Serpent's Kiss (20 page)

    When Chris got back to the front of the bookstore, she found that the reporters had doubled, perhaps tripled in number. Uniformed police officers held them at bay ten feet on the other side of the yellow tape. The number of onlookers had increased, too. There was a carnival atmosphere now. Among the gloomy faces you saw a smile or two. Know-it-alls in the crowd pointed things out to newly arrived spectators. The slaying had gone from a numbing, depressing experience to one of novelty and even thrills. By now it wasn't a human experience-a life with a history and loved ones-but rather just one more titillation for the tube.

    She found O'Sullivan barking at his reporters, ordering them to try to outflank the officers so they could get a better shot of the store interior. His moment of humanity-seeing that the teenage girl was protected from the wolf pack of reporters- had passed and he was once again his familiar self, a news director in a competitive TV market very worried about ratings and determined to get some kind of edge on his foes at the other stations.

    So now, instead of walking up to the crime scene commander, she bypassed him and went over to O'Sullivan.

    She had to wait until he was finished intimidating his troops.

    He turned to her and said, "Channel 6 is going to beat the hell out of us on this story. They're up to something. I know it." O'Sullivan always said this. Then he narrowed his eyes and said, "Where's Lindstrom?"

    "On the other side of the barricade."

    Some of the people in the crowd had recognised her. They were pointing and waving. She waved back. Anything except face O'Sullivan's scrutiny.

    "Where you going after this?"

    "Emily wants to talk to the Fane girl."

    "You think you can get in to see her?"

    She crossed her fingers. "Hope so." Then she gave him a most unprofessional kiss on the cheek and left.

    

    

    Five blocks from the bookstore, Richard Dobyns was hiding in the deep shadows of a five-storey all-night parking garage. He was on the third floor.

    Crouched in a corner of the place, he was slowly becoming aware of smells: leaky motor oil, fading cigarette smoke, his own sticky sweat, and the chill breeze off the nearby river smelling of fish and pollutants.

    He was slowly becoming aware of sights, too: the way the perfectly waxed hood of a new Lincoln shone in the starlight through the open wall, the stars themselves inscrutable and imperious, and closer by the concrete floor slanting down into shadows. There were only a few cars left on this floor. The place looked deserted and lonely in the dim and dirty overhead light. Occasionally, from down below, he could hear footsteps and cars starting up, and then a laugh or two.

    He wanted to be one of them. One of those everyday normal people getting into an everyday normal car going home to an everyday normal wife and kids. All his life he'd wanted to be everyday and normal yet he never had been quite-not in high school where he'd been the nerdy editor of the school newspaper or in college where he'd been the nerdy editor of the literary. He'd always felt the outsider, walking around with a nervous insincere smile on his face, and knowing a sorrow even he couldn't quite define.

    Well, given what he'd done in the past twenty-four hours, now he was the ultimate outsider-

    He tried to keep images of the teenage boy from his mind.

    My God, he'd-

    His breath still came in spasms.

    Leaning back against the rough concrete wall, he felt his chest and belly heave as breath ripped upward through his lungs.

    And then he felt the thing inside him shift.

    Not a major shift, just a small one as if adjusting position.

    He put his hand to his stomach.

    And felt it.

    Moving now; twisting.

    He put his head back against the concrete wall again and closed his eyes. A shadow cut his face perfectly in two. He'd gone unshaven and his beard was a stubbly black. His dark hair was wildly messed up. And now a single silver tear slid down the curve of his cheek. It rolled to his dry lips and settled there feeling hot and tasting salty. He did not open his eyes or move his head for long minutes.

    
Our Father who art in heaven-

    And then he heard the voices.

    Man and woman.

    Young, probably about his age.

    Coming toward him.

    His eyes came open. He looked momentarily as if he were coming out of a very deep trance. The dark eyes flicked left, right-

    Coming toward him.

    "Come on, admit it. You thought she was cute."

    "Well-"

    "It's all right, David. I won't get jealous. She's a movie star, not somebody you can call up for a date."

    The man chuckled. "Right, you won't get jealous. Remember the night I told you I thought Demi Moore was so good looking?"

    Now the woman laughed. "You just happened to catch me on an off night."

    "Sure," the man said. "An off night."

    They walked a few steps in silence then, and there was no doubt where they were heading. The Lincoln with Dobyns hiding on the other side.

    If he waited till they came around to his side, they would be at an advantage, standing over him-

    He had to move now-

    He sprang up off the concrete floor to his feet, running around the rear end of the Lincoln right toward them. The door leading downstairs was perhaps thirty yards behind them.

    This was the only thing he could do.

    When they saw him appear, like some berserk jack-in-the-box abruptly popping up, they both screamed.

    The man was brave. He pulled the woman to him protectively.

    Dobyns ran right past them, his footsteps echoing flap-flap-flap in the empty parking garage, all the way to the door, then faster flap-flap-flap as he took the stairs down to the ground floor two at a time.

    

    

    Three blocks away, in an area that was mostly shadowy warehouses long left deserted, he found a phone booth glowing in the blackness.

    He fed change into the phone and then dialled a certain number with trembling fingers.

    "Hello."

    Right away, she said, "Please, Richard. Please just turn yourself over."

    "I take it the phone is tapped."

    "Richard, please, the police have assured me that-"

    He laughed. "I'll bet they've assured you of a lot of things, haven't they?"

    "Richard, I-"

    "I'm sorry, honey. I can't turn myself over. I can't. There's no other way to explain it."

    "But-"

    "I need you to do me a favour."

