Canary (25 page)

Sean hesitated. “What about him?”

“Why is it you never mentioned that you and Bander had gotten back together?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Just tell me, Sean.”

“Because you two don't get along and I didn't want daily grief about my taste in lovers. Besides, my private life is just that.”

“How's it working out this time?” Valentine asked blandly.

Sean didn't reply immediately. “Who have you been talking to?”

Valentine hesitated, too. Then he said, “Press.”

Sean turned around to face Valentine. “Press? Just what
did
Press have to say about me?”

“He said you'd walked in this morning and found him in Bander's apartment and that Bander had set the whole thing up.” Valentine tried to gauge Sean's reaction to this, but the bartender's face was blank. “Also, I saw Press leave the lodge with Bander this afternoon.”

“Oh?” Sean looked confused.

“I was wondering how that made you feel—finding Bander sleeping with Press?”

“It made me feel lousy, that's how it felt, what do you think? It makes me feel pretty lousy to hear you talk about it right now. What's wrong with you, Daniel?”

“Somebody tried to kill Bander up at the lodge today.”

“What?” Sean exclaimed.

Valentine leaned over and snatched one of the neckties from the pile of clothing. He held it up. “With one of these.”

Sean stared at Valentine a long moment. “Who'd do that? I mean, who'd be stupid enough to kill somebody when there were people all over the place?”

“Exactly what I asked myself,” Valentine said. He tossed the necktie back onto the pile. “Why are you suddenly deciding to get rid of your ties, Sean?”

“I didn't
suddenly
decide to get rid of anything,” Sean replied sharply, stepping away from the revolving tapes. “Those clothes have been lying there for three days.”

Valentine held his closed hand out and then opened his fingers to reveal the small bottle cradled in his palm.

Sean's brow wrinkled. “What the hell is that?”

“Is that what you used to subdue your victims?”

“What?”

“You heard me, Sean.”

“This is crazy. What in hell are you accusing me of?”

Valentine stood. He moved away from the sofa, speaking rapidly but evenly as he did. “All of the murders were committed in the middle of the night, after the bars had closed. The victims were regulars at Slate, and they apparently knew their killer. Each murder took place within a half-mile radius of this building, Sean—of this apartment. The Fenway is less than fifteen minutes' walk down Marlborough Street. The building where B.J.'s two playmates were murdered is a couple of blocks in the other direction. Newt and Niobe live a block away from there. Beacon Hill's just a short distance beyond that. All-American Boy lived on the edge of the South End, just on the other side of Prudential Plaza. That makes a circle—with this apartment at the center.” He looked at the bottle in his hand. “This is the real key, though. This is really what's stymied the entire Boston police force for months.”

Sean stared at the bottle, then lifted his eyes to Valentine.

“You went after Bander in the forest today, didn't you? What you didn't count on was Clarisse also being in the forest, so you got the hell out of there and joined the contest just as you'd planned and nobody saw you—not even Bander.”

“You son of a bitch!” Sean hissed slowly. He stepped over to Valentine, pulling his arm and fist back. He swung, but Valentine darted to one side and landed his own fist into Sean's stomach. Sean groaned but did not buckle. In a deft flash of movement he swung his leg up, twisted his torso sharply to one side, and landed the flat of his foot into Valentine's solar plexus. Valentine tumbled back over the sofa and crashed to the floor on his back. The bottle flew from his hand and rolled across the carpet. Sean threw himself astride Valentine's chest and slammed his knees down, pinning his arms to the carpet. Sean took a deep breath, leaned back and grabbed one of the discarded neckties from the floor, and then pulled himself back over Valentine.

“You asked for this, Daniel. You really did.”

Sean unfurled the length of tie between his fists.

With an unexpected surge of energy, Valentine buckled his body up with such force that Sean was thrown sideways but not off of Valentine. Valentine pulled one arm free and clamped it down as hard as he could over the left side of Sean's collarbone. He dug his fingers into Sean's shoulder so hard that his knuckles whitened. Sean opened his mouth involuntarily, his body stiffened with a spasm, and then he went limp. He slid onto his side next to Valentine, eyes fanning shut. Valentine wasted no time pulling himself up to his knees. He bound Sean's wrists behind him with the necktie. From his back pocket he took his white bandanna and used it to gag Sean. He stood up, breathing hard, and looked down at his friend. Valentine ran the back of a sweaty hand across his mouth, aware now of a stinging sensation. His hand came away streaked with blood. His stomach buckled suddenly as nausea rose in his throat. Valentine choked and rushed down the hallway and swung into the bathroom. He vomited into the toilet. When he finished, he flushed, then leaned over the sink, twisting on the cold-water faucet to splash water across his face. He cupped one palm and took a drink of water. Nausea welled up again within him, and he stood to take a deep breath to steady himself. He stared unbelieving into the mirror.

Behind him stood Bander, holding a red-striped necktie stretched taut between his hands.

The tie was wound about Valentine's neck before he could turn. Both men slipped on the tile and went to the floor as Valentine grabbed at the tie binding his neck. Bander's breath was hot against his face as Valentine clenched his teeth. Guttural anger grated from Bander's throat.

“I'm going to kill you,” Bander rasped.

Valentine got two fingers beneath the cloth.

“Just like I killed the others,” Bander whispered.

Making a fist with one hand, Valentine brought it down like a hammer into Bander's groin. Bander yelped in agony. The tie loosened as he doubled forward. Valentine seized the edge of the sink and pulled himself to his feet. Bander grabbed Valentine's ankle, and he plummeted over Bander's prostrate body into the hallway, going down on one knee. In a flash, Bander was atop him again. Valentine pushed to his feet, and the two struggled down the length of the hall into the living room. Bander was on his knees behind Valentine, the tie once more fast about Valentine's neck, the ends yanked taut.

