Ladykiller (21 page)

Like the song the white chicks used to sing when she was a teenager,
Jamie did believe that pretty girls seemed to find out early how to
open doors with just a smile. But the puffy-faced suburban police
captain wasn’t buying.

“Can’t let you inspect the body till a few things get straightened
out between us and the NYPD,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” Jamie said. They sat in his steam-heated
office with its view of the Bergen County courthouse. A picture of his
large family was perched on his desk.
“Your narcotics boys busted those humps in an apartment in Fort
Lee — on
our
side of the river. They didn’t even notify us. Took them
right back across the G.W. Bridge, like they were free to do what they
pleased.”
“I haven’t heard a word about it, captain,” Jamie said. “All I want
is to go over the body.”
“So tell me your interest in the case.”
Blake had told Jamie to avoid mention of the Ladykiller investigation for fear of leaks, mainly to Mancuso. “Billy Ray Battle is a Manhattan resident who was released pending his assault trial.”
“Big deal. Assault happens every minute in New York. I’m supposed to be impressed?”
Rain clicked against the captain’s window like a scattering of
pebbles. He turned his attention to the sky outside.
“Please let me take a look at him, captain.”
“You’re not telling me everything, miss.”
“It’s detective, not miss.” She said it softly, bereft of umbrage.
“Sorry.”
“Listen,” Jamie said. “Maybe I can help you. While there’s this
problem between our departments, nothing’s probably getting done.
Is there some piece of information I can get you?”
The captain brightened. “I got a list of fugitives who I believe are
in the city.”
“Deal. I’ll get you a status update. Once the mess is ironed out,
we can pick them up for you.”
“Step right this way,” he said.The rain’s beat steadily increased on
the glass.
The morgue had the familiar formaldehyde smell, covering
other, even less pleasant odors. It was a cocoon of stark white walls
and stainless steel tables, far from the rain and the outside living
world. No one else was around.
“Not as busy as the one I’m used to,” Jamie said.
“I want to keep it like that,” the captain said. “No offense to the
nation’s largest city, of course.”
“Of course,” Jamie said.
The captain himself pulled Billy Ray’s body out of the meat
locker.The big man lay naked and gray on the slab, a tag around his big
toe. Crude stitches from his groin to his throat gave evidence to the
autopsy. His right eye was a stew of dried blood and matter.
Jamie slipped on latex gloves and felt around Billy Ray’s ruined
eye. “A knife, all right. Direct to the brain.You can tell where it sliced
past the bone in the lower part of the eye socket.”
“The perp had good aim. Vicious fucker. See the damage to the
guy’s nuts? Our guess is that the perp squeezed his nuts, then, when
he bent over, zapped him in the eye with the blade.”
Jamie could tell that the captain was impressed she showed no
squeamishness.The first time she saw a corpse, she had puked.This was
the umpteenth time. Although the suburban captain was twenty years
older than her, Jamie felt sure she had seen many more dead bodies.
“He was found naked?”
“As the day he was born.”
“No evidence of sexual activity?”
The captain shook his head. “His anus hadn’t been ruptured. No
sign of semen in his penis that we could find. When he went out, his
bladder opened, so it might have washed away the semen. But I doubt
it.”
She peered at Billy Ray’s neck and arms. “No indication of ropes
or any other restraint.”
“Not a one.”
Jamie turned Billy Ray’s death-stiff hands up to the fluorescent
light. “Is this writing on his palm?”
“Yeah. It’s numbers. He spent the night in the ditch, which means
he got a little wet and a lot of the ink washed away. But you can kind
of read them.”
Jamie copied down the numbers. “Seems to be a phone number.
Seven characters, with a dash after the first three. Hard to say if that’s
a four or a nine. Or if that’s a one or a seven.”
The captain moved close to Jamie and squinted at Billy Ray’s
palm. “I’d say it’s a seven. No, wait. A one.”
“Hmmmm.”
“You doing anything tonight?”
Jamie smiled. Maybe the song was right, after all. “Captain, I like
you.And I have dated white men.And I even have dated married men.
But a married white man?”
“It’s definitely not a seven. Seven’s my lucky number.”

