Black House js-2 Read online

An idea occurs to him while he’s talking to her, and when he’s done, he calls the Metzgers’ and Rennikers’ after all. At the Metzgers’ he gets an answering machine and hangs up without leaving a message. Ellen Renniker, however, picks up on the second ring. Sounding casual and cheerful—it comes naturally, he’s a hell of a salesman—he asks her to have Ty call home if the boys show up there for lunch. Fred says he has something to tell his son, making it sound like something good. Ellen says she will, but adds that T.J. had four or five dollars burning a hole in his jeans when he left the house that morning, and she doesn’t expect to see him until suppertime.

  Fred goes back upstairs and checks on Judy. She hasn’t moved so much as a finger, and he supposes that’s good.

  No. There’s nothing good about any of this.

  Instead of receding now that the situation has stabilized—sort of—his fear seems to be intensifying. Telling himself that Ty is with his friends no longer seems to help. The sunny, silent house is creeping him out. He realizes he no longer wants Ty front and center simply for his wife’s sake. Where would the boys go? Is there any one place—?

  Of course there is. Where they can get Magic cards. That stupid, incomprehensible game they play.

  Fred Marshall hurries back downstairs, grabs the phone book, hunts through the Yellow Pages, and calls the 7-Eleven. Like most of French Landing, Fred is in the 7-Eleven four or five times a week—a can of soda here, a carton of orange juice there—and he recognizes the lilt of the Indian day clerk’s voice. He comes up with the man’s name at once: Rajan Patel. It’s that old salesman’s trick of keeping as many names as possible in the active file. It sure helps here. When Fred calls the man Mr. Patel, the day clerk immediately becomes friendly, perfectly willing to help. Unfortunately, there isn’t much help he can give. Lots of boys in. They are buying Magic cards, also Pokémon and baseball cards. Some are trading these cards outside. He does recall three that came in that morning on bikes, he says. They bought Slurpees as well as cards, and then argued about something outside. (Rajan Patel doesn’t mention the cursing, although this is chiefly why he remembers these boys.) After a little while, he says, they went on their way.

  Fred is drinking coffee without even remembering when he poured it. Fresh threads of unease are spinning spider-silky webs in his head. Three boys. Three.

  It means nothing, you know that, don’t you? he tells himself. He does know it, and at the same time he doesn’t know it. He can’t even believe he’s caught a little of Judy’s freakiness, like a cold germ. This is just . . . well . . . freakiness for freakiness’s sake.

  He asks Patel to describe the kids and isn’t too surprised when Patel can’t. He thinks one of them was a bit of a fat boy, but he’s not even sure of that. “Sorry, but I see so many,” he says. Fred tells him he understands. He does, too, only all the understanding in the world won’t ease his mind.

  Three boys. Not four but three.

  Lunchtime has come, but Fred is not the least bit hungry. The spooky, sunny silence maintains itself. The spiderwebs continue to spin.

  Not four but three.

  If it was Ty’s bunch that Mr. Patel saw, the fattish boy was certainly Ebbie Wexler. The question is, who were the other two? And which one was missing? Which one had been stupid enough to go off on his own?

  Ty’s gone.Gorg fascinated him and the abbalah took him.

  Crazy talk, no doubt about it . . . but Fred’s arms nevertheless break out in a lush of goose bumps. He puts his coffee mug down with a bang. He’ll clean up the broken glass, that’s what he’ll do. That’s the next step, no doubt about it.

  The actual next step, the logical next step, whispers through his mind as he climbs the stairs, and he immediately pushes it away. He’s sure the cops are just lately overwhelmed with queries from hysterical parents who have lost track of their kids for an hour or so. The last time he saw Dale Gilbertson, the poor guy looked careworn and grim. Fred doesn’t want to be marked down as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Still . . .

  Not four but three.

  He gets the dustpan and broom out of the little utility closet next to the laundry room and begins sweeping up broken glass. When he’s done he checks on Judy, sees she’s still sleeping (more deeply than ever, from the look of her), and goes down to Ty’s room. If Ty saw it like this, he’d be upset. He’d think his mom was a lot more than a Coke short of a Happy Meal.

  You don’t have to worry about that, his mind whispers. He won’t be seeing his room, not tonight, not ever. Gorg fascinated him and the abbalah took him.

