The Orchard (9 page)

“It must be hard,” she said quietly when they’d moved on.

“Hard?”

“Seeing that girl last week. The one who was killed, I mean. And having Leslie.”

He nodded. It was. It was damned hard, and he could tell she wanted him to talk about it, share some of it, ease the concern by shifting some of the burden. But he couldn’t. He had, over the course of their friendship, told her virtually everything else, but trying to explain what it was like to be a parent would have to wait—because she couldn’t know, she couldn’t possibly know how it felt whenever his son walked out of the house and left him alone.

Victoria understood, he thought then, with a suddenness that confused him, made him frown. Her own son lived with his father in California. But the difference there was, that boy had left and hadn’t returned.

On the porch they kissed goodnight, but he sensed it wasn’t the same as it had been other times.

Denise, and Victoria.

Y’know, he told himself on the way home, you could wind up in a hell of a lot of trouble, pal, if you don’t watch your step.

But was he ready for another wife? And if he was, would it be her?

He paused in midstep; for a disconcerting moment he didn’t know which woman he meant.

“Oh, boy,” he whispered, not sure if he felt pleased or on edge. “Oh, boy, Brett, you’re asking for it now.”

He turned left at the corner, listening to his shoes on the pavement, listening to the nightbirds stir through the mist, slowing three doors from home when he found himself listening to something walking behind him.

Quiet steps, muffled, as the mist thickened to fog and sifted down across his face, making his skin feel clammy, making his shirt feel as if it had just been washed and not dried.

Arrhythmically, then in cadence.

Just as they had been on all the other nights.

He didn’t turn around; he didn’t sense imminent danger. But that didn’t prevent him from stopping at his front walk and reaching down to flick a dead leaf off the flagstone while he looked back up the street and saw nothing but the fog blowing through the streetlight.

Nice move, cop, he thought as he hurried to the steps and took them two at a time; nothing like being a little obvious, huh?

He was reaching for his keys when he heard them again, and this time knew he was wrong; this time there was someone out there who didn’t like him at all.

He spun around, dropping into a crouch, his jacket slipping with a hiss to the damp porch floor.

The walk was empty; there was no one in the yard.

Nerves, he decided when he finally went inside. Those women have got you thinking about things you’d best forget. He poured himself a drink and looked out the window, shuddering when he saw the moon glowing in the mist, nearly dropping the glass when the night filled with sirens.

Rising like a nightflower against the full of the moon, lifting slowly to a grey silhouette that raised its head high, that held its forelegs still, that turned a red eye to the land spread below and listened for
the sound that would signal its charge
…

On Monday morning, Brett decided he was going to run away and join the Foreign Legion. He knew, he just knew this was going to be one of those days.

The Saturday night sirens had only been a signal for a fire on the Pike, but the state of his nerves had him call Denise for an hour’s mindless talk. And no sooner had he hung up than Victoria had called; she’d been looking at a picture of her son and needed to hear someone’s voice. Another hour passed, and he met her for lunch the next day, and took a Sunday stroll in the park. Not once did she ask him how Leslie was doing. Not once did he feel guilty about not being with Denise.

And last night, he’d been up late, waiting for his son, who had insisted that going out on a Sunday wasn’t the end of the world; besides, he was only going to do some studying with Evelyn. Brett had paid for the permission with unaccountable worry, but Les on his return hadn’t been sympathetic. He accused his father loudly of not trusting him, of treating him like a child, that it was bad enough having a cop in the family, and now he couldn’t even walk in the door without having his whereabouts questioned.

“For god’s sake, Dad, when the hell are you gonna ease up?” He had clenched his fists, and he looked ready to cry. “She’s right, you know. She really is. I ought to get a place of my own where I could at least have some peace.”

“Who’s right? Who are you talking about?”

“None of your business,” Les snapped. “Just leave me alone.”

The outburst had been a shock, and the “she” could only be Evelyn Zayer.

This morning, Les had gone to school early, without saying goodbye.

Yeah, he thought, the Foreign Legion sounds great. Sand and camels and no kids to figure out.

