Code 61 (29 page)

That could take a while, and I really wanted to keep going with Huck, and not give her much opportunity to reflect and withdraw, or to support the others.

“You could ride down with us, so we can get started,” I said. “They could pick you up at our office.”

“That sounds all right, actually,” she said. “If you can give me a few minutes to say good-bye to some people.”

I found Hester again, passing by Toby and Kevin, who were still hitting on Darcy's friends. I idly wondered how their efforts would be rewarded after Darcy talked with her buddies.

I told Hester about the plan to take Huck with us, and she thought it was a pretty good idea. We wanted to catch the reaction of Toby, Kevin, Melissa, and Hanna when Huck told them she was going with us, so we used the old cop trick of facing one another and making small talk. That way, each of us could see about half the room, and yet appear to be looking at each other.

“At about your five o'clock position,” said Hester. “William Chester just approached Huck.”

“Really … ”

“Don't look. They seem to be talking.”

“Does it look like he knows her?” That would be interesting.

“I don't know. He seems to be doing most of the talking.” Hester paused. “Whoa, she just took a really fast step back. He's moving closer…. ”

I couldn't wait. I turned, just as Huck backed up one more step, quickly, abruptly, almost into the wall behind her. Her eyes were wide, and she looked startled and frightened.

I was beside Chester in three or four fast steps. “Mr. Chester,” I said softly, “why do I see you everywhere I go?”

He'd been speaking pretty intensely to Huck, and it took him a second to change directions. “What? Oh, Deputy … uh, Heightman?”

“Houseman. Remember what I told you? About licenses? Hunting?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. But I think you should know some things.”

“Then I suggest you look me up back at the sheriff's department in about three hours.”

“Fine,” he said. He started to turn back to Huck.

“I'll arrange for a ride. Until then,” I said, “I'm afraid this young lady is committed to talking to me right now.” I glanced at Huck. “Are you ready to go?”

She sure was. I extended my right arm between her and Chester, and gestured toward Hester with my left. “Why don't you go over there?”

As she brushed by me, I turned back to Chester. “Look,” I said, as pleasantly as I could, “she's a potential witness. I can't have you bothering her. What on earth did you say to her, anyway?”

He shrugged. “It's of no consequence to you.”

“Don't get cute.”

“Right. Look, Deputy, I don't mean to interfere with the secular authorities on this. Really I don't.”

When someone who's not ordained starts calling me “secular,” I get nervous. “I'd really suggest you not bother anyone else here. There are several cops present, out of uniform. I'll pass the word to keep an eye on you.”

“I can talk to whom I wish.”

I figured I might as well be a complete hypocrite. “This is a funeral home, for God's sake.”

I snagged Knockle as we were headed out the door, and gestured toward Chester. “Get that son of a bitch,” I whispered, “back to the office in about three hours. If he can, let him rent a car. If not, you bring him.”

“Sure, Carl,” he whispered back.

“In the meantime, get his sorry ass out of here before he causes trouble. He resists, bust him, but do it very quietly. Got it?”

“Sure.”

“And try to steal me a cookie, before you go.”

As we got to the door, I half whispered to Hester, “You know? This has got to be the most interesting wake I've ever been to.”

“Glad you had a good time, Houseman, you ghoul.”

The media were still outside, of course. I spoke to Huck, who was right with us. “Engage us in conversation as we go by the news people. Don't laugh or anything, but make it look as if you ride with us every day.” I was glad I'd switched to my old unmarked car. No cage for prisoners.

She nodded. “Think they'll notice anything wrong?”

I looked at her black hair, black lips, and black nails.

“Nah. We'll get by 'em with the least fuss.” I thought she looked a little green around the gills. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said. “I'm fine.”

When we got to the car, the first thing Huck said when she got in back was, “You always have this much crap in your car?”

Hester turned around and said, “I think he cleaned it last month. You should see it when it's really cluttered.”

I picked up my mike. “Comm, Three.”

“Three, go.” It was Sally.

“Three and I-486 ten-eight, ten-seventy-six S.O., ten-sixty-one one female subject.”

“Ten-four, Three ten-eight, ten-seventy-six. 17:42.”

Just to reassure Huck, I turned to the backseat, and said, “That meant that Hester and I are back in the car, that we're en route to the sheriff's office, and that we have one noncop female person with us.”

