House Infernal by Edward Lee (25 page)

"Well, let me just say that it's looking that way." Then
he thought, And it's also looking like you'll be sitting in the
back when I drive you back to the prior house, because your tits
in my rearview are gonna make me drive off the road!

"That's shocking," she said. "What evidence do you
have?"

"Well, at this point it's kind of confidential." Berns
chewed on a thought. "But I can say that we don't believe
the murders were random."

"Can you tell us why?" Dan asked. "It's not like we'll
be blabbing to anyone."

"I appreciate that." Berns eyed the sigh: wA.1 fspogr-3
t to s. Didn't realize the prior house was so close to town. An
hour's walk. "Unlike the state police, we believe the victims were specially selected."

"Because of their vocation, you mean," " Venetia said.

"Yes, their close connections with the Catholic Church."

Dan and Venetia traded another glance.

"Hence the suspicion of cultism," Venetia continued.
"An anti-Christian motivation. One thing you might want
to know, Captain...," but then her words trailed off. She
looked to Dan, as if seeking permission.

Dan picked up where she left off. "Just a little while ago
we found some curious occult artwork in one of the attic
coves at the house. One in particular is an old oil painting
of an anti-Pope named Boniface the Seventh, among other
things."

Holy shit, Berns thought. I'll have to get technical services
out there again.... "Thanks. That could be of great interest.
But for now, I'd just like you to take a look at this woman."

"Sue Maitland?" Venetia recalled.

"Right. Part of me is disappointed because she doesn't
look like someone who might be in a sacrilegious cult."

"Neither did Boniface the Seventh," Dan-offered with a
smile. "He was a Pope. The Crusades and the Holy Inquisition didn't look like Christian undertakings either."

"I get your meaning," Berns told him. "Looks are deceiving. But here we are. You can judge for yourselves."

The small harbor town of Wammsport was suddenly
before them as they turned off the winding country road
that had taken them away from the prior house.

"Looks like a miniature version of Portsmouth," " Venetia said, taking in the marinas and fishing docks. Old
clapboard houses grayed by salt air and harsh winters
leaned off rising roads.

Berns offered the only observation he could make without sounding too cynical. "It's quaint ... on the outside."

But Dan already knew the town fairly well. "And redneck as hell on the inside."

"Uh, yeah." Berns parked in a reserved lot at a lick
building along the main downtown road. A sign Thad,.
ROCRINGHAM COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT-WAM! ORT
srATION. In the past, Berns had had very few occasions to
come here, but this was his second time today. "And it's
nice and cool inside," he promised, showing them in.
"Your tax dollars at work."

Dan and Venetia both sighed when stepping inside.
Berns nodded to the officer at the booking desk and the
watch commander, who both stiffened when they saw
him. "Is she still in the interview room?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I'm taking these two back." Berns unloaded his
Smith revolver and handed it to the watch commander.
"We don't need them to sign in."

"Sure thing, sir."

"Something just occurred to me," Venetia said with
some amusement. Berns took them down a shiny-floored
but dark hall. "I've never been in a police station before."

"I have," Dan said. "This one, believe it or not. I got arrested when I was a juvenile."

Berns turned. "You're kidding me. What was the
charge?"

"Pot."

Berns laughed and so did Venetia.

In the next room, Bents showed them to a long table and some chairs. There was a window in the front wall
with a curtain on the other side of it. "Have a seat here,
and take a good look at her. You especially, Dan. I already
questioned her once today, so this time I'll keep it short.
The state police will be taking her for a more detailed interview tomorrow. I'll try not to keep you here too long."

"Keep us as long as you want, Captain," Dan said. "Venetia and I are in no rush to get back to the prior house-"

"Where there's no air-conditioning and no fans," Venetia added.

You can have that shit.... Berns left them and entered
the other room.

"You again. Officer Chuckles."

"I'll take that as a compliment, Sue-if that really is
your name."

Berns opened the curtain and sat down opposite a thin
woman in jeans and a baggy NASCAR shirt. Thick hair
hung just past her shoulders, a blend of auburn and black,
with split ends. "Did the photographer see you earlier?"