Ace limped into the solemn, textured dark of his old pool hall, where
he first had learned how to lose money. It had a half-dozen tables,
their felt tops as green as fresh dollar bills.The click and thunk of balls
fired his memories, good and bad. The cream of Rahway’s layabouts
had fled here to escape the rain that had soaked Ace’s greasy hair and
invaded his collar.

Ivan was the first to recognize him. But the greeting wasn’t right
for a returning celebrity. “Holy shit. Look what the cat dragged in.
Ace Fucking Cronen.”

Ace shook hands with him. “Where’d Big John get to?”
Super Hooper glanced up from the shot he was about to make.
The ash from his cigarette fell to the felt and exploded in a soft heap of
gray. “How about that.The big, bad Ladykiller hisself.”
“The cops ain’t smart enough to hold me,” Ace said tiredly.
“You really do them bitches, Ace?” Ivan asked.
“They deserved it,” Ace said.
“I got a question,” Super Hooper said.The cue ball smacked into
the 12 ball, which careened toward the side pocket but bounced off
the cushion short of its destination. “Shit. Why didn’t you fuck them
chicks?”
Ace didn’t like Super Hooper’s tone of disbelief. “I didn’t feel
like it.”
“Hell, Supe,” Ivan said. “Ace here don’t need to hold a gun to a
chick’s head to get her bod. Chicks swarm over our man, Ace. Ain’t
that right, Ace?”
Ace wasn’t too fond of Ivan’s tone, either. “Where’s Big John?”
No one answered.
Ivan sank the eight ball. “You owe me twenty big ones, Supe.”
“Lucky fucker,” Super Hooper said as he peeled off a bill. “Hey,
Ace, you got any dough on you these days?”
“Lots, man.Why?”
“Care for a game?”
“Can’t, man. Gotta keep moving. Cops after me.”
Ivan laughed. “You’re a dangerous dude to be around, Ace.”
“Nobody’s after you, asshole. I got forty bucks says you can’t take
me in eight ball,” Super Hooper said.
“Well —”
Big John lumbered out of the back. “That
was
your voice I heard.
Can’t you stay out of this fucking town?” Everybody in the place
laughed. “You look like shit.”
“Big John, you heard any word on my mother? Last I heard —”
Big John used to be a customer of his mother.
“Oh, her,” Big John said. “Who keeps track? Didn’t she O.D. on
booze in Florida somewhere? Who keeps track?”
“Yeah, well, I figured maybe —”
“You got a phone call,” Big John said.
“It’s the cops,” Ivan said with a laugh.
“Guy name of Jackie Why,” Big John said. “From New York. Says
somebody told him you used to hang here. The phone’s in my office.
You can talk to him, but you better fucking not steal so much as a paper clip or I’ll have your ass.”
Ace’s tongue played over his lips. “Jackie Why? I ain’t here. Tell
him I ain’t here.”
“I already told him you’re here, Ace,” Big John said. “You saying
you don’t want to talk to the gentleman?”
Ace hobbled out the door into the hard, cold judgment of the
rain. His ankle burned. He didn’t see the puddles and his feet soon
were drenched.

Jimmy Conlon kept flipping through his notes and checking out
Chip’s crowded office, which lay behind glass at the edge of the newsroom. Laird was busy on the phone regaling a pal about some mutual
acquaintance. At last, the group that had been meeting around Chip’s
desk got up and left. Jimmy dashed for the office.

Chip regarded him with the twisted expression that lay between
disgust and disbelief. “Does this have to do with the West Side Crisis
Center, by any chance?”

