“Could he have done it for fun?” Latovsky asked faintly.
“I asked Rule and he said no. Said your recreational torturer—his phrase, not mine—would draw it out, make it last; he’d use a razor or lit cigarette or a low-caliber piece if he used one at all. But this was strictly amateur hour, because the cannon he used blew half her leg off. That’s what happened to her other foot, by the way—we found it wedged under a cabinet.” Latovsky saw a shudder run through Meers, but he went on calmly. “Rule said she was out in maybe a minute or two and probably dead by the time he put the gun to her head. No fun in that.”
No fun... that half-thought triggered by “big-mother gun” swam at Latovsky again and he tried to grab it. But he was exhausted; a soggy doughnut in the sodden tent at five this morning was the last thing he’d eaten. He’d get past the sight and smell of the kitchen and force himself to eat, then maybe whatever it was would come to him.
He drove to Jeanne’s to pick up Jo, but she and Matt hud-died in front of the TV in the den watching Lamb Chop (probably Matt’s choice) and trying to look like orphan refugees who’d die if they were separated.
“Jeannie says I can stay,” Jo said, “and Matt wants me to.”
Jeannie always said she could stay, Matt always wanted her to; his chin was already trembling at the thought of losing her.
“Your mother’s expecting you home,” Latovsky said.
Jo made a face. She’d reached the age when her mother’s expectations didn’t mean much.
He looked helplessly at Jeanne, who stood in the archway between her tiny dining room and the den. He suddenly wondered what the dining room at Tilden House was like.
“I’d like her to stay,” Jeanne said. “So would Matt. Why don’t you call Allison?”
She took herself off to the kitchen so she wouldn’t hear his end of the conversation with his ex-wife, and he used the phone in the front hall so Jo wouldn’t hear in case there was a row. But Allison was amenable and he didn’t hear any of that whiney hurt in her voice. Maybe she had a date.
Their conversations were grim and short, full of guilt for him unless they fought, which didn’t happen much anymore.
He hung up and went back to the den, where the kids had forgotten Lamb Chop and were watching the door to hear their fate.
“You can stay,” he said, and they yelled “Yay” and hugged each other.
He went to say good-bye to Jeanne and she gave him a long, slow, open-mouthed kiss that found a weak spot in his groin and made him want to stay too... but there was no time.
He was still wearing fishing clothes, and he drove home and pulled off the boots that felt like fifty pounds of lead melting into his feet. Then he stripped off the itchy wool fishing pants and stood under the shower. He dressed, wolfed down a peanut butter sandwich, and left the house.
The sun was burning off the haze from the rain, and the pavement and hood of the car steamed. He drove to the station, which was stone-walled and always cold. He got a ham sandwich from the machine and some coifee, and went into his office to read the preliminary reports from Rule and Lucci.
Meers’s door was closed, so he was there. Probably on the phone with a Quantico buddy, asking if they had anything on the big computer on a mutt who got his jollies kneecapping women with a Magnum.
The unmemory came back. It was stronger, but still not coherent: No fun... big-mother gun. Big-mother gun kept at him because of Bunner, but no fun eluded him, and he didn’t know how they were connected or what Barb Riley could have known to make the killer blow her leg off when it was no fun.
He let the words chase each other through his head for a moment, then he gave up and called Riley’s boss on the Register. It was Sunday afternoon, but Max Jergens was at work.
“I’m sorry to ask this, Mr. Jergens, but is there any chance the Rileys were dealing drugs?”
“Drugs!” Jergens exploded. “Shit no! Whatever put a maggot like that in your head?”
“Barbara Riley was kneecapped.”
Stunned silence, then Jergens said miserably, “She taught high-school English, Lieutenant. Think someone kneecapped her to drag the figures of speech out of her? Just had to get the difference between a simile and a metaphor? What the fuck went on in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you fuckin’ well should. You’re the fuckin’ cop.”
“I’m sorry,” Latovsky said meekly.
Another silence, then Jergens said, “I’m sorry, too, Lieutenant, you don’t deserve that. I’m upset, we’re all upset. Kneecapped! I don’t get it.”
“Neither do we, Mr. Jergens. Was Riley working on anything you’d classify as controversial?”
“Controversial enough to get him killed and his wife”—Jergens choked on the word—“kneecapped? No. The Wolfman story was his...”
Wolfman. The hair on Latovsky’s neck stirred.
“...and he was getting background for a piece on Leo Shine, the state senator.”
“Anything there?”
“No. Shine’s eighty in the shade and about as controversial as Dwight Eisenhower. Well-liked old fart, and Riley thought it’d be a good idea to write something nice about a politician for a change. Thought it was important. Leo Shine did not kill Jim Riley, Lieutenant. Then there was the piece on Friday about the Clairvoyant.”
Clairvoyant. Big gun, no fun... add Clairvoyant and Wolfman.
He had it now, just needed a second to think. They hung up and the buzzer sounded a second later. Barber told him he had a call from someone at the Register and Latovsky grabbed it thinking it was Jergens with something to add. But another man asked, “Are you in charge of the Riley murder investigation?”
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
“My name’s Lyons, Lieutenant. Bill Lyons. I work at the Register in personnel?” He made it a question.
“Yes, sir,” Latovsky said patiently.
A moment of silence, then, in a tone of true misery, Lyons said, “I think I talked to Jim Riley’s killer on Friday.”
And he told his story.
“His name was not Latovsky,” Latovsky said softly.
“I know. I know that now. I know.”
“Was there anything at all familiar about his voice?”
“No. I wouldn’t know anyway because the guy sounded garbled and muffled, like he had a bad cold.”
“Muffled?”
“Yeah, like he was sick or maybe... I guess... disguising his voice.”
“Muffled,” Latovsky whispered.
“Jesus, that’s what I said.”
A muffled voice had lured Bunner to his office on Sunday and shot him with a big-mother gun. The killer in the woods, according to Eve, the Wolfman who killed dispassionately, according to Rule, had no fun doing it or kneecapping Barb Riley. He’d tortured her for information, but the gun was too big, and she couldn’t tell anyone anything after it blew half her leg off. But what did Barb Riley, English teacher, know ? The difference between a metaphor and a simile? The meter of the Iliad? Jergens’s cracks were getting in the way, Latovsky shoved them out of his mind and got Lyons off the phone. The intercom rang again.
“What now?” he yelled into the phone. He was yelling too much—the men would wind up hating him.
Barber said, “Woman’s calling long distance. Tried to put her off, but it was like putting off the queen of England... very haughty lady. Name of Tilden.”
Eve. It wasn’t Barb who knew, it was Riley. The Wolfman tortured the wife to get the husband to talk, and Riley heard his wife’s shriek of agony, saw her flesh and shattered bone explode across the kitchen—and told the Wolfman everything.