Her voice sounded rough. "No. What for?"

"To take pictures of your body."

The crows feet at the corners of her eyes deepened. "My
body, huh?"

"Identifying marks, such as tattoos. For your prison
file, Sue."

Smoke-darkened teeth showed behind her salacious
grin. "Don't worry. When your photographer comes, I'll
give him a good show."

"The photographer's a two hundred-pound woman, so
you can forget about sexual harassment."

"Shit."

Her face and arms were well-tanned but also a little
wrinkle-webbed: the look of someone who'd worked the
docks for a long time. She sneered up at the window.
"Who's on the other side?"

"Just some friends."

"Bullshit. You don't have any." She shot her middle finger at the glass.

"Friends from St. John's Prior House."

She only looked at him.

"So you're a boat cleaner, huh?"

"And painter, barnacle scraper, deck hand."

"We haven't been able to verify that yet. Which means
you either get paid off the books or don't really do anything except sell crystal meth."

She gave a pained looked. "Hey, man, I don't go near
that shit, and I lie to cops any chance I get, but I ain't lying
about that."

Berns nodded, the tiniest smile tinting his face. "Well,
tomorrow you're going to the state police, and they'll interview you a lot more thoroughly. They're not nice like
me. They can even get a court order to inject you against
your will with a drug called sodium amobarbital. Then
you won't be able to lie."

"Oh, good, a downer. I like stuff that makes me mellow."

"I'll bet." Berns guessed she was midthirties but looked
fifteen years older. "My point is, the state police don't like
your kind."

She sat slouched but the remark brightened her eyes
with amusement. "My kind?"

Berns whispered, "White trash."

"Just like you, brother."

Cute. "So it might behoove you to be forthcoming with
information with me before they get their hands on you. I
have a lot of power in this department. I might be able to
cut you a deal. Like I did for Freddie."

"Who?"

"Freddie Johnson. He spun on you like a top."

"Bullshit. There's no way he could've known I was
busting into his old place last night, so don't act like he
blew the whistle on me. I know for a fact that he didn't."

"Well, thanks at least for admitting that you know him."

A thought seemed to trouble her; then she gave Berns
the finger, too.

"So let's go over last night again. The police caught you
burglarizing Room Three of the Wharfside Boarding House on Fifth-Freddie Johnson's pad before he blew
town."

"You talk so hip, man," she mocked.

"You betcha. But they talk hipper in general pop."
Berns admired something about her redneck edge.
"You're a gutsy gal, I'll tell you. Too bad you're not as
smart as you are gutsy."

"What are you blabbering about?" she frowned.

"When you jimmied the window on Freddie's pad, you
did it with the same knife you used to cut the throats of
the two women at the prior house last spring. It still had
some dried blood on it."

"Bullshit!" she exclaimed, leaning up. "I cleaned that
fucker good!"

Berns' grin was wide. "Even heard of gas-chromatography, Sue? Or how about mass photo-spectrometry?"

She slumped back to her slouch, arms propping up the
braless breasts that were probably quite full and appealing once but now just sagged.

"It's lock-solid evidence, Sue. Freddie's already confessed and implicated you."

She shook her head. "You're lyin'."

She's fried. He could tell. Sometimes when he pushed
hard enough, they gave in, but Berns doubted that would
happen here. Drug burnout. But ... a member of a Satanic
cult?

He wasn't getting any vibes. "So when you busted
into his joint, you were looking for the forty grand"-he
decided to play with her a little-"but Freddie screwed
you out of it. He told me. Isn't that why he paid his rent
three months in advance, so the landlord wouldn't
know he was gone? You knew he was gone, though. He
said he'd take his cut when he left town but would leave
your end for you and the other guy. What was his
name?"

She laughed sharply. "Man, you are so up the wrong
fuckin' tree it's a riot." Then she leveled her gaze. "And
you know what? Fuck it. Freddie was right. When the
party's over, it's over."

"He said the same thing to me two nights ago in Lubec,
Maine," Berns told her, getting his hopes up.