“I'm going to enjoy doing it to you—”

Valentine crawled forward, but every inch of progress he made only drew the garotte tighter. He could get no breath into his lungs. Behind him, Bander rose slowly to his feet.

“—just like I enjoyed doing it to the others.”

Suddenly, without warning, the tie loosened about Valentine's neck. Sean, on his back behind Bander, had raised his feet and kicked his heels back. An expression of surprise streaked Bander's face as he reeled crazily over Valentine and fell heavily into the coffee table. The glass top shattered beneath his weight. One long jagged edge of glass sliced cleanly across his throat. A jet of blood made an arc and splashed horizontally across Valentine's chest and face. Blood pulsed out of a severed artery in Bander's neck as he slumped lifelessly to the floor.

Valentine rolled over and pulled the gag out of Sean's mouth. He unbound his tied wrists.

“I just want to know,” Valentine said harshly, “how we're going to convince the police that it wasn't
us
who killed Bander just now.”

“I
T'S ALL ON TAPE,”
Valentine explained.

“Lucky for us,” Sean replied.

“Lucky for
all
of us,” Clarisse said. “Val! Stop pulling away or I'll never get this to stop bleeding.” She dabbed a damp cloth against his badly scraped temple.

Valentine, Clarisse, and Sean were in Valentine's office above the Slate barroom. It was after one o'clock in the morning. Less than fifteen minutes earlier the two men had returned from police headquarters on Berkeley Street where they'd been questioned and then signed statements about what had taken place in Sean's apartment. Before they left the station, Valentine had called Clarisse to tell her briefly what had happened. She met them at the door and took them to the office, where she'd laid out medicine, bandage, and bowl to tend Valentine's wound.

Valentine rested back in his swivel desk chair while Clarisse hovered over him ministering to his injury. Valentine's shirt still bore the wide, jagged stain of Bander's blood. Sean sat on the other side of the desk in one of the wingback chairs.

Clarisse was already showing the signs of the bad sunburn she had predicted for herself. Her face and arms were crimson and contrasted starkly with her white blouse and white linen slacks. Behind her on the green desk blotter was a pale blue porcelain bowl of water lightly stained with Valentine's blood, a bottle of iodine, scissors, and several lengths of cut gauze and wide adhesive tape. Clarisse dropped the cloth onto the blotter and uncapped the iodine.

“Val, take your hands away from your face,” Clarisse said patiently. “This'll only sting for a minute, and the pain won't begin to compare with an attempted strangulation. Thank you. All I can say, Sean,” she resumed, “is thank God you decided to record your apartment noises and that Bander didn't know you were doing it.”

“That tape is the only thing between us and a manslaughter charge,” Valentine said as he grimaced.

“On the other hand,” Clarisse mused as she replaced the iodine cap, “I've always thought it would be quite romantic to visit someone in prison every month. Talking through wire, baking cakes, and so forth.”

“You're a source of undying strength in times of adversity, do you know that, Lovelace?”

“Turn the other cheek.” She folded and pressed a strip of gauze to his temple and then taped it neatly into place. “Sean, I think you ought to stay at my place tonight. I know the name of a professional cleaning crew—they specialize in homicide moppings up.”

Clarisse ran her fingertips over the last piece of tape and then moved around the desk between the two men. She sat on the edge and crossed her legs.

“So, I was wrong,” she admitted. “No one tried to kill Bander in the forest today?”

“No. I'm sure he saw you go into the woods and followed you, with the full intent of wanting to murder you. Something—someone,” Valentine corrected himself, “scared him off that idea.”

“Father McKimmon,” Clarisse speculated, “who was in the woods looking for his lost rosary.”

“Probably,” Sean said.

“At any rate,” said Valentine, “Bander changed his plan. He tried to make it look as if someone had attacked
him
. A perfect chance for him to throw us off his track. It's hardly been a secret we've been looking into these murders.”

“I should have realized that,” Clarisse said. “Because if someone
had
tried to strangle him, he'd have had a case of ring around the neck like yours. Also, when he got up off the ground, I brushed some twigs off his back. But there weren't any dirt or grass stains—there would have been if he'd been struggling.”

Valentine nodded.

“How much do you think Father McKimmon saw of any of that?” Sean asked.

Clarisse shrugged. “My guess is that he saw enough that the cops will want to talk to him, if he isn't holed up somewhere desperately trying to induce alcoholic amnesia, which is exactly what I strongly suspect he's doing at this moment.” She looked at Sean again. “I'm still not clear on why Bander was at your apartment tonight. I thought you'd never speak to him again after what he'd done with Press.”

“He called and said he wanted to talk, to explain some things. He'd just gotten there a few minutes before you arrived, Val. When you called up on the intercom, Bander just said he didn't want to see you, which I didn't think was strange. He asked me to get rid of you as quick as I could, and then he went to wait in the bathroom until you did leave.”

“If you knew Bander was just down the hall, why didn't you call for help when you and Val got into a fight?” Clarisse asked.

Sean shrugged. “Because it was between Daniel and me. I wasn't really going to strangle you, you know. I just wanted you to realize how stupid it was for you to suspect me.”

Valentine nodded.

“God,” Sean said, and rested his head back, gazing at the ceiling, “all this time Bander and I were sleeping together he was murdering people—friends of mine. All this time and I never suspected a thing. He never let his guard down once.” Sean looked at Valentine. “How did he manage to get away with it for so long?”