Pushing away from the desk, daring those who passed his office to come in and annoy him, he rubbed his forehead with the heel of one hand, trying to drive off a headache that had lodged there since he’d wakened. It felt like someone had tied an iron clamp around his head and now, in malicious delight, was trying to crush his skull without crushing his brain.

“Gilman,” he said to the beaded glass on the door, “you are in bad shape. Real bad shape.”

The telephone rang three times before he picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, and returned it to the cradle.

“Please, God,” he said as he reached for his sport jacket, “please, let it be a simple breaking and entering, with lots of fingerprints and footprints and the guy’s wallet at the scene. C’mon, God, how about it?”

He didn’t need a car. He crossed Chancellor Avenue, hurried past the Mariner Cove, and cut through the parking lot to a small blacktopped area behind the Regency Theater. Two patrolmen were standing near the building’s corner, keeping a handful of people from going in back; a third met him as he approached.

“What is it, Nick?” he said, already feeling his stomach tighten, his throat begin to dry.

Officer Lonrow, his face blotched and his hands quivering, only pointed behind him.

The theater’s back wall was unbroken by any doors, and in its center squatted a large green dumpster whose lid had been thrown up against the brick. Brett started for it, and hesitated when he saw a hand dangling over the side. A young hand. One silver band. A silver bracelet. A thread of dried blood from the hump of one knuckle.

He stopped for a moment and drew his lips between his teeth with a hiss, took several deep breaths, and listened to a woman moaning, a man’s voice raised in excited curiosity, a car grinding gears as it turned a far corner.

Then he took a look inside, blinked, and turned away as slowly as he could. Lonrow joined him, and they studied the thick line of trees that separated the theater from the houses behind.

“How did you find her?” he asked.

“Just doing my rounds, as usual,” the younger man said between harsh clearings of his throat. “I saw the lid up and was going to close it when I saw … the hand. I called you right away.”

“Do you know who she is?”

Lonrow shook his head. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Evelyn Zayer. She’s … she was a friend of my son’s.”

“Oh, boy,” the man said, but Brett made no comment, only poked into the trees and held his breath when he saw indentations that might have been footprints. He knelt, frowned and squinted, and could find only two, with maybe a third. They were clearly not made by shoes or bare feet, and faint as they were on the hard ground and fallen needles, they could have been made by anything from a dog to a prowling cat. He wasn’t surprised; why the hell should things get easy now?

He stood with a groan and waited for the forensic crew to get to work. As soon as he was no longer needed, he let a patrol car take him to the hospital, to the morgue in the basement, where he saw Evelyn’s body on a polished metal table. There was a wound in the center of her chest, wide and passing completely through to the spine. He had already heard all the theories on possible weapons after the first girl had died—a sword, an ice pick, a dowel, a stump of wood. But he kept them to himself while he spoke with the girl’s parents, forcing himself to remain calm while the mother wailed and the father railed and he saw in their eyes Leslie’s name flashing with unmentioned suspicion.

When at last he returned to his office, he slammed the door loudly enough to tell the others he wasn’t to be disturbed. But he could still hear the sounds, still see the shadows that passed down the hall. Several times he told himself to get up, get his coat, and go home. It was well after five; there was nothing more he could do here, not today, He had already called Callum Davidson, the theater’s manager, and was told that the last of the previous evening’s trash had been put in the dumpster just after midnight. There had been no one in the parking lot, no one on the streets.

And he stared at the desk until his eyes began to blur, and all he could think of was Les’s temper the night before.

An hour later, he started and cursed when the telephone rang, snapped an angry “Hello,” and slumped back in his chair when he heard Denise’s voice.

“Sorry,” he said wearily. “It’s been lousy today.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I heard.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?”

His smile was halfhearted. “That seems to be your favorite question these days.”

“What’s your answer this time?”

“Rotten,” he admitted.

“Have you … what does Les say?”

Suddenly there was heat climbing fast to his cheeks, heat on his palm when he slapped the desk and stood up, heat that blurred through his vision and made him reach blindly for the back of his chair.

