Voodoo Moon (29 page)

"If you get anything—"

"I'll call you right away. Thanks for being such a sweetie."

We hung up.

I went in the bathroom and changed into dark clothes.

M
oonlight cast long, gothic shadows over the Giles house. Every window was black with night. Inky clouds partially obscured the moon. Soon enough, it would be raining.

I'd parked half a block away and walked up the alley. When I reached the back of the house, I charted my course.

Back porch roof to a small, black, ornamental wrought-iron balcony built just under the attic window. Apparently, the builder had hoped to reenact
Romeo and Juliet
here someday. And then I'd get inside the attic. If Claire didn't scream, I'd be all right.

It was fairly easy work and I did it almost soundlessly. My palms got scraped up on the rope I lassoed the balcony with, but other than that there was no real difficulty. When I reached the balcony, I pulled myself up and stepped inside the wrought-iron enclosure. And felt the balcony start to collapse all around me. It hadn't been built to hold a 162-pound man. I moved carefully and quickly.

I pulled the rope up from below. A dangling rope was a sure giveaway.

I crouched and peered into the window. Saw nothing. Too dark. As I was waiting for my eyes to adjust to this particular darkness, the thunder started.

It was summer thunder, deep and vast, racing all the way down the sky to set objects and souls trembling. There was enough caveman DNA in me to recognize the thunder's booming warning of cosmic malice. This was when you went to the back of the cave and clutched your family to you and pretended that you were not afraid at all. But your wife knew and you knew she knew. You just hoped that the little ones didn't know. It was important that the chief hunter of the family be, in their eyes, anyway, fearless.

The rain came not long after.

I hunched beneath the overhang of roof as well as I could. But it wasn't much help. I still couldn't see much.

The layout started to take shape. Large, partially finished attic that was mostly a bedroom. I guess I'd been expecting one of those hellholes you hear about where children are held captive. The smells and the blood and the weapons of torture.

No such evidence here.

I could see a bed, bureau, small TV, toilet, sink, older-model refrigerator.

Not just a bedroom, after all. A tiny apartment.

Then I saw, in the center of the floor, the metal chain bolted to the floor. I followed the length of chain until it disappeared somewhere in the covers of the bed.

I thought of the chain-dragging noise I'd heard from the other side of the door.

I tried the windows. Locked tight. There would doubtless be a hook on the other side. And I doubtless wouldn't be able to lift it.

The rain increased. Hard. Cold.

And the ornamental balcony began to shift beneath my feet.

I started to knock—hoping I could rouse Claire from her bed and her no doubt drugged sleep—when the spotlight caught me.

I turned and saw, through the silver rain slanting cold in the yellow beam of the spotlight, the unmistakable shape and colors of a police car.

"Y
ou going to tell me what you were doing up there?"

"I'd rather tell Chief Charles."

"Well, I'd rather be home in bed with my wife. But that doesn't mean jack shit, does it, Mr. Payne?"

Fuller was in fine form. Ever since meeting in the interrogation room, he'd let it be known, none too subtly, that he didn't care for me, Tandy, or out-of-towners in general.

He was finally getting a chance to express himself.

"You going to attack her?"

"Who?"

"Claire. The woman who lives in the attic."

"Yeah. That's just what I was going to do. Rape her."

"It happens."

"Well, it doesn't happen when I'm around. I just wanted to talk to her."

"You couldn't go in the front door?"

"I tried that. Her folks wouldn't let me see her."

"Then that should've been that. You got your answer and the answer was no."

"Would you please call Chief Charles?"

"You know what time it is?"

"I'll take the blame. Just please call her."

"I'm afraid not. I'm going to take you to the shop."

"The shop?"

"That's what we call the station."

"Then I'll call the chief."

"Who saw me, anyway?"

"A good citizen whose headlights caught you about halfway up the back wall when you were climbing."

"I thought you worked days."

"I do. But Sullivan has the flu."

"Then at least call Tandy for me. Tell her where I am."

He smiled nastily at me. "You'd think a psychic could figure that out for herself."

H
e went through the whole thing. Booking. Fingerprinting. Even a nice new photograph.

He was having himself a damned good time.

"Not often a lowlife local lawman like myself gets the chance to book an FBI man like yourself."

"I quit the bureau years ago."

He looked up at me from the form he'd been filling out. "Maybe you left the bureau, but the bureau didn't leave you, Payne. You've still got the attitude."

"The bureau do something to you, did they, Fuller?"

"Yeah, me and every other hardworking pissant local lawman. They come in here and take over and push us around and never tell us what's going on. And if there's any credit, they take it all for themselves."

"How come Chief Charles doesn't seem to feel that way?"

"Because she's got the paper."

"The paper?"

"The degree."

"I see."

"Took all the courses. Kissed all the city council asses. What she wants to be someday is mayor. And so she has to play the game. FBI comes into a town like ours, all the people get all hot and fluttery. Like a teenager in heat. Oh, the FBI is so wonderful. Oh, the FBI is so professional. Like we're dog shit or something. Well, let's see the fucking FBI pull their fucking car out of a ditch in the middle of a blizzard sometime."

An angry man.

