The aunt’s shoulders sagged, but her expression didn’t change and she went to the door without a word. Magnanimous in victory, Latovsky said, “I won’t keep her long, Ms. Tilden.”
“It’s Miss Tilden. And you’ll keep her as long as she can be any use to you, no matter how sad, sick, or frightened it makes her.” She went out, slid the doors closed behind her, and he was finally alone with Eve, finally going to hear what she’d seen in Bunner’s office. His heart speeded up, his legs were a little shaky, and he sat down in a huge chair across from her.
But two minutes later she was finished. She’d seen the killer’s back in a beige windbreaker, heard the shot, seen Bunner’s face disintegrate, and most of the back of his head hit the window. Latovsky sat with his head tilted, waiting for the rest, then realized she was done. He jumped out of the chair and stalked to the mantel.
“That’s it?” He looked up at the painted woman, whose sad, frightened eyes looked out at the room.
“That’s all?” He turned around. “A poplin jacket and a head of light brown hair?”
That’s what he’d driven two hundred miles, shot two days and put up with Frances Tilden’s snot to hear.
He came back and stood over her. “C’mon, Eve, there’s got to be more than a jacket and brown hair—” Then he stopped because there had been more. She’d said thick, straight, crisp light brown hair. A woman’s description and the exact words she’d used on Friday to describe the killer in the woods. He backed away until he felt the chair behind him, then sat down hard and put the recorder on his lap. It started to slide and he put it on the table. It would probably smudge the surface, but someone would polish it.
“Eve? Was it the same man? Is that it?”
“I could be wrong.”
And pigs could fly, he thought. “If you’re wrong, I’ll chase my tail,” he said. “But I’m doing that anyway. Jesus—talk to me. Was it him?”
“Yes.”
“The killer in the woods.”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he cried, more to himself than her. “Bunner had nothing to do with the case except as my sounding board. And I didn’t tell him enough to get him killed, I didn’t know enough. So why... ?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he Bunner’s patient?”
We’ve got to start somewhere, he’d told Mrs. Meeker, so we’ll start with the patients.
“I don’t know.”
“But what if he was? What if he was a patient and the killer in the woods?”
“What if he was?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He got up, then sat down again. He wanted to get closer to her, but couldn’t without kneeling on the floor in front of her.
He threw himself back in the chair and ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, what if he was a patient. I don’t know how good a shrink Bunner was. I do know he was a world-class listener. I found that out when I went to him when my marriage fell apart and I had to talk to someone. He was my best friend, but I still meant to keep it low-key—vanilla—you know—‘We don’t communicate anymore, don’t share the same values, blah, blah, blah.’ The meaningless crap you get on morning talk shows.”
“And self-help books about how to save your marriage,” she said softly, and they grinned at each other.
He went on, “That’s what I meant to say. But I looked into those clear, kind, attentive eyes of Bunner’s and all of a sudden, all this stuff came out.” I can’t stand her anymore. Can’t stand the look, sound, feel of her. I can’t get it up, Bunny, no matter what she does to me, and she does it all, I’ll give her that. But it’s no use, and if I stay with her I’ll never make love to a woman again, except as an adulterer.
“I told him things I never said to anyone before, even to myself, and maybe that’s what happened to the killer. Maybe the burden got too heavy and he had to talk to someone. Oh, not to confess, just to relieve himself a little, and he went to Bunner and opened his mouth to say something low-key, such as, ‘I have these impulses that frighten me, that might be dangerous’ and out came, ‘Help me, Bunny. I killed five women.’”
“Then...” Eve asked breathlessly.
“Then he pulled his trusty Magnum—” He stopped and shook his head. “Won’t wash.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t just happen to be carrying around a piece that size. Besides, he called Bunner first and got him down there. He’d planned it.”
“Maybe the killing wasn’t impulse but the confession was. Maybe he’d made it before.”
“When? I saw Bunner Saturday morning, and he said if he put patient confidentiality over the lives of five women, he’d be the nut. He’d’ve told me then, if he knew. He’d’ve told me later Saturday when we both saw him, so when...”
“At the dance,” Eve said softly, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled.
“You saw...”
“Him and the killer at the same table.”
“And Bunner was plastered.”
“Maybe.”
Maybe the killer had been too, Latovsky thought. And he sat down with Bunner at a country club dance and confessed to five murders. Then what? Then Bunner got more plastered because he couldn’t face what he’d just heard, and he couldn’t tell anyone because the killer was his patient, but he had to tell because lives were at stake, so he’d tried to get drunk enough to repress it. But the killer didn’t repress anything. What he’d said in a drunken moment ate at him all night and by the time the sun came up he knew what he had to do, and he called Bunny...
Latovsky picked up the recorder. “I need a description, Eve. He was Bunner’s patient and he went to that dance. With a description, I’ve got him.” He slid forward in the chair until he was on the verge of falling off and held out the recorder to her.
“Will you?” he asked softly, in a voice he’d use on a woman he wanted to lay. “Will you?”
She stared at it, and he saw that look of quiet confidence he’d seen on Friday steal into her eyes and he knew she would. Maybe she hated it for ruining her marriage—maybe it would ruin her life and she knew it—but she wanted to do it anyway, the way Horowitz wanted to play the piano.
He held it out as far as he could reach and she took it from him.
He couldn’t stand being this far away from her any longer and slid out of the chair and crouched on his heels in front of her.
“What I said before is still true,” she told him.
“Yeah... you might not see anything, you might see anyone who ever touched it, including the Jap who made it.”
She closed her eyes. She hadn’t done that before and he wondered why she did now. Then motor noise intruded and he looked up, annoyed, afraid it would distract her. A riding mower with a man in dungarees passed the French doors to the terrace and disappeared. The noise faded, and she said quietly, “Oh shit...” and then, “Scars...”
Scars? Was she back with Ken Nevins? He’d been a patient, he could’ve touched the recorder... could’ve killed Bunner and the women in the woods?
No—Ken’s hair was thin and pale blonde, not thick and light brown.
She didn’t say anything else, but her eyelids started to flutter, her mouth opened so he could see the underside of her tongue and her color went from pale to gray. It looked like shock; he’d seen plenty of it in his highway days when they chopped people out of wrecks, and he knew it could kill.
“Eve.” He spoke softly, afraid to jar her. She didn’t react and he touched the back of her hand. It was cold and damp. “Eve.” He raised his voice a little. “Eve, it’s okay... let it go, whatever it is. You’re safe... you’re home safe... it’s not real.”