Razzamatazz (A Crime Novel) (11 page)

A roll of nausea eddied through him, and he dropped his head between his knees. When that had passed he sat up slowly, only to have dizziness overtake him. His mind whirled round and round like a dancer gone mad. Then the pains began. First in his elbows, sharp and piercing, then moving on down his arms, jumping to his thighs, knees, calves, shooting through his feet, exiting from his toes.

It was subsiding. His breathing slowed, began to come more regularly. The dizziness had narrowed, the nausea gone. He had to open his eyes, see that he existed. Slowly he pushed up his lids, the long lashes forming a scrim. He opened them further, until his eyes took in the room. His desk, chair, typewriter were all in place. The walls were straight.

Holding out his hand, he saw that there was only a slight tremor now. He felt as if the attack had gone on for hours, but experience told him this wasn't true. Looking at his watch he saw that only seven minutes had elapsed. Mark had never witnessed one of his panic attacks, and Colin was grateful he'd been able to get out of his office before it was too late.

In comparison to others, this attack had been fairly mild. He'd had the first one when he was twenty-seven, following his father's hideous death. Edward Maguire had been a doctor. At the age of fifty-two, when he developed cancer, he refused treatment. Instead, he stayed at home and slowly disintegrated.

Both Colin and his brother, Brian, had been summoned home for the last week of their father's life. It had been a nightmare. Edward's screams precluded sleep. They tried to get him into a hospital, but he refused. None of them dared defy him, even in his weakened, pitiful state.

"It's my punishment," he'd said." God's punishment."

But when Colin tried to pursue it, Edward looked at him with glazed eyes and declined to answer. After he was dead, Colin asked his mother what his father had meant.

"Ask Robin," she'd advised.

Colin did ask her. Robin Wise had been his father's nurse for twenty years and his mistress for seventeen.

It was after the funeral and he'd spoken to Robin that he'd had his first attack. Although it frightened him, he thought it was understandable considering the strain of that final week and the revelation of his father's affair. He dismissed it from his mind. Nothing like it happened again until after the murders of his family. Then the attacks became constant and relentless. When he'd finally faced that he couldn't go on that way, he'd left Chicago and gone to live with his mother. It was there he'd found Dr. Safier. The first six months he had his sessions on the telephone, afraid to leave his mother's house for fear of an attack. Eventually he was able to travel to Safier's office by car.

Here in Seaville he felt safe almost anywhere. If panic seized him he could always leave a room, a restaurant, a party. He was able to travel up and down the Fork, but the fear of becoming hysterical and causing a scene kept him from riding in a car with another person. Safier was in New Jersey, so he was back to having phone sessions; fortunately, he had one tonight.

But before that he had to write the goddamn story. The goddamn fucking story about murder.

He had forty-seven minutes.

LOOKING BACK
—75 YEARS AGO

Jimmie Hand of Seaville and a young lady—it wouldn't be nice to mention her name—were thrown from their carriage while driving one night this week, by being run into by another vehicle. If the young man had looked after the ribbons instead of the waist, things might have been different. But then maybe it was worth it.

THIRTEEN

He couldn't believe how stupid and gullible they were. Or how easy this whole thing was going to be. He had nine more to go in this grouping. Then he'd start again.

He remembered all those years when he'd been planning it; he'd been scared. Now it just made him laugh. What the hell had he been afraid of, anyway? There was nothing to fear. I'm a steamroller, baby. And speaking of babies—that was a good one. He couldn't stop laughing. Laugh and laugh and laugh. It felt good to laugh. Some people didn't think so. Some people punished you if you laughed too much. Or too loud. Some damn people hit you if you laughed. But not Mommy and Daddy. They never hit.

So two down, nine to go! What a holiday weekend he was going to give them. One they wouldn't forget, for sure, for sure.

Damn fucks. Always asking him what he was thinking. Which ones were the worst? Maybe the ones when he was twelve. Always bugging him. Questions, questions, questions. They didn't even know how smart he was. Nobody knew that. It was hard to be so smart. Hard to have friends when you're so smart. People get jealous. Jealousy is the worst sin. Worse than anything, they told him. Told him that. Told him. You're just jealous, they said. Stupid. They were the ones who were jealous because he was so smart.

