Voodoo Moon (9 page)

"You think we'll ever be adults?" Tandy asked me.

"Probably not," I said. "And I won't, either. Very few people ever make it."

"I'll be an adult before
she
is," Tandy said.

"Huh-uh," Laura said. And playfully nudged her with an elbow. This was their makeup routine, apparently.

"I think the chief has a crush on you," Tandy said.

"I doubt that," I said.

"Yes, she does," Laura said. "The way she kept looking at you."

"She was setting me up."

"Setting you up for what?" Tandy said, now genuinely interested in the subject of Chief Susan Charles.

"I'm not sure. But she asked me to go bowling tonight."

"Wow," Laura said, "talk about hot dates. And maybe the malt shop afterward?"

"She wants to pick your brain," Tandy said.

"Right," I said. "I just wonder what she's so curious about. The only thing I can think of is that she thinks I have something that takes suspicion away from Rick Hennessy. She's convinced there's no other legitimate suspect."

"Maybe she thinks Tandy can prove that Rick is actually possessed."

I shook my head. "This is a very no-nonsense woman. No room for the occult in that beautiful head of hers."

"Then she really must think we can screw up her case for her," Laura said.

"How did your interview with Rick go, by the way?" I said.

Tandy shook her head. "He wasn't cooperative at all. He keeps denying he murdered Sandy but it's like he does everything he can to look guilty."

A knock. And moments later Noah Chandler graced our lives. "Boy, what a seedy bunch you three are."

Tandy smiled; Laura rolled her eyes.

Chandler said, "Well, Payne, you'd be proud of me."

"I doubt that," I said.

Chandler looked at Tandy. "He hates me. Thinks I'm just a Hollywood glamour boy. Nobody home upstairs. Tell him that I once read nearly a hundred pages of Thomas Wolfe."

"He did," Laura said, "and it took him a year and a half."

He sat on the edge of the overstuffed armchair and lit a cigarette. "I hope nobody minds."

"I think you're supposed to ask that
before
you light up, Noah," Tandy said.

He grinned. He was posing for a publicity shot. "Why stand on formality?" He took a drag, exhaled. "There's a girl named Heather Douglas. Her boyfriend dumped her for Sandy. A guy at the gas station where they're putting on some new tires for me—remember I said something felt funny yesterday, Laura? It was the tires, worn right down to cord—anyway, I told this kid why we were out here, working on the Hennessy case and all, and he told me about this Heather Douglas. Said she'd really gone crazy when her boyfriend dumped her. Said she threatened to kill Sandy quite a few times in front of several witnesses. He said two or three people even went to Chief Charles. Said the chief interviewed Heather a couple of times but decided there wasn't any real point in pursuing it. She had her killer—Rick." Another deep inhale. Exhale. The smoke blue and lazy on the shadowy damp air. "Sounds like I scooped our detective here."

"I know you're still working on your profile, Robert," Laura said, "but is there any chance the killer could be a girl?"

"Sure," I said.

"She might be worth checking out," Laura said.

"Definitely."

"Did I hear somebody say 'Thank you, Noah, for that fine detective work?'" Chandler said.

"Not that I know of," Laura said.

"Very funny," he said.

I stood up. "I'm going down to my room."

"I'll be glad to go with you to check out this Heather chick," Chandler said.

"No, thanks."

"But all Great Detectives have sidekicks," he said. "Holmes and Watson. Nero Wolfe and Archie. Mike Hammer and
Velda
. I'm a mystery buff."

"He doesn't want you tagging along, for God's sake, Noah," Laura said. "So just give it a rest."

I felt sorry for him. I didn't like him—God only knew how he'd gotten the producer's job—but Laura's contempt was withering.

I said, "You did some good work, Noah. The gas station guy, I mean. Thanks. I appreciate it."

"You hear that, Laura?" Chandler said. "
You hear that?
"

"I heard," she said wearily. "He's just trying to be nice, you moron."

"Well," I said, feeling even sorrier for big dumb Noah Chandler. "I guess I'll be going."

F
rom a quick look around I'd sensed somebody had been in here. I'd called the desk to talk to Pete, the handyman. He was always around. Maybe he'd seen somebody. Ten minutes later the phone rang.

"Hi. This is the front desk." Friendly female voice.

"Hi."

"Did Pete find you?"

"Nope."

Then, "He's down the hall. Excuse me for a second
."
She was back within a minute. "He's coming down to your room right away."

As I was talking, I noticed the clasp on my suitcase affixed to the strap. I always belted the strap on the fourth loop. It was now belted to the second loop. And the empty metal waste can next to the desk had been knocked over. I'm enough of a neat freak to notice things like this. You will find no room of mine with a waste can on its side. Somebody had been in here.

"Send him down."

"He's a nice guy."

"I'm sure he is."

"His son, he just got laid off over to this factory in Davenport. Pete's real worried about him."

I had to admire her loyalty. She was going to make me feel sorry for Pete even if I didn't want to.

"So please don't chew him out."

"I'm going to pistol-whip him."

"What?"