“What the hell does Les … Jesus, it must be all over town, right? Cop’s son suspected of double murder?”

“Brett, wait—”

“Christ Almighty!” He knew he was yelling, and he couldn’t lower his voice. “Why the hell isn’t anyone talking about a teacher, for god’s sake, or whatshisname up at the luncheonette? They see these kids every day too, you know. You think these girls are nuns or something? You think Les is the only kid in the world who takes them out?”

“Brett, please!”

He took the receiver from his ear and cradled it gently, his arm rigid with the need to slam it down instead. Then he stalked out of the office, and got as far as the front desk when a voice turned him around.

“You’ll have to talk with your boy,” Stockton told him quietly, looking as if he wished he were anywhere but here.

Brett clenched his fists, but could do nothing else but nod.

The chief scratched his neck thoughtfully, took a breath, and spat dryly. “I don’t want you to think I think the boy did it, Brett. But he might’ve seen something, heard something. You know that as well as me.”

“Right,” he said flatly, knowing he should be relieved, angry that he wasn’t.

“You want someone else to do it?”

“No. No, I can … I’ll do it, don’t worry.”

“Then do it home,” Stockton said as he headed back to his office. “No sense making it worse than it is.”

He watched the door close silently, stood there in silence until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He hurried outside, paused at the top of the steps and stared blindly at the traffic, not feeling the day’s heat snake itself around him.

A hand touched his arm gently.

“You feeling all right?” Vicky asked. She was in street clothes, a pants suit practical and cool that somehow managed to disguise her figure. Her hair was tied back; there was perspiration on her brow.

“Fine,” he said, smiling wanly and shoving his fingers hard through his hair. “Tell me something,” he said then, looking at the street, looking at the houses. “Have you ever wished you were back on the farm?”

“What?”

“Yeah. Don’t you wish sometimes you could get the hell out of here and go back to Vermont?”

“Not on your life.” She grinned, lifted her right arm, and flexed the biceps. “The only thing I’d get there is more brawn than I’d know what to do with. Thank you, but no. Coming to this place was the best thing I ever did in my life.” The grin broadened. “Next, of course, to meeting you.”

She winked.

He winked back and hoped she wouldn’t see the blush he knew had to be crawling all over his face.

“You off?” she asked then.

He nodded.

“So am I, as of now. You like to join me for a drink? Call it a bracer if you think people will talk.”

He laughed and held her arm, half turned and waved with his free hand when a car drove by and the driver honked twice. It was Denise, and she honked again as she turned the corner, a hand arched over the roof and waving.

“I don’t think I’d better,” he said, and chuckled when he saw the look on Vicky’s face. “No, not because of her. I don’t want to have … I want to be clear-headed when I talk to Les. This heat—one drink and I’ll be swinging home through the trees.”

“Okay,” she said. “Just stop being a stranger from now on, all right? I don’t bite, y’know.”

His smile was warm. “Okay. That’s a promise.”

She turned to leave, turned back. “And thanks for holding my hand yesterday. I really appreciate it. It was nice.”

He waited until she’d gone before taking the rest of the steps slowly, pulling off his tie and jamming it into his jacket pocket, taking off his jacket and holding it by the collar.

Grateful to the chief for not pressing the issue, he kept his mind a careful blank as he took the long way home, concentrating instead on the rainbows of flowers he saw in the gardens, the late blossoms on some fruit trees that were whitening the lawns, watched a cat stalk a fat robin until he clapped his hands to scare the bird, stuck out his tongue when the cat looked at him and glared.

Marvelous hero of the downtrodden, he thought with a grin, and had a sudden feeling he’d get a call from Denise tonight, casual, and nosey.

And when he reached the house at last, Amy Niles was waiting at the gate. She wore vivid green shorts and a cutoff t-shirt, and the books she held against her chest made her seem almost naked.

He smiled pleasantly, nodded a greeting, and let the smile fade as she backed away from his approach, watching him blankly, her deep-set eyes not shifting, not blinking until he had turned up the walk.