But you'd have to be smart to work this thing out. He'd been planning forever, it seemed. Planning and planning. Diagrams and names. Taking his time. But time is on my side cause this is the right time of year. Years and years of careful study. You can pull the wool over anybody's eyes if you have patience and cunning. Cunning. He'd heard that one, all right. What a cunning little boy he is.

So cunning they beat the shit out of him. Scars to prove it, buster.

You'd better believe it. Right. Yo. All right. Cat-o'-nine-tails. Fists. Belts. Razor strops. You name it, he'd had it. Didn't faze him. Not him. Wouldn't cry. Planned instead. Resolve. He resolved to do it. Do it. Kill them. Every last stinking one of them. He didn't know it would be such easy work. Such enjoyable work. Not like work at all. More like play. Fun. And I'll have fun, fun, fun.

Enough. Get down to work, you. Fooling around, all the time, all the time. Got to plan it out right. Friday night. Music soothes the savage beast. Ha. Music is his name. Musical accompaniment. Music to kill by. Shit, don't start the fucking laughing again. How can he help it when he's so goddamn funny? Keep a civil tongue in your head, boy. Get out the diagrams, the charts. See who's next. He knows who's next.

This one is really going to get them. Really get them. Blow them out of their socks. Blow them from here to kingdom come. Blow, Gabriel, blow. Who did it? they'll ask. Who could do such a thing? they'll say. Who? What beast? What maniac? What brilliant mind could conceive such a thing?

And I'm the last one. The last chance, the last rose of summer, the last Mohican, the last supper, the last killer, the last suspect. I'm the last one they'd ever suspect. Perfect. That's me.

LOOKING BACK—25 YEARS AGO

At about the mystic hour of midnight on Monday, a woman bit a cop instead of biting a dog, and in addition the fracas occurred in front of the Seaville police station. Patrolmen Bob Phillips and Pete Shaw were just relieving each other when they heard a terrific crash in the municipal parking site as a motor car backed into a parked truck. A woman driver refused to get out of the car and was abusive to the officers. The woman then fell out of the car. As Patrolman Phillips endeavored to help her up she turned and bit him in the right thigh so severely that he was attended by a physician.

FOURTEEN

Chuck Higbee was almost overwhelmed by his sense of well-being. You just don't always feel this good, he thought. And then he wondered if he was going to have to pay. It was stupid but that's the way his mind went. You get something good, you have to pay for it. Maybe with a disease, or could be you lose your wallet. He'd been given a raise that morning, twenty dollars more a week. Sally'd been real pleased, rubbed up against him in the kitchen, promising more to come later.

So now he and Sal and the kids were walking down Main Street toward the bank parking lot where the first band concert of the season was being held. They always went to the first one, some of the others, and always the last. The band wasn't great, but it was fun sitting there with friends taking in the night air, listening to renditions of "Oklahoma!" or "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and ushering in the Memorial Day weekend. Still, Chuck couldn't shake the feeling that he was going to have to pay somehow. It was a dumb superstition, but he guessed he didn't lick it off the ground; his parents talked about paying for what you get in this world all the time.

Of course their big example was the fire. Ed Higbee had just gotten a bank loan for the farm, so he and Rosie went out celebrating, dancing at the new club in town, and the damn place caught fire. There was panic and, although his parents had gotten out, Ed had third-degree burns on his right arm and part of his back. So they were always talking about how they had had to pay a lot more than interest on that farm loan.

And what about his own life? The same day he'd gotten his job with the bank he and Sal had found out that their six-month-old, Mary Beth, was hydrocephalic. How's that for paying dues? Sure, it turned out okay, she had the shunt operation and it was successful, but there were some hairy days in there.

Chuck looked down at Mary Beth, five now, and as cute a little girl as he'd ever seen. She looked like her mom, big brown eyes, and yellow curls the color of buttercups, and just as healthy as she could be. He squeezed the little hand in his.

"What, Daddy?" Mary Beth asked.

"Hi, cutie," he said.

"Hi."

"Love you."

"Love you, too."

Katie, his older daughter, peeked at him from the other side of Sally.

