The Dark House (22 page)

“You could have made a note of the license plate number.”

“It's just a number! It doesn't tell you anything. Now, a vanity plate—”

“Well, we got it now, along with the guy's name,” Marj interrupted. “So what were you doing before you started following the guy? The tape didn't say.”

“Just reading the paper.”

“Just reading the paper.” Marj shook her head. “So why'd you follow
him
?”

“I don't know. He was there when I looked up.”

“So there wasn't, like, anything special about him. No ‘Follow Me' sign on his rear bumper?”

“I told you. It's arbitrary. I see someone and maybe I think, okay, that's the one. Or maybe I don't. It's all about how I feel.” Rollins wasn't sure she appreciated what a confidence this was. “It's unconscious, I guess that's what I'm saying.”

Marj set down her pen and shifted in her seat. “Okay, Rolo, here's the thing. Here's the part I've been wondering about. Did it ever occur to you that this guy might have been
expecting
you to follow him?”

“But he couldn't have.”

“Why not? It's not like this was the first time you did this.” Marj glanced toward his row of tapes again.

Rollins considered this a moment. “But how would he know?”

Now Marj seemed exasperated. “Maybe he'd seen you.” She said it slowly, pausing between each word.

“But he
couldn't
have,” Rollins repeated.

“How would
you
know? You just told me you were reading the paper. He could have been watching you.”

“That's impossible.”

“Let's forget impossible, okay?” Marj slapped a hand down on the bed and stood up. “We're way past impossible here. You tipped this guy off somehow. There's no other way! He was on to you. I mean, Rolo, come on. You think you're invisible, that nobody notices you.” She laughed, to Rollins' annoyance. “Like in the office. You think nobody gives you a thought, but you are the number one topic of conversation in the ladies' room. Number one, Rolo.” Marj's voice was raised now, and she'd left her chair to move back and forth by his bed, gesturing. “So I don't think you were just sitting there, and this guy just
happens
to drive by and lead you back to, like, the one house in all of Massachusetts that's connected to your old friend Cornelia. I don't buy that, okay?”

“So, well, what then?”

“I think he was watching you and waiting. And I think you know why.”

Rollins felt a slight pulsing in his temple that might augur a migraine. He stood up and went to the window. He needed to break free from Marj's eyes. “Okay.” He glanced at his grandfather's Pierce-Arrow. “Okay,” he said again. “Now just calm down for a second, all right? Just calm down.” He continued to face the wall. “There is something else you should know. I didn't want to tell you before because, well, I just didn't. I'm not used to this.” He turned back to her, swung a hand back and forth between them.

“Conversation,” Marj prodded.

“Right, conversation. Okay.” He took a breath. “I told you I went to see Jeffries' house tonight, right?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't tell you where I was before that.”

“Nooooo.”

He told her about going to Cornelia's house in Londonderry, although he scrupulously did not say how he'd happened to do that.

“You saw her, didn't you?”

Rollins told her no, happy to disabuse her of at least one of her fantasies. Still, she was astonished that he had actually gone inside. Rollins made fists of his hands inside his pockets as he told her about discovering that the house had been sold to the Stantons by Cornelia's parents—illegally, he was fairly sure. He looked over at Marj: Her face was all confusion.

“Well, that's bizarre,” she said at last.

“And get this. Guess who the realtor was.”

Marj's eyes shot open.
“No!”

“Yes.”

“Sloane's hooked up with your aunt and uncle?”

Rollins shook his head sorrowfully. “Seems to be.”

“That guy is everywhere, Rolo. He's connected to Cornelia's parents, to you, and now he's hitting me with these fucking phone calls—” She stopped, midsentence, and looked at him strangely.

“What?” Rollins asked.

She spoke calmly, which made her words all the more frightening: “I keep remembering the way he looked at you at the North Reading house.”

“
I don't know him, Marj
. I don't know why he did that, okay? I've never seen him before in my life. Really. You've got to believe that.”

“Okay, whatever you say. But why Cornelia's parents?”

“I talked to Schecter. He thinks it's because it's coming up on seven years that Neely's been gone.”

“So?” Marj looked at him blankly.

“If someone's gone seven years, then they're legally assumed to be dead, and their property goes to the heirs.”

“Then who gets all Cornelia's stuff?”

“That's what we don't know. Neely's lawyers wouldn't tell me. But obviously it's not my aunt and uncle, or they wouldn't have gone to all that trouble to phony up the deed.”

“Well, maybe it's you, you ever think of that?”