"And then I'm going to stick straight pins underneath his fingernails. And then I'm going to douse him with gasoline and set him on fire: ."

"Smart-ass."

"
Pete'll
be fine. I just need to talk to him is all."

Pete, when he came, was dressed in bib
OskKoshes
with a flannel shirt underneath and a black-and-yellow Hawkeye ball cap on top. He was old enough to have wattles and rheumy, faded eyes and a bit of palsy in his left hand. Or maybe he was just scared. He said, "I just want to get one thing clear." He said this before actually stepping inside. "I been working here ten years—after I retired out to the tire company—and I've never stolen one thing in all the time I been here."

"Fine."

"Stuff people leave
layin
' around, a dishonest
fella'd
have a heyday. Wristwatches and diamond necklaces and big fat wads of cash. I admit I've daydreamed about it a few times. But I've never taken anything."

"I believe you."

He smiled. "Good. Helen said she thought you was a nice guy."

The door was open. A breeze came in, smoky with autumn. It made me think of growing up in a small town outside Iowa City. Riding horses through the cornfields of fall, all the way up to the timberland where there were Indian burial mounds and a winding river so clear you could see the fish weaving along its bottom.

"I just wondered if you saw anybody around my room."

"That's what I wanted to tell you, this heavyset guy leaving your room. He got into a green car."

"Balding guy?"

Thought a moment. "Yeah, right. Balding."

"You happen to notice the plates on his car?"

"Sure. They're the first thing I look at. I got kind of a thing about license plates, I guess. Always have had. My dad used to nail all his license plates to the wall of the garage. By the time he died, he had quite a collection."

"I'll bet."

"The garage burned down right after he died. Never did figure out what started the fire."

"How about the plates on the green car?"

"Illinois."

"You're sure?"

"One thing I'm sure about, mister, is license plates."

Not too difficult to figure out what had happened. The heavyset guy, whoever he is, waits till Pete heads back to the office, and then uses some kind of tool to get in my room. Obviously, a pro.

I picked up the phone again. Pete looked nervous. "It's Payne again. You have anybody currently registered here from Illinois?"

She checked. "No." Then, "How's it going with Pete?"

"Just fine. Thanks." I hung up and turned to Pete. "You wouldn't happen to remember the plate numbers, would you?"

"'
Fraid
not. For one thing, my memory ain't so hot these days. And for another thing, it never even crossed my mind."

"I'm sure it didn't. Thanks, Pete."

"That's all, huh?"

"That's all. Thanks again."

He latched his thumbs on either side of his bib straps and looked around the room and said, "You'd really be surprised about what people leave right out in plain sight. It's almost like they want you to steal it, you know that? Just like they're
beggin
' you, in fact."

T
he knock came about a half hour later. I was mindlessly channel-surfing. They had a dish antenna. On one of the talk
shows a neo-Nazi named Fred goose-stepped up and down the audience aisle until an audience member attacked him. A good-looking Wall Street woman told me how to invest my money. A very young Roy Rogers sang a song to his horse Trigger. A KKK member with a real bad complexion told a talk show host that "good ordinary white men" were the most discriminated-against minority group in the USA. And a voluptuous woman in a cowboy hat and snug-fitting and very
spangly
cowgal
shirt assured me that even I of the lead foot could learn all the latest line dance moves right in the shamed darkness of my living room. I just kept surfing. Maybe I was looking for God—as opposed, I mean, to all the TV ministers so eager for my bankbook.

I was grateful for the knock.

I put the surfer stick away and went and answered the door and there stood Tandy West.

"Still a channel surfer, I hear."

The door, apparently, wasn't real thick.

"Yeah. I couldn't decide between wrestling and women who got probed while in the hands of aliens."

"Maybe that's what I need, Robert," and I could see she was only half-kidding. "A little alien probing."

The psychologists and psychiatrists who had examined her over the years trying to determine the authenticity of her "gift" had also noted that she was manic-depressive. Severely so. She had long been a Lithium baby.

"You want to come in?"

"I was hoping you'd take me for a ride."

"Anywhere in particular?"

"Back to the asylum."

"Any particular reason?"

"A couple of particular reasons. I thought I'd explain on the way."

"Long as I'm back to keep my bowling date."

"I still think she's got a crush on you."

"And I still think she just wants to pick my brain."

"H
ow's your love life?"

I looked over at her. "You've really changed."

"I know. I'm not the virgin girl anymore." She looked out at the country road. It was late afternoon. The impending dusk was already casting long shadows and touching all the autumn foliage with dramatic life. The pumpkins in the field, orange and round as merry balloons, looked especially festive. One of nature's little jokes, I suppose, to make the season of death so seductive.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Well, since you asked, not all that good."

"How about that rich woman you were living with?"

"Went back to her ex-husband."

"I thought he was such a bastard."

"He is."

"So you're not involved right now."

"Not by choice, unfortunately."

More staring out the window. "I either have too little sex or too much."

"Right now I think I'd opt for the latter."

"Maybe you'll get lucky with the police chief tonight."

"I doubt it."

Then, "You think I could sleep in your room tonight?"

"Sure. But why?"