Shudder (21 page)

David opened the letter from Andy. It was good news, as far as news went.

After carefully sifting through the images made by the working cameras in the neighborhoods where Georgette and Jane used to live, Fortham had managed to locate a vehicle, which could be that of the killer, and what looked like the killer himself.

Probably. Hopefully.

The figure was with its back to the camera the whole time. Did it look like Mister Greenpants? Could be.

Dave's phone rang.

“Andy. What's up?”

“Lots of things,” said Andy in a strange voice, “want me to take you out to lunch?”

“Er...okay. Is anything wrong?”

“I'll tell you over lunch. I'll come and get you in ten minutes.”

“Jeez, you're scaring me.”

“That's nothing. You just wait until we sit down somewhere.”

“Heh, okay,” Dave said with an uncertain smile, “I'm here.”

“Okay, bye.”

Now what? Dave massaged his neck for a while, got dressed, and went outside his office building. He looked at the pedestrians, exchanged a few promising glances with a hurrying MILF and two teens who walked past him arm in arm.

The curse of the eternal puberty.

After two more minutes Andy popped up, making his way through a group of white-collar men with shiny black shoes. “Let's go to the Ham Hamlet,” he said without any preliminaries, his gaze furtive.

* * * *

“I'll have the chicken soup and a green salad,” Andy told the hovering waiter.

Dave raised an eyebrow. “Are you on a diet?”

“No, just not very hungry you know. The stomach is a bit tightened right now.” This explanation was given through a rather tensed mouth.

“Hmm,” Dave said and felt a flash of indecision about the greasy bacon he was just about to order.

A premonition of something appetite-killing was summoned by Andy's demeanor. Dave looked up at the waiter's face, “I'll have the same. Soup, salad, and a Heineken.”

The waiter nodded and strutted off. Dave looked at Andy.

His friend was obviously wound up tight, and at the same time trying not to show it too much. However, his cheekbones were frozen, betraying the tension in the jaw muscles, and there was a slight slouch in his shoulders; even as he sat there he was slightly stooping as a man does when unconsciously expecting an imminent physical attack.

Andy's broad shoulders looked thin for some reason, as if his red pullover was pulled over his bare bones.

He doesn't get enough exercise
, Dave thought.
Such a nice figure should be easily filled up with muscle mass and he's letting it go to waste
.

“So, Mister Fartham,” he asked. “Why are we here?”

Andy chewed on a lip, “Because I have a paranoia of being bugged.”

“Really? Even in my office?”

“Even in your office.”

Things were that serious. Dave pondered for a second, “Then I suppose we should switch off our phones as well. I heard they can be used for bugging people.”

“Good idea,” Andy reached into his jacket pocket, took out his phone and with a sorrowful bleep it went to sleep.

Dave did the same. He made eye contact with Andy. Andy let out a huff of air as in ‘right, let's begin', but didn't.

“Right, let's begin,” Dave said.

“I'll start rather from faraway, if you don't mind,” said Andy watching something out of the corner of his eye.

It was the waiter. He left the beers, putting the wrong bottle in front of each of the two servants of the law. They exchanged bottles and Andy had a quick drink from the neck of the bottle, as was his custom, before pouring it into his glass. He didn't mind the beer foam, so his manner of pouring was straight down.

Unlike him, Dave held his glass tilted at forty degrees and poured his Heineken slowly. He didn't like froth.

“So,” Andy said, “I tracked down the car seen in the camera.”

“Good.”

“Not good. It was reported stolen three months ago. I had a brain flash and cross-checked with the vandalized cars list.”

“And?”

“It was found two days ago, burnt out at the edge of town. Near the old dairy.”

“Never heard of it. Whatever; sucks about the car. Sounded like a lead.”

“You don't say. I got my assistant to look through what the cameras at the other crime scenes have caught, and we found another car,” Andy continued to no exhibit any happiness at this list of successes, “A Magma. Also reported stolen half a year ago. Also found burnt out about a week ago.”

“Are you telling me our man buys stolen cars, and gets rid of them after each crime?” Dave screwed up his face in dislike and slight envy. “That's a lot of money he's blowing on his evil hobby.”

“Right, that's what I thought as well,” agreed Andy immediately, “the guy has a lot of money and doesn't mind throwing it away.”

“Ah, the soups,” Dave said. The waiter put down the two chicken soups. Andy reached for the black pepper, and Dave reached for the salt. While they were exchanging the spices, the salads arrived as well.

Andy swirled the soup with his spoon, releasing a pleasant smell, and tasted it. “Not bad, not bad at all, actually,” he said. “Anyway. Today we got the report back from the forensic boys at Bayer's.”

“They found something?”

“Yes. Only one thing, and only at the very last crime scene. Jane, if you remember.”

“Yes, of course I remember. What did they find?”

“They found a human hair. An eyelash to be exact. There was nothing else, not even normal dust, the bastard cleans thoroughly before leaving, but they found the eyelash. A male eyelash.”