We were in Susan Charles's office. He sat at her desk. This was where he obviously hoped to be permanently someday.

He started to say something. A young man in a 1958 crew cut was pushing a wide broom down the corridor. He paused in the doorway.

"You want me to skip the chief's office tonight? This is when I usually do it."

"Just come back when we're done talking."

"Fine. I'll just take my break now."

When the young man was gone, Fuller said, "His break.
Sonofabitch
takes ten breaks a night."

"You could always fire him."

"The mayor's kid? You kidding? He flunked out of Iowa last term when we were looking for a night janitor. Mayor figured this would teach his kid a little humility. Cleaning toilets and shit like that."

I was tired of small talk.

"You call Tandy?"

"Yeah. She wasn't there."

"What the hell you talking about, she wasn't there?"

"Just what I said, asshole. She wasn't there."

"You call the desk?"

He sighed. "I figured you'd piss and moan about it, so I tried it direct one time and got no answer, and then I tried the front desk and
they
tried and didn't get no answer. That good enough for you, Payne?"

"Where the hell would she be?"

I got a terrible feeling about her not being there. This time of night. A slashing rain. Her exhausted from her day. Why would she be gone now?

He stood up. "Couple things I need to do. I'll be back. You want coffee?"

"I'd appreciate it."

"You got thirty-five cents?"

"This isn't on the house, huh?"

"You pay for your coffee same as I do. That's what happens when you're a real lawman, Payne. You pay your own way."

"You ever hear of Prozac?"

"You ever hear of gettin' a nightstick shoved up your ass?"

He went away.

I sat and listened to the rain and looked around the office again. He hadn't been kidding about Susan's public success. She had all the right awards and citations you need to prosper in a small town. Kiwanis. Rotary. The hospital. With her brains, style, and poise, seemed she could be mayor anytime she wanted.

I got up and walked over for a closer look.

I studied the family photos on top of the small bookcase. Young Susan Charles at various ages. The very youngest photo was so pretty, she could have been a face on baby food or baby soap. Curly dark hair, stunning green eyes, and already a kind of wry smile, as if she knew that her beauty would someday be defaced. The wryness being her way of dealing with it.

The cheerleading photo, despite the out-of-date hairdo, was still sexy. Definitely a trophy girl. The campus stars would have all vied for her. And she no doubt would have let them.

A high school graduation photo; a New York City vacation photo; a swimsuit photo in which she wore a goofy hat and looked like she was giggling.

And then no more.

No photos of her with her scar.

"Those were the good days," she said from behind me.

Yellow rain slicker, red blouse, jeans, wading boots, sprightly yellow rain slicker hat. Cute
cute
cute
.

"BS," she said.

"BS?"

"Before Scar."

I smiled. "Sounds about right."

She sat down behind her desk. "You're in trouble, Robert."

"I know."

"Fuller is enjoying himself. It's sort of like giving a Pit Bull a side of beef."

I sat down, too.

"That's an apt description, Chief."

She leaned forward. "Why the hell were you trying to get into that attic?"

So I told her what Emily Cunningham had told me. I told her about all the false leads with
Renard
, though I didn't mention Dr. Williams. I told her that somehow all this connected up with a baby picture. Sandy used to clean up Claire's attic room and saw the photo and also saw it somewhere else. Told her about Tandy and her drawings.

"Why didn't you work with me?"

"I should have. I wanted to help Tandy, I guess. Keep her in the center of the spotlight."

"You're a good friend."

"She's a nice woman."

"Very neurotic."

"We're all very neurotic," I said.

She smiled. "Is that the lawman speaking or just the man?"

"Both."

She sat back in her chair. "I'll talk to Fuller and see what I can do. Explain things. Maybe he'll back off a little. But if he wants to go ahead with charges, there's nothing I can do."

If she blocked his charges, the Kiwanis and the Rotary would be most unhappy. I didn't blame her. I wouldn't have blocked the charges, either. Whatever my motive, I really had been trespassing at the very least. True, and thankfully, I hadn't gotten inside, where several other charges could have been brought against me.

She picked up the form Fuller had been working on and said, "Let me go talk to him. See if he'll agree to sort this out in the morning." She looked at me with an expression I couldn't read. "Despite the fact that you were carrying burglary tools."

"And let me go back to my room tonight?"

She nodded. "But we're talking fifty-fifty at best."

"That's what I figured."

Form in hand, she left the office. I went back to the photos on top of the bookcase. I felt a compulsion I couldn't explain. "All right if I get in here now?"

The mayor's kid with his cleaning cart. He looked like a decent kid in a shaggy, slow-witted kind of way.

"Sure."

He grinned. "
Fuller'll
probably kick my ass out of here, he comes back."

"I'll talk to him."

He looked stunned. "Mister, you been booked. Why would he listen to you?"

"Let's just see what happens."

He saw the small framed photo I held in my hand. Cheerleader.

"She was a babe."

"She sure was."

"Don't know how she ever got to be a cop."

"The
times're
changing, I hear."

"Yeah, I
s'pose
. But still and all, you sure don't expect your chief to look like
that
. I mean, boobs like that and everything." He lifted his dusty dry mop, as if presenting it to me. "Guess I'd better get to work."