  “Stop it,” Fred tells himself. “Stop being an old woman.”

  But the house is too empty, too silent, and Fred Marshall is afraid.

  Setting Tyler’s room to rights takes longer than Fred ever would have expected; his wife went through it like a whirlwind. How can such a little woman have such strength in her? Is it the strength of the mad? Perhaps, but Judy doesn’t need the strength of the mad. When she sets her mind to something, she is a formidable engine.

  By the time he’s finished cleaning up, almost two hours have passed and the only obvious scar is the scratched-out rectangle of wallpaper where the Irish travel poster hung. Sitting on Ty’s remade bed, Fred finds that the longer he looks at that spot, the less he can stand the white wallboard, peering through as brazenly as a broken bone through outraged skin. He has washed away the streaks of blood, but can do nothing about the scratch marks she made with her nails.

  Yes I can, he thinks. Yes I can, too.

  Ty’s dresser is mahogany, a piece of furniture that came to them from the estate of some distant relative on Judy’s side. Moving it really isn’t a one-man job, and under the circumstances, that suits Fred just fine. He slides a rug remnant under it to keep from marking up the floor, then pulls it across the room. Once it’s been placed against the far wall, it covers most of the scratched area. With the bald spot out of sight, Fred feels better. Saner. Ty hasn’t come home for lunch, but Fred didn’t really expect he would. He’ll be home by four, at the latest. Home for supper. Take it to the bank.

  Fred strolls back to the master bedroom, massaging the small of his back as he walks. Judy still hasn’t moved, and once again he puts an anxious hand on her chest. Her breathing is slow, but steady as she goes. That’s all right. He lies down beside her on the bed, goes to loosen his tie, and laughs when he feels his open collar. Coat and tie, both back at Goltz’s. Well, it’s been a crazy day. For the time being it’s just good to lie here in the air-conditioned cool, easing his aching back. Moving that dresser was a bitch, but he’s glad he did it. Certainly there’s no chance he’ll drop off; he’s far too upset. Besides, napping in the middle of the day has never been his thing.

  So thinking, Fred falls asleep.

  Beside him, in her own sleep, Judy begins to whisper. Gorg . . . abbalah . . . the Crimson King. And a woman’s name.

  The name is Sophie.

  6

  IN THE READY ROOM of the French Landing P.D., the phone on the desk rings. Bobby Dulac has been mining for nose-gold. Now he squashes his latest treasure on the sole of his shoe and picks up the phone.

  “Yell-o, Police Department, Officer Dulac speaking, how can I help you?”

  “Hey, Bobby. It’s Danny Tcheda.”

  Bobby feels a prink of unease. Danny Tcheda—last name pronounced Cheetah—is one of French Landing’s fourteen full-time RMP cops. He’s currently on duty, and ordinary procedure dictates that duty cops radio in—that’s what the R in RMP stands for, after all. The only exception to the rule has to do with the Fisherman. Dale has mandated that patrol officers call in on a landline if they think they have a situation involving the killer. Too many people have their ears on out there, doubtless including Wendell “Pisshead” Green.

  “Danny, what’s up?”

  “Maybe nothing, maybe something not so good. I got a bike and a sneaker in the trunk of my car. I found ’em over on Queen Street. Near Maxton
Elder Care?”

  Bobby draws a pad toward him and begins to jot. The tickle of unease has become a sinking feeling.

  “Nothing wrong with the bike,” Danny continues, “just sitting there on its kickstand, but combined with the sneaker . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, I see your point, Danny, but you never should have fooled with what could be evidence of a crime.” Please God don’t let it be evidence of a crime, Bobby Dulac is thinking. Please God don’t let it be another one.

  Irma Freneau’s mother has just been in to see Dale, and while there was no screaming or shouting, she came out with tears on her cheeks and looking like death on the half shell. They can’t still be sure the little girl has become the Fisherman’s third victim, but—

  “Bobby, I had to,” Danny is saying. “I’m ridin’ solo, I didn’t want to put this out on the air, I hadda find a phone. If I’d left the bike there, someone else coulda monkeyed with it. Hell, stolen it. This is a good bike, Schwinn three-speed. Better’n the one my kid’s got, tell you that.”

  “What’s your twenty?”