“Me?”
A stunning prospect, and a flattering one. He felt a little bubble of joy rise through him as he considered it. But why him? It had been so long since he'd seen Neely. Plus, she was so much older. He'd never meant as much to her as she had to him. He was always the one chasing her, never the reverse. “I doubt it,” he said finally, feeling a pang of sadness as he did so.

“Then why is Sloane so focused on you? That's the question.” She sounded impatient.

Rollins stretched his hands out toward her. “Just wait a second. That's what I was going to tell you.” He lowered his gaze to his shoes, which seemed about the only safe place to look right then. He took a breath and told her about visiting the little memorial marker by the side of the road. As Marj's eyes widened in amazement, he realized this was not going as he'd planned. He'd intended this confession to convey his undying loyalty to Neely, but instead he could tell he was coming across like some kind of nut.

“The point is, I've been there before,” he finally declared.

“At the side of the road?”

“On her property.”

“You go in there, like, regularly? Even after you finished the story?”

Rollins nodded. “I didn't think anyone would be there. The house had always looked empty.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” She sat down on the bed.

“I didn't think it was important.”

“You thought I'd think you were even weirder than I do, is more like it.”

Rollins said nothing.

“So what would you do?”

“Nothing much. Just walk around.”

“You drive in?”

“I'd park by the side of the road.”

“Where anybody could see you?” Marj said. “Don't they call that trespassing?”

“But she was gone!”

“But you just told me Sloane was the guy selling the place. He could have seen you there.” Marj's eyes went wide. “He probably thinks you're still on the case. Maybe he thinks you've found out something. Something important.”

“Like—?”

“Like what happened to Neely. Like where her body is. Like who killed her. And he's watching you to find out what you know.”

“But come on! I don't know
what
happened to Neely. I'm not investigating a murder. I don't even know for sure that she's dead, let alone killed.”

Marj weakened, turned away from him. “I'm just trying to think this thing through, okay?” She sounded plaintive this time, desperate. Rollins felt for her. It wasn't so much that Sloane was trying to understand him.
She
was. That's what this was about. And he was more than she could figure.

There was a knock on the door. “Marj? You in there?” It was Tina.

“Oh, shit. Her.”

Marj went to the door. Rollins had to help her with the locks.

“I'm sorry to interrupt.” Tina's eyes went from Marj to Rollins and back again. “I just wanted to tell you I'm going to bed, and I thought we should probably get you set up.”

“Oh, yeah. It's getting late, isn't it?” Marj turned back to Rollins. “Listen, I better go. We'll talk about this in the morning, okay?”

“Didn't you leave something in the bedroom, Marj?” Rollins asked.

“I don't think so.” But she followed him back, anyway.

Inside the bedroom door, Rollins pulled her to him, spoke quietly. “Don't tell her anything about Sloane or Jeffries, okay?”

“Now who's paranoid?” Marj asked.

He held her arm. “Please? Just don't.”

She gave him a troubled look. “Sure, Rolo. Whatever.”

 

Neely's hair was on him, so light, as she bent over his bed to kiss him good night. Just the lightest touch, but promising more. A light, lovely kiss, on his forehead, and then, if he was lucky, she'd rough up his hair.

 

After Marj left, he returned to his bedroom. Had Sloane sicced the gaunt man, Jeffries, on him? Had his trip to the dark house been their plan, not his? A way of protecting themselves from—what? A murder inquiry? It was a terrible, wrenching thought, not least because it made so little sense. It turned the world inside out. Had he been watched? He who had always been the careful, attentive observer? Could he have missed this essential truth that transformed everything, turning him from subject to object, from observer to observed? The idea ate at him. Rollins couldn't put it out of his mind, not while he brushed his teeth, not while he changed into his pajamas, not while he lay under a sheet with the lights out, trying to sleep.

Inside the fear, a memory. Dim at first, then flickering into brightness. He'd been on Main Street, in Medford. The previous month. He had been following a white Caprice south from Melrose. There had been a jam-up on College Street by Tufts University, and the Caprice had veered off onto Main and then pulled up in front of a drugstore. The driver—an overly made-up, middle-aged woman, as Rollins recalled—had left the Caprice double-parked while she went in to the store. Because of all the congestion, Rollins had had to circle the block waiting for her to return. But it wasn't the Caprice he was remembering. It was the car the Caprice had blocked in.

As he'd come back around the block, Rollins had heard the insistent blast of a car horn coming from the part of the street where he'd left the Caprice. But—this was the bothersome part—the driver had stopped hitting the horn as soon as Rollins came around, even though the Caprice's driver had not returned. A rather large car, too. A disturbingly familiar one.

