On Off (23 page)

Commissioner Silvestri cleared his throat. “So how many of them refused to let us look around without a search warrant?”

“In general they’ve been pretty co-operative,” said Carmine, who did indeed look down. “I get to see anything I ask to see, though I’m careful to make sure one of them at least is with me. I didn’t ask Charles Ponsonby for permission to search his forest because I didn’t see the point. If Corey and Abe find any fresh tracks through all this snow, or evidence that fresh tracks have been covered up, then I’ll ask. My bet is that all twenty acres are pristine, so why give Chuck and Claire anguish ahead of time?”

“You like Claire Ponsonby,” said Silvestri, stating a fact.

“Yes, I do. An amazing woman, doesn’t harbor any grudges.” He put her out of his mind. “To answer your original question, so far I’ve had refusals from Satsuma, Chandra and Schiller, the three aliens. Satsuma shipped his private peon, Eido, up to his Cape Cod cottage about ten seconds after I left his penthouse, is my guess. Chandra is an arrogant bastard, but that’s probably understandable in a maharajah’s number one son. Even if we did manage to get a warrant, he’d complain to the Indian Embassy, and that is one very aggressively touchy nation. Schiller is a more pathetic case. I don’t suspect him of anything more unorthodox than lots of photos of naked young men on his walls, but I haven’t pushed him because of his suicide attempt. It was a serious one, not a grandstand.”

Carmine grinned. “Speaking of photos of naked men, I found a doozy in Tamara Vilich’s chains-and-leather bedroom. None other than that ambitious neurosurgeon, Keith Kyneton, who strips better than Mr. Universe. They say these muscle-building guys do it to compensate for an undersized dick, but I can’t say that of him. He’s hung like a porn star.”

“Well, what do you know?” asked Marciano, leaning back in his chair to avoid Silvestri’s cigar — why did it always have to be his nose it got shoved under? “Does that eliminate the Kynetons? Or Tamara Vilich?”

“Not entirely, Danny, though they’ve never been high on my list. She paints very sick pictures and she’s a dominatrix.”

“So Keith baby likes having the shit beaten out of him.”

“Seems so. However, Tamara can’t mark him much or his doting wife would notice. It’s his mother I feel sorriest for.”

“Another one you like,” said Silvestri.

“Yeah, well, time to worry when there’s nobody I like.”

“What do you plan now?” Marciano asked.

“Taxing Tamara with the Kyneton business.”

“That won’t cost you any pain. Her, you don’t like.”

“I’m not interested in the fucking, Miss Vilich. I want to know whereabouts you meet to fuck.”

“At my house, in my apartment.”

“With half of the neighborhood working somewhere in the Chubb Medical School or on Science Hill? Someone who knows Kyneton or his car would be sure to spot him sooner or later. I think you have a hideaway somewhere.”

“You’re wrong, we don’t. I’m single, I live alone, and Keith makes sure there’s no one about if he arrives before dark. Though he never does arrive before dark. That’s why I love winter.”

“What about the faces peering behind a lace curtain? Your affair with Dr. Kyneton gives him a double connection with the Hug. Wife
and
mistress work there. Does his wife know?”

“She lives in complete ignorance, but I suppose you’ll yap far and wide about Keith and me,” Tamara said sulkily.

“I don’t yap, Miss Vilich, but I will have to talk to Keith Kyneton, make sure there isn’t a hideaway somewhere. I smell violence in your relationship, and violence usually means a safe hideaway.”

“Where the screams can’t be heard. We never go that far, Lieutenant, it’s more a matter of playing out some scenario,” she said. “Strict teacher with naughty little boy, lady cop with her handcuffs and sandbag baton — you know.” Her face changed, she shuddered. “He’ll dump me. Oh, God, what will I do? What will I do after he dumps me?”

Which only goes to show, thought Carmine, departing, just how wrong assumptions can be. I thought the only person she loves is herself, but she’s nuts about a turkey like Keith Kyneton, which may account for her paintings. They’re how she feels about love — how sad, to hate love! Because she knows that Keith is only there for the sex. It’s Hilda he loves — if he’s capable of love.

