Night Hunter (18 page)

She felt the strength drain from her legs. “You loved me once, Gary, you can love me again.”

“
I don’t think I ever loved you. You caught me on the rebound. You did all the right things. You pampered me, boosted my ego, made me feel like a man again after my divorce. And then, before I could come to my senses, before I could find out what you were really like, you got pregnant.”

“
You married me. That, in my book, tells me that you loved me, Gary.” She reached for him. If she could just touch him.

He jerked back as if burned. “It says I was a stupid jerk for believing your lies. ‘Marry me or I’ll kill myself,’” he whined in a falsetto. “And for ten years, ten dull, suffocating years, I’ve been trying to be free of you.”

“
If you leave now, I will kill myself.”

“
Do it,” he said calmly. A chill ran through her. “Do it for me ... and the girls. You’ll be doing us all a favor. They can come live with me. Me and Amanda. What do you think about that?”

“
I’ll kill them too. Amanda and the girls. First I’ll kill them and then myself. And you won’t have anybod—”

Tammy heard the slap before she felt it. She had failed to see his hand coming, but the force behind it spun her around, nearly knocking her off her feet. She bit her tongue. Her ear began to ring. The next moment his hand was at her throat.

“
What are you going to do now?” His eyes were bright, fierce, maniacal. “Threaten me? Touch me and make me want you? Try it. Go on, try it.”

He held her by the throat, constricting her air passage. Pain brought tears to her eyes.

“
I pity you. Look at you with your big fake breasts, wearing clothes years too young for you. When will you understand that there’s more to a person than looks? Amanda has brains, common sense, and ... something that you’ll never have—class.”

He abruptly released his hold on her. While Tammy struggled for a breath, coughing and wheezing, Gary retrieved his jacket from the floor and stormed out of the house, the door slamming with finality behind him.

She sank to the floor, sobbing.

He loved her. He was just confused. Torn.

Despite the pain and the panic she felt at the moment, Tammy knew Gary was right about one thing, she’d never have Amanda’s brains or social position. She had only one thing that she could count on in life. Her looks. And the attention it brought her.

As she wept, she thought back to a time when attention wasn’t as hard to get. Her father, a deep-sea fisherman, had been lost at sea when Tammy was five. Friends of her father came to her mother’s house in San Pedro to help out. On those occasions Tammy would put on her red dress and black tap shoes. To records she danced, her pale hair flying across her face, the full skirt of her taffeta dress twirling straight out, showing off her ruffled panties. The men would clap and press coins into her hand. She catered to them, brought them food, drinks. She rubbed their backs and feet and they said she had magic fingers. All this she did happily, not for the money, but for the attention.

She learned early on that her sweet smile, her magic fingers, her will to please, attracted men to her. For a while, anyway. They took what was offered and then they went away.

An hour later the phone rang. Tammy prayed it would be Gary. But the caller was a stranger with a deep, gravelly voice, asking for the time schedule of her aerobics class at The Fitness Center.

After hanging up, she called Gary. The answering machine came on. At the beep she said softly, “Gary, pick up the phone. I know you’re there. Please talk to me. Gary? Honey?” She rubbed her swollen throat. “Honey, I’m not mad at you. Please talk to me.”

The man was a psychopath—a vicious, brutal maniac who lustedXXXZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Christ!

The blue screen remained blank save for that one idiotic sentence and that damnable blinking cursor. Another unproductive afternoon.

Holding a red pistachio to his front teeth, John opened it and worked the nut out with his tongue. He chewed slowly, washing it down with coffee. He put his hands back on the keyboard, the fingers stained with the pistachio’s red dye, and typed C-o-r-i-n-n-e O-d-e-t-t. He hit the return, then typed the name. Donna Lake. Two spaces down he added three more names: Tamara Kowalski, Amelia Corde and Regina Van Raven. These three ended with a question mark.

His door buzzer sounded. John rose, crossed the room, opened the door, and looked out to the entry. Through the long panes of glass set in the door he saw two men in business suits. One man, Asian, his face to the glass, was peering inside. Their eyes met. John pressed the button to the right of his door, buzzing them in.

John had known instantly who they were. They were both reaching into their pockets for identification. Cops.

“
Mr. John Davie?” the thin Asian with the flattop asked.

“
Yes.”

The badges were flashed. John didn’t bother to look.

“
May we ask you a few questions?”

“
About what?”

Looking into the vestibule, John saw a woman in an off-white top and pants enter. There was no mistaking the pretty features of his upstairs neighbor.

