Night Hunter (32 page)

Regina slipped the broken nail into her handbag.

John snatched up a towel, sniffed it, tossed it back on the stack. “Sanitized. That’s important. He grabbed Regina’s hand and pulled her out the door, hurrying toward the exit.

A moment later they were in the station wagon pulling out of the parking lot. Regina started to turn left, changed her mind and made a right.

“
Where are we going?”

“
The hospital to see Donna,” she said. “Do you mind?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “Mind? No, I’m a fan of hers. Do you have the fingernail?”

“
Yes.” She pulled smoothly into the traffic. She glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead with that same calculating expression on his face that she’d seen in the utility room. Normally his face was a mixture of hard and soft, brooding eyes over a quick, easy smiling mouth. Now, his features were set. “Tell me what was going through your mind back there at the gym,” she said.

“
This is purely speculation, mind you, but I think the lady was lured into the storage room and doused with a blinding chemical—”

“
The chlorine?”

“
Yes. It’s not acid, but a dose of it in the eyes could have temporarily blinded her.”

“
And being blinded, she stumbles out of the room, breaking a nail on the doorframe, and falls into the pool?”

“
Yes,” John said. “Now either she couldn’t swim, or she panicked and lost consciousness, or she was held under.”

“
Murder?”

“
We should have asked Segal if she could swim.”

She glanced over at him. “She was a strong swimmer.”

Regina found a parking space at the entrance to the hospital. They took the elevator to the fourth floor. The door to Donna’s room was open and Regina could see she had a visitor. Tom Gansing, the director at KSGO, stood at the side of her bed. Donna looked past Tom, caught Regina’s eye, and motioned for her to come in. They entered. During the introductions, Donna’s hand self-consciously went to her throat before dropping to her side. Her throat and neck were unbandaged. Regina noticed that both John and Tom looked Donna directly in the face when talking to her, yet neither stared longer than necessary. Nolan, Regina remembered, didn’t seem as comfortable looking at his wife.

“
Guess I better be going,” Tom said, backing up. “Next time I come I’ll bring that book I was telling you about.”

“
Can you come tomorrow?”

“
Sure.” He grinned and his face colored, matching the red of his hair.

Tom was more than infatuated. He was in love. Regina had suspected for months that the director had special feelings for Donna. Watching him with her now, the way he looked at her, listened to her, seeing his reluctance to leave her, confirmed it. Tom was a good man. Sweet, considerate and down-to-earth like Donna.

Regina moved into his place and took Donna’s hand. “How are you?”

“
Okay,” she smiled wanly. “They’ll be doing more skin grafts in a couple days.”

“
When? I’ll come by.”

Donna shook her head. “Daddy will be here.”

Regina knew how important it was for Donna to have her father to herself. She smiled and squeezed Donna’s hand.

Donna looked at John quizzically. “I have this feeling we’ve met before. A long time ago.”

“
John covered the Miss Classic Pageant for the
Chronicle,”
Regina said.

“
Really? That must be it, then. And now the two of you are neighbors. What a small world.”

“
Donna, the police are planning to rule out foul play in Tammy’s death,” Regina said.

“
That’s good, isn’t it?”

“
Not if it’s not true. Tammy’s dog was poisoned two nights before she died. John and I went to the gym and found some things that may prove she was assaulted ... and possibly murdered.”

“
Murdered?” The color left Donna’s face. “But why?” Without waiting for an answer she said in exasperation, “Oh, God, Reggie, what have I done? It’s my fault. If I’d have left things alone I wouldn’t be here and Tammy ... Tammy would be alive.”

“
Stop thinking like that,” Regina said. “No one can say what would have happened. What’s important is that we do what we can to stop it before someone else gets hurt.”

“
Are you going to the police?”

“
Yes,” Regina said.

John’s head snapped up. His eyes bore into hers. She looked away.

“
Go see Corinne,” Donna said.

“
Corinne?”

“
She paid me a visit a couple days ago.”

“
She was here?” John asked, sounding dumbfounded. “In the hospital?”

“
At first I thought I had dreamed it. I’m still not positive she was here. But she said things about her private life that make me believe it really happened.”

“
What things?” John asked.

“
Terrible things about her father. There’s so much hate inside her.”

“
Exactly what day was she here?” John persisted.

“
Thursday. Well, actually, early Friday morning. Before dawn.”

“
What did she want?”

“
To see me. Just
that ...
to see what I looked like.”

“
God,” Regina whispered.

“
Was she disfigured?” John asked.

“
Greatly.”

“
But she said she’d had plastic surgery,” Regina said.

“
I think she lied,” Donna said.

“
Did she threaten you?” John asked.