Tamara caught him at the elevator.

“If you hurry, Lieutenant, you’ll find Dr. Kyneton between operations,” she said. “Holloman Hospital, tenth floor. The best way to get there is through the tunnel.”

It was as spooky as all tunnels; after exploring the warren of tunnels the Japs had lived in on some of the Pacific islands during the War, Carmine feared them, had had to force himself to descend into the bowels of the earth in London to walk the tunnels between tube connections. Tunnels had a growl to them, an anger transmitted from the outraged, invaded earth. No matter how dry or brightly lit, a tunnel suggested lurking terrors. He strode the hundred yards of the Hug tunnel, took its right-hand fork and came into the hospital basement near the laundry.

All the operating rooms were on the tenth floor, but Dr. Keith Kyneton was waiting for him at the elevator block, clad in greens, a pair of cotton masks dangling around his neck.

“Private, I insist on keeping this private,” the neurosurgeon said in a whisper. “In here, quick!”

“Here” was a storeroom choked with boxes of supplies, devoid of chairs or an atmosphere Carmine could use to good effect.

“Miss Vilich told you, huh?” he asked. “I never wanted her to take that goddamn photograph!”

“You should have torn it up.”

“Oh, Jesus, Lieutenant, you don’t understand! She
wanted
it! Tamara is — is fantastic!”

“That I can believe if you like kinky. Nurse Catheter and her enema kit. Who started it, you or her?”

“I don’t honestly remember. We were both drunk, a hospital party Hilda couldn’t make.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Two years. Christmas of 1963.”

“Where do you meet?”

“At Tamara’s place. I’m very careful going in and out.”

“Nowhere else? No little hideaway in the country?”

“No, just at Tamara’s.”

Suddenly Kyneton turned, put both hands on Carmine’s forearm and clung, trembling, tears coursing down his face.

“Lieutenant! Sir! Please, I beg of you, don’t tell anyone! My partnership in New York City is almost set, but if they find out about this, I’ll lose it!” he cried.

His mind full of Ruth and Hilda, their constant sacrifices for this big, spoiled baby, Carmine shook the grip off savagely.

“Don’t touch me, you selfish fuck! I don’t give a shit about your precious practice in New York, but I happen to like your mother and your wife. You don’t deserve either of them!
I
won’t mention this to anyone, but you can’t be stupid enough to think that Miss Tamara Vilich will be so charitable, surely! You’ll dump her, no matter how fantastic the kinky sex with her is, and she’ll retaliate like any other scorned woman. By tomorrow everyone who matters to you will know. Your professor, mother, wife, and the New York bunch.”

Kyneton sagged, looked around vainly for a chair, hung on to a case of swabs instead. “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, I’m
ruined!”

“Straighten up, Kyneton, for God’s sake!” Carmine snapped. “You’re not ruined — yet. Find someone to do your next operation, send your wife home, and follow her. Once you’ve gotten her and your mother to yourself, confess. Go down on your knees and beg forgiveness. Swear never to do it again. And don’t hold anything back. You’re a sweet-talking con merchant, you’ll bring them round. But God help you if you don’t treat those two women right in future, hear me? I’m not charging you with anything at the moment, but don’t think I can’t find something to charge you with if I want, and I’ll be keeping my eye on you: for however many years I’m a cop. One last thing. Next time you shop at Brooks Brothers, buy your mother and wife something nice at Bonwit’s.”

Did the bastard listen? Yes, but only to what he divined would save him. “None of that helps me with the partnership.”

“Sure it does! Provided your mother and wife stand by you. Between the three of you, you can make Tamara Vilich sound like a frustrated woman telling a whole mess of lies.”

The cog wheels were clunking around; Kyneton brightened visibly. “Yes, yes, I see what you mean! That’s how to do it!”

