At Elsinore: Jayne wouldn’t be home for an hour, Marta was conferring with Rosa about dinner, Robby ambled upstairs ostensibly to study for a test, Sarah went to the media room to play Pinobee, a video game about a flight-challenged and oddly charmless bumblebee whose expression of disgust always managed to fill me with alarm. I went to my office and locked the door, and filled a large coffee mug with vodka (I didn’t need a mixer anymore, I didn’t even need ice) and drank half of it before trying Aimee Light again on her cell. Waiting for an answer I sat at the desk and went over e-mails left unchecked from yesterday. One from Jay, one from Binky informing me that Harrison Ford’s people were delighted by my interest and had inquired when I could get out to L.A., and there was an odd one from Gary Fisketjon, my editor at Knopf, who wrote that a detective saying he was from the Midland County Sheriff’s Department had called his office asking how they could get in touch with me, and Gary hoped it was all right if he gave them my number. Before the fear began creeping in again I found another e-mail that arrived last night from the Bank of America in Sherman Oaks. Its arrival time: 2:40 a.m.
I scrolled down the blank page until Aimee’s phone stopped ringing and her message played out. I clicked off the cell after the beep when I noticed that the light on my answering machine was blinking. I reached over and pressed Play.
“Mr. Ellis, this is Detective Donald Kimball. I’m with the Midland County Sheriff’s Department and I’d like to talk to you about something that’s, well, rather urgent . . . and so we should probably talk as soon as you can.” Pause, static. “If you want we can meet here, in Midland, though considering what I want to talk to you about I think it might be best if I dropped by your place.” He left a cell phone number. “Again, please call me as soon as you can.”
I finished the mug of vodka and poured myself another.
When I called Kimball back he didn’t want to discuss whatever “this” was over the phone, and I didn’t want to discuss it in Midland, so I gave him our address. Kimball said he could be at the house in thirty minutes, but Kimball showed up fifteen minutes after we hung up, a discrepancy which forced me to realize vaguely, uneasily, that this was probably more important than I’d first thought. I was hoping for a welcome distraction from fretting about Aimee. But what Kimball presented me with was not the respite I was hoping for. I was drunk when he arrived. I was sober by the time he left.
There was nothing much to notice about Donald Kimball—my age, vaguely handsome (I’d do him, I thought drunkenly, and then: Do . . . what?), dressed casually in jeans and a Nike sweatshirt, cropped blond hair, Wayfarer sunglasses he whipped off as soon as I opened the front door—and except for the nondescript sedan parked behind him at the curb he could have passed for any one of the handsome, affluent suburban dads who resided in the neighborhood. What singled him out was that he held a copy of American Psycho. It was frayed and yellowed and ominously dotted with Post-its. We shook hands and I ushered him into the house and after offering him a drink (which he declined) led him to my office while I kept glancing at the copy of the book. When I asked if he wanted it signed, Kimball paused grimly, thanked me and said that he did not.
I sat in my swivel chair and took little sips from the coffee mug. Kimball sat across from me on a sleek, modern Italian couch that should have been on the other side of the room but now had been moved beneath the movie poster for Less Than Zero. My office had been rearranged yet again. While Kimball began talking I drank the vodka and tried to understand why I was at a standstill about the room and the placement of the furniture within it.
“If you’d like to check in with the sheriff’s department, please feel free to do so,” Kimball was saying.
I started paying attention. “About . . . what?”
Kimball paused. “About my being here, Mr. Ellis.”
“Well, I’m assuming my publishing house made sure everything was in order, no?” I asked. “I mean, my editor didn’t seem to think anything was unusual.” I stopped. “I mean, if you are who you’re saying then I’m prone to believe you.” I stopped again. “I’m a very trusting person.” Another pause. “Unless, um, you’re a deranged fan and you’re after my wife.” Pause. “You aren’t . . . are you?”
Kimball smiled tightly. “No, no, nothing like that. We knew your wife lived in town but we weren’t sure if you were here or in New York, and your publishing house simply gave us your business number and so, well, here we are.” His expression became one of casual concern. “Do you get a lot of that—crazy fans and stalkers and all that?”
At that moment I instantly trusted him. “Nothing too unusual,” I said, searching my desk for the pack of cigarettes that was never there. “Just the typical restraining order, y’know, nothing too scary. Just the average life of the . . . um, average celebrity couple.”
Yes, this came out of my mouth. Yes, Kimball smiled awkwardly.
He breathed in and leaned forward, still holding the book, studying me. I took another sip from the coffee mug and saw him open a brown notepad he was holding along with my book.
“So, a detective is in my office with a copy of American Psycho,” I rambled. “I hope you liked it, since I had something very special to say with that book.” I tried to conceal a belch and failed.
“Well, I am a fan, Mr. Ellis, but that’s not exactly why I’m here.”
“So what’s up, then?” Another small sip.
He looked down at the opened notebook resting on his lap. It seemed as if he was reluctant to proceed, as if Kimball was still making up his mind about how much he should reveal in order to gain my compliance. But his demeanor suddenly changed and he cleared his throat. “What I’m about to present you with will probably be upsetting, which is why I thought we should talk privately.”
I immediately reached into my pocket and popped a Xanax.
Kimball waited politely.
After a moment of throat clearing, I eked out: “I’m ready.”
Kimball now had his game face on. “Recently—very recently—my colleagues and I became convinced that a theory about a case Midland County has been investigating for the last four months was in fact no longer a theory and—”
I flashed on something and interrupted him. “Wait, this isn’t about the missing children, is it?”
“No,” Kimball said carefully. “It’s not about the missing boys. Both cases did begin around the same time, at or near the beginning of summer, but we don’t believe they’re connected.”
I did not feel the need to tell Kimball that the beginning of summer was when I first arrived in this town. “What’s going on?” I asked.
Kimball cleared his throat. He skimmed a page in his notebook and then turned it over to inspect the next page. “A Mr. Robert Rabin was killed on June first on Commonwealth Avenue at approximately nine-thirty in the evening. He’d taken his dog out for a walk and was attacked on the street, and stabbed randomly in his upper body area and his throat was cut—”
“Jesus Christ.”
“There was no motive for the crime. It was not a robbery. Mr. Rabin had no enemies as far as we could ascertain. It was just a random killing. He was—we thought—simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.” He paused. “But there was something strange about the crime besides the viciousness of the attack and its apparent lack of motive.” Kimball paused again. “The dog he was walking was also killed.”
Another pause filled the office. “That’s . . . also terrible,” I finally said, guessing.
The length of Kimball’s next pause was painting the room with a distinct and palatable anxiety.