In exasperation, Rollins threw off the covers and switched on the light. He stood up on his bed, and dragged a finger across the last few tapes, stopping at the one labeled “7:18 PM, June 8, 2000.” As connected as Rollins felt to these recordings, it had never occurred to him that they might actually be useful, provide a resource. His pulse quickened as he opened the box and plucked out the tape, then stepped unsteadily back down onto the floor. He leaned over his tape player and pushed the new cassette into the slot. He pressed the
PLAY
button.

The first sounds came out as a roar. The volume was still cranked up, and he quickly turned it down. The pursuit had taken him to Medford. He heard himself describe the white Caprice's muffler problems, and a poodle dashing out into the street, two details he'd forgotten completely, and then he reached the part about the double-parking.
She's pulled over, right in the middle of traffic
, Rollins' voice declared.
Blinkers on, must be going in to the CVS there on the corner. I'm going on ahead. See if I can circle the block.
In the background now, he heard the usual street sounds, the rush of passing cars, the rumble of trucks going by, a shout or two from a pedestrian. Then he heard it. The insistent honking—over and over.
What's
that
about
?” Rollins heard himself say.
Oh, someone's parked in. One of those big SUVs, a Land Cruiser looks like. Big green thing.
On the tape, the honking stopped abruptly.

Rollins shut off the tape player. A green Land Cruiser! Had Sloane been in that car? He must have been. Rollins tried to picture the scene: Sloane, frustrated, rides the horn as he tries to get out of his parking space. Then he sees Rollins and stops abruptly. Why? Rollins had been up in Londonderry only a week before. Had Sloane seen him at Cornelia's house, made the connection to the
Beacon
article? He must have. He must have assumed that Rollins was on him somehow, just as Marj had said. That was the only explanation.

Rollins was not invisible, after all. He had been seen.

T
hat night, Rollins was certain he'd never felt so hot, so uncomfortable. He threw open all the windows, but no air stirred in his apartment: The heat seemed to be coming from inside him. He kept imagining himself being roughed up, shoved this way and that by strangers who shouted at him with gruff, unintelligible voices. Then he felt Tina's hands on him. They were reaching under the waistband of his pajamas, clawing at him. It was a frenzied, indecent dream that left him tangled in his sweat-dampened sheets. Around four
A.M
., he got up and took a cold shower to try to cool his mind.

Afterward, when he looked at himself in the mirror and saw his limp hair, soft belly, and bleary eyes, he realized that it was no wonder that no one ever reached for him except in his nightmares. He was old, or at least older than he'd remembered. Those creases on either side of
his mouth—he was pretty sure they were new. And could he always press a finger that deep into his abdomen?

He was just stepping out of the bathroom when he heard a knock on his door. He was afraid it was Tina again. He pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt, hurried to the door. “Rollins! You there?” It was Marj, thank God. She knocked again. “Quick, Rolo, let me in.”

Rollins fumbled with the lock, and Marj burst in the moment he opened the door. “Grab your car keys, Rollins, quick. We're going.”

“What?”
This was happening too fast. She was in her running clothes—bright-colored, skimpy. Seeing her there—so real, so thrillingly beautiful—he wanted her to wait a moment so that he could caress her face, maybe even kiss her.

“Now! Get 'em!”

Foggy-brained, Rollins returned to his bedroom and grabbed the keys from the top of his bureau and, while he was at it, stuffed his wallet into his back pocket. He shoved his bare feet into his loafers. He would have turned back for a pair of socks, but Marj had grabbed his hand and yanked him toward the front door. “We've
got
to go—right now,” she insisted. He barely had time to lock the door behind him before she'd disappeared down the stairs.

In a few moments they were out on the quiet, rose-colored street; it was cooler, now, at daybreak. Marj squinted at him against the low sun. “Where's your car?”

“In a garage up the street.” He pointed the way. “Would you mind—?”

“Well, come
on
,” she interrupted, and took off in that direction.

“What is
happening
?” he shouted after her.

But Marj didn't answer. She was well up the street, beckoning for him to follow. Rollins had no choice but to hurry after her, his loafers slapping the uneven bricks. Finally, he caught up to her and grabbed her shoulders to stop her. “Tell me,” he begged her, gulping air. “Tell me now.”

“The
car
, Rolo. Where is it?” She was panting, too.

“Up ahead,” he gestured up the street. “What's the matter?”

“She's in with Sloane.”

“Who is?”

“Tina.”

Rollins went cold.

“
Tina
, Rolo. I found a note. I couldn't sleep last night. So I got up and I'm looking around, and I find this to-do list. And one of the things was, ‘Get next four hundred dollars from Jerry.'” Marj started moving again up the sidewalk. “This way, Rolo? The car?”

