The Third Victim (16 page)

“How long have you and your husband been separated, Mrs. Rossiter?” He stood with his arms folded high across his barrel chest—as headsmen stood at the block, waiting for the executioner’s signal. Connoly’s arms were short and thick, muscle-bulging the thin fabric of his summer suit. For the first time, she realized that he was perspiring; his whole face was sweat-glazed. Somehow it helped, seeing this menacing man perspire.

“We’ve been separated about two months,” she answered. Then, spontaneously: “Why?”

Ignoring the question, he said, “Your husband visited you a little after eleven o’clock. After you and your son were in bed. Is that right?”

“That’s right. But—”

“You weren’t expecting him, were you?” It was more an accusation than a question.

“Well, no. But I—”

“Mrs. Rossiter…” As he said it, Connoly moved a half step toward her. The tempo of his speech quickened, but its pitch remained the same: tonelessly accusing. “As you can imagine, I’m pretty busy, and that’s putting it mildly. So I’m going to put it to you straight.” He gravely paused, plainly for emphasis. “I’m wondering whether your husband could have been the one under your window. Then, when your neighbor saw him, your husband decided to cry wolf. He could have—”

“But that—that’s incredible. Wh—why would Kevin do that?”

Connoly shrugged. “He’d been drinking, hadn’t he?”

“Yes, but—”

“He probably felt, ah, stimulated. Maybe, when he saw your lights off, he decided to knock on your window, instead of ringing the bell. Wouldn’t that make sense?”

“But that’s not what he said. You—you’re accusing Kevin of lying.”

Ignoring the point, Connoly asked, “Have you noticed anything else unusual lately, Mrs. Rossiter? Anything at all that might tie in with what happened last night?”

“I—” Looking away, she bit her lip. This was her chance. Even though it might bring the police poking into her life, it was her chance to tell it all—everything. She could let this stolid, flat-voiced man decide how much was hysteria.

“Well?”

Aware that her hesitation, eyes helplessly averted, had already committed her, she quickly described how she’d found the switch-blade knife.

“Where is the knife now?” It was a crisp question. Now Connoly’s manner was brisk, all business.

“It’s at home. I put it up in the kitchen cupboard. Up high.”

“Does anyone know it’s there? Anyone at all, besides yourself?”

“No.”

He nodded thoughtfully, considered for a moment, then asked, “Where’s your husband now, Mrs. Rossiter?”

“He—he’s probably at home. My place, I mean. He’s fixing my car.”

“All right. Good.” Connoly turned to the door, reaching for the knob. “We’ll check this out, Mrs. Rossiter.”

“But—” She stepped forward. “But I don’t understand. Wh—what’re you going to check out? Are you going to question Kevin? Is that what you mean?”

With the door open, Connoly turned to face her. “In this business, Mrs. Rossiter, we check everything out. And what we’ve got here are two unexplained incidents, both possibly involving your husband.”

“But that’s not true. He had nothing to do with the knife. And he didn’t do anything wrong last night, either. Just because no one else saw the prowler, that’s no reason to—”

“Mrs. Rossiter.” Connoly’s manner was impatient. Politely long-suffering, but nevertheless impatient. “Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that we should find your husband’s fingerprints on that knife.”

“But—”

Connoly raised a hand. “Just assume.”

“Well, he—he knows about the knife. I mean, I told him about it, last night. So—”

Again Connoly’s hand came up. “You just said, though, that he doesn’t know where you hid it. You told him about the knife, but not about its location. Isn’t that true?”

“Well, yes.”

Connoly nodded. “Good. Then we agree.”

“B—but we
don’t.
I mean, I don’t see why, suddenly, the knife is so important.”

Connoly was stepping out into the hallway, drawing the door shut as he went. “Physical evidence, Mrs. Rossiter,” he said briefly. “In my business, physical evidence is the name of the game. Thanks again.”

She was standing in the center of her office, staring at the closed door.

Why was it then, when she heard Connoly articulate the same fears she’d felt last night, the detective’s suspicions seemed so obscene?

Kevin watched Cathy fling herself into a chrome-and-leather director’s chair. She was wearing a shorty nightgown and a bikini bottom. Under the sheer nightgown, her torso was bare. She’d been in bed when he’d come in. While he’d stood irresolutely before her closed bedroom door, he’d heard a sudden movement within. A moment later, the door had burst open. Furious, she’d stalked past him, into the living room. Her shoulder had brushed hard against his chest, throwing him off balance.

