liked them young, but Latovsky doubted she went for the acne set and he drew a line between 1960 and 1970. After ’70 the killer would have been too old to play on swings. That left six names, starting with Fuller in 1960.
He went back to the phone, put the list on the counter, and called Ruth Renssalaer, his contact at the phone company.
It was Saturday night, but she was home.
“Hope you got something for me to do,” she said. “We’re babysitting the grandkid. He’s sleeping and the hubby’s watching playoffs.”
He told her what he needed, then read the names, dates, and addresses on the list.
“Can you do it before Monday?” he asked.
“Maybe. I got a terminal here, and I can get the ones who’re still in our territory. It’ll have to wait for Monday if they’ve moved to the Sunbelt or gone with one of those baby-butchering break-offs that’re trying to cut our hearts out.”
Ruth was AT&T and loyal to the core.
“Where can I find you if I find them, Dave?”
Rain streamed down the window, obscuring the lake; cold seeped through the glass. He could stay here warm, dry and alone or call Jeanne Hinkley and stay here with her. She was falling for him—she’d find a baby-sitter and come. But then he’d have to make love to her and he had an awful feeling that, at the moment of crisis, he’d see the face of the psychic behind his closed lids.
“I’ll be in my office,” he said.
The machine rolled the toll ticket. Eve took it, tucked it in the sunvisor, and headed out on the plaza. The pavement smoked in the rain under the vapor light, then the lights ran out and the road was a glistening black smear with rippling puddles hiding the shoulder.
She followed the signs for South, Albany, New York, New England.
She’d planned to be home by ten, but it would be more like midnight at this rate. Frances would still be up and Eve would make her a cup of cocoa, bring her whatever Mrs. Knapp had baked for the day and tell her a little about what had happened, then give her the news that Sam was coming back. Frances would say, How nice, which was about as effusive as Frances could get.
She tried to stay at sixty in spite of almost zero visibility, trying to put distance between herself and Glenvale... and Terence Bunner. Her knuckles had just brushed his back; no more than a feather touch, but she’d suddenly seen a ballroom with people dancing in candlelight and music playing off speed and she’d known he was going to a party or dance... and shouldn’t. That’s all. No big disaster that she could see, just a tiny voice in her head with a warning meant for him—don’t go.
She’d told him and he’d looked at her the way he would at a rabid dog that had appeared de novo in his back seat. He wasn’t going to listen to her warning or anything else she had to say because she’d been right about the man with the scars on his hands, and he hated her for it.
“Fuck you,” she muttered.
A truck thundered past. Her wipers couldn’t keep up with the backsplash and the road disappeared. A transparency of the same ballroom blossomed on the windshield. Music played, candlelight flickered on the women’s jewels, on the crystal and silver on the table and on the long-stemmed empty silver dishes in which they had served ice cream.
Bunner was alone at a table, wearing a tux and staring lugubriously at a bunch of flowers. He was drunk... and she could be driving off the end of the earth and not know it. She had to get off the road.
Then, under the diaphanous picture, through Bunner’s tux shirt, her headlights hit a sign, service: ONE MILE, FOOD PHONE GAS... NEXT SERVICE THIS SIDE THIRTY MILES.
She put on the blinker and Bunner called, “Hey, bleep, over here.” Names were bleeped out of the visions like dirty words on TV. She had the feeling she might get them if she tried, but she didn’t want to try. Bunner called again and another sign said, service, half mile.
A car honked and plowed around her, sending more water against the windshield, but it didn’t affect the scrim of Bunner and the ballroom on her windshield and a black-coated back appeared inside the frame of the picture.
SERVICE, THIS EXIT loomed through the rain, Eve hit the brake and the car skidded. She thought she’d miss the turn and plough up the grass embankment, but the wheels gripped the pavement, the game little car made the turn, and she was on the ramp, headed for the service area as the whole back of the man slid into the frame and she saw a head of crisp, thick, light brown hair.
Bunner held a bottle up; a smeared sign behind it pointed buses one way, cars the other. She took the car road and pulled into a lot, sloshing through puddles slicked with rainbows under the vapor lights. She stopped in the rank closest to the building and killed the motor as the killer in the woods sat down at Bunner’s table.
Eve ran through the rain. She smashed open the door into the service building and slid on red tile smeared with muddy footprints. She caught herself on the wheelchair rail against the wall, then composed herself a little and went into the lobby.
It was empty except for a woman with thick frizzy red hair and almost as many freckles as the man in the bowling alley in Raven Lake.
She was behind the counter of a “newsstand” that sold cigarettes, maps, lap games, mugs with ALBANY and THE ADIRONDACKS on them, T-shirts with cutouts of the mountains, stuffed animals, and a few sodden-looking newspapers.
Eve searched her change purse and found thirty cents. She pulled out a ten and went to the counter to get change. The woman smiled, showing tiny teeth and lots of gum.
“For the phone or vending machines?” she asked Eve.
“Phone.”
“I ask ’cause the vending machines are fussy, quarters only, but phones’ll take anything, won’t they?”
Eve hadn’t used many public phones, but she nodded.
The woman given her ten dollars assorted change, and Eve rushed to a bank of phones between the rest room doors. A kid came out of the restaurant and went to a wall of video games.
It was quiet except for the faint clink of dishes and silver from the restaurant. The air smelled of wet wool and a little of sweat and a conglomeration of women’s perfumes as if a crowd had just left.
Eve got a whiff of cooked meat from the restaurant and her mouth watered. She wasn’t sure when she’d eaten last. She’d get something here after she talked to Bunner, if she talked to him.