SUMMER of FEAR (13 page)

"Good thinking, Russell."

Before
lying down with Isabella, I had the presence mind to retrieve the unpaid bills
from the wastebasket in my study and replace them in the drawer. The act felt
like a step in the right direction. It was something positive, actual, redolent
of hope.

Grace had
just taken Isabella her breakfast and I had just taken my second handful of
aspirin in six hours when the telephone rang. It was seven in the morning,
eighty degrees already, and too early for business as usual. I half-expected to
hear Amber's voice on the phone. I'd replayed the vision of her in my mind a
thousand times that night, even in my dreams, so many times that, by an
inexplicable trick of memory, it began to seem unreal. Had I or hadn't I? It
was impossible. It was true. I was outraged. I was mystified.

I had read and reread my
Journal
article on the Midnight
Eye—front page, above the fold—and it was good. The courthouse and crime-beat
reporters would be gnashing their teeth and screaming at Karen Schultz by now.
The general public would be buying even more handguns.

I made it to the phone and said hello, my head
thundering.

There was a long silence, but I could hear breathing. "Speak
up," I said. "Life is short."

"It certainly is. Russell?"

"Yep."

"I am the Midnight Eye."

I
entertained the notion, very briefly, that this was a joke. I would not have
put it past Martin Parish or Erik Wald or even Art Crump to call so early and
with so idiotic a sense of humor. But something in the pause that followed,
something the firm timbre of the voice, something I remembered from the tape
left in the stereo at the site of the Wynn slaughter, something in the center
of my soul suggested that I was talking to the real thing.

"Fuck you, Jack," I said, and hung up.

He
called back immediately. The voice was even, unhurried, perhaps just slightly
lower than average. To my ear, he had no accent, which means a California
accent.

"The
Wynn wife was still alive when I tied her to the shower nozzle. I wouldn't have
tried it with anyone who weighed over a hundred pounds. Blood drains clockwise
above the equator, just like water, unless you reverse the flow. I did not. It
clogged early, anyway. Cedrick Ellison had a dangling left testicle and a much
smaller penis than legend gives the Negro. The picture of Jesus over Sid and
Teresa's bed actually brought tears of laughter to my eyes, which,
incidentally, a blue. There, Russell, a clue—even though you were rude enough
to hang up on me. Convinced?"

It
was my turn to breathe wordlessly. No one on earth but a good person of the
Sheriff's/Coroner's office could have know what the voice had just told me,
except for the man who'd committed the acts. There is no way he could have
extrapolated that information from my article that morning, even with the
strongest and most intuitive of
imaginations.

"No," I said.

"What is your IQ?"

"Higher than yours."

"Mine is one thirty-six, according to the Stanford-Binet they gave
us in high school. Junior year. I think I'd have done better, but I was
preoccupied that day with a fantasy about the neighbor's cat. I was
d-d-distracted. Are you really not convinced?"

"No, I am not."

The line was quiet for a moment. His stuttering
d
reminded me of
the garbled, cryptic tape left behind. But this voice, live on the phone, had
none of the rambling, slurring delivery that handicapped the maker of that
tape.

"Then ask me."

"What do you have on your back?"

"A green devil."

"What does the Midnight Eye see?"

"Hypocrites."

"Spell it."

"You know, this may be the last time we'll get to have a long
conversation, Russell, because I know you'll report this call to the Sheriff's,
Winters will install an electronic call tracer I will allegedly not be able to
hear, and you and I will have to have short talks. Right now, this feels like a
luxury. Let's not turn it into a spelling bee."

The line on which we talked was dead quiet in the background, not so
much as a hum, no static, clear. He could have been calling from the depths of
a tomb.

"What do you want?"

"I liked the article. Thank you for using my
name."

"What is your real name?"

He laughed for the first time then, a strange, muted
sh-sh-sh
that sounded wet, compressed between teeth or lips to draw force from both the
inhale and the exhale. It sounded like something with scales escaping from a
cage.

"How is Isabella?"

Again,
it was my turn for silence. I could find no words for the protective fury
inside me.

"What do you want?" I finally said again.

"The county should understand my quest."

"Which is what?"

"Cleansing."

"The races?"

"Absolutely. I can remember when the orange grove spread for miles
and every face was a white, healthy, brave face."

"So what?" I said. "Places
change."

"And change again, Russell. I am doing my part, signaling the
change. Tell me, what has Erik Wald given you in terms profile?"

"Nothing, yet."

"The usual bludgeon stuff, beards and size and neo-Nazi survivalist
nonsense?"

"That's not Wald. That's the common
wisdom."

"Sh-sh-sh. Wisdom. I'll tie Wald and his ilk in knots. Their
arrogance astounds me."

"Where are you?"

"Russell, you are a belly laugh."

"In the county, I mean? Out of? In the state
still?"

"Very much where I belong. I was born here. There, clue number
two."

"Here, in the county?"

"Yes,
Russell, here in the county. You still think like the cop you used to be. It
must be hard to write entire books when your mind is
so...
flatfooted.
Journey Up River
was good though. I
think Crump is a terrible self-aggrandizer—a clown. It would be a temptation,
with you there to report all of his silly Posturing. But Art Crump had no
purpose other than his own sex. That's why he was so sloppy. It's hard to think
clearly in the middle of a sex act, even when there's killing to be done."

"You manage."