“Absolutely. My source with the cops —”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Chip said. “Sit
down, please.” He closed the door with the grim efficiency of an executioner.
“About what?” Jimmy asked, taking a chair.
Chip took his place behind his desk. His seat was several inches
higher than Jimmy’s. “We got a very disturbing call from an official at
the crisis center concerning your behavior.”
“What?”
“This official, Nita Bergstrom, said you threatened to drag the
crisis center’s name through the mud unless you went out with her. Is
that true?”
“Are you kidding?” Jimmy looked wildly about him, jaw agape
like a beached fish. “That’s bullshit.”
“She sounded very rational. A bit upset, perhaps, but I was astounded to hear what she had to say.”
“Me, too.You believe her?”
“The matter merits examination,” Chip said.
“Christ almighty,” Jimmy exclaimed. “You believe this woman
you’ve never met over a member of your own staff?”
“I’m not saying I believe her or not. Simply that you no longer
can work this story until a determination has been arrived at. Are we
clear on this?”
Jimmy tried to see some compassion in his cast-iron face. “Jesus,
you take the prize.What about my tip?”
“Tell Laird. Maybe he’ll follow up.”
“Tell Laird,” Jimmy mimicked. “His social life is a little too busy
for him to follow up a blessed thing.”
Chip made a dismissing motion with his hand. “I’d love to chat.
But I have work to do.”

“That sucks,” Dave said. “Those bastards.”
“I suppose I can’t help you,” Jimmy said into his beer.
The after-work crush at McSorley’s packed in people next to

their stools.The din was deafening.
“Maybe you have, anyway. I bet you’ve shaken up the crisis center
some. They might be more open now with at least the prospect of a
bad story in the paper about them. They have no means of knowing
that the paper won’t run it.”
“I’m not that confident,” Jimmy said. “She’s a devilishly clever
one, that Bergstrom. And you know what’s funny? As good looking as
she is, I wouldn’t go out with her for a jillion dollars.That would be a
date straight out of hell.”
“She’s like a god around the crisis center,” Dave said. “Those people seem to enjoy being manipulated by her. Especially Megan. It’s
scary, really.”
“Date with Megan tonight, right?”
“Yep. Maybe I shouldn’t be taking the time to see her now, with
everything heating up. But — she’s special. Say, I better get going. I
need to feed the cat, then clean up.This date is important. I want it to
go right.” Dave flopped some money on the bar.
Jimmy made him take it back. “This one’s on me. Tell Megan to
say hi to Nita for me, okay?” After his friend had left, Jimmy remembered that he had wanted to tell Dave about the gun that Nita carried
in her bag.

Jimmy took a long walk home in the evening rain. People scurried
past to their safe, warm places. Jimmy’s hat did a fairly good job protecting his head, but the rain had begun to seep through his raincoat.
He didn’t care.Then a taxi zoomed close to the curb and doused him
with gutter water.

“You fucker,” Jimmy called out to the cab as it disappeared down
the block. He put every ounce of his anger at the day and at his life
into the curse.

The rain came down harder, ricocheting off the pavement, turning the world into an aquarium. Jimmy got a pizza on the corner beside his building and hurried upstairs before the rain could eat away the
cardboard box. He peeled off his clothes, got into some dry togs, then
opened the box. It wasn’t what he had ordered — peppers, not pepperoni — yet it would have to do. He sat down to his lonely meal, and
he discovered he wasn’t hungry. As the cheese congealed on the pizza,
he pondered what to do with his wrecked career. He loved journalism.
He was good at it. No one, though, would let him practice it right.

The phone trilled.
“Yes.”
“I have some news for you,” a woman’s voice said. Muffled. Almost recognizable.