"I'm not gonna give up my friends, so you can forget
about that. They're not even here anymore."

"Now you're the one bullshitting."

She gave him the finger again and grinned. "And as for
the money-shit. Freddie always had money 'cos he was
lucky. Pool, scratch-offs, craps. The fucker always had extra cash."

"The fucker? I thought you were all friends. Sounds like
you don't like him much."

"I don't like him-he's a prick. But I do love him."

Redneck love, Berns thought. "Oh, one of those deals. He
was your boyfriend."

"Yeah, or so he said. Cheated on me all the time."

"Back to the money-"

She shook her head as if Berns was stupid. "It wasn't
about the money. After he blew town, we figured we'd
wait a while for things to cool off before we broke into his
old place. But it wasn't the money we were after. We
didn't give a shit about it."

"Wei"

"Yeah, fucker. We."

Berns intensified his expression. "And you didn't care
about forty grand?"

"No, no. Something else, and you can't do shit 'cos
someone else has it now."

Berns' mental gears began to excitedly spin.

"So it wasn't you who broke into the apartment. It was
you and the other guy."

"Yeah. It was me and the guy.

"I see. And he got away but you didn't."

A long, huffy, "Yeah."

"Tell me who he is, and I can have your sentence reduced. Accomplice to a double homicide might get you
life with no parole, especially when one victim was a nun.
I might be able to rig it so you're out after seven years, if
you're a good girl."

She jerked forward, animated. "You don't get it, do you? We couldn't remember it all, all the instructions, I
mean-"

Instructions?

"Freddie wrote them down but he made a copy. Took
the original with him and left the copy here for us."

Berns appraised her. I don't think she's making this up just
to throw me off. "The cops found an ashtray that had something in it-"

"Not an ashtray, a thurible."

Berns cocked a brow. "Well, this was an ashtray but
there was no trace of cigarette tar or any drugs in it. They
said it was something like resin. Burned resin. What's the
deal there?"

"You'll have to find that out yourself."

"Sue, the ashtray's going to the big lab in Manchester.
Whatever the stuff is, believe me, those guys will have it
nailed. So why not just tell me?"

She waved a hand. "Naw. No point. You wouldn't get it."

Don't spin all your wheels at once, Berns reminded himself. "All right, back to the bust. It's very interesting what
you're telling me. You got caught but the guy didn't. The
guy got away."

"Right. When we heard the sirens last night, I deliberately stayed in the apartment."

Another bombshell. "You mean to distract the police
while your accomplice got away with these ... instructions?"

"Yeah. It's a photocopy of something Freddie got. He
called it a transcription."

A long pause seemed to dim the lights.

"They came from the other side," " she whispered.

"The other side? You mean George Steinbrenner's office?"

Her lips pursed. "Huh?"

"Nothing. It's a baseball joke. So you sacrificed yourself
so this other person could escape with these transcriptions? That's crazy. You've still got plenty of life left, but
because you did that you could spend the rest of it in
prison. Why sacrifice yourself?"

"Because some things are more important than life
here." The words leaked from her throat very slowly. She
seemed to be looking through him instead of at him.

"Life here as opposed to ... life on 'the other side?'
Hell? Is that what you mean?"

Now she was leaning on her elbows, the saggy breasts
swaying in the baggy shirt. "You know Freddie. You
know how he's always smiling. I'll bet he was smiling
when you talked to him in jail."

"Actually, he was."

"And he was right. See, he knew, and that's why he
kept saying it to us so much. When the party's over, it's over.
Wanna know why?"

"Sure."

"Because there's a better party waiting somewhere
else."

"In Hell? Is that what we're talking about, Sue?"

She said nothing.

"Sue, this is ridiculous," he finally said. "A devil cult?
Come on. You look like the kind of girl who works her ass
off all day in some manual labor job, sits in redneck bars
every night getting drunk on draft beer, messing around
with grizzly tough guys, and driving an old pickup truck
with bald tires and dents in it."

She howled laughter. "You're right about everything
except the truck. I don't have any wheels 'cos I can't get
insurance."