"Well… yeah. I guess," she said. "I mean, we don't hang out so much now that you're around, but we used to, you know, Hang out."
"I think she watches us make love."
"What?"
"The other night when I came over and we go back to the playroom and do it, and then we are resting, and I see a spot of light on the door. A minute later, I look back and it's gone. No light. Then a couple of minutes later, I see the light again. Just a little spot. So then we are doing it again, and I see no light."
"What was it?" Millie was intrigued.
"There is a very small hole in the door, like a nail hole, right under the bar that runs across the middle of it. When we are done, and you and Sherrie are in the kitchen, I look through the hole. All you can see is the bed, but you can see all of the bed. I think… when there is no light, she is watching. When you can see light, then her eye is not at the hole."
Millie could feel herself going a flame pink. The witch. What did she see? What had they been doing the last time…? Millie thought about it and, if anything, got a little pinker.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Well, I am not sure. And you are friends. And I'm not sure she was watching. But I think she was."
Now a surge of anger. "Goddamnit. We're gonna have it out right now…" She stepped out a little faster.
"Wait, wait wait…," Mihovil said. "Maybe, let it go this night."
"What?"
"What can it hurt? She watches, she doesn't do anything. You can't take pictures through the hole. She has no boyfriend, she just enjoys herself."
"You sound like you liked it."
"Well…" He shrugged and grinned. "Maybe I did like it…"
"God, Mihovil…" But, in fact, his comment produced a little thrill.
That night, when they were doing it, Millie kept an eye on the door-and that meant she had to keep her glasses oil, because she couldn't see the little spot without them. Would Sherrie be suspicious? Millie didn't know, but she wanted to see if the little spot was there- and before they went in the bedroom, Mihovil had carefully turned on a living-room desk lamp that they'd calculated would provide the light.
And Millie saw the tiny light blink at her. This time, she got more than a little thrilclass="underline" Mihovil had his head down between her thighs, and her head was propped on the pillow, her eyes cracked just enough to watch the light, and when the light blinked out-when Sherrie started watching-Millie felt a rush so intense that she wasn't sure she could stand it.
She cried out once, and again, and felt her heels drumming on the mattress as Mihovil had said they would, when she really got into it, and then an orgasm rolled over her brain like a tsunami. She could remember yipping, a noise she'd never heard herself make before, and then nothing was anything except the feeling of Mihovil's tongue in the middle of her existence, and her own self, going off…
14
LUCAS HAD TAKEN the truck to work, because the softer ride was easier on his broken nose. Now he stuck the flasher on the roof, punched the address of Carlita Peterson's house into his dashboard navigation system, cut too fast through the traffic on I-35, and got clear of St. Paul.
When the traffic had thinned, he reached into the passenger foot well and fumbled through his briefcase, looking for Ignace's transcript of the talk with Pope. Someplace, something in the document was not quite right. He wasn't sure what it was: just a vibration.
He found the transcript, pinned the paper into the center of the steering wheel with his thumb, and read it again. No vibration this time. But he'd picked something up the first time he'd read it…
He got on the cell phone and called Sloan at home: "Pope called and said he's picked up a woman named Carlita Peterson from Northfield. He says he's taking her north."
"Ah, no." Cough. "What'd he say exactly?"
Lucas read the transcript, flicking his eyes between the paper and the traffic he was knifing through. Sloan said, "Find out… never mind. If the house listing was to a Carlita Peterson, that probably means she's single or divorced and lives alone. That's three single people. We know Rice went to bars looking for women, and Larson used to go into Chaps when she got off work. I bet he's picking them up in bars or some kind of social activity…"
LUCAS THOUGHT ABOUT IT: Northfield was a college town just off I-35 and not far from Faribault, where Adam Rice had spent time at the Rockyard. If Lucas had been told that a sexual predator had been hanging out in Faribault and asked to guess where he would next attack, he might have guessed Northfield. A couple of thousand college girls would provide easy prey, and the college town's mix of student and farm bars, cafes, and stores would provide plenty of camouflage through which to prowl.
"I'll buy that," Lucas said to Sloan. "Listen: Any chance that Larson was gay, or had gay contacts?"
"Nobody said anything. She had a boyfriend… What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking about the second man-or the second woman," Lucas said. "What if she's picking them up and Pope just does the killing? Nobody would ever see him in a bar. If she drives, nobody would ever see him in a car."
"Yeah, but you could make the same argument if it's a guy-he picks up women as a straight guy, or men as a gay."
"But: nobody ever saw Larson hanging out with guys in Chaps," Lucas said. "That paper you gave me said she mostly went in to chat with me bartenders And a woman would be more inclined to walk outside, or get in a car, with another woman, than with a man."
"Let me call around," Sloan said. "I'll get some guys asking questions." "We've now got two people connected to colleges. Both the women. One a student, one a teacher."
After a moment of thought, Sloan said, "I don't see much in that."
"Neither do I, but think about it," Lucas said. And, almost as an afterthought, "How're you feeling?"
"Better. I get these coughing jags that make me think I'm gonna bust a rib, but I don't feel too bad. Maybe get out tomorrow…"
WHEN LUCAS RANG OFF, he realized that he'd become distracted, trying to read, talk on the phone, and drive all at once. He was speeding down a white line between two lanes, still running over a hundred. He guiltily moved back into the left lane; he hated to see other drivers on cell phones…
And goddamnit! What had he picked up in the transcript? Something had stuck in his mind like a gooey old song, and he couldn't stop thinking about it. Nothing obvious, something subtle…
He held the Lexus at a hundred; any faster and the truck felt unstable. As it was, he made it into Northfield in a little more than half an hour from his office. Following the GPS map off I-35 down Highway 19, he buzzed past the Malt-O-Meal plant, across the bridge and a long block up to Division, right on Division and left on Seventh, and up a long rising hill until he saw, on the left, two cop cars outside a small blue-gray clapboard house that stood in a copse of maples.
A couple of cops were leaning against a car and turned to look at his truck as he pulled to the curb. He killed the engine, pulled the flasher and tossed it on the passenger seat, and walked up the drive… A dilapidated detached garage sat just behind the house, and a stack of decorative birch firewood was piled next to aside door.
"Davenport?" one of the cops asked.
"Yeah- nothing?"
The cop shook his head. "Nothing you don't know about. A dab of blood, a piece of rope. It don't look good."
"Who all's inside?"
"Only our lead investigator, Jim Goode. The chief's down at the of-fice, coordinating. If you're going in, you should go in the back."
LUCAS WALKED AROUND to the back of the house, climbed a short wooden stoop, and looked in through the screen door. Inside, a thin man in a plaid shirt and gray slacks was talking on a cell phone. He saw Lucas and said into the phone, "Just a minute," and then, to Lucas, "Lucas Davenport?"