“Like what?”
“About the Ladykiller,” she said.
“What is it?” Jimmy, as a newspaper reporter, talked to call-in

nuts a lot.They seldom phoned his home.
“I can tell you who he is.”
“Give me a clue.” Jimmy fingered the cold pizza.
“He doesn’t have anything to do with the West Side Crisis

Center.”
“How do you know I think that?”
She paused. “I have sources in the police department.”
“I’d love to talk to you, lady. But I’m tired. So unless you get real

specific, real fast —“
“Meet me outside your building. I can show you his picture. I
have it with me. Him and his .45.”
The woman sounded authoritative, not crazy. Still . . . “It’s
raining outside, lady. Can’t you mail it to me?”
“The killer has targeted another victim. He’s going to strike
tonight. I know the killer.”
Now Jimmy paused. “You know him?”
There was a stifled laugh. “I’ve known him all my life.”
“Why does he do it?” Jimmy asked.
“To help—” She stopped herself. “Meet me outside your building.Walk toward Lexington Avenue.” She hung up.
Jimmy didn’t even consider not going. He grabbed his notepad
and a yellow rain slicker, which would do a better job than his soaked
raincoat. He scratched a few notes in the pad as he went down the
stairs.
The rain on the street was even more intense, drumming the
sidewalk in cold, wild abandon. The living had fled indoors. Jimmy
hunched over and trudged toward Lexington, hard drops peppering
his face.
Midway down the block, a figure in a poncho and a low-pulled
hat stepped out in front of him, materializing out of a doorway in the
long brick wall of a school building. Across the street loomed the dark
shape of a church. Jimmy, the native New Yorker, was suddenly aware
that no apartment windows overlooked them.
“Thanks for coming.” It was a woman, dressed in jeans. Jimmy
recognized the voice.
He squinted at her in the rain and dark. “Ms. Bergstrom?”
“I had to meet you,” she shouted over the wind. “Did you tell any
one about my .45?”
“No. Why? Do you carry it because you know who the killer is?
Do you feel you’re in danger?” Jimmy already had his notebook out
and was about five questions into the interview in his head. Jimmy was
a pro even in bad weather.
Her leather-gloved hands, folded into her poncho, emerged
gripping the gun. And she pointed it at Jimmy in the rain.
At first, Jimmy didn’t understand. “What’s that? What are you
doing?”
“Kneel down,” she commanded. “Now.”
The fear surged up Jimmy’s spine. But he had been in tight spots
before. “Fuck you, lady.” He turned around and headed back to his
apartment.
“Stop,” she cried.
Jimmy broke to the right and dodged between two parked cars
into the street. Nita fired and missed. She raced after him. As Jimmy
sprinted across the empty asphalt, she fired again and grazed his shoulder. He yelped and almost tripped. That earned her several yards.
Jimmy skipped between the parked cars on the street’s far side. Nita’s
third shot punched through his right bicep. He spun around and fell to
the wet sidewalk.
Nita, watching him, tripped on the curb and herself fell hard to
the pavement. Jimmy, jangled by pain and shock, scrambled to his feet.
Disoriented, he saw the church and fell again onto its hard steps.
He struggled to climb up the long steps to sanctuary on his hands and
knees. His pain-clouded mind had the idea that if he could get to the
top of the church steps, he would live.
Nita, drenched and panting painfully, came after him. Her gun
bobbed as she aimed at his heaving back in its yellow slicker. This
wasn’t going to be a Ladykiller slaying. No neat shot through the right
side of the brain. Just an ordinary street murder for Jimmy Conlon.
As she targeted between his shoulder blades, Jimmy suddenly
turned over on the stairs. “You bitch,” he sobbed.
She readjusted her aim at his chest.Then he launched himself off
the stairs and charged her, howling. She pulled the trigger and his momentum slowed for an instant as the bullet tore through him. His
body hit her with considerable force.They fell in a tangle on the side
walk, him on top of her.
Nita’s last shot had hit him in the neck, piercing an artery, and
jets of hot blood splashed over her face, into her eyes and mouth. She
gagged, pushing frantically at his weight. He was twitching now,
writhing spasmotically.
She finally climbed out from under him. She retched violently,
yet nothing came up. He continued to jerk beside her, dying.
The .45 lay a foot from her. She grabbed it and put the barrel
against his left ear. His brains splattered out the other side of his head,
and the hard rainfall sluiced them toward the gutter. Nita had the
presence of mind to feel his pockets for a wallet.Thankfully, she found
one. Robbery.
Weaving down the sidewalk, numb with shock, she let the rain
wash her bare, blood-sticky head. Then her mind cleared and she remembered something. Something important.
She forced herself to retrace her steps. She went back to the
body in front of the church.
Her hat lay crumpled on the steps. She picked up what would
have been a superb piece of police evidence and jammed it on her
head, hoping it would disguise the blood in her hair. At the corner she
reached down to the dirty water rushing into a storm drain and
splashed a handful on her face.Though shivering, she walked the endless blocks to home. It was taking a chance to go into her building, yet
she met no one on the stairs.
Once inside, Nita bolted for the bathroom. Blood was all over
her jacket, gloves, and skin.The rain had washed away some of it. But
it still streaked her face and clung greasily to her twisted hair. Blood
had stained her teeth a garish red. She looked like a warrior, direct
from hell.
She had never been in such physical danger before. Even with Billy
Ray, she had felt sure her wits were a match for him. No one had ever
attacked her with the crazy momentum of Jimmy Conlon’s desperate
leap at her on the church steps. It was a new sensation and she had hated
it. Now, her elation returned. She had won. Covered with his blood,
Nita laughed hysterically for several minutes before she threw up.