“So that's it?” Rollins asked. “Just ‘Get four hundred dollars from Jerry?'”

She stopped again. “I found her address book.
Jerry Sloane's in it
. Address, phone number, the whole fucking thing. She knows him, Rolo.”

Rollins' skin went cold. Sloane was everywhere. He was even here, casting his shadow across the two of them.

She turned toward the garage across the street and pointed. “That one?”

“Yeah,” Rollins shouted.

She darted across the street—just missing a Buick that came squealing to a halt in front of her. The driver gave her a shout, and Marj gave him the finger back. She was in the shadows of the garage when Rollins finally caught up to her.

“What floor?” she demanded.

“Third. The stairs are over there.” He pointed to the entrance.

“Come on!”

“So that's when you left?” he asked, once they were inside the dim staircase. His words echoed around and up the bare stairwell.

Marj climbed ahead of him, her running shoes making angry sounds on the steps. “Not right then.” She was breathing harder now. “I was still looking at it when the kid, Heather, asked me, ‘What are you doing?' I didn't even know she was awake and then,
bam
, she was right there.” She paused to catch her breath. “I nearly died. I thought she was going to start screaming. But she went real quiet, staring right at me. So I said, ‘I didn't know your mom knew Jerry Sloane.' And she says, ‘Yeah, we spent the night there just last week, when I was sick.'”

Rollins, scrambling to keep up, remembered how Heather had said
she'd stayed “near water.” Of course! The Mystic River flowed right by the Sloanes' house. And Tina had been so pushy, so curious about everything.

“Then Heather said, ‘But you're not supposed to know that.'”

“And that was all?”

“She said, ‘I'd better go tell mister.' That's you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Cute. That's when she started pushing me out the door.”

They'd reached the doorway to the third floor. “It's down this way,” Rollins said, and he grabbed Marj's hand and led her down the row toward his Nissan.

The garage was silent at this hour, except for their shoes beating on the concrete floor as they moved along. The morning light slanted through the soot-smudged windows, casting long shadows. He expected complete vacancy all around him, with all these empty cars. But, as he hurried along with Marj, he sensed a human presence somewhere to his left. One of the cars wasn't empty. He could feel it. He turned, and he saw a shadowy head outlined against the incoming sunlight in one of the sedans in the row to his left. It was hardly anything, just a dark shape where there should have been nothing at all. But it sent a wave of electricity through him.

“What?” Marj asked.

“Keep going,” Rollins said evenly.

He unlocked the Nissan, and the two of them climbed in.

“He's here.”

“Who?”

“Jeffries.”

“Who?”

“The gaunt man.”

Marj's face bore a look of panic. Rollins jerked the car out of its slot and sped for the down ramp. He'd lowered the window a few inches, to listen. A car started up somewhere behind him.

“Okay, hang on,” Rollins said. He gave the car the gas and careened down the ramp. He braked only for the exit, shoved his ID card into the slot, and spun out onto Hanover Street, cutting off a Yel
low Cab. Behind him, the furious blast of the driver's horn, which he ignored.

“He back there?” He glanced up into the rearview.

“I don't see—wait, there it is. An Audi, right?”

“That's him.”

Rollins took a right, then a quick left. “How 'bout now?”

“No. I think he's stuck at an intersection.”

Rollins started to breathe again. “Okay. Good.” He swung back onto Commercial Street, his eyes darting about the different rearview mirrors in search of the Audi.

“Where are we going?”

“Up onto the expressway. He won't see us up there.” He hooked a left onto Causeway by the FleetCenter, then climbed up onto the elevated highway that cut through downtown Boston. “Now?” Rollins asked.

“I don't see him.”

“Good.”

The highway was nearly deserted at this hour. Rollins floored it, and the Nissan flew ahead.

“Now what, Rolo?”

“I don't know.” He looked at the dashboard clock. Five forty-five. “We sure can't go to work.”

“Not dressed like this.” Marj looked down at her running clothes.

“Let's think—” Rollins tapped the wheel. “What do they expect us to do?”

“Leave town, probably. Go to Indianapolis or to Morton, which is looking pretty good right now, I've gotta say.”

Rollins turned to her. “So we stay.”

“But I don't want to be anywhere near those people! They're all over us, Rolo. Every time we turn around, they're right there.”

“Okay, okay.” Rollins checked in the rearview, then slowed and pulled into the right lane. “We'll check into a hotel.”

“Oh, Rolo, I don't know.” Her voice had defeat in it.

“A nice hotel.”