  “7-Eleven, up the hill on 35. What I did was mark the location of the bike and the sneaker with chalk X’s on the sidewalk. I handled them with gloves and put the sneaker in an evidence bag.” Danny is sounding more and more anxious. Bobby knows how he must feel, sympathizes with the choices Danny had to make. Riding solo is a bitch, but French Landing is already supporting as many cops—full-time and part-time—as the budget will bear. Unless, of course, this Fisherman business gets totally out of control; in that case, the town fathers will no doubt discover a bit more elastic in the budget.

  Maybe it’s already out of control, Bobby thinks.

  “Okay, Danny. Okay. See your point.” Whether or not Dale sees it is a whole ’nother thing, Bobby thinks.

  Danny lowers his voice. “No one needs to know I broke the chain of evidence, do they? I mean, if the subject ever came up. In court, or something.”

  “I guess that’s up to Dale.” Oh God, Bobby thinks. A new problem has just occurred to him. All calls that come in on this phone are automatically taped. Bobby decides the taping machinery is about to have a malfunction, retroactive to about two o’clock in the afternoon.

  “And you want to know the other thing?” Danny is asking. “The big thing? I didn’t want people to see it. A bike standing all by itself that way, you don’t have to be Sherlock Fucking Holmes to draw a certain conclusion. And folks’re getting close to the panic line, especially after that goddamned irresponsible story in the paper this morning. I didn’t want to call from Maxton’s for the same reason.”

  “I’m gonna put you on hold. You better talk to Dale.”

  In a vastly unhappy voice, Danny says: “Oh boy.”

  In Dale Gilbertson’s office there is a bulletin board dominated by enlarged photographs of Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham. A third photo will be added soon, he fears—that of Irma Freneau. Beneath the two current photos, Dale sits at his desk, smoking a Marlboro 100. He’s got the fan on. It will, he hopes, blow the smoke away. Sarah would just about kill him if she knew he was smoking again, but dear Jesus Christ, he needs something.

  His interview with Tansy Freneau had been short and nothing short of purgatorial. Tansy is a juicer, a regular patron of the Sand Bar, and during their interview the smell of coffee brandy was so strong it almost seemed to be coming out of her pores (another excuse for the fan). Half drunk, she had been, and Dale was glad. It kept her calm, at least. It didn’t put any sparkle in her dead eyes, coffee brandy was no good for that, but she had been calm. Hideously, she had even said “Thank you for helping me, sir” before leaving.

  Tansy’s ex—Irma’s father—lives across the state in Green Bay (“Green Bay is the devil’s town,” Dale’s father used to say, God knows why), where he works in a garage and, according to Tansy, supports several bars with names like the End Zone and the Fifty-Yard Line. Until today, there has been some reason to believe—at least to hope—that Richard “Cubby” Freneau snatched his daughter. An e-mail from the Green Bay Police Department has put paid to that little idea. Cubby Freneau is living with a woman who has two kids of her own, and he was in jail—D & D—the day Irma disappeared. There is still no body, and Tansy hasn’t received a letter from the Fisherman, but—

  The door opens. Bobby Dulac sticks his head in. Dale mashes his cigarette out on the inside lip of the wastebasket, burning the back of his hand with sparks in the process.

  “Gosh ’n’ fishes, Bobby, do you know how to knock?”

  “Sorry, Chief.” Bobby looks at the smoke ribboning up from the wastebasket with neither surprise nor interest. “Danny Tcheda’s on the phone. I think you better take it.”

  “What’s it about?” But he knows. Why else would it be the phone?

  Bobby only repeats, not without sympathy, “I think you better take it.”

  The car sent by Rebecca Vilas delivers Henry to Maxton Elder Care at three-thirty, ninety minutes before the Strawberry Fest! dance is scheduled to begin. The idea is for the old folks to work up an appetite on the floor, then troop down to the caff—suitably decorated for the occasion—for a glamorously late (seven-thirty is quite late for Maxton’s) dinner. With wine, for those who drink it.

  A resentful Pete Wexler has been drafted by Rebecca Vilas to bring in the deejay’s shit (Pete thinks of Henry as “the blind record-hopper”). Said shit consists of two speakers (very large), one turntable (light, but awkward as a motherfucker to carry), one preamp (very heavy), assorted wires (all tangled up, but that’s the blind record-hopper’s problem), and four boxes of actual records, which went out of style about a hundred years ago. Pete guesses that the blind record-hopper never heard a CD in his whole life.