“I just don’t understand this,” she said. “I mean, I
really
don’t understand it. You stomp out last night like a—a pissed-off sophomore. Then, an hour or so later, you call to tell me that you’re spending the night with your wife. And then you get me out of bed this morning to explain what you did. Frankly, I’d rather be sleeping.”

“Now, listen.” He pointed to the bedroom. “It just so happens that I’ve got some clothes in there. All my clothes, in fact. Some of which I need.”

“What’d you do, get drunk and fall into a grease pit?”

“No. I finished repairing my wife’s—my—car, Which I started working on yesterday, if you remember.”

“It turned out to be an all-night job,” she said acidly. “Is that it?”

“No, that’s
not
it. I—” Angered, he broke off. Then: “I didn’t come here to—to grovel, Cathy. I didn’t come here to explain myself, either. No explanations’re necessary. My wife had a prowler. She was scared. My kid was scared, too. So I stayed all night. On the couch. Period. The end.”

She allowed her lip to curl slowly. “I can accept the minor premise. It’s the
major
premise that bothers me.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“It means that you haven’t bothered to explain how you happened to be at your wife’s in the first place. Christ, I looked up last night and there you were going out the door. Pouting.”

“Grant Carter is a total asshole. I can’t stand him. Especially when he’s been smoking dope.”

“So you flounced off to your wife.”

“Wrong. I went to a bar. Then, on my way back here, I passed her place.”

“The long way around.”

Hearing her say it, he realized that he was smiling wryly. What was the script title he’d concocted last night? He’d left the bar, and was wandering along the sidewalk. He hadn’t even realized that he was heading toward Joanna’s place. He’d been—

The Long Way Home.

With apologies to Eugene O’Neill.

“So what happens now?” she asked. “After you change your clothes?”

“What happens,” he answered, “is that I’ve got to pick up my kid at his day-care center. You may or not be interested to know that I dropped him off for an hour, so I could come and see you.”

“How touching. Just an hour. What’s supposed to happen in an hour?” Derisively smiling, she recrossed her legs. The movement revealed a provocatively bikinied crotch.

“Listen, Cathy. There’s no point in—”

“You haven’t bothered to ask what I did last night after you left.” As she spoke, her body shifted into a subtly more sensuous position. Her voice was silkily malicious.

He snorted in reply. “That’s not hard to imagine. Grant was nuzzling you all night.”

“Is that why you left?” The derisive smile returned. Again she shifted in the chair. Her breasts lifted to a higher, bolder line. Her hand, resting languidly on her thigh, inched unconsciously up toward her pubis. Was she suggesting a truce—a quick screw, and all forgiven? Or was she responding to erotic memories of last night?

Still standing, he turned sharply away from her. Striding into the bedroom, he yanked open a drawer and found a shirt—clean, but wrinkled. He hurled the shirt across the room and went to the closet. His last work-suitable sport shirt, worn twice, hung on a hook. When he called KBSB, they might want him for an hour or two.

He stripped off his grease-soiled shirt and wiped his hands on its tail. As he drew on a clean sport shirt, he sensed that Cathy had come into the room. Turning, he saw her standing beside the bed, facing him. As they stared at each other, he saw her eyes begin to slowly liquefy. She stood with her legs slightly apart, arms at her side, torso taut.

A quick screw, and all would be forgiven.

“I’ll have to admit,” she said, “that you turn me on when you get mad.” Her small teeth, very white, were nibbling at her lower lip. “You’re really kind of dominant, do you know it? When you forget that you’re a sensitive writer, you really shift gears.”

Josh was waiting for him at the day-care center. He’d told the boy that he must stop by KBSB for an hour. He’d promised to return to the center before noon, so they could have hot dogs together. Then, later, they’d go to the beach. Promise.

Hot dogs…

He turned deliberately to the dresser, burrowed beneath his underwear, found a twenty-dollar bill. Crumpling the bill in his palm, he faced Cathy again.

Would Joanna invite him to dinner?

Would dinner be better tonight? Could they find something to talk about, the three of them? Josh, he knew, wanted him to stay. And the Chevrolet could be the excuse.

Across the bedroom, Cathy watched him silently. Now she moved forward one single step, sliding her bare foot slowly over the deep shag rug. A month ago, they’d made love on that rug.

He surreptitiously tucked the twenty-dollar bill into his pocket, saying shortly: “I’ll be back after dinner. I’ll bring some wine.”

As he turned away, he knew that her body was turning with him.

“Chablis,” she said softly. It was an order, not a request.

“Chablis,” he answered over his shoulder.