    "Richard, there's a detective standing-"

    "I know there's a detective there. I just need to talk to Cindy a minute. Just put her on the phone. Please do that for me."

    There was a long pause on the other end. Then a little girl's voice, more sombre than he'd ever heard it, said, "Hi, Daddy."

    "Hi, pumpkin."

    "There are policemen here."

    "I know, honey."

    "They want you to talk to them. They promised Mommy that they won't hurt you."

    "I know, sweetie. But it's you I want to talk to. I-" But how could he explain to anybody-even to himself-the terrible darkness that overcame him when the thing inside wanted him to kill? "Do you know how much I love you?"

    "Yes, Daddy. And I love you."

    "That's what you've got to remember, pumpkin. How much we love each other. Okay, sweetheart?"

    "All right, Daddy."

    "Now I've got to go. I'm sorry but I do."

    Cindy started crying. "I love you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy." He could hear the terror in her voice and hated himself for putting it there.

    His wife took the phone. "Richard-"

    "Take care of Cindy, honey. You'll both make it through this somehow, darling, I know you will."

    And then he hung up and faced black night again.

    It was time to return to the tower.

    

    

    Once they got rolling in the car again, Emily Lindstrom spoke. She'd been quiet for nearly twenty minutes.

    "It's always different from on TV, isn't it?"

    "What is?"

    "Oh, just the reality of it," Emily Lindstrom said. "Even when you see the body bags, you don't smell the blood and the faeces and you don't see the eyes of the youngsters standing around and gawking."

    "No, you don't."

    Emily sighed, put her head back. "Tonight brought everything back. The way it was with Rob, I mean."

    "I'm sorry."

    "You shouldn't be sorry. You're the best friend I've had since this whole thing started years ago." She looked over at Chris and smiled. "Even if you don't believe it."

    Chris braked for a red light. Full night was here now. You could tell how raw the wind was by the way the young spring trees bent and swayed, and the way storm windows rattled on the aged houses of this neighbourhood. "Who said I didn't believe you?"

    "Then you do?"

    "Well," Chris said.

    Emily smiled again. "I don't blame you. A cult buries the bones of murdered children somewhere and a hundred years later a serpent-"

    "By the way, what's the difference between 'snake' and 'serpent'?"

    "Technically, none," Emily said, "but you're changing the subject."

    "I am, aren't I?" Chris said, and pulled away from the stoplight.

    They drove another five minutes in silence. The homes got bigger, cleaner. The electric lights in the gloom looked inviting. Chris wanted to be inside one of those places, feet tucked under her on the couch, a good movie on HBO and a bowl of popcorn on her lap.

    "There's even an incantation."

    "Oh?" Chris said.

    "Yes. If you say the words at the right time, you can force the serpent to leave the person's body"

    Chris shuddered. "I don't think I'd want to be around to see that. Would you?"

    Emily stared out the window at the blowing darkness. "Have a chance to destroy the thing that destroyed my brother's life? Oh, I'd want to be around, Chris, believe me."

    They now reached a long strip of fast-food places. The night sky was aglow with neon red and yellow and green and purple. Teenagers in shiny cars drove up and down the strip, followed occasionally by a police squad car.

    "I was right, wasn't I?"

    "About me believing you?"

    "Yes," Emily said.

    "May I reserve judgement?"

    "Sure. You may do anything you please."

    "I like you."

    "And I like you."

    "And I want to believe you."

    "And I want you to believe me, too."

    "But I need time to see how things go. Can you blame me?"

    "No," Emily said, and looked out the dark window again. "No, I can't blame you."

    "We'll be there in a little bit," Chris said, changing the subject again.

    "At Marie's?"

    "Yes. I just hope her mother will let us see her."

    Emily said, "So do I. And I hope Marie saw that Dobyns was under some kind of trance when he killed that boy." She bit her lip. "The police wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to tell them about Rob."

    Chris could see how the stress was getting to Emily now. Emily looked older suddenly in the dashboard light, and no longer so poised or self confident.

    "Do you think we could stop at Denny's for a cup of coffee?" Emily said.

    "Sure."

    "I guess I need some coffee right now."

    There was a Denny's two blocks ahead.

    

    

    Her first impression was,
This is not my daughter. This is someone else's daughter. There has been a mistake. A terrible mistake.

    Kathleen Fane watched as two uniformed policemen led the Marie impostor up the carpeted steps to the second-floor landing of the apartment house. They moved the girl very carefully, very slowly, as if she were a piece of extraordinarily precious sculpture that might break at any moment.

    Even from several feet away, Kathleen could see the blood that was splattered all over her daughter. She had seen people involved in car accidents who hadn't looked so bloody. The scene at the bookstore must have been horrible beyond description.

    Marie's eyes were the worst part. 'Shock' was the clinical word. But it came nowhere near describing the deadness of the once beautiful blue gaze. Mother and daughter alike had regarded Marie's eyes as her most attractive feature but now they were terrifying.

    As Kathleen walked out in the hall toward her daughter and the policemen, she hoped to see at least some faint flicker of recognition in Marie's eyes. But nothing; nothing. The girl didn't even look up when Kathleen reached out and took her arm.

    Kathleen tried not to cry-she knew this was a difficult time for the police officers as well as for Marie and herself-but she could not hold back completely, silver tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

    "Good evening, ma'am," the stouter of the two officers said.

    "Thank you so much. Thank you so much," Kathleen said, taking Marie from them. The girl's limp was still decidedly pronounced. In fact, her mother wondered if it wasn't worse now. Then, "When I asked about the boy they said they weren't positive that he was- Is he-?" She tried twice to say the word 'dead.' Neither time would her tongue and lips quite form the word.