  The last item is a suit bag on a hanger. Pete has peeked in and ascertained that the suit is white.

  “Hang it in there, please,” Henry says, pointing with unerring accuracy toward the supply closet that has been designated his dressing room.

  “Okay,” Pete says. “What exactly is it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Henry smiles. He knows perfectly well that Pete has already had a peep. He heard the plastic bag rattling and the zipper chinking in a duet that only occurs when someone pulls the bag away from the hanger at the neck. “Inside that bag, my friend, Symphonic Stan, the Big-Band Man, is just waiting for me to put him on and bring him to life.”

  “Oh, uh-huh,” Pete says, not knowing if he has been answered or not. All he’s really sure of is that those records were almost as heavy as the preamp. Someone should really give the blind record-hopper some information about CDs, the next great leap forward.

  “You asked me one; may I ask you one?”

  “Be my guest,” Pete says.

  “There appears to have been a police presence at Maxton Elder Care this afternoon,” the blind record-hopper says. “They’re gone now, but they were here when I arrived. What’s that about? There hasn’t been a robbery or an assault among the geriatrics, I hope?”

  Pete stops in his tracks beneath a large cardboard strawberry, holding the suit bag and looking at the blind record-hopper with an amazement Henry can almost touch. “How’d you know the cops were here?”

  Henry puts a finger to the side of his nose and tips his head to one side. He replies in a hoarse, conspiratorial whisper. “Smelled something blue.”

  Pete looks puzzled, debates whether or not to inquire further, and decides not to. Resuming his march toward the supply closet–dressing room, he says: “They’re playing it cagey, but I think they’re looking for another lost kid.”

  The look of amused curiosity fades from Henry’s face. “Good Christ,” he says.

  “They came and went in a hurry. No kids here, Mr . . . uh, Leyden?”

  “Leyden,” Henry confirms.

  “A kid in this place would stand out like a rose in a patch of poison ivy, if you know what I mean.”

  Henry doesn’t consider old folks in any way analogous to pois
on ivy, but he does indeed get Mr. Wexler’s drift. “What made them think—?”

  “Someone found sumpin’ on the sidewalk,” Pete says. He points out the window, then realizes the blind guy can’t see him pointing. Duh, as Ebbie would say. He lowers his hand. “If a kid got snatched, someone probably came along in a car and snatched him. No kidnapers in here, I can tell you that much.” Pete laughs at the very idea of a Maxton moldy oldie snatching any kid big enough to ride a bike. The kid would probably break the guy over his knee like a dry stick.

  “No,” Henry says soberly, “that hardly seems likely, does it?”

  “But I guess the cops got to dot all the t’s and cross all the i’s.” He pauses. “That’s just a little joke of mine.”

  Henry smiles politely, thinking that with some people, Alzheimer’s disease might be an actual improvement. “When you hang my suit up, Mr. Wexler, would you be so good as to give it a gentle shake? Just to banish any incipient wrinkles?”

  “Okay. Want me to take it out of the bag forya?”

  “Thanks, that won’t be necessary.”

  Pete goes into the supply closet, hangs up the suit bag, and gives it a little shake. Incipient, just what the hell does that mean? There’s a rudiment of a library here at Maxton’s; maybe he’ll look it up in the dictionary. It pays to increase your word power, as it says in the Reader’s Digest, although Pete doubts it will pay him much in this job.

  When he goes back out to the common room, the blind record-hopper—Mr. Leyden, Symphonic Stan, whoever the hell he is—has begun unraveling wires and plugging them in with a speed and accuracy Pete finds a trifle unnerving.

  Poor old Fred Marshall is having a terrible dream. Knowing it’s a dream should make it less horrible but somehow doesn’t. He’s in a rowboat with Judy, out on a lake. Judy is sitting in the bow. They are fishing. He is, at least; Judy is just holding her pole. Her face is an expressionless blank. Her skin is waxy. Her eyes have a stunned, hammered look. He labors with increasing desperation to make contact with her, trying one conversational gambit after another. None work. To make what is, under the circumstances, a fairly apt metaphor, she spits every lure. He sees that her empty eyes appear fixed on the creel sitting between them in the bottom of the boat. Blood is oozing through the wickerwork in fat red dribbles.