How often do two women decide to cut each other to pieces over a dog that probably came from the Castle County Animal Shelter in the first place? Norris thought… but did not say. “Not that often, I guess.”
“Hardly ever.” Sandy sighed deeply. “Tell you a secret, thoughnow that it’s all over, I almost wish I’d said yes when Sheila offered to stay. It’s been so crazy tonight-I think every TV station in the state called at least nine times, and until eleven o’clock or so, this place looked like a department store Christmas Eve sale.”
“Well, go on home. You have my permission. Did you power up The Bastard?”
The Bastard was the machine which switched calls to Alan’s home when no dispatcher was on duty at the station. If no one picked up at Alan’s after four rings, The Bastard cut in and told callers to dial the State Police in Oxford. It was a jury-rig system that wouldn’t have worked in a big city, but in Castle County, which had the smallest population of all Maine’s sixteen counties, it worked fine.
“It’s on.”
“Good. I have a feeling that Alan might not have been going straight home.” Sandy raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Hear anything from Lieutenant Payton?” Norris asked. “Not a thing.” She paused. “Was it awful, Norris? I mean… those two women?”
“It was pretty awful, all right,” he agreed. His civies were hung neatly on a hanger he had hooked over a filing-cabinet handle. He removed it and started for the men’s room. It had been his habit to change in and out of his uniforms at work for the last three years or so, although the changes rarely came at such an outrageous hour as this. “Go home, Sandy-I’ll lock up when I’m done.”
He pushed through the bathroom door and hooked the hanger over the top of the door to the toilet stall. He was unbuttoning his uniform shirt when there was a light knock on the door.
“Norris?” Sandy called. “I think I’m the only one here,” he called back. “I almost forgot-someone left a present for you. It’s on your desk.” Norris paused in the act of unbuckling his pants. “A present? Who from?”
“I don’t know-the place really was a madhouse. But it’s got a card on it. Also a bow. It must be your secret lover.”
“My lover’s so secret even I don’t know about her,” Norris said with real regret. He stepped out of his pants and laid them over the stall door while he put on his jeans.
Outside, Sandy McMillan smiled with a touch of malice. “Mr. Keeton was by tonight,” she said. “Maybe he left it. Maybe it’s a kiss-and-make-up present.” Norris laughed. “That’ll be the day.”
“Well, make sure you tell me tomorrow-I’m dying to know. It’s a pretty package. Goodnight, Norris.”
“Night.” Who could have left me a present? he wondered, zipping up his fly.
6
Sandy left, pulling the collar of her coat up as she went out-the night was very cold, reminding her that winter was on its way. Cyndi Rose Martin, the lawyer’s wife, was one of the many people she had seen that night-Cyndi Rose had turned up early in the evening.
Sandy never thought of mentioning her to Norris, however; he did not move in the Martins’ more rarefied social and professional circles.
Cyndi Rose said she was looking for her husband, which made a certain amount of sense to Sandy (although the evening had been so harum-scarum that Sandy probably wouldn’t have thought it odd if the woman had said she was looking for Mikhail Baryshnikov), because Albert Martin did some of the town’s legal work.
Sandy said she hadn’t seen Mr. Martin that evening, although Cyndi Rose w?-s welcome to check upstairs and see if he was in with Mr.
Keeton, if she wanted. Cyndi Rose said she thought she would do that, as long as she was here. By then the switchboard was lit up like a Christmas tree again, and Sandy did not see Cyndi Rose take the rectangular package with the bright foil paper and the blue velvet bow from her large handbag and put it on Norris Ridgewick’s desk. Her pretty face had been lit with a smile as she did it, but the smile itself was not pretty at all. It was, in fact, rather cruel.
7
Norris heard the outer door shut and, dimly, the sound of Sandy starting her car. He tucked his shirt into his jeans, stepped into his loafers, and arranged his uniform carefully on its hanger. He sniffed the shirt at the armpits and decided it didn’t have to go to the cleaners right away. That was good; a penny saved was a penny earned.
When he left the men’s room, he put the hanger back on the same file-cabinet handle, where he could not help seeing it on his way out.
That was also good, because Alan got pissed like a bear when Norris forgot and left his duds hanging around the police station. He said it made the place look like a laundrymat.
He went over to his desk. Someone really had left him a present-it was a box done up in light-blue foil wrapping paper and blue velvet ribbon exploding into a fluffy bow on top. There was a square white envelope tucked under the ribbon. Very curious now, Norris removed the envelope and tore it open. There was a card inside. Typed on it in capital letters was a short, enigmatic message:
!!!!!JUSTA REMINDER!!!!!
He frowned. The only two persons he could think of who were always reminding him of things were Alan and his mother… and his mother had died five years ago. He picked up the package, broke the ribbon, and set the bow carefully aside. Then he took off the paper, revealing a plain white cardboard box. It was about a foot long, four inches wide, and four inches deep. The lid was taped shut.
Norris broke the tape and opened the box. There was a layer of white tissue paper over the object inside, thin enough to indicate a flat surface with a number of raised ridges running across it, but not thin enough to allow him to see what his present was.
He reached in to pull the tissue paper out, and his forefinger struck something hard-a protruding tongue of metal. A heavy steel jaw closed on the tissue paper and also on Norris Ridgewick’s first three fingers. Pain ripped up his arm. He screamed and stumbled backward, grabbing his right wrist with his left hand. The white box tumbled to the floor. Tissue-paper crinkled.
Oh, son of a bitch, it hurt! He grabbed at the tissue, which hung down in a wrinkled ribbon, and tore it free. What he revealed was a large Victory rat-trap. Someone had armed it, stuck it in a box, put tissue-paper over it to hide it, and then wrapped it in pretty blue paper. Now it was clamped on the first three fingers of his right hand. It had torn the nail of his index finger right off, he saw; all that remained was a bleeding crescent of raw flesh.
“Whoremaster!” Norris cried. In his pain and shock, he at first beat the trap against the side of John LaPointe’s desk instead of just prying back the steel bar. All he managed to do was bang his hurt fingers against the desk’s metal corner and send a fresh snarl of pain up his arm. He screamed again, then grabbed the trap’s bar and pulled it back. He released his fingers and dropped the trap.
The steel bar snapped down again on the trap’s wooden base as it fell to the floor.
Norris stood trembling for a moment, then bolted back into the men’s room, turned on the cold water with his left hand, and thrust his right hand under the tap. It throbbed like an impacted wisdom tooth.
He stood with his lips drawn back in a grimace, watching thin threads of blood swirl down the drain, and thought of what Sandy had said: Mr. Keeton was by. maybe it’s a kiss-andmake-up present.
And the card: JUST A REMINDER.
Oh, it had been Buster, all right. He didn’t doubt it a bit. It was just Buster’s style.
“You son of a bitch,” Norris groaned.
The cold water was numbing his fingers, damping down that sick throbbing, but he knew it would be back by the time he arrived home.