“They caught the Connecticut Monster,” she remarked, smoothing margarine on the toast.
Wesley’s spoon plopped into the sloppy cereal, splashed the table. “They what?” he asked, wiping up the milk before she saw what he’d done.
“They caught the Connecticut Monster about fifteen minutes ago. It’s all over the news, they haven’t even played a song yet.”
“Who is he, a Hugger?”
“They didn’t say.”
He reached to turn the radio on. “So I’m bound to hear about it now?”
“I guess so.” She returned to her nails.
Wesley listened to the bulletin with bated breath, scarcely able to believe his ears. Though the Monster’s identity had not been revealed, WHMN was in a position to know that he was a senior professional medical man, and that there was a female accomplice. The two would be appearing before Judge Douglas Thwaites in the Holloman district court at 9 A.M. today for arraignment and the fixing of bail.
“Wes? Wes? Wes!”
“Huh? Yeah, Tante?”
“You okay? Not gonna pass out on me, are you? One bad heart in the family is enough.”
“No, no, Tante, I’m fine, honest.” He pecked her on the cheek and went to his room to don his floppiest jacket, gloves, a knitted cap. Though it was a sunny day, the temperature wasn’t very much above freezing.
When he arrived at 18 Fifteenth Street he found Mohammed and his six intimates in a panicked huddle; three days were all they had to reorganize the theme of the rally, somehow make capital out of this unexpected development. Who could ever have dreamed that those incompetent pigs would make an arrest?
With a sheepish, apologetic smile Wesley slipped past them and entered what Mohammed referred to as his “meditation room.” To Wesley it looked more like an arsenal, its walls smothered in racks that held shotguns, machine guns and automatic rifles; the handguns were stored in a number of metal cabinets that had once resided in a gun store, their drawers specifically designed for handgun display. Boxes of ammunition stood on the floor in high stacks wherever there was room.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the armaments, this was always the most peaceful place in the house, and it had what Wesley now needed: a table and a chair, white Bainbridge board, paints, pens, brushes, rulers, scissors, a guillotine. Wesley took a sheet of 18 x 30 Bainbridge board and ruled off a section 8 inches wide, then cut it with a Stanley Sheetrock knife braced against a ruler. Not much room for a message, but it wasn’t going to be a long one. Black letters, white background. And where was Mohammed’s spoiled brat of a son’s hockey outfit? He’d seen it lying somewhere now the kid had discovered Allah didn’t intend for him to be a hockey star. The latest fad was high-jumping because of some champion at Travis High.
“Hey, Ali! Busy, man?” Mohammed asked, coming in.
“Yeah. I’m busy making you a martyr, Mohammed.”
“Turning me into one, you mean?”
“No, manufacturing you one out of someone less important.”
“You kidding?”
“Nope. Where’s Abdullah’s hockey gear?”
“Two rooms over. Tell me more, Ali.”
“Don’t have time right now, I have a lot to do. Just make sure your TV is tuned into channel six at nine this morning.” Wesley picked up a paintbrush, but didn’t dip it in the black paint. “I need privacy, Mohammed. Then they can’t prove that you were in the know, man.”
“Sure, sure!” Grinning, palms held out, Mohammed mockingly bowed himself out of the meditation room, leaving Wesley alone.
When Carmine walked into the station it seemed like a hundred cops were there to shake him by the hand, clap him on the back, beam at him foolishly. To the press Charles Ponsonby was still the Connecticut Monster, but to every cop he was a Ghost.
Silvestri was so happy that he lumbered to his door and gave Carmine a smacking kiss on the cheek, hugged him. “My boy, my boy!” he crooned, eyes glistening with tears. “You saved us all.”
“Oh, come on, John! Can the histrionics, this case went on so long it died of sheer old age,” Carmine said, embarrassed.
“I am recommending you for a medal, even if the Governor has to invent one.”
“Where are Ponsonby and Claire?”
“He’s in a cell with two cops for company – no way this bozo is going to hang himself, and there’s no cyanide capsule up his rectum either, we made sure. His sister’s in a vacant office on this floor with two women officers. And the dog. At worst she’s an accomplice. We haven’t any evidence to suggest she might be the second Ghost, at least not evidence that will impress Doubting Doug Thwaites, the pedantic old fart. Our holding cells are clean, Carmine, but not designed to accommodate a lady, especially a lady who’s blind. I thought it good policy to treat her in a way her lawyers can’t criticize when she comes to trial – if she comes to trial. At the moment, that’s moot.”
“Has he talked?”
“Not a word. From time to time he howls with laughter, but he hasn’t said a thing. Stares into space, hums a tune, giggles.”
“He’s going to plead insanity.”
“Sure as eggs are eggs. But people insane according to the M’Naghten rules don’t plan a killing premises down to the last fine detail.”
“And Claire?”
“Just keeps saying she refuses to believe her brother is a multiple murderer, and that she’s done nothing wrong herself.”
“Unless Patsy and his team can find a trace of Claire in the killing premises or the tunnel, she’ll walk. I mean, a blind woman and her guide dog empty a bucket of dead leaves in the deer reserve and rake them nice and flat? A halfway competent lawyer could prove that she thought she was carrying deer chow to empty where brother Chuck had made them a feeding place. Of course we can always hope for a confession.”
“In a pig’s eye!” Silvestri said with a snort. “Neither of that pair is the confessing kind.” He shut one eye, kept the other open and fixed on Carmine. “Do you think she’s the second Ghost?”
“I don’t honestly know, John. We won’t prove it.”
“Anyway, they’re being formally arraigned in Doubting Doug’s courtroom at nine. I wanted it in a less public venue and kept quiet, but Doug’s sticking to his guns. What a picnic! Ponsonby’s only item of clothing is a raincoat, and he refuses to put on a stitch more. If we force him and he gets a teensy-weensy bruise or cut, they’ll cry police brutality, so he’s going to court in a raincoat. Danny put the cuffs on him too tight, that’s bad enough. The cute bastard’s chafed himself raw.”
“I suppose every journalist who can get to Holloman in time will be outside the courthouse, including channel six’s anchors,” Carmine said, sighing.
“Why wouldn’t they? This is big news for a small city.”
“Can’t we arraign Claire separately?”
“We could if Thwaites would play ball, but he won’t. He wants both of them in front of him at once. Curiosity, I think.”
“No, he wants a preview that will help him make up his mind about Claire’s complicity.”
“Have you eaten, Carmine?”
“No.”
“Then let’s grab a booth at Malvolio’s before the rush.”
“How are Abe and Corey? De-skunked?”
“Yeah, and nursing grudges. They wanted to be with you down in that cellar.”
“I feel sorry about that, but they had to be de-skunked. I suggest you squeeze the Governor for a couple more medals, John. And a big ceremony.”
The Holloman courthouse was on Cedar Street at the Green, a short walk from the County Services building, yet one that the Ponsonbys could not make. A few enterprising journalists complete with photographers were outside the station entrance when Ponsonby was hustled out with a towel thrown over his head, his raincoat buttoned from neck to knees, where someone had secured it with a safety pin to make sure it couldn’t be jerked open. No sooner was Ponsonby on the sidewalk than he started to wrestle with his escorts, not to escape, but to rid himself of the towel. In the end he was put into the caged squad car unveiled, amid a blue blizzard of flashbulbs; no one was taking any chances on the light. His car had drawn away when Biddy came out, leading Claire. Like her brother, she would not allow anyone to cover her head. Her escorts were conspicuously gentle with her, and the vehicle that took her down the block to the courthouse was Silvestri’s official car, a big Lincoln.