Donna shook her head. “But she’s a very bitter woman. I’m not at all sure she’s entirely sane.”

Regina felt cold. She wished she hadn’t gotten involved in this investigation. The police were trained for this kind of work. She was too close to it all.

She glanced at her watch. 8:03. Suddenly she felt an urgency to get home. Kristy would leave work at nine, and Regina’s maternal instincts took over. She didn’t want her daughter coming home to an empty apartment.

John stole glances at Regina as she drove. She was quiet, seemingly lost in thought. The radio played a love song by Billy Ocean.

She has a great profile, he thought. He remembered her as a young woman in the contest. She had been beautiful then, but he felt that her beauty had increased over the years. Along with wisdom and a distinctive persona, she had filled out characteristically. Routine movements, such as adjusting the mirror and vents, steering, shifting gears, seemed graceful and sensual when she did them, yet she had a certain innocence that he found quite captivating.

“
How long have you been a widow?” he asked. His own question surprised him, coming out of nowhere.

When she remained silent, he figured she had chosen not to answer. He stared out the passenger window. Storefronts and parked cars flashed by.

She leaned forward and turned down the radio, her eyes straight ahead. “Six months.”

It was his turn to be silent. Six months. Not a very long time if she had loved him. Six months after the death of his wife and son, he would think of them only half his waking hours instead of all. Then, for many years after that every young boy reminded him of Andrew. Every woman he met he compared to Darlene and none had measured up.

“
What did your husband do?”

“
Leo wrote reference books for writers. L. V. Raven.
Nonfiction Handbook, The Craft of Article Writing,
to name a few.”

John was familiar with the latter book. “He was good.”

She glanced at him, smiling. “Yes, I thought so too. Course I’m biased. I edited and typed his manuscripts.”

They withdrew into their own thoughts again.

She braked to a stop at a red light. “I meant what I said about going to the police.”

John tried to appear unaffected by her words. His stomach knotted. If he went with her to the police, she was certain to find out who their prime suspect was. The police would like nothing better to pin this
and
Corinne’s assault on him, it would save them a lot of footwork.

John touched the pistachio shell in his shirt pocket, the shell he’d found on the floor of the gym’s utility room. He had told Regina he had dropped it, but that was one more lie to add to the growing list. If the investigating cops had found it, instead of he, Lillard would be that much closer to making a case against him. Was it a coincidence that the very type of nut he regularly ate was found at the scene of a crime? A crime that in all likelihood was connected to the finalists of the Classic pageant? Or had someone, knowing his habits and knowing that he was a suspect, planted it? It was sheer luck he had come across it.

And his luck had held regarding Donna Lake. She had recognized him from the pageant all those years ago, but fortunately she had believed he’d been a journalist covering the event. Unlike Regina, Donna had come in contact with him twice during that fateful pageant. The first time was at the hotel the day of the final judging. He and Corinne had fought that afternoon. Corinne, angry that he would not be present for the crowning, had screamed at John, slapping his face when he had turned to leave. Donna had been within hearing. His second contact with Donna was at the hospital the following day. Corinne, though heavily sedated, adamantly refused to allow John to see her. He had waited all night, endlessly pacing the corridors, praying she would change her mind and let him share her pain and anguish. In the morning Donna had shown up, along with the police detective who took him away for questioning.

“
I think they should know what we know,” she added.

“
I agree,” he lied again. “But the police will only tell us to stay out of it. And I don’t think I can do that.”

After several moments of silence, Regina said, “Wilma, then.”

He suppressed his relief. “Yes. What time?”

“
Eleven. I have a light load this week. We’re doing the show Saturday, live again with open phone lines.”

“
You’re very good in front of the camera. Your face comes across sensationally on the screen. As well as off.”

“
Thank you. Pancake makeup works miracles. At least I wasn’t asked to have a face lift.”

“
There was no reason to.”

He saw her glance at him as if checking his sincerity.

“
Well, I won’t mind in the least turning the program back over to Donna.”

“
She’s coming back?”

“
Of course. Why not?”

He shrugged. “Why not.” At 8:30 they pulled up to the apartment house.

Corinne had been sitting in the old, gray-primered Packard on the quiet residential street for nearly an hour. She stared at the lighted window on the ground floor, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

She was nervous, like the two other times this week she had come here to spy on him. So strong was her compulsion to see Jack Davie that she did so at the risk of being caught. Last night she had come close to being discovered when, sitting in the car at three in the morning, staring at his dark windows, Jack had surprised her by jogging by within yards of her, and by some miracle he hadn’t noticed the hooded woman in the parked car. Minutes later she watched him move around in his apartment and she’d filled her eyes, her aching heart, with the wonderful sight of him.