“Oh.”

“And she said okay, and repeated that we were headed in that direction in case any other officer needs to know that, and then said the time, to let anybody else know that she was done talking to me and that the channel was clear.” I always do that, when I have a passenger. They like to know.

As I pulled away from the curb, Hester asked Huck to hand her my camera bag, which was sitting among the other debris in the backseat. When she got it, she rooted around for a minute, and produced my bag of Oreo cookies.

“Cookie?” she asked Huck.

We all had one.

“You guys,” said Huck, with her mouth half full of Oreo, “travel in style.”

The ice broken, Hester turned to the backseat. “What did William Chester have to say?”

“Was that the last dude I talked to?”

“Yes.”

“That man is weird. Really. Scary weird. He said that I was going to have to atone for all the evil, and that he would see that I went back to my grave.”

“No shit?” Hester sounded angry.

“Yeah.” She paused. “You happen to know what he does for a living?”

“He hunts vampires, as far as I can tell,” I said.

I could see Huck in the rearview mirror as she hugged herself, as if she were very cold. “Yeah. That's kinda what he said he did.”

TWENTY-ONE

Monday, October 9, 2000
18:45

We got Huck to the office and interviewed her at length. She seemed to be in that semi-euphoric state you reach after some heavy emotions, and was pretty frank and cooperative.

I'd given the new spelling of Daniel Peale to Sally as soon as we got in the door. She produced the basics in a few seconds. I put on my reading glasses, and read the descriptors to Huck.

“Okay, closest one we get, from the national computers, is this.” I held up the torn-off perforated sheet. “It says here that Daniel Gordon Peale is a white male, thirty-five, six feet one, one eighty-three pounds, black and brown.” I glanced up. “That would be black hair and brown eyes.” I purposely left out the address information and put the paper down. “That sound like him?”

“Yes it does.” She mused, “Gordon? Gordon. Never knew that.”

“And … we have a black '96 Lexus, and a green '81 Dodge four-door. Ever seen either of these cars?”

“He doesn't own cars here,” she said. “He either gets a rental car when he gets into O'Hare, or we go pick him up in Dubuque when he gets a commuter connection.” In answer to the question of who transported him, she said that it was often Toby, and sometimes Kevin. This last time it had been Toby.

“Why does he fly?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “it's a really long swim from London.”

“London?” asked Hester.

“Well, yeah. He's an Englishman, after all.” Huck looked perplexed.

“How about this,” I said. “He lives in Moline, Illinois.”

“Oh, no,” said Huck. “No, that's not the right man. Dan lives in London. England.”

“Well,” I said, trying to sound immensely competent, “we'll check that.” I picked up the phone and got Sally. “I need a really fast check, U.K., London. For the same dude. Dan Peale.”

“This one is gonna cost you big,” said Sally. “How soon is really fast?”

“Five or ten minutes or less.”

“Shit, Houseman…. I can't be any quicker than the machines. Okay. Lemme see what I can get…. ” And her voice trailed off as she began concentrating. I hung up.

“So,” I said, “while we check that out, what can you tell us about Dan Peale?”

Even now, Huck was a little reluctant. I honestly think that it was William Chester who had disturbed her the most. Well, with a boost from seeing Edie in her coffin, and the death of Randy Baumhagen. But Chester had dropped in a dollop of fear from an unknown and unexpected source. I decided it was time to push her over the top.

“Oh,” I said, almost as an afterthought. “Before you start, did you know that Alicia Meyer was reported missing last night, over in Conception County?”

“What?” said Hester. “When did we get that?”

“That's what Byng was telling me up at the funeral home,” I said, watching Huck. “I was interrupted just as I was going to tell you.”

Huck took a deep breath, and said, “I can't go with this. Not anymore. This is just so over. So damn over.”

We both looked at her expectantly.

“What is it you want? All the sordid little details, I suppose. Right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm afraid so. Start wherever you need to.”

At that point, Sally knocked at the door, stuck in her head and one arm, and held out a computer printout. “For you.”

I was impressed.

I read it to Hester and Huck.

“This is from a computer search, done at our request, by the Metropolitan Police, London. City Directory. There is no such person as Daniel Peale, Dan Peale, or D. Peale in all of North London.” I handed the sheet to Hester. “Not one single one, Huck,” I said.

