“There’s something else,” Kristine interrupted. “The guy who was killed was going under the name Dale Watson.”
Eileen McCann waved her hand impatiently.
“Dale Watson’s dead. That’s one thing we know for sure. His father went to the morgue and ID’d the body.”
“So the guy in Atlanta is using the name as an alias. But why that name?”
They stared at each other.
“Maybe he read about it in the papers,” McCann suggested. “A kind of copycat thing.”
“Maybe. But that’s kind of weird too. Like you said, these people seem to go to enormous lengths to avoid leaving any clues. So you’d think they’d be smart enough not to use a name which is already known to the police in connection with a similar crime.”
Eileen McCann looked at her for a long time.
“What time is your flight?” she asked.
“I have to check in by one.”
McCann glanced at her watch.
“I’ll give you a ride. We can pick up a bite to eat on the way.”
Much to Kristine’s surprise, Eileen McCann turned out to be something of a foodie. The “bite to eat” consisted of eight helpings of delicious dim sum at a restaurant in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood called Lincolnwood. Eileen was relaxed, witty and informative about her work, colleagues and the sociocultural microclimates of the northern Chicago suburbs. By the time they reached the airport, they were talking like friends.
Instead of dropping Kristine at the curb, Eileen parked in the short-term facility and accompanied her inside, then abruptly dashed off to use the bathroom without saying good-bye. Kristine headed for the gate, where the plane was boarding. She found her seat and settled back with a copy of Vanity Fair she had bought at Sea-Tac the night before.
The plane had leveled off at cruise altitude when she looked up to see Eileen McCann walking down the aisle toward her.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“God, I hate flying!” the other woman exclaimed. “Two hours without a smoke.”
She smiled and shrugged.
“Here’s the deal. You get the TV coverage, and they can stick me on NPR and local radio. Even my mother conceded that my voice wasn’t so bad. Or as she tactfully put it, ‘If you could date by phone, the guys’d be all over you like an old coat.’”
She settled into an empty seat across the aisle, pulled out a battered paperback and didn’t utter a single word for the rest of the flight. Kristine dozed.
The descent into Atlanta was bumpy, the landing hard. It was pouring with rain, sheets of it falling from a sky the color of mud. They exited the plane, passing through an intermediate zone of clammy air before the air-conditioning took over. It was like walking through a hot shower. Among the crowd at the gate was a tubby black man with glasses and a mustache holding a piece of cardboard with Kristine’s name written on it in pink marker.
“Were you sent to pick me up?” she asked him.
“You Miss Kjarstad?”
He pronounced it perfectly.
“That’s right.”
“I figured you far taller, more intense,” the man went on with a broad smile. “The Nike type. Charlie told me about that. He was very impressed, you knowing Greek and all.”
She recognized the voice now. He had called her the day before to make final arrangements for her visit.
“You’re Lamont Wingate, right?”
The man stuck out his hand.
“Pleased to meet you.”
Kristine turned to introduce her companion.
“This is Detective Eileen McCann of the Evanston City Police. She also has an interest in this case.”
Lamont Wingate shook Eileen’s hand too.
“It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Georgia, ladies.”
“But I thought we arranged to meet at the hospital,” Kristine said. “There was no need to come all the way out here to the airport.”
Lamont Wingate suddenly looked serious.
“Yeah, well, there’s been a change of plan, you see. I’ve been trying to reach you all day. If I’d known you were in Evanston, I’d have called there. The thing is, I’m afraid you’ve made a wasted trip.”
Kristine felt her stomach contract painfully.
“What do you mean?”
“That guy you came to talk to? He’s dead.”
“No!”
It was a shriek. Eileen McCann put her hand on Kristine’s arm.
“You mean he had a relapse?” she demanded.
Lamont Wingate shook his head.
“Did it hisself. Called the night nurse as she passed on her way back from tending to another patient and asked her for a drink. She went off to get it, he lifted a hypodermic needle off her cart. Time they found him, it was too late. ‘Exsanguinated,’ they called it at the hospital. Found an artery and stuck the needle right in there. Blood pressure does the rest. The mattress was soaked right through.”
He shook his head sadly.
“I sure am sorry you ladies had to come all this way for nothing.”
20
As the boat slowed and turned, making for the pier, I was able to distinguish the marks on the hull, large white letters reading POLICE. I almost broke out laughing.
“Well, Sam, looks like the cops have decided to pay you a visit anyway!”
I set down the binoculars and turned to relish my moment of triumph. Then I saw the rifle lying on the bed, and remembered the doctrine that Sam had taught his followers, the Secret that gave them the power of life and death over everyone else. I suddenly had visions of a violent clash with the law followed by a long siege with an uncertain ending. The essential elements were all in place: a tightly knit group of people in the grip of mass psychosis who believed themselves to be chosen and protected by God, and who had access to an arsenal of automatic weapons.
Sam had been staring at me all this while, biting his thumb compulsively. Maybe he sensed what I was thinking, because at the same moment I dived at the bed and grabbed the rifle, be burled himself at me and almost knocked it out of my hands. But I managed to hang on, twisted around and freed myself enough to smash the butt down on his head. He let go and sank to the floor with a moan.
I backed away, pointing the gun at him.
“OK, Sam, you want to test your little theory? Go right ahead! Let’s see if God miraculously stops the bullet in midair before it has a chance to blow your fucking brains all over the wall! Or maybe it’ll just bounce off you. What do you think?”
I was hysterical with rage and loathing. I wanted to riddle him with bullets, blow him away, demonstrate once and for all the reality of my existence by annihilating his.
“I guess I was wrong,” Sam murmured, sitting up. His head was bleeding, I noted with pleasure.
“I guess you were! Hey, looks like I cut your scalp open when I hit you back there. Tell me, is your pain real? You see, I have no way of knowing. Maybe you’re one of those specters you were talking about, just a piece of scenery in the great cosmic farce!”
“First Dale, then Russ and Pat, Mark and Rick. And now you, Phil. I was wrong about all of you. I’ve been wrong all along. Maybe there is no one else. Maybe I am alone.”
Bursts of gunfire resounded in the distance, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three-four. Sam crawled to his feet.
“Hold it!” I told him.
He didn’t pay any attention. Throwing a quick glance out of the window, he ran from the room.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
But I didn’t. Despite my fantasies of blasting him away, when the moment came I couldn’t pull the trigger. Then I remembered the rack of guns next door, and ran after him. But Sam rushed straight on through and out into the hall. His footsteps hammered briefly over the wooden boards, then fell silent.
I had no idea what he intended to do, but my priority was to contact the police. I was so intent on this that I didn’t notice the diminutive figure in the doorway of the last room until we collided. The child went sprawling. I barked an apology, and then time stopped as I realized that he was my child, my son, David.