A Cruel Season for Dying (22 page)

At least he was alone. It had been difficult with Willie French looking over his shoulder. Even now she remained at the periphery
of his vision, her beauty with the bluntness of a threat. He couldn’t let that matter. And with her or without her, it had
made no difference. Milne, Westlake, and then alone at the Pinot murder scene, he’d come away with nothing more than that
same haunting uneasiness he’d first experienced in Luis Carrera’s apartment.

There was nothing of that here. And nothing left of Westlake, even if it were still his name on the lease. Crazy, that even
this dump could be a sublet. As much as he loved this city, he doubted that he could stand for long to inhabit such circumscribed
space.

He turned off the light, walked to stand for a moment at the grimy, curtainless window. Across the narrow street was the facing
glass of an abandoned building—a level black eye, blank and obvious, staring back.

Except for the task force meeting the first thing this morning, Sakura had been at his desk all day. He held a cup of coffee
in his hand. He was past the refinement of tea, beginning to feel the physical effects of bad food or no food, and too little
sleep. Rest and nourishment caught on the run between bouts with information.

He was imbedded in data. Forms multiplying like bacteria filled his office, along with petition lists and surveillance photographs
from the latest community action meetings. He took another swill of the coffee and set the mug down. Pulled over the tabloid
that Kelly had left on his desk. The papers were still filled with speculation about the homosexual killer, but since last
week’s article on the incense, nothing more of real substance had leaked. That much was good at least.

“Your taste in reading has changed.” Michael’s voice from the door.

He looked up. “Just trying to keep on top of things.”

Darius walked over to sit in the chair in front of his desk. “Anything new?”

“Pinot seems to have been something of a departure, more a victim of opportunity. But I don’t know what that means.”

“What did that professor say?”

“Isaacs? He had some complicated theory. Thinks the killer is targeting gays because he believes homosexuals are more like
angels than straights.”

“What …?”

“Isaacs thinks,” he went on, “that the names on the walls might not have any direct connection to the bodies.”

Darius’s mouth twisted. “It’s obvious the killer is naming them,” he said, “and believes the victims somehow embody these
fallen angels.”

“I agree.” He picked up his coffee. Nodded at the cup. “Want some?”

Darius shook his head, taking out his cigarettes instead. “I found something,” he said.

Finally the explanation of why Michael was here. He waited while he lit up.

“Turns out Westlake had been staying at Lindel’s for only a few months.” Darius blew out smoke. “I just made a visit to his
old apartment.” He stopped, drew hard again on the cigarette.

“You going to make me suffer for this, Michael?”

“No.” He took something out of his pocket. “There was an abandoned warehouse across the street from Westlake’s old room. It
was easy enough to get in. I found this.”

“In the warehouse …” Sakura picked up the plastic bag that Darius had tossed on the desk and held it up to the light. There
was a torn fragment of printed cardboard inside.

“It’s part of a film carton,” Darius said. “A piece of the end flap. See the letters?”

“… IE 36.”

“The
H
in front is missing. It’s HIE 36. High Speed Infrared. Thirty-six exposures. The same film we use for surveillance.”

“He’s stalking them.”

“Westlake at least.” Darius leaned back in the chair. “I saw what looked like tripod marks in the dust by the window.”

“We haven’t been going back far enough in their lives.” Sakura was thinking aloud. “There may be other things we’ve overlooked.
It seems
like he might have backlogged the first three. He stalked them and killed them, one right after another. Then almost two weeks
pass before we get Pinot. Tomorrow’s a week without a DOA. What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know,” Darius said. “I’m just afraid we might be making a lot of unwarranted assumptions.”

He smiled at the diplomatic phrasing. “
We,
Michael? You mean Willie and I…. You two getting along?”

“Sure.”

Sakura wondered what complexities that single syllable was meant to cover. He hadn’t gotten any more today from Willie. “Are
you coming for Thanksgiving dinner?” he said.

“What time?”

“Around one is good. I plan on coming in for a few hours in the morning. It’ll be a skeleton crew and some backup for the
guys working the parade route. You haven’t forgotten what it was like to work the Macy’s crowd?”

Darius didn’t answer but reached to crush his cigarette against the inside of the trash can.

Sakura shook his head. “You’re the only one I let smoke in here.”

“Kelly smokes.”

“Not in my office,” he said. Then, “I’ll get a warrant to search that warehouse first thing Friday…. And thanks.”

“For what?” Darius shrugged. “There’s nothing there. That piece of box top was behind some lumber in a corner. He had to reload
the film in the darkest place he could find. Probably used a changing bag, but it’s awkward under any circumstances.”

“There must be footprints.”

“In the dust … yeah. Looks like some kind of work boot.”

“There could be fingerprints too. If not in the warehouse, we might get at least a partial off this.” Sakura was looking at
the torn sliver of cardboard. “It’s another long shot with all the professional photographers in this city, but we can try
to get a lead from the kind of film. And who knows what we might turn up in a canvass. Let me dream for a few hours. We could
get lucky.”

