The lieutenant asked if Meg had discussed with him what she would tell the police. Don said he didn’t know how much credence to give it, as Meg was undergoing a nervous crisis, but she had told him some things, yes. In response to more questions, he related the story of the jacket outside the gym and the dead spider.
Jerry stared at him blankly.
The lieutenant asked, “What do you make of this yourself, Mr. Rigden? Do you believe it?”
“I wasn’t totally convinced when Meg told me, but later I checked the lab and one of our spiders was missing. I made a search and found its body under a shrub adjacent to the gym.”
“So that much of the story appears to be true. Well, what do you know? A dead tarantula under a girl’s jacket. How about the jacket — did you search for that?”
“No point. Sarah was wearing it when we—” Don stopped.
Jerry said, “Mr. Rigden has already made a statement to the effect that he escorted Miss Jordan home at the end of the party.”
“Thanks, Professor, I’ll handle this in my own way,” the lieutenant said amicably but firmly. “If this really is true, it’s important. Just for the record, we know the man Saville was not alone on the web. He had a woman with him and they had sex. There’s no argument about that. Forensic found all the evidence they need, and plenty more. Seems like Miss Jordan was the woman, and your friend Miss Kellaway guessed as much from what she saw. I figure it’s time I talked to these young ladies. I’m due to meet Sarah Jordan tomorrow morning at nine-thirty, but I’d like to take a statement from Miss Kellaway before that. Would you have any idea where she might be right now?”
“Sorry, but no.”
“You see, you told me yourself that this is a girl in a nervous state. We don’t want to alarm her any more by having a patrolman pick her up. If you could give it some thought, maybe talk to a few people, it might be the best way to handle this.”
“I don’t see the need for this,” said Jerry thickly. “You’ve been given the salient facts. You know it was Sarah on the web with Saville. Why not talk to her?”
The lieutenant said slowly, spacing his words, “Richard Saville didn’t die when he fell from the web. He was already dead.”
“But he broke his neck, for Christ’s sake.”
“Correct. But the autopsy showed his feet hit the ground first. He had two fractured legs. The only mark on his head was an abrasion below the jaw, where the nylon rope had pressed into the flesh tissues. It jerked back the jaw with enough force to snap the spinal cord.” He placed his finger crossways under his chin and pressed upward. “So.”
Jerry screwed his face into horrified disbelief.
“The force was in the tension of the entire web,” the lieutenant explained. “We did some tests.”
“But why did it happen?”
“That’s what I aim to ask Miss Jordan. She’s not here or at home so we’ve put an APB out on her. But I still need that statement from Meg Kellaway.”
Maybe talk to a few people...
There was only one who could help: Sarah.
Don hadn’t seen her since she had stormed off after their row over Meg. If you won’t take care of this, I’ll do it myself. And it seemed she had. Somehow she had stopped Meg from making that statement. Well, she was getting in deeper trouble than she could possibly know. She couldn’t stand in the way of the police investigation.
She had also warned Don never to come near her again. So why was he bothering?
It was not too late to help her pull back. The lieutenant knew the score. Obviously he had talked to Jerry, established who in the department was closest to Meg on the principle that if the problem could be sorted out by the people concerned, it saved all the hassle of police inquiries. Maybe the lieutenant also suspected Sarah had a hand in Meg’s nonappearance. Whatever his thinking was, he evidently had no worries for Meg’s safety. Unlike Don.
Don was feeling increasingly responsible for Meg. Thanks to him, she was in danger. He had let Sarah know what Meg had seen. He had warned her that Meg had called the police. He had been angered by Meg’s decision to talk to them after it had seemed she could be kept quiet, but really he had no right to expect her silence. It was his duty now to help her, if she needed it. And tell them both — Meg and Sarah — that the police knew what Meg had seen outside the gym.
Duty was one thing; his feelings for Sarah were another. He still cared about her, deeply and passionately. It was past rationality. She had told him and proved in a dozen ways that she didn’t love him. She had treated him with steady contempt. He had started as her rival and never overcome it. She was not prepared to treat him as an equal. He was allowed to get close only on Sarah’s terms: as a novice in hang-gliding, a dance partner, or a stud. So why persist? It was because, against all the evidence, he believed there was a warm, attractive, vulnerable side to Sarah. It could be an illusion, but he had not yet persuaded himself that it was.
That evening after dinner, he called Gilmore Hall to check whether Meg was back. She was not, but no one seemed concerned. He called Sarah and got no answer. He tried both places an hour later, with the same result.
About nine P.M. he went to Sarah’s apartment. It was dark by then, but there was no light from the windows. After trying her intercom several times, he buzzed the people on the floor below hers. It turned out that the man who answered owned the building, and when Don said the police wanted to trace a girl Sarah had been seen with, he reluctantly said he would open up.
The only time Don had been in Sarah’s apartment was the disastrous night of the disco. It looked different, and he remembered she had said on the phone that she had been redecorating. She had painted everything white, the furniture as well as the walls and ceiling.
“Well, how about that?” said the owner. “I agreed she could paint the place, but this beats everything. Even the goddamn shades are white. And the quilt. You need shades to live in here.”
Don had spotted a projector on the floor beside the bed. “She’s got one of these. That’s why she wanted it white. They’re the latest thing in interior decoration. You have a rotating slide used in conjunction with a convex lens, and the color or pattern is projected all over the room. It’s supposed to be relaxing.”
“Let’s see.” The owner of the apartment switched it on.
Everything, walls, ceiling, even their faces, bore the slowly moving mesh of a cobweb.
“Hell, I couldn’t live with that for long. It makes me itch all over. What kind of girl has a toy like this to relax with?”
Don didn’t answer. He just said, “Would you call me at this number if she gets back tonight?” He handed the man a card.
“Ask her to call you?”
“No. Like I said.”
“Okay. Let’s turn this thing off and get out of here.”
There was no call that evening. When Don phoned in the morning, he learned that Sarah hadn’t been back all night. The same was true of Meg when he phoned Gilmore Hall.
He racked his brains trying to work out where they might have spent the night. He called Ed Cunningham on the phone. Sarah was not there, but when Don explained the problem, Cunningham sounded really alarmed, and suggested he come over at once.
“I want to give you all the help I can,” Cunningham said as soon as Don stepped out of the elevator into his consulting room. “You must tell me everything that’s happened since the party. I haven’t seen anything of Sarah since then. It’s best if I don’t see her, and I’ll explain why in a moment, but I do understand something about her state of mind, and if I can, I want to help prevent anything really tragic from happening.”