He dropped the two coins on the counter, turned to the stack of newspapers, picked up the paper on top. Still turning, he walked toward the door of the shop. It was a small, cramped store that sold souvenirs to the tourists: straw hats, suntan oil, post cards. The newspaper was tucked firmly under his arm. The Yamaha was concealed behind the bushes in a nearby city park. Ahead, through the shop’s open door, he could see the ocean. First came Cabrillo Street, then the wide sand beach, then the ocean. A scattering of tourists dotted the sand like outsized insects. Some of them strutted, some lay still. Their bodies were oiled and brown, with bits of bright-colored cloth wrapped around furry crotches. Animals grew fur, and cavemen, too. So without bathing suits, in a million years, these oiled brown bodies would be fur-covered.

He was crossing Cabrillo. Ahead, in the crosswalk, two girls skipped hand in hand. They were young, barely ten years old. Beneath their bathing suits, no fur grew. So he could smile at them. If they turned and saw him, he could smile.

The girls skipped toward the wading pool, part of the beach complex. Benches, shaded by redwood trellises, surrounded the pool. Young women—mothers—sat on the benches.

Were his mother’s eyes still staring across the kitchen floor, fixed on the far wall?

Had someone closed her eyes?

He was sitting on one of the benches. A bearded young man sat at the other end of the bench. Not a woman. Not a mother. But a man. Bearded.

Did the blood-pulse still throb beneath her ear?

The newspaper was high in front of his face now, blocking out everything but the sky above, the sidewalk below, and the wooden bench on either side. Above him, an airplane grumbled out across the ocean. From beyond the newspaper came the shouting and splashing of children. Some laughed, some screamed. But pleasure was plain in their screaming.

He’d often screamed. But only from pain. Only when he was hit—when he couldn’t escape, could only crawl away. Once, screaming, he’d dragged a broken arm along the floor beside him. The floor had been a hallway. There’d been glass on the floor—broken glass. His father had thrown a bottle at him. Screaming, he’d cut himself as he crawled.

She’d screamed, too. His mother. An hour ago, she’d screamed. And years ago, too. Hours and years—years and hours. Now they were all the same.

She’d wanted him to hit her, an hour ago. So she’d screamed. Because she knew—surely knew—that he must strike out at her. Before it killed him, he must stop the sound of a scream. They all knew it, each one of them.

She’d never screamed before. She’d cried, but never screamed. And so, until now, he’d never hit her. Ipso.

The newspaper’s blurred print blinked back into focus.

NEW THREAT TO MIDDLE EAST PEACE FEARED

and

PRESIDENT DRAFTS JOBS PROGRAM, ASKS HELP FROM INDUSTRY, LABOR.

Again the print blurred. Sounds faded into silence. Even the constant whir of buzzing in his ears was softer now. If he closed his eyes, he could see his own house. He could see the kitchen.

Strangers were in the kitchen, staring down at her. They’d heard her screaming. Because if they hadn’t heard—if he hadn’t known they’d heard—then he wouldn’t have struck her.

Wouldn’t have killed her.

Looking up into the sky, he realized that the airplane was gone. Looking to the right, he saw that the bench was empty. The bearded man had gone. Only the shrieks of the children remained.

COST OF LIVING AT ALL TIME HIGH

And then, in the front page’s lower right-hand corner:
PROGRESS REPORTED IN TAROT CASE.

Progress?

He was cautiously folding the newspaper in half, exposing himself only to the ocean. Even the wading pool—the whole wading pool—was blocked out by the half-folded paper. It was safe. He could drop his eyes and read:

Police reported late last night that they have been successful in developing “several significant leads” in the Tarot case. Although Sergeant Matthew Connoly, head of the Tarot Squad, declined to offer specific comment, the
Bulletin
has learned that Connoly and his staff have gathered information that has given them a pattern of behavior—an M.O.—that fits Tarot “like a glove.”

“A killer like Tarot,” Connoly explained, “is trapped by his own hangups. He’s locked into certain patterns that he must follow, no matter what. These letters he’s written are a perfect example. He’s got to keep writing those letters. We’ve been working closely with Dr. Herman Sternberg, at U.C.S.B., on this case. Dr. Sternberg is a psychologist specializing in the criminal mind. Between us, we think we’ve got Tarot figured out. We think we can predict what he’s going to do, and how he’s going to do it. If we’re right—if he can’t break out of his behavior patterns—then we’ll get him. Loonies make it hard on us in one sense, because there’s no motive for what they do—no rational reason. On the other hand, though, they’re victims of their own lunacy.

Loonies…