On Off (36 page)

“He discarded all the linen and covers after each victim,” Patrick said, lips pinched together.

“Look at this, Patsy,” Carmine said, flipping a curtain.

Someone called down the stairs. “Lieutenant, we know who the victim is! Delice Martin, a boarder at Stella Maris Catholic girls’ school.”

“So he didn’t need a car,” Carmine said to Patrick. “Stella Maris is only half a mile away. He carried the girl across his shoulders all the way back.”

“Drawing attention to himself, grabbing a victim so close to Ponsonby Lane” was Patrick’s comment.

“In one way, yes, but in another, no. He knew we had all the Huggers pinned down, so why should it be him? To the end, he believed the tunnel was his secret. Now will you come and look at this, Patsy?
Look
at it!”

Carmine pulled an ironed white satin curtain aside to show an alcove lined in polished white marble. An altarlike table held two silver candlesticks with unburned white candles in them, as if something was to be deposited on a silver platter that stood atop an exquisitely embroidered cloth. A sacrifice.

On the wall above were four shelves, each of the top two supporting six heads; two more heads sat on the third, and the fourth was empty. The heads were not frozen. They were not in jars of formalin. They had been immersed in clear plastic the way gift shops sold beautiful butterflies.

“He had problems with the hair,” said Patrick, clenching his fists to stop his hands trembling. “You can see how much better he gets with practice. Painfully slow, those first six heads! A clamp to hold the head upside down in his mold while he poured a little plastic in, let it set, poured some more in. He made a breakthrough on the seventh head — probably devised a way to get the hair as hard as concrete. Then he could fill the mold in one pour. I’d like to know how he dealt with anaerobic decay, but I’d be willing to bet that he removed the brains, maybe filled the cranial cavity with a formalin gel. Under that tasteful gold foil frill, the necks are sealed off.” Patrick retched suddenly, controlled himself with an effort. “I feel sick.”

“I know liquid plastic is prohibitively expensive, but I thought it didn’t work for specimens this large,” Carmine said. “Yet even Rosita Esperanza’s head looks in good condition.”

“It doesn’t much matter what the textbooks or manufacturers say. These fourteen contradictions tell us that Charles Ponsonby was a master of the technique. Besides, the mold is snug, not much bigger than the head. A quart of plastic would be too much.”

“Turn your talismans into butterflies.”

The two technicians had come to look, but not for long; it would be their job to take down each head, box it for evidence. But only after every inch of the place had been photographed, sketched and catalogued.

“Let’s have a look in the bathroom,” Patrick suggested.

“He brought Delice Martin in,” Carmine said after looking, “tossed her on the bed, then came in here and showered. That’s what he wore to abduct her.”

It was a black rubber diving suit of the kind worn by those who didn’t go deep — thin, light. Ponsonby had removed its colored stripes and bands, dulled its gloss. A pair of heelless, smooth-soled rubber boots stood on the floor primly together, and a pair of thin black rubber gloves were folded neatly on a stool.

“Supple,” said Carmine, flexing one of the boots between his gloved hands. “A failed researcher he may be, but as a killer Ponsonby is phenomenal.” He replaced the boot exactly.

They walked back into the main room, where Paul and Luke had begun the photography; they would be days and days on the many tasks Patrick would call for.

“The heads are all the evidence we need to charge him with fourteen counts of murder,” Carmine said, closing the curtain. “Funny, in a way, that he kept them so prominently displayed, but it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that anyone would ever find this place. Ponsonby will fry. Or else he’ll get fourteen consecutive life sentences. I hope our Ghost dies in prison, abused every single day by every other inmate. How they’ll hate him!”

“It’s a good thought, but you know as well as I do that the warden will isolate him.”

“Yeah, a pity, but true. I just want him to suffer, Patsy. What’s death, but an eternal sleep? And what’s isolation in a prison, but the chance to read books?”

Otis was just leaving for the Hug when Wesley walked into the kitchen. Tante Celeste was manicuring her nails, which she kept long, crimson and rather pointed to emphasize her slender, tapered fingers. The radio was blaring; she turned it off and got up to serve Wesley his breakfast of orange juice, cornflakes and wholemeal toast.

“They caught the Connecticut Monster,” she remarked, smoothing margarine on the toast.

Wesley’s spoon plopped into the sloppy cereal, splashed the table. “They what?” he asked, wiping up the milk before she saw what he’d done.

“They caught the Connecticut Monster about fifteen minutes ago. It’s all over the news, they haven’t even played a song yet.”

“Who is he, a Hugger?”

“They didn’t say.”

He reached to turn the radio on. “So I’m bound to hear about it now?”

“I guess so.” She returned to her nails.

Wesley listened to the bulletin with bated breath, scarcely able to believe his ears. Though the Monster’s identity had not been revealed, WHMN was in a position to know that he was a senior professional medical man, and that there was a female accomplice. The two would be appearing before Judge Douglas Thwaites in the Holloman district court at 9
A.M.
today for arraignment and the fixing of bail.

“Wes? Wes?
Wes!
”

“Huh? Yeah, Tante?”

“You okay? Not gonna pass out on me, are you? One bad heart in the family is enough.”

“No, no, Tante, I’m fine, honest.” He pecked her on the cheek and went to his room to don his floppiest jacket, gloves, a knitted cap. Though it was a sunny day, the temperature wasn’t very much above freezing.

