I have hated, truly, primitively hated, only a handful of men in my life. The bald man, whoever he was, had joined that select few. I no longer believe in capital punishment, but standing there then, looking at what was left of Carolyn Dain, hearing those hammer clicks again and again in my mind, I yearned to see him as dead as she was, as he’d tried to make me. I ached to dance on his grave.
It might have been a long time, or only a minute or two, before I grew aware of the bedroom itself. It had been thoroughly searched. Drawers pulled out, articles of clothing and other items strewn over the shag carpet, clothing and boxes spilling out of a small walk-in closet. Carolyn Dain’s purse was there, too, riffled and emptied. Predator’s hunt for more money, jewelry, anything else of value. Before or after he killed her? Depended on whether he’d come here with her or gotten into the house some other way and been waiting when she arrived. Depended on who he was and how he’d found out about the money.
The friend she’d spent the night with? Not likely. Somebody connected to Cohalan or Annette Byers or both of them? Good bet. It seemed out of character for Cohalan to arrange or collude in his wife’s murder; but I could see him setting up a robbery to get his hooks on the cash, and not knowing or wanting to know how blood-sick his accomplice was. Byers... same thing. Or one or the other of them might have inadvertently tipped Baldy off. Or Carolyn Dain might have in some way, if she’d known him.
Possibilities. I told myself it was up to the cops to explore them, not me. I told myself I was going to be out of it soon enough, and a good thing, too. I told myself I was a lucky survivor, and I’d damn well better let it go at that. And all the while I kept hearing those clicks, the hammer being drawn back to cock, the hammer falling as he squeezed the trigger.
I’d had enough of this room, of the death it contained. I made myself turn away, took a quick look through the rest of the house and then returned to the living room. A desk with a computer on it stood in one corner; I hadn’t noticed it before. A couple of the drawers were pulled partway out, and papers littered the surface. He’d been in there, too, hunting for valuables. I started over that way, drawn by the swarm of papers.
The telephone rang.
It brought me up short, the noise scraping at my nerves like the blade of a rasp. I located the thing on a stand beside the desk, listened to it ring twice more. Then there was the sound an answering machine makes when it kicks in, and Jay Cohalan’s recorded voice said, “Hello. I am Jay and Carolyn’s machine. I am the only one here right now. At the beep tell me who, what, where, when, and why, and I will pass it on as soon as I can. Have a nice day.” Just like him, that message. Smart-ass and verbose.
“Carolyn? It’s Mel. If you’re there, pick up.” Male voice, youngish, deep-pitched, with a note of urgency in it. There was a pause, and then: “You were supposed to call me, remember? Give me a buzz as soon as you get this message and let me know if everything’s all right. You know how worried I am after last night.”
Mel. “How worried I am after last night.” Was he the friend she’d gone to spend the night with? Sauce for the goose?
I went ahead to the desk. The one thing you never do, if you’re a private investigator who wants to keep his license, is disturb anything at a crime scene. Special circumstances here, though, oh yeah. I pawed through the papers and drawers, doing it carefully, using my handkerchief whenever I touched a surface that would take fingerprints. Bills and receipts, mostly. No personal correspondence. No Rolodex or address book. Nothing with the name Mel on it.
Back to the master bedroom. I kept my eyes off the bed as I picked my way in and squatted where the contents of her purse had been dumped. It took a few seconds to find a thin red leatherette address book under a fold of the bedspread. Fewer than twenty entries in a small, neat hand — pathetically few for a woman in her late thirties. Most seemed to have some connection to White Rock Schooclass="underline" teachers, a principal, a vice principal. No relatives, or at least no one named Dain or Cohalan. Initials and surnames only, three of the initials M. I thought about copying those three names and addresses into my notebook, but I was beginning to feel shaky, a little disoriented. Reaction setting in; I’d experienced that sort of thing too often not to recognize the symptoms.
When I straightened, using a bureau corner for support, a wave of vertigo came over me and the rubbery feeling returned to my legs. I leaned against the bureau until the dizziness passed, then groped my way to the living room and collapsed into the desk chair.
Bad now, worse than I could remember. Tingling weakness in my limbs and fingers. Nausea. Pounding in both temples, intensifying the hurt in my ear and jawline. My hearing had gone out of whack — external sounds tuned out, the hammer clicks so clear and loud they might have been happening here and now. I could feel the hard muzzle of the revolver as if it were again... still... jabbing the bone above my right ear.
Sweat oozed out of me. Blood, too, trickling again from one of the wounds, like a worm crawling on my neck. I still had the wet dishtowel; at some point Emily or I had draped it over my shoulder. My hand trembled as I mopped my face and neck. Panic climbed in me. I fought it down, willing myself calm so I could call the police, call Kerry and have her come and take charge of Emily.
And kept on sitting there, fighting and willing and sweating and shaking, listening to the clicks.
7
The rest of that night is recorded in my memory as a series of blurred images, disconnected and time warped, like fragments of a film edited and projected by a madman.
Cops in uniforms asking questions that I answered, questions that I couldn’t answer.
Kerry, anxious, hovering close by.
Latino police lieutenant named Fuentes, mole on one cheek, humorless half-smile frozen on his mouth. Wanting to know about the money, Carolyn Dain, Cohalan, Annette Byers. Taking the answering machine tape and putting it into a plastic bag. Saying more than once, as if he were making an accusation, “You sure you don’t have any idea who the bald man is?”
Paramedics, two of them, male and female, probing my wounds and talking at me and around me. One of them saying, “Head wounds can be tricky, you’d better let us take you to the ER for an X-ray.”
Emily, arms tight around my waist, small face upturned, luminous eyes full of wet.
Riding in the ambulance, lights beyond the windows making crazy-quilt patterns on a black backdrop.
Hospital smells, doctors and nurses hurrying, scurrying. Somebody with blood all over him, somebody else moaning and saying over and over, “Está muerto, Dios Mío, Está muerto.” Machines humming and the touch of cold metal.
Kerry again, telling me in relieved tones that the X-rays were negative, she could take me home now.
Lying next to her in bed, wide awake waiting for some kind of medication to take effect, watching the dark.
And through it all, in every fragment, behind every voice and every sound, I heard the clicks, listened to the clicks — an endless hollow rhythm that matched the beating of my heart.
I was better in the morning. My head ached, there was an odd sort of thrumming in my body like you sometimes have the day after a long plane flight, but otherwise I felt well enough physically. The clicks were muted now, like the faintest of background noises. I told myself I was okay. No head trauma, none of the wounds serious. I was going to be fine. Still alive, still kicking.
I should have been dead.
The click of the hammer cocking should have been the last sound I heard on this earth.