After a second, Hester handed the printout to Huck.

She looked at the sheet for some time, then handed it to me and said, “He has an English accent. He may not live in London itself…. ”

“We're checking with Scotland Yard on that,” I said. “I'm afraid it looks like he's an American, though.” I put the sheet down on my desk. “Anyway, while we wait, what else do you know about him?”

“Well, he's from England … ” and she gave a forced smile. “At least, that's what I was told, anyway. He visits us along with Jessica about three or four times a year. He's Jessica's guest, not ours.” She dropped her voice. “Lately, he's been showing up maybe every other month, when she's not along. She doesn't know about that, I think. Well, didn't.”

As she talked, any reticence disappeared, and she began divulging some of the more sordid details about the Mansion.

For example, Huck thought Daniel Peale had been sexually active with all the young women in the house, and she thought maybe he'd had sex with Toby as well. No real surprises there, but I was rather startled that she was starting off with these details.

“Everybody up there's poly, you know? But he's the full-time lover of Jessica Hunley,” she said. “She owns him, like.”

Blow me down. So to speak. I had to nail down just one term.

“Poly? Poly what? Sexual?”

That elicited a smile. “Polyamorous. You can love more than one person at a time.”

“Okay.” You have to be sure. “But he's mostly Jessica's full-time lover?”

“He is as far as she's concerned. She was really pissed off that he was there without her this time,” she said, “because he's not supposed to do that.” She tossed her hair. “They've been down that road before. I've never heard a screaming match like that one.”

“Anybody get hurt?” asked Hester.

“Well,” she said, “they both had a little blood on them after … but they're into that anyway.”

“Violence?” I picked the one that was easiest for me to handle.

“Nope. Blood.”

Blood games were something I'd heard about, but had never encountered in more than twenty years of police work. One of the things I'd enjoyed about working in the rural areas. As it turned out, everybody that Dan Peale had relations with ended up donating a little blood to his fetish.

“How about Jessica?” asked Hester. “Does she sleep with everybody up there?”

“Well, I don't know about Toby, maybe some heavy snogging, but he told Kevin that she only screwed him once, and I think she was a little higher then than she usually lets herself get, you know? A little carried away. Anyway, it made Toby's whole year, but she never did him again. I know that Kevin did her a few times, about a year ago. Then she dumped him, and she just never came back for more.” She smiled wickedly. “I like to bring that up once in a while, when he gets obnoxious in bed.” She found her thread again. “But to answer your question, yes, she drew a bit of blood from him.” She shrugged. “Jessica and I got into a smoochy phase for a while, too. It happens.”

She was so open about it, I was a little disconcerted, somehow. I wasn't positive she was telling the truth, and if she was, I wasn't too sure I wanted details. “Much blood, ah, exchanged in these encounters?”

“You aren't into that, are you?” she said, with a little laugh.

“No, 'fraid not.”

She scooched down in her chair, and regarded me in earnest. “Okay, look, this is how it goes…. ”

She explained that, most of the time, there wasn't much blood involved at all. It was frequently produced by nicking the skin between the fingers or toes, for instance. Just a few drops. Sometimes, if things were truly intimate, blood could be taken from a tiny cut on the lip, or the earlobe, and exchanged with kisses. Sometimes, if things really heated up, little cuts on the buttocks, or an area near the genitals or breasts.

“Depends,” she said.

“On?” I figured that if I was going to get an education, it might as well be thorough.

“Well, on whether or not you're in love at the time, for one thing. Or on just how fucked up you are, for another.”

She went on, describing how more severe cuts could be inflicted, depending on the mood of the donor. She was pretty circumspect, and I could tell she was trying not to go somewhere, but that the questions were leading her there anyway.

She stopped talking, and looked at the door to my office. “Could you close the door?”

Hester reached over and pushed it shut.

Huck looked at the windows. The curtains were pulled.

