Ash Wednesday (52 page)

"Jesus,"
Kaylor
muttered.

"What the fuck is this guy doing, Chief?" Del Franklin whispered.

"Playing cops and robbers," answered
Kaylor
, loud enough for Thornton to hear.

Thornton flared. "
Goddammit
! Don't you forget who I am!"

"
Who?
"

"I'm a social fucking psychologist, pal! I know about stresses, I know what drives people to things like this! Who the hell were you gonna let use this bullhorn, some state cop with a B.S. in fingerprinting? Or were
you
gonna try it again? Christ, you can't even find guys who kill old ladies! Now just shut up and let me work!"

Kaylor
turned away fiercely, stepping behind the police car with his men. In a moment the girl joined them, her face white.
Kaylor
smiled a cold smile. "Old friend of yours?"

She shook her head quickly, nervously. "We just met tonight."

"Hell of a first date," said
Kaylor
, and his men nodded. "Knows how to show a girl a real good time."

"Yeah, a real lady-killer."

Clyde Thornton heard, and laughed inside. Then he walked away from the shelter of the cars, into the swath of light that swept the wet front lawn, and raised the bullhorn to his mouth. "Hello, Brad," he called. "This is Clyde Thornton speaking. You may know me. I'm the fella the government sent here [make it folksy, relaxed] to try to help you folks out. You know, what's been happening here has put all of us under a real strain. It's been rough for everybody. Now, some people react in different ways, and what you've done, and we're not really
sure
what you've done, is just one of those ways. Now, I
am
a trained psychologist . . .”

"He may be a psychologist," whispered Mike Gifford, "but he sure as shit don't know Brad Meyers."

". . . and I'm used to working with people and talking with people who are under the same kind of stress you're under. I'd like to talk to
you
, Brad. I hope you'd like to talk to me." He let five seconds pass. "Would you?"

There was no sound from the house, no movement.

"All right, Brad. I understand. Maybe you don't want to talk in front of the other people here. I can understand that. What if it was just you and me? What if I came in?"

"Aw, shit," growled
Kaylor
. "Thornton!"

Clyde Thornton turned, his face red. "Shut
up!
I know what I'm doing. I taught a seminar in this."

"A seminar. Sweet
jumpin
' Jesus."

"I saw this on TV," June Sibley said. "He'll go in there and get the guy to let the girl go and stay in himself. Oh, my God, he's so brave."

"Oh, my ass. He's so
stupid
," Del Franklin said.

They watched as Thornton moved closer to the house. "Chief, the asshole is really gonna
do
it."

"No he's
not
."
Kaylor
came out of his crouch and started walking into the light, toward Thornton, who heard the footsteps and turned.

"What are you
doing?
"

"You're not going in there," said
Kaylor
, advancing.

Thornton hesitated for only a moment, then turned back toward the house and ran. "Open the door!" he cried. "I'm coming in!"

Kaylor
stopped, shocked into immobility, expecting any second to hear a burst of gunfire and see Thornton fall back stiffly. But instead he heard only Thornton's feet slapping toward the front door, the click as an unseen hand turned the knob, a hollow scraping as the door left its frame, and its final slam as it closed behind the man. As if in a dream,
Kaylor's
legs moved once more, taking him slowly toward that door.

"Far enough." The house amplified the voice. It was a new voice, cold, stern, Brad Meyers's voice, and hearing it made
Kaylor
realize how vulnerable he was. He brought his arms slowly out from his body, turned around, and walked, neither slow nor fast, back to the knot of people crouching dry-mouthed behind the cars.

"He's crazy," he said vacantly when he joined them. "They're
both
crazy."

Inside the house, Clyde Thornton stood, his back to the door, wishing he could stop shaking, thinking, I showed him, I showed him, he couldn't stop me. I showed him.

Then he saw the gun that Brad Meyers, who had moved immediately to the window after opening and closing the door for Thornton, now held on him. "Take off your jacket. Slowly," Meyers said, and Thornton obeyed. "Throw it on the floor. Now lean against the wall. Put your feet apart. Okay." Brad patted him down clumsily, then turned his back on him and went back to the couch. "Sit down," he said, pointing to a chair a few feet from the couch. Thornton sat. "Why did you do that? Run in here like that?"

Thornton shrugged. "I don't know. I just did it."

"Weren't you afraid I'd shoot you?"

"No. Not then."

"Now?"

"No. Should I be?"

"Only if you try to take the gun away."

"Why don't you let the girl go?"

Thornton turned to the girl. "Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"I'm not going to hurt her.”