Dave and Megan sat down to dinner as the rain thrummed against the
restaurant window. “I haven’t told Nita I’m with you tonight,” she
said. As if to reward herself for candor, she took a long drink of wine.

“Good,” he said. Then, with a sly smile, “Seems Nita doesn’t exactly like me.”
Megan found herself smiling back. “No, she doesn’t.”
They shared a laugh, the kind where they locked wide, hungry
eyes. The talk flowed more easily from there. About their childhoods
and parents and the types of people they liked and disliked. In fascination, they quizzed each other about their interests, what they valued.
The answers delighted them, made them laugh for no reason. Their
knees bumped beneath the table.Their hands drifted together.
Once more, as the meal ended, their mutual destination was unspoken. He excused himself for a moment to call in. He had memorized Megan’s address and phone number, gave them as his next
location — the gospel according to Mancuso. Defying the relentless
rain, fortune provided a taxi for them in front of the restaurant. In the
cab, they kissed in heat, their tongues exploring each other’s mouths.
Inside the welcoming warmth of Megan’s apartment, they didn’t
bother with lights or talk. They tugged off each other’s clothes. Dave
picked up Megan and carried her to the bed. She brushed the stuffed
animals onto the floor and drew him needfully into her arms.
“Slow, slow, slow,” she gasped.
“Yes, yes.”
He entered her with agonizing, exquisite slowness. With each
hard, hot inch, she cried out. Her thighs squeezed his hips. At last,
Megan eagerly locked her legs around him.
The pounding on her front door almost matched their rhythm. It
took Megan a minute to realize it was not the pounding of her heart.
Then she heard the shouting.
“Dave? You in there? Dave? Miss Morrison? This is the police.”
“Jamie?” Dave panted.
Megan moaned as he withdrew from her.
“Dave,” Jamie called from the other side of the door. “Bad news,
Dave. Real bad.”

Jamie didn’t want to tell him.The car sped to the scene, siren shrieking as the watery colors of the rain-swept night reeled past. She kept
her concentration on the driving. Images of Dave kissing Megan good
night at her door — Megan with her hair every which way and her
face puffy from interrupted lovemaking — replayed in Jamie’s mind.
She thought of the anguish that awaited Dave ahead.