“Well it's been a day,” she said, with a sigh. “What the fuck. Look, I was an abused kid,” she said. “My mother had a boyfriend when I was about thirteen or so. Okay? And he used to get at me in a sexual way, and he'd smack me around once in a while, just to keep me in my place. And, like, Mom knew, 'cause I told her. And she, well, she ignored me, okay? So it went on. All through high school.” She shrugged. “Until I was a senior, and he left her for some skanky twenty-year-old.” She looked at Hester. “So I could handle it, you know? No problems. It was over, right? Well, I didn't socialize much, I mean, he didn't want me out of the house all that often. And I could, well, remember when home had been a safe place once, and I thought that now it could be again.” She shrugged. “We all make mistakes, now and then. But I really liked music. I was happy in music, and I was good with my music.” She stopped, and it didn't look like she was going to restart.

“What instrument?” I asked.

“Flute.” A wistful smile. “I was good, too. Went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison on a music scholarship.” She'd been slumped while she was talking, but when she started about her music, she almost imperceptibly straightened. “Once I got to play the 'Jolivet Concerto for Flute and Orchestra,' with the whole symphony. Well, it was at a rehearsal, not at a concert, but the conductor said it was 'flawless.' ” She brightened. “Leiberman's, too. I was pretty good,” and her voice trailed off.

Her hands came up, and she spread her fingers wide, and looked at them for a moment. “Now I deal cards for a living. Dexterity is very important for a blackjack dealer, too. I'm pretty good at that, and the breath control is a snap,” she said, lightly.

Then back to the here and now. “So, about halfway through my first year as a middle school music teacher at a little town in northern Wisconsin, I discovered I couldn't handle the past as well as I thought.” She chuckled ruefully. “Christmas vacation, and I decided to spend it by myself in my apartment. Ever drink absinthe? That is some fine shit, let me tell ya. Just never get drunk on hard liquor when you're secretly all fucked up in the head, and all alone by yourself. Boy.”

Hester and I were both very quiet.

“So, back to our problem,” she said briskly. “Things got to me. Really, really got to me. They don't want you teaching their kids after you've had an 'episode,' you know? So when I got out of the treatment facility I resigned. It was the easiest thing to do, for all concerned, really. I went home, and there was mother dear who was in a state of mourning over her lost love, and just couldn't get real concerned about me, except that I was broke. And I hated that, and when I was 'discovered' by Edie, who talked me into living at the Mansion, I just moved in. Rent-free. I figured I'd just take some time, then maybe go back to teaching or something. No more, I guess.”

She shrugged. “Anyway, I suppose I got into the blood stuff because I was accepted, and felt somebody actually cared, you know?” She looked at us both for a second. “And Jessica takes us places, too. Chicago several times. New York once. We get to go to things like concerts with her, and galleries. Shows. More than just tickets. She, like, knows some of the artists, and we get to meet 'em, and go to social things with really cool people.”

I nodded.

“And I get to be around music, and music people…. ” She sort of drifted off. Then, “But it still hurt a lot, inside. A lot, and it never went all the way away. But Dan, he showed me a way to make the pain go for quite a while.”

She stood.

“Now, don't go all embarrassed on me, I wear exceptionally nice underwear,” she said, and abruptly pulled down her slacks.

On the inside of her left thigh were six or eight long, pale but pronounced scars running from about two inches below the groin to about an inch above the knee. She looked at both of us. “Both thighs, underneath both breasts, and the inside of the upper left arm, but this way I can still wear nice clothes, you know?” she said, pulling her slacks back up. “I do it to myself. It looks weird, I know it. But it actually makes you feel better about some things, to do that. It's the endorphins, I guess. The body releases them to cope with the pain caused by the knife, and they make you feel good all over, inside and out, for a while.”

She sat. “Those were for Danny boy. Sometimes I just hate myself for that.” Her face kind of twitched for a second. “But, anyway, when I used to do that, there was a lot more blood than you get from your earlobes. For everybody. But I haven't cut for over a year now.”

We were silent, and I was feeling very, very awkward.

She flashed a smile. “I'm sorry if I embarrassed you two. Really.” She looked past me, at the wall. “But then I started to catch on. I mean, I was really into Danny boy, let me tell you. I'd do anything he wanted, because he cared, didn't he. Oh, yeah. He said he was trying to help me. Get me over the pain. Past it. To replace the hurt with love. But I wasn't quite so fucked up one time, not as much as usual, anyway, and I really
listened
to the son of a bitch talk to me. And I caught on. I mean, there we are up there on the third, and we're in that great bed, and he's touched all the right places, and we've done our thing, and now he's a little thirsty, and he's making me feel like he really gives a damn. And he's talking to me.