The Dead Room (40 page)

“They’re looking for Rosemary, and Trisco’s the one. Nothing’s changed. They’re working it hard.”

“I’ll call you back this afternoon,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll have better news.”

He slipped the phone into his pocket. As he gazed at the building, he noticed a man staring at him from the corner. It was Alan Andrews, striding toward him like he knew who Teddy had been talking to. He’d seen him on the phone. Seen him sitting on a bench in December across from his office. Teddy set his coffee down and stood up as the district attorney moved closer. The man stopped just short of his face. To Teddy’s surprise, he didn’t appear anxious or even angry. Instead, Alan Andrews was relaxed, his voice eerily smooth.

“Do you really think you’re ready for the big leagues, Teddy Mack?”

Teddy didn’t say anything, and took a step back.

“I didn’t think so,” Andrews said, sizing him up. “I just got off the phone with a partner at your firm. It’s official. You’ve cashed your last paycheck. Your career’s over. You’ve been fired.”

Teddy took it in and buried it. Andrews gave him a long look, then turned away and started off as if pleased.

“At least it won’t be in the papers, Andrews.”

The man turned back. “What did you say?”

“I wasn’t fired in public,” Teddy said. “When they get through with you, I don’t think it’ll be so easy.”

Andrews smiled and took a step closer. “You really think so?”

Teddy nodded.

“What do you think they’re gonna do to me?” Andrews said. “What’s your best guess? I’ll tell you what they’re gonna do. They’re gonna make me mayor. That’s how it’s written. That’s how it ends.”

Teddy found Andrews’s confidence astounding, his armor impenetrable, if not bizarre.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Andrews said.

“How much money have you raised so far?”

“For mayor?”

Teddy nodded.

“It’s only an exploratory committee,” Andrews said. “I haven’t announced my candidacy yet. If I did, I’d have to give up my job.”

“But how much have you got socked away in your war chest?”

Andrews shrugged as he thought it over. “More than anyone else, times five or six.”

“Then why do you need the Trisco’s money? How do you expect to get away with it?”

“Get away with what?”

“Protecting him. A serial killer.”

“But I’m not protecting anyone,” Andrews said with an odd glint in his eyes. “The man who murdered Darlene Lewis is awaiting trial in a city jail.”

*          *          *

Teddy walked down the sidewalk, heading for the parking garage and wondering how Andrews could maintain his composure given what had happened and the things all of them knew. The man’s cavalier attitude was unnerving. Either Andrews was in shock and had lost his ability to reason, or he was two steps ahead of everyone else and had found a way out. Like Nash had said, Andrews was a survivor.

As Teddy crossed the street and started down the next block, he pretended he was Alan Andrews and tried to imagine what the way out might look like. Andrews had the evidence against Holmes, but Trisco’s fingerprint on the painting would seem to discount it.

What would the way out look like? What would the results be if Andrews got his wish?

Teddy thought it over. Holmes would take the fall and be found guilty for the murders, no question about that. And Edward Trisco III would be spirited off to a psychiatric facility as he had before, so that the killings would stop. Only this time Trisco’s exile would be unofficial. It would last the duration of his life with his parent’s blessings and a guarantee that they wouldn’t buy his way out.

But what about Harris Carmichael, the manager at the café? How would Andrews explain away his murder. Holmes was already in prison and wouldn’t be available to take the fall. Trisco’s hair had been found in the glue around Carmichael’s mouth, the lab reporting a match. Vega and Ellwood were beating down the evidence trail. How could Andrews cover it up?

It didn’t make sense, Teddy realized. There was something missing from the puzzle. A piece they hadn’t considered or seen or imagined.

Something caught his eye and he turned to the storefront on his left. When he looked through the window, he realized it was the lobby to the Trisco building and stopped in his tracks. There was a model on display, some sort of building project. The sign read MARSH CREEK ESTATES.

Teddy entered the lobby, avoiding the guards behind the front desk and trying to hide the fact that he needed a shave. As he approached the model, he read the words TRISCO LAND CORPORATION and picked up a pamphlet. He’d known about the Trisco’s holdings in technology and banking. That’s how they made their fortune. But he hadn’t been aware of their interest in real estate.

Apparently the corporation owned 2,500 acres of open countryside thirty-five miles west of the city. The property bordered Marsh Creek State Park and included the north side of the lake. According to the pamphlet, the Trisco Land Corporation wanted to develop the property and had already presented their plan to the county. The hills would be bulldozed down and carried off to make room for an eighteen-hole golf course and hotel along the shoreline. Luxury homes and condominiums would rim the country club for miles. The land just north of the turnpike would be relegated for the construction of yet another shopping mall. From the way the presentation was worded in the pamphlet, it sounded like the project was about to be green-lighted.

Teddy flipped the page over and saw a photograph of the lake. The water looked choppy and people were sailing. Teddy had never been to Marsh Creek before, and the size of the lake took him by surprise. Beside the text was a small graphic that included a map of the area.

He looked back at the model, comparing it with the map. When he noticed a building structure on a lane just off Lakeview Road, his eyes widened and he caught his breath.

The Trisco’s owned a summer home. If the model was accurate, the place sat right on the water.

“May I help you?” someone said.

Teddy looked up and saw two guards standing on the other side of the model. It took a moment to register, but the man standing behind them was Edward Trisco’s father and his fangs were out.

SIXTY-TWO

Eddie heard something hit the concrete floor and peeked around his canvas as he tightened the straps on the gas mask over his head.

It was Rosemary. She had fallen on her face, hit her chin, and wasn’t moving. Her eyes were cracked open, and she was drooling. It looked as if she might have chipped a tooth. With her smile gone, she reminded him of a stupid whore girl again.