When he arrived at 18 Fifteenth Street he found Mohammed and his six intimates in a panicked huddle; three days were all they had to reorganize the theme of the rally, somehow make capital out of this unexpected development. Who could ever have dreamed that those incompetent pigs would make an arrest?

With a sheepish, apologetic smile Wesley slipped past them and entered what Mohammed referred to as his “meditation room.” To Wesley it looked more like an arsenal, its walls smothered in racks that held shotguns, machine guns and automatic rifles; the handguns were stored in a number of metal cabinets that had once resided in a gun store, their drawers specifically designed for handgun display. Boxes of ammunition stood on the floor in high stacks wherever there was room.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the armaments, this was always the most peaceful place in the house, and it had what Wesley now needed: a table and a chair, white Bainbridge board, paints, pens, brushes, rulers, scissors, a guillotine. Wesley took a sheet of 18 x 30 Bainbridge board and ruled off a section 8 inches wide, then cut it with a Stanley Sheetrock knife braced against a ruler. Not much room for a message, but it wasn’t going to be a long one. Black letters, white background. And where was Mohammed’s spoiled brat of a son’s hockey outfit? He’d seen it lying somewhere now the kid had discovered Allah didn’t intend for him to be a hockey star. The latest fad was high-jumping because of some champion at Travis High.

“Hey, Ali! Busy, man?” Mohammed asked, coming in.

“Yeah. I’m busy making you a martyr, Mohammed.”

“Turning me into one, you mean?”

“No, manufacturing you one out of someone less important.”

“You kidding?”

“Nope. Where’s Abdullah’s hockey gear?”

“Two rooms over. Tell me more, Ali.”

“Don’t have time right now, I have a lot to do. Just make sure your TV is tuned into channel six at nine this morning.” Wesley picked up a paintbrush, but didn’t dip it in the black paint. “I need privacy, Mohammed. Then they can’t prove that you were in the know, man.”

“Sure, sure!” Grinning, palms held out, Mohammed mockingly bowed himself out of the meditation room, leaving Wesley alone.

“Oh, come on, John! Can the histrionics, this case went on so long it died of sheer old age,” Carmine said, embarrassed.

“I am recommending you for a medal, even if the Governor has to invent one.”

“Where are Ponsonby and Claire?”

“He’s in a cell with two cops for company — no way this bozo is going to hang himself, and there’s no cyanide capsule up his rectum either, we made sure. His sister’s in a vacant office on this floor with two women officers. And the dog. At worst she’s an accomplice. We haven’t any evidence to suggest she might be the second Ghost, at least not evidence that will impress Doubting Doug Thwaites, the pedantic old fart. Our holding cells are clean, Carmine, but not designed to accommodate a
lady,
especially a lady who’s blind. I thought it good policy to treat her in a way her lawyers can’t criticize when she comes to trial —
if
she comes to trial. At the moment, that’s moot.”

“Has he talked?”

“Not a word. From time to time he howls with laughter, but he hasn’t said a thing. Stares into space, hums a tune, giggles.”

“He’s going to plead insanity.”

“Sure as eggs are eggs. But people insane according to the M’Naghten rules don’t plan a killing premises down to the last fine detail.”

“And Claire?”

“Just keeps saying she refuses to believe her brother is a multiple murderer, and that she’s done nothing wrong herself.”

“Unless Patsy and his team can find a trace of Claire in the killing premises or the tunnel, she’ll walk. I mean, a blind woman and her guide dog empty a bucket of dead leaves in the deer reserve and rake them nice and flat? A halfway competent lawyer could prove that she thought she was carrying deer chow to empty where brother Chuck had made them a feeding place. Of course we can always hope for a confession.”

“In a pig’s eye!” Silvestri said with a snort. “Neither of that pair is the confessing kind.” He shut one eye, kept the other open and fixed on Carmine. “Do
you
think she’s the second Ghost?”

“I don’t honestly know, John. We won’t prove it.”

“Anyway, they’re being formally arraigned in Doubting Doug’s courtroom at nine. I wanted it in a less public venue and kept quiet, but Doug’s sticking to his guns. What a picnic! Ponsonby’s only item of clothing is a raincoat, and he refuses to put on a stitch more. If we force him and he gets a teensy-weensy bruise or cut, they’ll cry police brutality, so he’s going to court in a raincoat. Danny put the cuffs on him too tight, that’s bad enough. The cute bastard’s chafed himself raw.”

“I suppose every journalist who can get to Holloman in time will be outside the courthouse, including channel six’s anchors,” Carmine said, sighing.

“Why wouldn’t they? This is big news for a small city.”

“Can’t we arraign Claire separately?”

“We could if Thwaites would play ball, but he won’t. He wants both of them in front of him at once. Curiosity, I think.”

“No, he wants a preview that will help him make up his mind about Claire’s complicity.”

“Have you eaten, Carmine?”

“No.”

“Then let’s grab a booth at Malvolio’s before the rush.”

“How are Abe and Corey? De-skunked?”

“Yeah, and nursing grudges. They wanted to be with you down in that cellar.”

“I feel sorry about that, but they had to be de-skunked. I suggest you squeeze the Governor for a couple more medals, John. And a big ceremony.”