“It’s not my mother, right?” Dave said.
“No.”
“You don’t want to tell me, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Tell me.”
“This isn’t a Ladykiller case, Dave,” she said. “I just happened to

be around when the squeal came in.”
“Who is is it, Jamie?” He asked with the mournful quality of one
who already knew.
She told him. Not daring to look at him, she told him.
Dave made a small, gasping sound. And said no more.
The siren blared its wolf song. The wipers slapped aside the
ceaseless wash of water that teared across the windshield. And Dave
said nothing.
“I was in New Jersey today,” Jamie said to fill in the painful silence. She related what she had discovered. “The numbers on Billy
Ray’s palm appear to be the phone number of the hotline at the West
Side Crisis Center.”
Dave still said nothing.
At the scene, Jimmy’s block, radio cars with their flashing red
strobes clogged the street. A couple of news vans had arrived already.
Even in the hard rain, a crowd was gathered outside the yellow tape.
Forgetting to put on his hat or button up his raincoat, Dave
left the car and walked like a zombie through the rubberneckers.
He didn’t show his badge as he ducked under the tape. A young cop
bellowed at him and grabbed his shoulders to shove him back.
“It’s Detective Dillon, you asshole,” an older cop shouted, and
the embarassed young officer quickly unhanded Dave.
Smithers, who Dave first met at the Academy, was in charge of
the uniforms at the scene. He intercepted Dave. “You a friend of this
guy, right?”
Dave nodded.The rain did a good job covering up his tears.
“Word got out that a reporter was waxed,” Smithers said, the
rain bouncing off the plastic sheathing that covered the patent leather
bill of his hat.“News teams are here, with more coming.”
Dave was transfixed by the canvas-covered form that lay beside
the church steps. Hands and feet protruded from the canvas. A crowd
of detectives and uniforms clustered over it like indecisive buzzards,
their movements slow and deliberate in the downpour. A couple of
technicians were trying to rig an awning over the body, but the wind
was defeating them.
“Mancuso will be here any minute,” Smithers said. “He’s pissed to
be called out. But a reporter —”
Dave edged through the group around Jimmy’s body. A couple of
people called his name in the wind. He ignored them. He pulled aside
the canvas over Jimmy’s head.The rain quickly ate at the chalk framing
his ruined, blown-out skull.
“Robbery,” a detective said into Dave’s ear. “Signs of a struggle.
Shot four times. Neck, shoulder, arm, and head. Wallet gone. Pocket
inside out.”
Dave explored beneath Jimmy’s yellow, dirt-and-blood-grimed
slicker. He felt for Jimmy’s back pockets and fished out his friend’s
notepad. Sheltering it inside his raincoat so the ink wouldn’t run,
Dave examined the pages with a uniform’s borrowed flashlight.
One entry, with that night’s date and the time, two hours before:
“Sez knws LK. Has pic.”
“Body was lying here awhile,” Smithers said. “Nobody called it in.
Bad rain, right?”
“Must’ve thought he was homeless. Drunk or some shit,” a uni
form added disgustedly. “People.”
Jamie trotted up. She said into Dave’s ear, “Mancuso’s here. Let’s
get out.”
Dave surrendered the notepad to one of the detectives. He
looked at her dumbly.
“You’re getting wet, Dave,” Jamie pleaded. “I’ll take you back to
Megan’s.There’s nothing more you can do.”
The Mancuso entourage barged onto the scene.The man himself
was dressed in a tuxedo under his raincoat. One of his flunkies held a
giant umbrella over his head like a dark halo. The umbrella needed
two hands to steady it in the gale.
Mancuso’s bray carried over the weather. “Do I have to give a
statement to those fucking jackals?”
“Sir, it would be best,” his top aide said.
Mancuso gazed with contempt at the television lights on the
nether side of the tape. “What’s worse, the city clerk’s testimonial
dinner or this gang bang? At least the dinner’s inside. I know this
reporter, don’t I?”
“Yes, sir,” the aide said. “Jimmy Conlon. He’s the one who broke
the story —”
“I remember, I remember.” Mancuso waved at him to shut up.
