The Soul Hunter (33 page)

“What?”

“I got a bunny rabbit.”

Christine squealed. “You did? What’s its name?”

“Melissa. She has red hair like I do.”

“Does she have long ears?”

“Yes.”

“And a fluffy tail?”

“A big, fluffy tail and great big feet. Her ears are real long and soft.”

“Where did you get her?”

Hm. It seemed inappropriate to explain to a five-year-old that
I’d gotten my bunny from a murdered girl. “A friend of mine gave her to me.”

“Does she like carrots?”

“She does. And apples. Just like you.”

“I only like crunchy food.”

“Is that why you don’t like macaroni?”

“It’s not crunchy. Mommy wants to talk to you.” The phone clattered as she dropped it and ran off to do something more interesting.

“Dylan?”

“Hey, Liz. Christine cracks me up. What’s with the crunchy food?”

“She started that a few weeks ago. Her entire diet consists of carrots, apples, and Fritos.”

“And Cheetos.”

“Right. She just added those. I can’t get her to eat anything else.”

“How long will this last?”

“She seems committed. Hasn’t eaten one Spaghetti-O since the first of the year.”

“It’s not a New Year’s resolution, is it?”

“I hope not. She’s five years old.” She covered the phone and yelled at the boys to leave the cat alone, she doesn’t want a haircut. And could they please get out of the dryer, it was time for supper. “My kids are so weird. Do you think that’s me?”

“What about, like, hot dogs and French fries?”

“Not crunchy. Believe me, I’ve tried it all.” She covered the phone. “What, honey?” I heard her say.

Then back to me. “Christine wants to know if you said you’re sorry.”

“To who?”

“She didn’t say. She just…hang on a second.”

Christine came back on the phone.

“What is it, Punkin?”

“Miss Dylan, when you hurt someone’s feelings, you just need to say ‘Oopsie, I’m sorry.’ And then give them a kiss.”

“Really? That’s all there is to it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. I’ll try that.”

And then she was gone again. Liz came back on the phone.

“Did you get that?” she asked.

I laughed. “What a simple formula. If only I’d known all this time. Think of the trouble I could’ve avoided. Ask her how she knows I need to say I’m sorry to someone.”

Liz covered the phone and shouted the question. “Her angel told her,” she said to me.

“Earl? Is he still the one?”

“There’s only one, Dylan. It’s always been Earl.”

“Well, tell her I’ll try it. Earl always knows.”

“Maybe I can get him to talk her into eating like a normal person again.”

“It’s worth a try. He’s the only one with any influence.”

We talked a few minutes more. It calmed me down and reminded me that I had more to live for than a redheaded bunny rabbit and a boyfriend who wouldn’t speak to me. The Zoccis were as close to family as I was getting lately, especially since my own family had begun to implode.

I said my good-byes, gathered my courage, tossed out a quick prayer for luck, and finished the short drive to Finn’s house. I parked in the driveway and rang the doorbell.

I stood there a few minutes in the dark. The porch light snapped on and I could feel someone looking at me through the peephole. I tried to look nonthreatening.

The door swung open. A skinny young man of maybe twenty-five was standing there in baggy khakis that bunched up around his sneakers. His T-shirt said, “Rehab is for Quitters.”
His long, black hair was pulled into a tidy ponytail.

“Hey,” he said.

I waved. “Hi. Sorry to bother you. I’m Dylan Foster. I’m a friend of Drew’s.”

He squinted at me. “Dylan who?”

“Foster.”

“I never heard of you before.”

“I hadn’t seen her in a while.”

He stared at me without saying anything.

“Can I come in?” I asked. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

“Sure.” He backed away from the door and let me walk past him into the plain, little house.

“Want some Ramen noodles? I was just about to eat.”

“No, thanks. I’ll only be a minute anyway. I don’t want to interrupt your supper. I probably should’ve called first.”

“It’s okay.”