Rosemary had been a complete failure. Obviously, she was no longer up to the job of modeling for an artist. She couldn’t even sit in a chair. The truth was that she hadn’t worked out from the beginning. Her attitude had been all wrong. Rosemary never understood her contribution to the larger cause. What was life in the face of great art?

Eddie ignored the interruption and returned to his canvas. He’d been experimenting with various shellacs, and thought he’d finally found one that would do. The problem had always been with the finish. The shellac was only being used in the background, and he didn’t want it to stand out. As he brushed in a thin first coat, he listened to the rhythm of his breathing through the gas mask. It was even and steady, just like his hand. After an hour or so, he lowered the brush and took a step back.

The work was coming together, he decided. It hadn’t been a waste of time after all. He could feel the excitement in his chest as he took another step back, then another. The painting’s perspective was changing. He liked the way the shellac drew out the color of the oils and gave the work added depth.

The eye holes in the gas mask began to cloud over. Listening to his breath, he realized he was hyperventilating. He sat down and peered at the painting through the mask. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. His work even looked good in a fog. After a few moments, he got a grip on himself and noticed a gurgling sound coming from somewhere in the room.

It was his model, Rosemary—interfering again.

He rose from the chair and strode around the large canvas. Was he Napoleon or Michelangelo, he couldn’t really tell. All he knew was that the bitch had thrown up the meal he’d given her all over the fucking floor.

He rolled her over with his foot as if he’d come upon a casualty from a great war that couldn’t be helped. Her eyes were open but lost somewhere in the battle. Sweat streamed from her body as if she’d been caught in the rain. He felt her forehead. She was warm, but not piping hot.

It was time, he decided. Time to prepare for another visit into the past. Time for Rosemary to make her final contribution to the cause.

He grabbed her by the arms and dragged her out of the studio. Clearing his sketches off the worktable, he laid out a plastic drop cloth he’d purchased by the case from the paint department at Walmart, then lifted her body up and set it down. She buckled a moment involuntarily, but appeared to settle. One by one, he secured her wrists and ankles to the legs of the table with rags. Her eyes remained open and Eddie wondered if she was watching him. He wondered if somehow she
knew
what happened in the dead room.

He felt her forehead again. Her cheeks. She was starting to cook. In another hour or so she’d be ready. Almost done.

SIXTY-THREE

A wave of panic crashed over the car as Teddy paid the toll and started down Route 100 toward the park. That feeling was back in his gut. The one that told him something horrible was about to happen or already had. He couldn’t stop moving. He couldn’t shake it off.

He saw the turn ahead and made a left onto Lakeview Road. When he spotted the private drive, he pulled over and glanced at the street sign. Then he took another look at the map in the pamphlet he’d pocketed before he was thrown out of the Trisco building. Shoreside Lane had to be it. He could see the frozen lake stretching over the land at the bottom of the hill. A large house and barn were nestled in the trees halfway down. Idling along the street, he reached a break in the curb and stopped. The driveway to the house was snow covered. All except for a double set of tire tracks.

He lit a cigarette, got out of the car and examined the tracks closely. They looked fresh, but were melting in the afternoon sun. A car had entered the property at some point during the day and left, he figured. No one else had used the road since the last storm several days ago.

That left Trisco out. He wasn’t living here.

Teddy took a deep breath and tried to relax as the realization settled in. He hadn’t expected to find Trisco here. Every sign pointed to the madman living in the city. Teddy had made the forty-minute drive because he sensed there was something missing and he needed to be sure. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. But as he gazed at the house in the distance, he knew it was more than that. It was all about the lake. The water. Finding Valerie Kram’s corpse in the river at the boathouse. The ominous feeling he got when he looked at the map in the pamphlet and learned that the Triscos had a place on the shoreline.

He climbed back into the Corolla. Turning into driveway, he eased the car down the hill following the tire tracks from the car before him. Although the snow was eight to ten inches deep, he could see the gravel beneath the tracks and had plenty of traction.

The house began to come into view through the trees. It was a farmhouse, not much different from his own. The driveway appeared to lead to a parking area around back. As he cleared the house and didn’t see any cars, he caught his breath again and pulled to a stop.

The view through the windshield was magnificent, the sprawl of the lake at the bottom of the steep hill, inspiring. Several fishing tents were set up on the ice, and he saw a man with rod and reel crossing the lake on foot to other side. Houses dotted the woods in the distance, built along the road to the park a half mile down. Teddy followed the fisherman’s progress on the other side of the lake until he got into a pickup truck and drove off in apparent silence, the sound of the engine too far away to reach him.

Teddy got out of the Corolla and glanced at the Trisco’s house, guessing it was built in the 1820s. Although the walls were whitewashed stone, modifications had been made to the back within the last twenty years or so to take advantage of the open views. Clearly, money wasn’t an issue in the renovation, and the building wasn’t exactly a farmhouse anymore.

He crossed the drive, noting the tire tracks melting in the snow from the car that had come and gone earlier in the day. It looked as if the driver pulled into the parking area, then backed up to the porch. He could see footprints on the path, the snow packed down as if someone had made more than one trip into the house.

He checked the door and found it locked. Then he stepped over to the window, got rid of his smoke and cupped his hands. It was a living room. Light and airy and about as far from the Trisco museum in Radnor as a trip across the universe. He looked for any indication that someone might be living here. An open book or newspaper, a pair of shoes left by a chair or even a bowl of fresh fruit. The sun was streaking into the room from a window to the left. He followed the shaft of light to a side table and noted the layer of dust. Someone may have dropped something off today, but no one had spent any time here for months.