"That sounds a little too New Age for me."
"Some people think you can see the future through dreams. I don't believe that, but I think you might be able to unlock your subconscious mind. I'd like to be able to use dreams to help solve problems. Maybe even crimes."
"How would you do that?"
"Before you go to sleep, you ask yourself a question, or focus on a puzzle, and sometimes the answer will come to you while you're sleeping. But the answer comes from within."
He nodded. "That makes sense. Harnessing the power of the untapped mind."
She paused, struck a match, and lit another cigarette, then shook out the match.
He really wished she wouldn't smoke.
He watched the tip of her cigarette. He couldn't take his eyes off it. "You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for you."
She took a drag, the glow briefly illuminating her face. "You're one to talk. Somebody bent on self-destruction. What's your story, Gould? Why'd you quit the FBI?"
David realized he'd been hiding. Taking comfort in his new life, the life of Savannah and the police department and Elise. Because the new life had nothing to do with the old.
But it did. That's what he hadn't understood. It was all connected. Everything was connected.
Suddenly he wanted to tell her. Not because it was dark and darkness made things easier. He wanted her to know.
I might cry. Cry like a baby.
What would his partner think of that?
His heart pounded in his chest so hard his shirt moved.
In the end, he just said it. Because that was the only way to handle such things.
He told Elise about his ex-wife. And then he spoke words he'd often thought but never vocalized. "I found my son dead. In the bathtub. Drowned. She did it. My wife. She deliberately murdered him."
For a long time, Elise didn't respond. And what could a person say? Really? Silence was better than telling lies or speaking words that meant nothing.
Outside, a street cleaner passed. Savannah had to have the cleanest damn streets-and the dirtiest closets. Ha-ha. Who said he'd lost his sense of humor?
"Why haven't I heard about this?" she finally asked, her voice sounding normal.
Thank God. Because if she'd been choked up, if she'd told him how sorry she was, and what an awful tragedy it was, he would have fallen apart. And he didn't want to do that.
"You know the FBI." He struggled for nonchalance. "They didn't want anything to reflect poorly on them, so they covered it up. Beth had been using her maiden name. My name was never released to the press. Easy. Didn't happen, at least not to me."
And as far as everybody was concerned, he'd never had a son.
"Thanks for telling me," she said quietly.
"I don't want your sympathy." Please, God. Not that.
"I know."
Did her voice crack? Just a little?
Don't do that. I can cry like hell when I get going. I can cry like hell and never stop. "Business as usual?" he suggested hopefully.
"Business as usual."
Elise listened as the street sweeper turned the corner, the sound comforting, like hearing the city quietly breathing, quietly watching over residents while they slept.
Such a public denial of what had happened couldn't have been healthy. David had never been allowed to adequately grieve. His self-destruction finally made sense. The antisocial behavior. The drinking. The way he'd been acting at Strata Luna's. Strata Luna, who'd also come upon the body of her drowned child.
Elise could now even understand his calling a prostitute. It actually seemed a bit noble in a twisted way. He'd craved human contact but knew he couldn't give of himself-so he'd called someone who would expect nothing of him. Except that his plan had backfired. Except that Flora Martinez had responded to the sadness and desperation in him. Women, even prostitutes, were looking for a man to nurture and heal.
"You keep trying to put it someplace," he said, his voice tight. "You keep trying to find a place that makes even a little bit of sense, but that place doesn't exist."
Elise thought of what Strata Luna had said the afternoon in the cemetery. About evil not needing a reason to exist. It was true. "The murder of children can never, ever make sense," Elise told him.
He must have detected sympathy in her voice. "Don't feel sorry for me," he said quietly out of the darkness. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me." "I won't," she lied.
She wondered what he'd been like before. "I used to be different," he told her. "I used to be funny."
"You're still funny."
"I don't mean funny strange."
"Neither do I."
"This thing with Flora. I'm going to tell her I can't see her anymore."
Maybe this marked a turning point for him.
"I haven't been a very good partner," he said sadly.
"You've been all right." She had to be truthful.
"Like your going to LaRue's by yourself. That shouldn't have happened." "It's over. I'm alive. And it was my decision."
"I'll do better," he promised. "From now on. I swear." He paused, thinking. "We'll be a good team," he said, suddenly sounding enthused. "We'll kick some Starsky-and-Hutch ass."
Chapter 27
"How are you feeling?" David asked.
He was sitting at the kitchen table, where he and Elise had spent the predawn hours brainstorming, his laptop open in front of him.
With her back to the porcelain sink, Elise put her coffee mug down on the blue-tiled countertop and gave him a determined smile he suspected was to head off any protests he might be inclined to make. Because honestly, she looked like hell. Not hell in a bad way. More of a Virginia Woolf way.
He'd always had a thing for women with dark circles under their eyes.
Before Elise could answer, David's cell phone rang.
"I just heard," Major Hoffman said, concern in her voice. "How's Detective Sandburg?"
"Here, I'll let you talk to her yourself." David passed the phone to Elise.
David eavesdropped while Elise assured the major she was fine and that she didn't need any time off. After a lengthy silence followed by a rolling of eyes, she hung up.
"Problem?"
"It seems the Savannah Morning News wants to do an interview this a.m. with the detective in charge of the TTX case."
"Why can't the press liaison handle that? It's her job."
She handed the phone back. "I don't mind. Plus this way I can be in control of the information we need to get out to the public."
David closed his computer. "Nothing like an encounter with the press to start the day."
Elise went upstairs to change while David made a feeble attempt to tidy himself in the first-floor bathroom.
Water splashed on his face. Washcloth to the armpits.
He needed a shower. He needed to shave.
He longingly and suspiciously eyed the two toothbrushes in the cup on the sink. One was red. The other had a plastic alligator for a handle. After a moment's consideration, he opened the bathroom door. He was filling his lungs to shout a toothbrush question at Elise when she appeared in front of him.
"You have a spare toothbrush?" he asked within normal voice level.
She squeezed past him, opened a drawer, and presented him with a new toothbrush, package and all.