He led me into a small living room, which was dominated by a huge, new, flat-screen television set. The only furniture in the room was a sagging couch, a coffee table, and a big brown recliner—the kind my parents had when they were still happily married. Before Watergate. It was that old.

Sparse as it was, the room was neat. There was no guy-litter lying around. None of the beer cans or newspapers I’d expected. The carpet was old but clean. There were no rings of sticky residue on the coffee table. I didn’t smell cigarette smoke or dirty laundry. In fact, the place smelled faintly of Pine Sol. A magazine rack by the recliner held a few magazines. The one in front was
Rolling Stone
. The current issue.

I sat on the edge of the recliner. Finn took the couch.

“How did you know Drew?” he asked.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said. “I’m a college professor.” I figured that might suggest enough of a connection to satisfy him.

“I miss her,” he said matter-of-factly.

“How long had you guys been seeing each other?”

“A few months. She was kind of screwed up, but she was a really nice kid.” He looked down at his hands. “I miss her.”

“What do you mean, screwed up?”

“Kinda mad all the time? And sorta…like, unpredictable.”

“How?”

“She was all up and down. Happy one minute. All mad the next. Sometimes, she’d just start crying for no reason.”

“Had she always been like that? Did she ever say?”

He nodded. “Since she was little. Up and down. Like a roller coaster.” He laughed. “She didn’t even like roller coasters. I didn’t mind too much, though. She never really got mad at me.”

“Did she ever say whether she’d been to a doctor for her mood swings? Had anyone ever diagnosed bipolar disorder? Anything like that?”

“You mean like a shrink or something? Her parents don’t believe in medicine. They’re real…” He looked around the room as if searching for the word. “Conservative,” he said at last.

“Bob and Alison, you mean?”

“You know them?”

I shook my head. “I’ve never met them. But I heard they were like that.”

“Kinda mean too. Drew had some pretty bad stories.”

“Such as?”

“Like one time? They had this ol’ dog and it got out of the yard one time and came back and had puppies under their back porch. And her dad found ’em and got mad. And while he was gone, her mom tried to drown the puppies. She put ’em in a pillowcase and threw ’em into the pond behind their trailer. Drew swam out there and got ’em. She got all but one, I think she said. She was real good with animals.” He smiled. “She took a beating for that, she said. But it was worth it. She didn’t mind a beating if it was worth it.”

“You never hit her, did you?”

He looked up, startled. “I’d never hit Drew. I’d never hit no one. I’m not like that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be insulting. It’s just that—”

“No offense, but I’d never do anything like that. The police asked me the same thing and I told them too. I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking next. They got the guy that did it.”

“I know,” I said.

I looked at him, with his weak, watery eyes, his skinny white arms. He had a tattoo that wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet. He was nerdy and odd, but strangely likeable. I could see what Sharlotta meant. A boy and not a man. And not much of a boyfriend. He didn’t seem like the sort of date who would exactly take charge of an evening or remember your birthday. But he seemed completely harmless.

I’d come over here thinking he’d done it. That he’d panicked about becoming a father and had killed her on impulse and then tried to cover it up. He just made so much more sense as a suspect to me than Gordon Pryne did. I figured meeting him would clear it up for me. One way or another.

“Did she ever mention any nightmares to you? Anything recent?”

“Drew had a lot of nightmares. When she ever slept. She wasn’t a real good sleeper.”

“Anything about a scary-looking bald guy, all white and bony?”

“You mean Peter Terry?”

The words slammed into my ears and just about knocked me over. I’d never heard anyone else mention Peter Terry by name. Not without hearing it from me first.

“What did she tell you about Peter Terry?”

“I never knew if she made him up or not. She had such a good imagination. She was real creative.”

“I know.”

“She dreamed about him a lot, though. She told me about it a couple of times.”

“What did she say?”

“Just that she always woke up real scared.”

“Did she mention a lake?”

He shook his head. “It was always the same thing. He was standing in the middle of the road at night. And then she’d hear tires squealing and somebody would start screaming and then she’d wake up.”