One detective turned, nodded his head. “Afternoon, Mrs. Van Raven.”

“
Good afternoon, Detective Lillard,” she said as she passed the three men. For a fleeting moment her eyes met John’s before she started up the stairway. John stared after her.

“
What do you know about the assault on Donna Lake?” the other detective asked John.

Her sandaled foot missed a step.

“
Not a thing.” John watched her entire ascent up the stairs. At the top she glanced down at him before disappearing around the banister.

“
Come on in.”

They followed him inside, their trained eyes darting about the apartment.

John spotted the luminous blue screen of his monitor. From where he stood the white printing was not legible, but if the police should move closer they’d see the names of two Miss Classic finalists—victims of acid. And the three who were not victims —not yet.

He strode across the wide expanse of living room, deliberately using his body to shield the screen, and pressed the “escape” key. The screen blinked before displaying the IBM program menu.

“
What was that?” Lillard asked, moving closer.

“
A novel I’m working on.”

“
Writer, huh?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Ever get published?”

“
A few times.”

“
Anything I’d know about?”

“
I have no idea,” John said leaning on the desk. “You had questions about a crime?”

“
Yeah. Are you acquainted with Donna Lake?” Lillard asked. It appeared to John that he was to be the designated spokesman for the two.

“
Never met her.”

“
Know who she is?”

“
I’ve seen her on TV.”

“
Ever hear of something like this happening before?”

John waited, knowing damn well the cops knew he had.

“
You knew the other one, didn’t you, John?”

John stared at him.

“
Yes or no, John?”

“
Yes.”

“
You got an alibi for your whereabouts yesterday between four and five
P.M.?”

“
I can save you a lot of time by telling you that yesterday I was at KSCO.”

The two detectives looked at each other. So they hadn’t known, John thought, surprised. He was certain Regina had called them.

“
And what were you doing there?”

“
I pass the station every day on my way to the Bull’s Blood bar where I work.”

“
What time was that?”

“
About four-fifteen. The emergency vans were just pulling up. I felt compelled to see what was going on.”

“
I see,” the detective said. He moved to the desk, picked up several pistachios from the bag and, holding them up, said, “May I?” John nodded. Lillard ate the nuts, then tossed the shells on a red mound in a large ceramic bowl. “It’s quite a coincidence that you would be present just moments after a woman gets acid tossed in her face —on two separate occasions.”

John sighed.
“This
time it was a coincidence.”

“
And the other time?”

“
I knew Corinne Odett.”

From the desk Lillard lifted a copy of John’s novel,
Evil Tidings.
He stared at the author’s picture on the back of the jacket. “See much of Miss Odett?”

“
No.”

“
When was the last time?”

“
Before the assault.”

“
Why is that, John?”

“
That’s none of your business,” John said, feeling his anger surface. “I had nothing to do with her attack. We went through all this shit twenty years ago. It’s over. You can’t drag me back into it.”

“
It’s never over. Especially now that we know you popped up at another acid splash. You’re back in it again, Mr. Davie.”

“
Are you arresting me?”

“
What’s your hurry? Be a sport. Give us a chance to put a good, concrete case together. You slipped through the cracks last time out—no eyewitness and not enough evidence. This time, though, we just might luck out.”

The two detectives moved to the door, halfway out, the other one said, “If you think of something you want to tell Detective Lillard, or me, Detective Foyota, call.” He dropped a business card on the rocking chair.

The door closed softly behind them. Instead of the footsteps moving toward the front door, John heard them on the stairway, climbing.

“
My God, Fletch, the publicity,” Amelia said excitedly into the cordless phone.

It was late afternoon and Matthew was in the basement tinkering, like King Midas, with his coins and precious metals and whatever else he kept in his room down there.

Amelia was in the closet going through his clothes. Instead of discarding or giving them away, she would sell them to a clothes outlet. With the receiver clamped between ear and shoulder, she dug through the pockets of his suits and shirts. “At first I thought it was a waste of time. But do you realize how much free publicity we’ve already gotten from that show? My face has been on nationwide TV.”

“
Adverse publicity, Amelia.”

“
For Donna, yes, but not for me —for us. When we’re prepared to go public, advertisers everywhere will know me. I just can’t believe how this is turning out.”

“
You could show some compassion for the victim.”

“
Darling, I do. I’ve just sent her a very expensive floral arrangement with my profound condolences. Will you stop looking at this in a negative light. Everything happens for the best, you know. Something good might even come out of this for Donna.”

“
I can’t imagine what.”

“
I wonder who will be taking over for her while she’s recovering?”