“Oh, God.”

“With room service.”

“This is too scary.”

But Rollins had already put on his blinker.

“Wait, where are you going? Where are you taking me?”

“To the Ritz.”

The Ritz was at the corner of Arlington and Newbury, facing the Public Garden, a deep green now except for the black waters of the duck pond. It was almost six when Rollins pulled up in the Nissan, but two uniformed valets were on duty, and one of them rushed smartly out to greet him. “You'll be staying with us, sir?” He started to write up a claim ticket for the car.

“That's right.”

“Luggage in the back?” the valet asked.

“No luggage today.” Rollins got out of his car. They were seriously underdressed, but the valet seemed not to notice and merely handed Rollins the ticket. “Have a nice stay.”

Rollins and Marj stepped together up the thick red carpet that extended over the sidewalk, then pushed through the heavy glass door and into the long, ornate hall that led to the reception counter in the lobby. The elegant wallpaper, the heavy sconces, the glittering respectability all reminded him uncomfortably of his parents' house.

Rollins approached the sole receptionist on duty at this hour. “We need two rooms, please.”

“Actually, one would be fine,” Marj piped up at his side. “But make it a really nice one, okay?” She turned to Rollins. “I don't want to be alone right now, all right?”

“Perhaps we can make do with one,” Rollins told the receptionist, an earnest young man with a buzz cut.

“Do you have a reservation?”

Rollins shook his head.

“We just came from a fire,” Marj explained. “We lost everything.”

The receptionist glanced down at his computer screen. “I'm afraid we have only suites left.”

“Perfect,” Marj said.

“How much is it?” Rollins asked.

“Five twenty-five.”

“A
night
?” Marj interjected.

“Yes, sir.”

“We'll take it,” Rollins said bravely.

“What name?”

“Sinclair,” Marj said, nudging Rollins slightly.

“Yes, ah, Peter Sinclair,” Rollins said.

“Would you fill this out, please, Mr. Sinclair?” The receptionist handed Rollins an address card. Rollins filled in the name as Peter Sinclair, and gave his old address on Commonwealth Avenue.

When Rollins handed over his American Express card, however, he braced himself for some questions about the discrepancy between the name he gave and that of the cardholder, but, to his surprise, the receptionist said only, “Sorry about the fire, Mr. Sinclair.”

A uniformed bellhop named Rafael led them to their room, which was down at the end of the hall. “There you are,” he said. The suite was indeed quite splendid—a sitting room and bedroom, both done in the classic English manner. The bedroom had a nice view of the park, and the Common beyond, ringed with Federal-style town houses that were barely visible through the trees. While Rafael explained to Marj about the operation of the TV remote control and the location of the mini-bar, Rollins went around to all the windows, checking the sightlines, then drawing the blinds and pulling tight the drapes against the now-bright morning sun. He took comfort from the fact that the street was four stories below, making it impossible to see in from that angle.

“Do you think we should rent a VCR?” Marj called over to him. “It's only twenty bucks a night. It seems to have a pretty good list of movies.” Marj held up a page from the hotel's welcoming brochure.

“Whatever you think.”

The bellhop said he'd bring the VCR by as soon as one became available. “We can have some spare clothes delivered to your room, soon as the stores open,” he added. “What are you, a thirty-nine, forty regular?” he asked Rollins.

“Forty-one.”

Rafael made a note. “And I'm guessing, thirty-five waist?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Thirty-four inseam?”

“That's right.”

Rafael smiled. “I used to work at Louis', that's how I know,” he said, referring to a prominent Boston haberdashery. “I'll have you lookin' good.” He turned to Marj. “Anything for you, ma'am?”

“No thanks. I'm fine.”

“All right then.” He headed for the door, then stopped. “Sorry about the fire.”

“Thank you.” Rollins handed him a ten-dollar bill.

“Thank you, sir.”

When he left, Marj locked the door behind him. “You sure no one will find us here?”

“Not today.”

“Smart of me not to use your name, huh?”

“Extremely.” Rollins said it mindlessly as he glanced around the room. When he looked back at Marj, some of her usual radiance seemed to have gone out of her.

“You have been very smart about—about a lot of things,” he said quietly.

“Well, I'm glad to get a little appreciation.” She glanced around at the furnishings again and took a seat on a faux Queen Anne chair by the wardrobe in the corner. “Pretty fancy. But they'd better be at these prices.”

Marj shifted in her chair. “She was spying on you, you know. The whole time, your neighbor was spying on you. I can't believe it. That
bitch
.” She stood up and went to the TV console, and flicked on the remote control that was on the top.