A moment later, Carmine was alone. Keith Kyneton had raced off to mend his fences without a word of thanks.

“And just what,” demanded an irate female voice, “do you think you’re doing in here?”

Carmine flapped his impressive gold badge at the nurse, who looked ready to call hospital security.

“I’m doing penance, ma’am,” he said. “Terrible penance.”

“I give up,” he said, leaned his chin on his hand, and tried to think about the Ghost. That was his new name for the Monster, who had nothing in common with popular conceptions of monsters. He was a ghost.

She watched Maurie from the window as he scrunched off down the frozen path that led to his apple orchard, always his favorite place. They were old trees, had never been pruned to keep the fruit pickably low, but in spring that made them a soaring froth of white blossoms that took the breath away, and in fall they were smothered with glossy red globes like Christmas tree decorations. Several years ago Maurie had been inspired to train some of their branches into arches; the old wood had creaked in protest, but Maurie did it so gently and slowly that now the spaces between the trees were like the aisles in a cathedral.

He disappeared; she went to wash the dishes.

Then came a high, horrifying shriek. A plate crashed to the floor in shards as Catherine grabbed a coat and ran for dear life. Her slippered feet slid and skidded on the ice, but somehow she kept her balance. Another shriek! Not even feeling the 17°F temperature, she raced faster.

Maurie was standing by the wonderful dry stone wall encircling his orchard, staring over it at something glittering on the bank of iron-hard snow that had piled against it during the last blizzard.

One glance, and she led him away, back to the warmth of the kitchen, back to sanity. Back to where she could call the police.

“Jesus,
everything’s
different!” Patrick said.

“I’ll see you in the morgue,” Carmine said, turning away. “If I stay here, I’ll retard your progress.”

He went inside to where the Finches huddled together at their breakfast table, a bottle of Manischevitz wine before them.

“Why me?” Finch asked, face ghastly.

“Have some more wine, Dr. Finch. And if we knew why you, we might have a chance to catch this bastard. May I sit down?”

“Sit, sit!” Catherine gasped, indicating an unused glass. “Have some, you need it too.”

Though he didn’t care for sweet wine, the Manischevitz did help; Carmine put his glass down and looked at Catherine. “Did you hear anything during the night, Mrs. Finch? It’s snapped so cold that everything makes a noise.”

“Not a thing, Lieutenant. Maurie put peat moss and mulch in his mushroom tunnel for a while after he came home yesterday, but we were in bed by ten and slept through until six this morning.”

“Mushroom tunnel?” Carmine asked.

“I fancied seeing if I could grow the gourmet varieties,” Finch said, looking a little better. “Mushrooms are persnickety, but I don’t understand why when you see how they grow in a field.”

“Do you mind if we take your property apart, Doctor? I’m afraid that finding Margaretta here makes that necessary.”

“Do what you want, do what you need — just find this monster!” Finch got up like an old man. “However, I think I know why we didn’t hear anything, Lieutenant. Want to see?”

“I sure do.”

Cautioned not to step anywhere that looked as if the ground had been disturbed, Maurice Finch led Carmine across the area where his glasshouses stood, then in between the big, heated sheds that held Catherine’s chickens. Finally, a good third of a mile beyond the house, Finch stopped and pointed.

“See that little road? It comes up from a gate on Route 133 and ends at the foot of the orchard. We put it in with a blade on the front of our truck because of the brook — when the brook floods, it cuts our house off from access to Route 133. If the Monster knew it existed, he could use it to drive in and we’d never hear him.”

“Thank you for that, Dr. Finch. Go back to your wife.”

Finch did as he was told without protest, while Carmine went to find Abe and Corey, explain whereabouts they should look for signs of the Ghost. He is a ghost, ghosted in and ghosted out again, but he’s a very knowledgeable ghost, the Ghost. Maurice Finch has crisscrossed his property with homemade tracks, but the Ghost is aware of every one of them. And you asked a good question, Dr. Finch: “Why me?” Why, indeed?