This last bit did not faze Dave in the least. He had expected the perp to be male. “And?”

“I ran it through the DNA data base and found a match.”

Dave studied Andy, “You don't seem to be euphoric about it though.”

“You're right, I'm not.”

Andy leaned forward, darting glances left and right, “The DNA match is with Joshua Eysenck.”

“Name doesn't ring a bell.”

“We'll see if this rings a bell. His father is Roderik Eysenck.”

Dave choked on his soup, “Minister Eysenck?.”

“Not so loud, for Christ's sake,” Andy hissed. “Yes, exactly, Minister Eysenck. He ain't a minister for four years—he's a senator now.”

“Yeah, I remember him. He was the one who pushed through the last outsourcing of the police, wasn't he?”

“That's the man.”

“Shit. Well, where do we stand then?”

“We stand in shit up to our necks, Dave. He's got a terrific pull. He could squash us. No, he won't even squash us, he'll squish us. Like bugs.”

Dave saw that Andy meant every word. “We have evidence, don't we?”

“First of all, I don't know how strong his connections are. Maybe if he gives the word the evidence and the correspondence concerning it will disappear tomorrow and everyone will swear it never existed.”

“Wow.”

“Yes, wow. Second, even if the evidence is still there—we still don't have anything. Out of three cases that we know of, we only found one eyelash at one place. This is far from enough. You know what will happen. He'll say that this is all a clumsy attempt at framing his son. He'll say that the police are playing a political game. He'll ask questions in the Senate.”

Andy clutched his spoon with sudden savagery, “You can bet that Daddy will give his son an iron cast alibi for each of the days we are looking for. No one will want to touch this case with only one eyelash to go on.”

A moment of silence ensued. The sounds of the Ham Hamlet flooded back in.

“Then we must find more evidence,” Dave said.

“Yes, we must find more evidence. We have to be very careful about it.”

Now David was grateful for the soup. His own stomach was also now capable only of absorbing unobtrusive warm greasy water without outright mutiny.

Anton's car left the boundaries of the city. Soon the traffic on the highway thinned out, and after twenty miles, they reached the first hints of forest.

Natalie sat slouched, uncommunicative, not paying attention to anything, her eyes focused on the glove compartment.

Anton pressed a button and the side windows crept lower obediently. The air stung their faces and whispered with a promise of snow.

It was soon fulfilled.

As the car climbed further up the road, calm, gaunt pines superseded their more colorful broad-leaved brethren. Here the first glistening patches of snow appeared among the dead-looking grass and the hardened mud.

“Dad, it's cold,” Natalie said, looking with distaste at the drab panorama. The road had leveled out again, but they had already reached the altitude of the season's first snow.

Anton darted a look at his daughter and raised her window shut, but left a two inch opening on his side. Through this thin entrance air currents worried Anton's hair.

Natalie understood that Anton had wanted to get her out of the city because he associated the city with stress and the countryside with relaxation, but for her the surrounding nature was not really less threatening than the urbanscapes they had just left behind. The lack of straight lines made the desolation more organic is all.

She suppressed a shiver and returned to gazing at the glove compartment. Focusing on one immobile point helped her keep in check the nausea encouraged by the car's oily movements.

After another hour Anton transferred the car onto a modest driveway, following it they passed a sloping garden that would not awake again until spring, and pulled over by the hotel.

It was a white, two story wooden building, with a row of ten balconies on the second floor.

Natalie knew that the first floor housed only the reception lobby and the restaurant. She knew this, because she recognized the hotel.

“Aw, Dad.” She looked at him smiling for some reason, even a trifle bashfully. “I know this place. This is the ‘Ortega'. I haven't been here since I was little.”

Anton withdrew his gaze from the looming mountains and grinned at her, “I still come here from time to time. Mister Guerrero still runs the place. Alone now. Mrs. Guerrero passed away five years ago.”

They piled out of the car and took their luggage. A mere two travel bags and a backpack. Anton leaned on the trunk until it clicked shut and looked at his daughter. Already she was in somewhat better spirits.

The front door was a wooden grid of ten-inch squares of smoky green glass. A real small bell rang too, pushed by the door as it opened. Anton walked in, held the door for Natalie, and then closed it with a soft creak, agitating the bell once more.

They walked along the carpet covering the wooden floor to the reception.

There was no one there, but a shout of “Coming,” was heard from the direction of the restaurant.

A fat man emerged, an old fat man, who still had large tufts of black hair left on his head, and blue, carelessly shaven double chins, which kept a habitual smile.

It was Mister Guerrero.

Even before he reached them, he spouted his welcoming tirade, laced with apologetic nuances for him not being at the reception desk. “Hello, welcome, glad, of course, sorry, a pie, lunch, mountains, season, not many people, city,” was what could be heard from his torrent of greetings, before he recognized Anton.

“Mister Martorino, so good to see you.” He slapped his hands together, “I did not expect you before the summer.”

Anton nodded towards Natalie, “This is my daughter, if you remember her.”