I felt my skin go cold suddenly. “Who was in the car?”

“She never said.”

I paused as the image sank in.

“How was Drew in the weeks before she died?” I asked. “Did she seem worried about anything?”

“She was always worried about something. She worked real hard in school.” He paused. “She worked nights. That was one reason she didn’t sleep too much, I think.”

“You know where she worked.”

“That dance place?” He shook his head. “I never liked it, but she said it was pretty good money. She was gonna stop after Christmas. She was saving up for a car.”

“What kind?”

“Anything with tires.”

I didn’t ask about the baby. I had a pretty strong sense he didn’t know. I figured the police would tell him soon enough.

I stood up. “I’m sorry I bothered you. I’ll let you get to your Ramen noodles.”

“Where’d you say you teach?” He stood and extended his hand.

“SMU,” I said, without thinking. I’d meant to leave him with the impression I’d met Drew at El Centro.

“What do you teach?”

I picked up my bag and keys and started for the door. No sense lying now. “Psychology,” I said.

His face lit up. “You know Dr. Mulvaney?”

“John Mulvaney?”

He nodded. “He’s kinda weird, isn’t he? He’s not that bad, though, if you don’t expect too much.”

“How do you know Dr. Mulvaney?” I asked, noting that it didn’t seem to bother me to use the title when he wasn’t around to hear it.

“I supply his lab.”

“Pardon?”

“His lab.”

“I don’t understand.”

“C’m’ere, I’ll show you.” I followed him through the kitchen and into the back yard. The house sat on a double lot, one in front of the other. The back lot was rimmed by a ten-foot privacy fence that concealed a double-wide trailer. I followed him up the steps.

The trailer had no walls inside—just rows of tables and a sink at one end. Lights were strung from the ceiling to shine into the aquariums that sat atop the tables. I recognized the smell of cedar shavings, and the tinny squeak of little exercise wheels. I peered into one of the aquariums. Rats.

I looked up at Finn. “You raise rats?”

He nodded. “And mice. Any kind of rodent, really. They’re all pretty much the same.”

A light went on in my head. “You gave Drew a rabbit.”

He nodded. “Melissa. Here’s her litter-mate.” He walked me over to another row. Inside the hutch was a little red bunny. “I kept this one. She didn’t want me to sell it.”

“What do you sell them for?”

He shrugged. “Oh, for research. Like Dr. Mulvaney does. It’s real important for science and stuff like that. Or maybe to pet stores. Sometimes people buy them for their snakes.”

“You’d feed that sweet bunny to a snake?”

He grinned. “Drew wouldn’t let me sell it. She didn’t want Melissa’s sister getting eaten. I can’t really blame her. She’s a pretty nice rabbit. Sharlotta’s got Melissa now. I might go over there and get her. This one’s a little lonesome.”

“Sharlotta gave her to me,” I said, a little alarmed at the thought of losing her. “I sort of adopted her.”

He smiled. “You did?”

“Do you mind if I keep her? I’m kind of attached to her already.”

“Sure, you can keep her. I bet Drew would like that. She got real attached sometimes.”

“Did John—Dr. Mulvaney ever meet Drew?” I asked.

He nodded. “Couple of weeks ago. She was over when he came to get a couple of breeders.”

“Ozzie and Harriet.”

He lit up. “Yeah! That’s a real old TV show. I’d never heard of it before. Drew liked to name ’em all. She got too attached.”

I extended my hand. “Thanks for your time, Finn. It was really nice to meet you. I’m glad you and Drew were friends.”

“I miss her.” He walked me to the front door. “Tell Dr. Mulvaney hi for me.”

I shook his hand again. “I sure will.”

I
was pretty sure I’d figured out how to short sheet the devil. I could smell the truth. And it smelled just like cedar shavings. The truth’s location, however, posed a particularly vexing problem. It was on the SMU campus. Inside the clinic building. Just on the other side of John Mulvaney’s locked office door.