Darius had this way of reacting, his eyes narrowing, hovering on some border of change, as if in the next second, he was as
likely to
laugh as cry. He did it now, tilting in the chair, his lips twisting in a cynic’s version of a smile.

“You’re right, Jimmy, there’s something about all of this that we’re missing. We find what it is; we get him. And luck won’t
have anything to do with it.”

Glass stretched uninterrupted across the rear of the house, exposing a kitchen constructed of granite and wood. Sections of
stainless steel, copper, and porcelain glinted like small constellations. The man was close enough now in the dark for his
breath to fog the window. He inhaled. The thin crust of fresh frost could not obscure the rich smell of decaying leaves underfoot.
He crouched lower behind the tangle of thick bushes growing near the outside wall. The doctor had been relatively easy to
follow to his Forest Hills home.

He pressed closer, pushing less important layers of sound into deeper recesses of his brain. Gone was the weak skitter of
insects in the cold soil, the beat of his own heart. He concentrated on their voices, his vision tracking, moving beyond the
reflections in the glass to the flesh inside.

The daughter looked like the father. Blond, blue-eyed, and pretty. With the kind of skin that would freckle in the sun. He
heard her giggle. Her father had pulled one of her pigtails. The son was more like his mother. Darker, with deep-set eyes.
Eyes that could show hurt.

“I thought you two were going to make the salad.” The mother’s voice was unexpectedly rich.

“We are, Lylah. Can’t you see how hard we’re working? Aren’t we, Emmy?” Kerry whispered conspiratorially to his daughter.

“The only thing you two are doing is making a mess. Right, Jonathan?” The mother was seeking an ally of her own.

“Yes, Mommy,” the young boy said, looking for confirmation he’d given the right answer.

“Come on, the spaghetti’s almost ready.” The woman sounded more tired now than annoyed.

“We’re almost done.” Emmy tore furiously at the lettuce.

“It’s getting late and you two haven’t even had your baths.” Lylah shook her head in mock exasperation.

“We don’t need to take a bath tonight,” the girl begged. “No school tomorrow.”

“But there’s lots to do before we leave for Aunt Penny’s Friday morning.”

“Daddy, please come with us to Aunt Penny’s,” the daughter pleaded.

“Sorry, sweetie.” He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m on call, and I’ve got to get a speech ready for a seminar.
Besides, we’ll get to carve up old tom turkey together before you leave.”

Even under the bleaching effect of the fluorescents, the doctor’s aura was blinding. The man crouched, mesmerized, thinking
how he’d spent over a year tracking the first ones, making meticulous plans, then orchestrating their awakenings—
one, two, three.
Luis, whom he’d found at the clinic. David, whom he’d known before but rediscovered on his first gallery visit after the
accident and his own awakening. And Westlake, he’d seen on TV.

Then came Pinot. And now Kerry. He shivered with the deliciousness of his good luck, the joy of beating God at his own game.

A
gnes Tuminello pressed her back against the wall and hid in the shadows of the second-floor alcove. She wouldn’t have been
here in the rectory at all, if she hadn’t felt guilty about her little holiday with her daughter Connie’s family, leaving
poor Father Kellog with nothing but leftover turkey these last two days. And so she’d come this evening with a pan of her
special lasagna, only to be drawn from the kitchen and up the stairs by the loud voices.

Never before had she heard Father Kellog speak in such anger. She closed her eyes, clasping the Miraculous medal that hung
from a thin chain around her neck, asking God to deliver them from such evil.

“You do not respect my authority. You do not respect me. You do not respect—”

“God? Oh, I respect God, Father Kellog. Because I know how dirty He can play.”

“You blaspheme.”

She cringed at Graff’s nasty laughter.

“I’ve never failed to do my duty,” the younger priest said. “I’ve never missed Mass. Or confession. I have listened to enough
pettiness and foolishness, have smelled enough death and despair to last a lifetime. What more, old man, what more do you
want from me?”

Then suddenly Graff was out of his room, flying down the stairs, flinging wide the front door, running away from the rectory
into the street.

When she dared, she could see downstairs through the opened door that rain had begun to fall. She should go down and close
the door, but
she could not move, could not let Father Kellog know she’d been on the landing, listening.

A small noise, and she saw the priest standing outside Graff’s room. For an instant he clutched the wall for support, then
his hand reached for the banister. She wanted to go to him, comfort him, but she must not.

She watched him pad slowly down the stairs, shut the front door, and enter his study. A bit of shuffling, the squeak of a
spring from his favorite chair, then nothing. She glanced up at a nervous skittering. Squirrels in the attic or, worse, mice.
Behind her the wall creaked, an old house rattling its bones. Then slowly she stepped from her hiding place, stiff from having
remained still so long.