"Love you, too, Katie-did."

She grinned, showing the gap in her teeth where she'd lost a front one last week. Chuck couldn't believe how big she was getting. Eight next month.

Funny, but he never thought he liked kids. Now the sun rose and set on his two girls. His three girls. Sal, too. If anything happened to any of them he just didn't know what he'd do. Aunt Addy's ass, he was depressing. Here he gets a raise they desperately needed, and all he can do is think morbid stuff. Well, maybe it was the murders getting to him. He'd forbidden Sally to go out alone at night. They'd had a big fight about it, too. Finally they compromised, and he'd driven her and Ann Shepp to their exercise class and Dan Shepp brought them home. Yeah, it was probably the murders making him so morbid and creepy.

"What's wrong, Chuck?" Sally asked. "You got a funny look on your face."

"It's just my regular ugly puss, Sal, nothing new."

"Some ugly puss," she said, and gave him a wink.

Chuck knew Sally thought he was a looker—like Burt Reynolds, she was always saying. It made him feel good even if it wasn't true.

As they turned into Center Street they saw people heading toward the parking lot and could hear the musicians tuning up. Hell, Chuck thought, I'm going to cut this bullshit and just have a good time. I got a raise I deserved and nothing bad is going to happen, nothing at all.

Colin sat on the cement wall on the right of the parking lot. The band was playing "In the Good Old Summertime" and the whole thing made him feel good, better than he had in awhile. He guessed it reminded him of when he was a kid, and they had concerts like this behind Our Lady of Sorrows school. He and Brian and his mother always went to them, and afterwards she'd take them both to Grunning's for an ice-cream cone. He always had black raspberry.

Looking around he saw a lot of kids with their parents. Phil Nagle and his family; the Higbees and their two girls; Jake, his mailman, and a couple of boys who looked just like him. The place was loaded with kids. Mark and Sarah were there too, sitting in the center section with Kristen and Brent. Colin had forgotten to bring his own chair, the way you were supposed to, so he couldn't sit with the Griffings. They'd meet up afterwards and go to the Paradise, get cones for the kids. Colin wondered if the Paradise had black raspberry. Mark had told him the band was nothing to write home about, but that he always went to the opener for support and he liked his staff to turn out as well. So here he was banging his heels against a cement wall in time to "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?" He'd been surprised at how many people showed up. There must have been about two hundred. Mostly couples with little kids, a few teenagers, and a lot of senior citizens.

Colin spotted Tug Wilson, head of the historical society, and there was that guy who confessed to everything. Carl Gildersleeve was here with Grace. And the veterinarian; Steve Cornwell, the real estate agent who'd gotten him his house; the owner of Van Duzer's and his wife; the barber; Betty Mills, the librarian; Doug Corwin and Elaine; Ray Chute; and Pete Volinski from Rotary. And who was that waving to him? Oh, yeah, Burton Kelly from the electric company. It made Colin feel good to recognize so many people, as if he really belonged. Another reason he was feeling good was because Mark had finally apologized to him. Of course, the other thing he'd told him hadn't made him feel so hot. Still, the apology was welcome.

It had been a lousy week at the paper, with him and Mark only speaking when necessary. He'd written the story about the murders and he knew it was damn good. Mark hadn't said a word until this morning when he came into Colin's office.

"Good story you wrote, pal."

"Thanks."

"Really good. Gritty. You know what I mean?"

"I think so."

"I got about thirty calls complaining about it."

"I had twenty-six," Colin said.

"Fifty-six calls, that has to mean it's a good story."

They both laughed.

"Susan Harrison said she thought it was outrageous that we'd print such a graphic story because what if her four-year-old got hold of it? I asked her could her four-year-old read? She said no but what if he could?"

They laughed again, and as if it were a sign of forgiveness, Mark sat down.

"Hey, Colin," he said soberly, "this is nuts, you know. I mean the way we've been this week. I know these murders, writing the story, must've been tough for you. I'm really sorry."

"It's okay."

"No, don't. I was an asshole." Mark ran both palms over his hair, front to back, then let his hands linger on his shoulders as though he were holding onto himself. "I was in a shitty mood that day and, I don't know, I guess I just took it out on you."