“What's this all about, Brad?"

Brad didn't answer.

"Why did you do this?”

“Why did you run in here?"

"Did you really kill two people in here?"

Brad nodded.

"Why?" asked Thornton. "Why did you run in here?"

"That how it's going to work? Every time I ask you a question you ask me one?”

“Is it?"

"Why did you let me in?"

Brad ignored the question.

"Let the girl go. You want a hostage, I'll stay with you."

"She stays."

"Why?"

"She's supposed to. That's the way it is. That's the scenario. I'm not going to hurt her."

"Will you show me the people you killed?"

"You can't help them."

"Can I help you?"

"You can't help me."

"You must want something."

"This. This is what I want."

"Will you let me go if I want to leave?"

"Yes."

"I'd rather stay here and talk to you."

"Then stay."

"This can't last forever, you know."

"I know." Brad turned his gaze from the window, looked at Thornton for a long time. "You want to see them? Chris and Wally?"

"If you want to show me."

"Sure." He nodded wearily. "We'll all go." He stood up and led the way out of the living room, looking over his shoulder to make certain they were following. He stopped at the door of Wally's room. "In there."

"I don't want to look," Kim said.

"You don't have to," Brad assured her. He gestured with his head, and Thornton entered the bedroom. In the glow of the night light he saw the mound under the covers, the bloodstained head and face. He pulled the blankets back and felt for a pulse, but the skin was nearly cold, the joints already starting to stiffen, so he drew the sheet up over the head. "No," Brad said from the doorway. "Leave it like it was. He gets too sweaty that way."

Thornton shivered and tugged the sheet back. "What about the woman?"

"Downstairs." The three of them made their way back through the house to the kitchen, where Brad paused at the basement door and turned to Kim. "You'll have to come down with us. I can't leave you up here alone." He turned his face toward the front of the house. "They won't come in. They won't know we're down there. They don't know
where
we are." They started down the steps, Brad bringing up the rear.

Thornton, leading, was the first to see, lying in a puddle of its own urine, the dog mingled with the ghost of the little boy, like a ghoul's parody of a church calendar scene. The physical body of the woman was next. Its back was to Thornton, its face to the bottom of the couch against which it lay. And then he saw its shade still sprawled on the couch where it had come into being. First were the naked blue legs, splayed to reveal the dark pubis. As he descended farther, the flat, emaciated stomach came into view, then the large breasts, ungainly on the cadaverous frame (those breasts, where . . .), the neck a darker blue than the blue of the spirit-light, and the face, tongue puffy, eyes larger than life, the face that seemed so
familiar
that he gasped, seeing Marie Snyder's strangled countenance blending with the pouting, childlike face of the Merridale girl he had spent a night with long months ago.

(Had he said Chris? Oh, had it been Christine, her name?) "Oh . . . Christine?"

He did not know he had said it, had only heard it inside his head. But it had escaped his lips, not so imperceptibly that Brad Meyers did not hear.

"
What?
"

Thornton turned, his face a red mask of guilt as he considered his nightmare—the husband of a woman he had flicked standing above him with a gun. All his godlike self-confidence suddenly vanished, and his bladder released a warm trickle of urine.

Brad pushed the girl roughly down the stairs into the basement, forcing Thornton across the floor, where the corpse tripped him so that he fell backward onto the couch. He yelped, and staggered to his feet. "You
know
her," Brad snarled.

"No . . . no, I don't—"

"You
recognized
her, didn't you?"

"N-no . . ."

"Recognized her—even now." Something possessed Brad Meyers. The skin was pulled tautly over his face so that the veins in the temples, throbbing rapidly, were easily visible. His eyes seemed teary, awash with moisture, and even the hairs of his beard seemed to have a demonic life of their own, curling like hundreds of razor-thin worms. "Where did you meet her?"

Thornton could only moan.

"
Where?
" Brad cried, thrusting his gun at Thornton like a living extension of hate.

"The Holiday!" Thornton babbled instantly, too terrified to lie. "The Holiday Inn! She . . . she was in the bar—"

"How was she?"

“I—“

"
Tell
me."

"She . . . she . . . she was fine." Thornton was crying. "Please . . .” It was Kim, who had started crying as well. "You're not in this," Brad told her. "You're not in this part.”

"Let me go," Thornton pleaded. "I'll . . . I'll give you money. . . . I've got lots of money."

"I'll let you go. Once you show me how you did it.”

“What?"

"With Chris." He jerked his head to the apparition on the couch. "The position's right—legs spread, waiting just for you. Let me see."