"You can't say that. There have been no traces of semen left at any
scene. The bodies have not been penetrated, so far as your medical examiner can
tell."

He was right, of course. An idea roamed my head, but I said nothing.

"This is not about a man's desire," he said. "This is
about the restoration of place, the dignity of an age that we cannot afford to
let slip by. I'm pleased that you'll be writing my story for the county,
Russell. You need me. It will be, actually, the greatest story you'll ever
tell."

"I still don't know what you want," I said.

"One: Don't let Winters put a tracer on your phone. Record the
calls if you'd like—accuracy in reporting is important, isn't it? It will allow
me freedom to contact you without worry and you'll learn much more from a
leisurely chat than a quick one. Two: I want you to keep Erik Wald informed of
everything we say. I am interested in
his...
mind. Alleged mind. Three: I will make a dramatic statement very soon. I would
inform the public if I were you—but that's not really your call, is it?"

"No. What kind of dramatic statement?"

"Russell, what do you think? Lobby on my
behalf."

I thought for a moment. "I need something from
you."

"I wonder what."

"Someone took out a woman named Amber Mae Wilson on July the third.
The club, the writing on the walls, the recorded message on tape. Then he tried
to cover it all up. He removed her. Why did you do Amber Wilson?"

I heard the sharp intake of his breath.
"N-n-no!"

"Yes."

"Her h-head?"

"Just
like the others."

"M-my
voice, m-my writing?"

"Identical."

He groaned—a long, low, heartsick sound.
"Then... you say the
body...
disappeared?"

"Where
did you take her?"

"Was
she white?"

"Where
did you take her?"

His voice suddenly accelerated into one long run-on
sentence, a stuttering river of syllables. "I didn't d-d-d-do her I’ve got
no i-i-idea who would kill a w-white w-woman my q quest is not for that I have
been c-c-copied and m-m-mocked and I forbid you to w-w-write this in the papers
I
do not white!"

I
listened to his rapid breathing.

"I
believe you," I said.

"Ohhh..."
He sighed, relief draining out of his voice and into
my ear.
"Ohhh..."

"Let
me give you my number for the car phone."

"I
have it," he said almost meekly.

"Where
will your 'dramatic statement' take place?"

A long pause ensued. I could hear him breathing more
slowly now.

"You
need me," he whispered, and hung up
.

I had
never in my life seen more activity or confusion at the Sheriff's Department
than I did an hour and a half later, just before nine that morning, when I was
finally admitted to the inner sanctum of Sheriff Dan Winters's office, in
which loomed the sweating, nervous figures of Winters, Martin Parish, and Erik
Wald.

Of course, in the middle of our heat wave, the county
building's air conditioning had overloaded and failed. Being a modern building,
it had few windows that would even open. Outside, the smog lingered like smoke.
Inside, the air was already stale and hot.

Waiting, I heard the phones ringing constantly, saw
the double-time scurry of deputies and clerical workers, studied the drawn,
tight-lipped faces on the officers who came and went in . a steady stream from
Winters's lair. The mayor of the city of Orange and one of our county
supervisors made what appeared to be abrupt and pointless appearances, then
marched straight

for the
pressroom. I followed, to find Karen Schultz besieged and took for myself a
dozen angry stares from the media a print people who had been treated, just a
few hours earlier, to my rather major scoop. Channel 5 tried to interview me,
but I walked away when the reporter excused herself to the lady room for a
quick makeup check. Karen brushed me with an icy glance as I closed the door
behind me.

But inside the sheriff's office, Winters, Parish, and Wald had the aura
of the chosen. I could feel the energy in the hot room, the energy of
organization and execution, of order method, purpose. And beneath that energy
lay another: that the chaos and mayhem which had brought these men together,
the silent and permeating force of their antagonist, the Midnight Eye.

Winters slammed down the telephone and looked at me "We don't have
much time. First, forget Dina. The story now is, we're deputizing the entire
county, calling on every citizen watch out for each other and report back to us
anything they might see, hear, smell, or dream that will help us get this guy.
We've called it the Citizens' Task Force, and Wald is in charge as
sheriff-adjutant. We're setting up phone banks, printing shirts and caps,
trying to get everybody involved. Interview Wald about it. If you can't make it
interesting and get us good play, we'll find someone who can. Second, you can
get the ME's stuff; through Karen but not without Karen. She'll edit out what
we need for ourselves. Third, we've already got a damn miracle—Wynn's next-door
neighbor was shooting video of her family the day before they bought it, and
we've got a suspect right there on the fucking tape. Kimmy Wynn ID'd him as
positively as a kid half in shock can ID anybody, but it's a damn good start.
Documents is isolating a still we'll have within the hour, and every paper and
TV station that wants one will get it. Your part is to get this Task Force idea
off the ground. Your part is to make us look good. We're asking for help,
Russell. We're begging for it."

Wald, standing by a window, looked at me.

"Think you can handle that?" asked Parish.

"You forgot point number four," I said to
Winters, ignoring

Marty.

"Four what? What the hell are you—"

"He called. The Midnight Eye. I just talked to
him."

A pressured silence fell over the room, as if a gun had just been
cocked.

"I'm liking this," said Wald evenly.

Parish regarded me with his slightly droop-lidded
stare.

"Yes!" shouted Winters, driving a fist into the air.
"What'd the son of a bitch say? Are you sure it was him? Any idea at all
where he's calling from?"