“Good. I think we’re going to want to see who was on these tapes.”
“I can tell you that,” he said. “I’ve watched them a lot.”
Frank looked around at the mess. “Why don’t you stay at our place tonight? Closer to the vet.”
“I work tonight,” I said, “but don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow until the afternoon. I can help you clean up during the day.”
“We’ll get your back door boarded shut,” Frank said, “and we’ll be watching this place, too, from now on.”
“Okay, okay.” He laughed. “I’m sold. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to staying here without Bingle tonight.”
Ben gathered a change of clothes and put them in the back of his car. He was going to follow us back to the house. He started to get into his Jeep, then hurried over to the van. “Wait a minute,” he said. “There are some tapes that didn’t get smashed — the ones from your house — they should still be in the back of the van.”
“Irene, I can see what we’ll be doing before you go in tonight,” Jack said, eyeing the twenty or so tapes in the box. “Want me to make popcorn?”
53
MONDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 25
Las Piernas
He was enraged. He didn’t reveal it.
“Poor Moth,” he said into the telephone, “you should have come to me in the first place, of course.”
He was glad of the long cord on the telephone in the garage. It allowed him to pace as he listened to one lame excuse after another. Really, this was too much!
He halted in front of the freezer, ran his fingers over the lid. It calmed him.
“Yes, my dear Moth, but I already knew about that first visit to David Niles’s home . . . you didn’t doubt that did you?”
In truth, Nick had known nothing of the sort, but it wouldn’t hurt the Moth to believe a little more strongly in his omniscience. He had been wounded and escaping to that rathole in Oregon when the break-in occurred. He should have wondered how the Moth had learned certain things about Sheridan.
“I have to hang up now,” he said into the phone. “You and I must meet later. Left on your own, this would have been a hopeless mess. Luckily for you, I’m here to take care of you, my Moth. Wait for my call — and I mean that, little Moth. You must simply wait. You wouldn’t want to displease me — would you?”
He listened with satisfaction to the Moth’s pleading tone. “I thought not.” He hung up.
He put the phone back in the cradle and returned to the freezer. He unlocked it and lifted the lid, enjoyed the rush of cold air that drifted up to his face.
He looked down at the frozen, nude corpse and said, “I know it’s rather difficult to answer questions under the circumstances, my dear, but would you care to dance?”
He smiled.
“I knew I should have left your head on, just in case questions like these might arise. I have others, mostly about you-know-who. But you know, I think I have the answers to those questions anyway. You’re something of a cold fish.”
He slammed the lid closed and laughed uproariously.
It took him a few moments to regain his composure.
When he did, he put his gloves on and opened the freezer once more. He stared down at her a moment, then with one gloved finger, traced the outline of a birthmark on her inner thigh.
“You were his whore, of course, so he must have seen this. Did he love it, or did he hate it? Was it one of your imperfections or one of your charms?”
The plastic beneath the body crinkled as he lifted her. For a moment, he hugged her to himself, saying, “I’m so sorry we didn’t have more time together, darling. But you can’t blame a boy like me for trying to get a head!”
He admonished himself once his levity was back under control — if he didn’t stop being so witty, the poor little darling would thaw before they found her.
He waltzed toward the car, clutching her to him.
His mind slipped a little then, and he thought of Irene Kelly, and his rage returned. “We’ll show them, won’t we, sweetheart?” he said to his dancing partner, and tenderly placed her in the trunk of the car.
54
MONDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 25
Las Piernas
We soon realized that watching tapes of Bingle and David was not such a great idea. After two minutes of the first tape, Ben turned it off and called the vet’s office; Bingle was asleep, his heartbeat was normal.
Good news, but Ben looked miserable. He blamed himself, and wondered if he should have kept Bool, so that Bingle would not have been left alone. “Why won’t Parrish just come after me?” he asked. “Leave the dog out of it.”
Later, he said, “Bingle’s not used to being caged at night. What if he wakes up and thinks I’m giving him away?”
Frank called to say that Houghton had been living near Dallas, in Irving, Texas. “Doesn’t look like he’s left the Dallas area in months, but we’re still checking that out.”
That night, Jack came with me to work, an arrangement John approved, sort of. “If it will keep me from having a uniformed cop inside the newsroom, fine,” he said. “Just don’t tell Wrigley. As it is, seeing all the police surveillance of the building, he’s nervous as a turkey in late November. Called the chief of police this afternoon to complain about it.”
“He’d rather have Nick Parrish in his newsroom?”
“I don’t think he, uh, exactly believes the suggestion that Parrish is hanging out around here. Maybe he doesn’t want to believe it.”
I took Jack up to Café Kelly that night. When Stinger, Travis, and Leonard learned what had happened to Bingle, I thought Stinger just might go on a house-to-house hunt for Nick Parrish, with Leonard and Travis riding posse.
I asked him about Aunt Mary, and his mood changed immediately. “If I was twenty years younger, I’d ask her to marry me,” he said with a grin.
When I got home, I discovered Cody had stretched himself out on Frank’s chest, but the dogs were nowhere in sight. “They’re in with Ben,” Frank said sleepily.
I don’t know if a dream awakened me, or if I heard Ben go outside. Either way, at about four in the morning, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep. I dressed and went out to the patio, where Ben was sitting, already dressed and drinking coffee, petting Deke and Dunk.
“I called the vet,” he said. “They say Bingle got up and he’s barking. They think he’s going to be fine.”
“Great news,” I said. “If he’s barking, he must be getting better.”
“Yes. I told them how to say ‘be quiet’ in Spanish. They said I could pick him up at eight.”
“So here you are with a mere four hours to wait.”
He smiled. “Right. At first I was too worried to sleep. Now, I’m too relieved. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“No. You know I’m one of Bingle’s biggest fans. And if anything happened to one of these guys, or Cody, I’d be a basket case. What’s your schedule tomorrow? Can you catch up on sleep?”
“I’ll be okay as far as sleep goes. I did sleep a little tonight — as much as I need. I’m supposed to be your . . .”
“Bodyguard?”
“How about — companion? What’s your schedule?”
“I have an appointment with Jo Robinson in the afternoon. Then I’m working from ten at night until two in the morning, but I think Frank is planning to relieve you from duty before then.”
We sat in silence for a time. I thought about my assignments from Jo. I hadn’t done too badly, but there was this Parzival business.
“Ben?”
“Hmm?”
“Before Parrish escaped—”
“Before the others were killed,” he insisted, always annoyed at my attempt to avoid saying it.
“Before the others were killed,” I conceded, “even before we found Julia Sayre, something was bothering you.”