“Of course, little
bella
Natalie. How you loved my cat. Dead long ago, I'm afraid. Do you want some lunch, or the rooms directly?”

Anton looked at Natalie. She needed rest. She needed many hours of sleep in an environment without the constant buzz of the accumulated city sounds, and she needed a few fortifying breakfasts, lunches and dinners, if she was to stabilize.

She still looked far too highly strung to be able to sleep well, or to eat heartily. Anton thought of the forests and meadows around the small hotel. “We'll leave our bags here, Mister Guerrero, if that's all right, and we'll take a walk around the hotel first. To breathe some fresh air, work up an appetite.”

“Of course, Mister Martorino, in how much time should the lunch be ready? I have a new cook, Maria, her cooking is fantastic,” announced Mister Guerrero and failed to kiss the tips of his fingers, thereby shattering a number of clichés; instead he used the fingers to enumerate, “for today we have the bean soup, the pork with cabbage and a lovely liver pie.”

“We'll be back in an hour, or an hour and a half. We'll have the soup and the pork,” Anton said. “Any chance of a fruit salad?”

“Of course,” assured him the owner, darting pleasing glances both at the albino and at his black daughter. “The classical Ortega fruit salad, with the whole lot—the pineapples, the mango, the oranges...”

“Splendid, splendid. Two salads as well then,” Anton said and took out his phone to check the time.

Guerrero looked at the huge clock above the reception desk, “It is now almost one o'clock Mister Martorino, I will tell Maria to prepare your salad at two o'clock, it will wait for you, and the moment you start eating it, she will put on the soup and the pork.”

“Thank you, Mister Guerrero,” Anton flashed one last smile and turned towards Natalie. “Take the thick pullover from your bag and let's go.”

* * * *

As they walked slowly through the forest, the fringes of the wide path littered with pine needles, twigs, and the occasional pinecone, Anton looked at his daughter and pondered.

Not only did she look dangerously thin. She also looked haggard, drawn, as if her whole life energy was draining away from some hole in her being.

“How are you sleeping lately, Natalie?” he asked finally, immediately patting himself for some cigarettes to help him go through with the conversation.

“Bad,” Natalie said with a rueful smirk.

“Explain.”

She met his eyes for a second, evaluating whether to really tell him, “I feel figures in my home, Dad, in my room.”

“Hmm,” Anton frowned. “What sort of figures?”

“Huge bad figures.” She almost screamed and stopped. She stood with her back to Anton, her shoulders heaving.

She was crying.

Anton hugged her from behind. “Shh, shh. It's okay, Natalie. It's okay,” he muttered and blew warm air into her scalp. This had calmed her down since she was a kid.

“That's just hypnagogia, my child,” he said in reassuring, confident tone. “Nothing to get excited about.”

“What? What did you call this?” Her shoulders tensed at the hope of explanation.

“Hypnagogia.” Anton cleared his throat. “I suppose you lie paralyzed in your bed, when the figures appear.”

“Yes, yes I do,” she turned to him.

He let go, took a step back and finally lit a cigarette, “That's a mechanism of the body, Natalie. When we sleep, we dream. So that we don't hurt ourselves—like trying to really run when we are running in our dreams—the body remains in dream paralysis. Sometimes, the brain wakes up in a way, but the body is still paralyzed.”

“The figures were not a dream,” she insisted softly.

“These are early imprints,” Anton said with authority, “nothing more.”

He took a drag from his cigarette and let the smoke out of his nostrils. He flicked the cigarette's rear with a thumb and flakes of gray ash broke off, floating away to his right, to land somewhere among the needle leaves.

“Many people have hypnagogic episodes. The figures you see are just residual images from the past. Like doctors looking at you when you have just been born or were sick as a baby. Many people hallucinate in later life being examined or operated upon by immensely powerful entities.”

“They don't operate on me, Daddy. They...” Natalie's voice trailed away and she sobbed again.

Anton understood. He thought frantically how to word something soothing.

“Up to four in ten women tend to have hypnagogic episodes, in which they lie paralyzed in their beds and someone or something is having sex with them. Why do you think all this paranormal romance crud is such a hit? In the past people thought these were evil spirits, the succubus and the incubus, who come to drain the sleeper.”

“What are they, Daddy?” the frail, black girl asked. Her frail black fists clenched, trembling.

“As I said—residual images.” He arched his eyebrows and lifted a hand in order to convey that he was merely speculating, “You know, maybe something which happened in your past.”

He hated lying, but she just wasn't ready to know the full truth yet. “Maybe you were drunk or drugged on some party and a bunch of guys took advantage of that, and you don't consciously remember it. The ghost images of that event are now showing up.”

“What? You think so?” Natalie looked like she was authentically trying to accept this rational explanation. The wind brought again the aroma of new snow. Trees creaked. The comforting drone of a woodpecker at work drifted out of somewhere.

Half an hour later they had returned to the ‘Ortega', and were having lunch. Anton smiled as he saw Natalie eat first almost all of her fruit salad and then almost a whole bowl of soup.