Next came four members of the squad in a lump. They broke up and went to their cars, and a few minutes later Lem Meers appeared. He spoke to one of the troopers at the door, then disappeared in the crowd, probably heading for the new silver Merk Dave said he was so proud of.
A plain car came up the drive at five and disgorged another squad man, who came around the other side and helped out a heavyset woman in rust-colored slacks and a yellow blouse. They went inside and came back forty minutes later; the woman had a shopping bag, the squad man—Frawley, it was—carried some plants.
No Latovsky.
Riley was close to the trees. The sun was behind him, a cool shadow fell across his back, and he heard flies whine in the trees. It was getting late; Barb expected him home hours ago.
He’d taken her Camry because it was anonymous and more reliable than his ancient Ford, but there was no phone in it.
He looked at the front of the building.
The glass door to the lobby was black, but lights were on in a set of windows on the fourth floor; the office of the dead doctor, Riley thought.
Latovsky’s Olds looked rusted in place, as if it had been there since the last ice age and would stay until the next. He risked leaving for the couple of minutes it took to walk down to the Blue Pantry convenience store at the corner of Old School and call home.
“Don’t worry,” Barb said, “we’ve got steak and asparagus. I won’t even start cooking until you pull into the driveway.”
Steak and asparagus, he thought as he walked back to the lot, and his mouth watered. All he’d had today was a dried-up ham sandwich, a stale vending-machine Milky Way, and what passed in the squad room for coffee. Someday they’d wise up and wash the pot, he thought.
He went back through the trees, waving flies away, then broke out into the lot again.
The crowd had thinned, the troopers were moving the sawhorses, and the Olds was gone.
“Fuck!” he cried, and the woman in the kerchief glared at him. He raced back through the trees, slapping at the tlies, taking some satisfaction in killing as many as he could.
Dillworthy had replaced Barber on the phone; Latovsky’s office was still dark. Meers was there, so were the other men, and the phones were going nuts. Trennant stuck his head in and saw Riley.
“You on this, too?” he asked.
Riley was a star of sorts—a big fish in a minuscule pond. Some of the others resented him, but Trennant was in his late fifties, waiting out his pension. He wasn’t the kind to get into the who’s-on-top crap anyway and he and Riley were friends.
“No. I’m waiting to ask Latovsky about the Woman-in-the-Woods on Friday.”
“Yeah, they’re killing each other like flies in this town all of a sudden. See you.” He ducked out, then stuck his head back. “Doctor’s name was Bunner, by the way. Meers is supposed to give us the rest in a few minutes. You should come down for it, get a laugh anyway.”
Then he was gone, and Riley sat on the straight-backed wooden chair that must have been in situ since the thirties. His back ached, his stomach was sour and jittery from the coffee, and his eyes burned. He closed them, meaning just to ease them for a moment, and dozed. He didn’t know for how long, but the bullpen was almost empty when his head snapped up and he opened his grainy-lidded eyes again.
“Feel better?” Dillworthy asked.
It was almost eight; Barb was still waiting with her steak and asparagus.
“Dave back?” Riley said.
Dillworthy adjusted himself in his underwear. “Not yet, Jim. Whyn’t you go home? The others are gone.”
He meant the press, who must have gone to the doctor’s house to trample the lawn and spring flowers and wait for some hapless family member so they could stick a mike in their faces and ask how they felt about what happened to their father, son, brother.
Riley hated that shit.
“I’ll wait a little longer,” he said.
His head started nodding again, but he didn’t actually fall asleep.
Trennant would get page one with the murdered doctor, but a run-of-the-mill dopehead hit would be back with the seed company ads by Thursday, and forgotten by all but the doctor’s friends and family by the weekend.
But Woman-in-the-Woods rang everyone’s chimes and kept ringing them; women in the Park stopped going out alone, business at singles bars was in the toilet. Woman-in-the-Woods hit that chord, that cortical horror-reflex, like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacey, and fascination would not flag until the case was solved or the killings stopped. And it was his story.
Lousy name, Woman-in-the-Woods. Too many words, too many vowels. He should come up with something better.
The women had all been killed on Fridays. Maybe Man Friday? But that was stinko, too. Besides, he’d no sooner go with it, full head, and the bastard would do one on Saturday.
His head nodded, then snapped up, then nodded, and Dillworthy laughed. “Your head’s gonna fall off, Jimmy.”
All on Fridays, he thought stuporously. Best night of the week. Poor broads got dressed up for cruising, used hairspray, cologne, extra eye shadow, then went out looking for sex, love, a little companionship, and wound up slit open and dying in a pine grove under a full moon.
Full moon.
Even the man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the Wolfbane blooms and the moon shines clear and bright.
He was a movie buff, had a couple of hundred tapes of old black-and-whites, and he suddenly heard Maria Ouspenskaya’s old cracked voice with its pushcart-peddler accent.
Eeffen de man who iss pure of heart...
The Wolfman.
That was more like it; that would raise goosebumps.
Then Dillworthy said, “Dave,” and Riley came out of his fog.
Dillworthy was on the phone. He mumbled into it, scribbled on his pad, then mumbled some more and hung up.
He stood and hitched up his trousers. “Go on home, Jim,” he said kindly. “Dave’s not coming back.”
As Dillworthy left the squad room, Riley bent forward to see out the door and watched him go into the can.
He looked around. The room was practically empty; no one was looking his way.
He stood up and went past Dillworthy’s desk as if he were heading for the water cooler. He paused and looked down, reading upside down as he’d schooled himself to do for years: Dave, AM. Tilden House, Bridgeton CT, and a 203 phone number.
8
Latovsky saw stone pillars with Tilden House on a bronze plaque and turned in. He expected a condo development, a nice one from the lay of the land, with two- or three-story units, plenty of grass, plenty of parking, a clubhouse, and maybe a swimming pool, tennis court, even a nine-hole golf course. But almost a quarter of a mile in from the road, he was still driving through woods and he started to wonder if this was the right place after all.
Then he took a curve around a fine old maple, saw what must be Tilden House, and stopped the Olds.
It was a mansion, about twenty thousand or so square feet of stone and frame, with slate roofs and too many gables to count. He was shocked, then appalled by it, and then he started to get angry, although he didn’t know why. Maybe because the place intimidated him, a feeling he loathed. Or maybe because if it were hers, she was rich. Not Bunner or Lydia Rodney rich, but rich.
He drove around the curve and down through acres of perfect lawn and pulled up at the front.
He got out, took the little tape recorder off the passenger seat, and climbed wide stone steps to a large, simple door. It might not be her house; she could be the governess or nanny, or she and her husband could rent a cute little two-bedroom above the garage.