“What’s the big deal here?”
“He
is
a reporter of some importance, sir,” the aide said.
“To who?” Mancuso sneered nastily. He scanned the group
around the body. “Dillon? That you? Christ.”
“Sir, let’s get you briefed before you talk to the media,” the aide
suggested.
“Let’s just make it a photo op.” Mancuso said, staring at Dave as
he talked to his aide. “I was here to show my concern and all that crap.
I mean, really. So we’ve got one less pushy Jew reporter. So what?”
“You bastard.” Dave lunged at Mancuso. Jamie and Smithers
grabbed him and pulled him back.
Mancuso jerked away and momentarily lost his footing. The
umbrella caught the wind and the rain splashed his elegant shirt. He
stabbed his index finger at Dave. “That son of a bitch is crazy. I’ll pull
his badge, by God.”
“Come on, Dave,” Jamie said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Dave twisted free from Jamie and Smithers. He ran to the intense TV lights that shone like supernovas beyond the tape. Dave
palmed his badge and held it aloft for the reporters and cameras.
“I’m Detective Dave Dillon. I’m on the Ladykiller task force.
Jimmy Conlon was my best friend. He was going to meet somebody
who said they’d tell him the identity of the killer. That’s why he died
tonight. It’s related to the Ladykiller series. He was shot four times
with a .45. Not the way the Ladykiller victims always are. But it’s
related.” He paused to stop himself from sobbing. “Believe me.”
The reporters called questions, but Dave shook his head and
threaded through the throng. He broke into a run.
He ran through the freezing, silver curtains of rain for blocks.
Until he got home. The cat tumbled out to say hello, then after one
good gander, ducked under the couch.
Dave phoned Megan, standing there in his sopping clothes, a
puddle forming at his feet. He was still out of breath.
“I was worried sick,” she said. “Why don’t I come over? Let me
be with you, Dave.”
The idea of her arms around him beckoned like smooth, rich
sunshine. “I want that more than anything,” he said. “But I’ve got to
figure it out. I’ve got to get this killer.There’s a pattern. Somehow. If I
can just —”
“Shhhh. I know.”
And all over the city as the clock edged toward twelve, the vast
cloud of rain and wind cascaded its anger, rattling windows, chilling
hearts.The evening news beamed the dramatic footage of Dave Dillon
to every dry place in town.The living took shelter that night and held
each other close.
Keeping his own vigil through the night, as it howled its wet and
malignant majesty outside, Dave Dillon sat on the floor at the foot of
his bed, sat before the wall and the bloody pictures of the dead.
As the gray morning rain whipped at his window, Dave understood what he had to do. He slowly disengaged from the shocked,
blood-blasted faces of the victims’ photos and brewed some coffee.
The cat, who had left him alone during his long vigil, padded
into the kitchen and rubbed Dave’s legs. Dave bent down with the
slow and deliberate care of the deeply weary and stroked the cat.
After he fixed his pet’s breakfast, he took his coffee to the window
and let his bleary eyes dwell on the storm-swept street. Early risers
scurried forth, bent under the rocking tempo of the continuing wind
and rain.
The coffee, plus a shave and shower, brought him fresh energy.
He briefly considered calling Jimmy’s mother, but what would he say
to her? That he was responsible for Jimmy’s death? That if he hadn’t
enlisted his friend’s help, Jimmy would still be alive?
As he was leaving, the phone rang. Although he wasn’t ready to
talk to anyone yet, he somehow knew that he should answer. Megan’s
voice had a soft, cottony, caring quality.
“How are you?”
“I’m okay. Really.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I worried about you all night. I
wanted to call, but hoped you were sleeping, so —”
“You’re wonderful,” Dave said. “The next few days won’t be easy.
If I know you’re there for me — Well —”
“I’ll be there for you,” Megan said firmly. “I love you, Dave.” She
was surprised to hear herself say it. She held her breath.
“I love you, too, Megan.”