They were standing in the middle of it, all the craziness, the big emergency vehicles that looked like giant electronic bugs.
The cop people and the Hastings House people and the press people and the just-plain-gawkers people running back and forth between various buildings of the institution and the driveway that was packed with official cars.
After Emily Lindstrom had walked over to the tower, Chris had found O'Sullivan and asked him about his interview with the retired janitor. O'Sullivan had rolled his nice blue Irish eyes and told her about the pet rat the guy carried around on his shoulder and the way he shared his Oreos with the rat and how Oreos made him fart.
"Oreos make him fart?" she'd said.
"That's what I'm telling ya, Holland. The guy's a fucking fruitcake."
"So you didn't believe his story about the cult and all that?"
And he'd looked at her directly-accusingly, actually-with those nice Irish blue eyes and said, "You mean to tell me you do believe him? The Lindstrom woman is one thing but this guy-"
"Well," she'd said, "Not exactly believe him but then not exactly not believe him, either, if you know what I mean."
So now, standing beside her with red and blue lights lashing across the brick buildings, and a fine cold mist starting to come down, and the people moving in every direction-all this going on, O'Sullivan said, "You've got to find the cops and tell them."
"I'm sorry, O'Sullivan. I wasn't thinking very straight, was I?"
"No, you weren't. Now go find the fucking cops."
"The fucking cops," she said. "I'll go find them."
And that's just what she did.
"Hi," she said to Detective Staley, a chunky guy who still wore Wildroot (she wanted to point out to him sometime that he'd shown great wisdom in keeping his hair greasy right through the sixties and seventies and eighties, seeming to know instinctively that the look would be back in the nineties).
"Hi," he said. He was watching the last body bag and shaking his head. "I'm kinda busy, Chrissie." He always called her that. He'd told her he had a daughter that name.
"I know you're looking for Dobyns, Hal."
"No shit, we're looking for Dobyns. You should see what he did to those three guys in the garage down there." He shook his head again.
"I think I know where he is."
And right then Detective Hal Staley did a double take that Shemp would have been proud of. "You know where Dobyns is?"
"Yeah," she said, sorry now she hadn't told him ten minutes ago. "Yeah, I do."
She went back to O'Sullivan who was shouting instructions to two young reporters who'd clearly got their Ph D's in hair spray.
"So you tell 'em?"
"So I told them," she said.
She pointed to two uniformed cops pushing the big searchlight rightward, toward the tower.
"They're going to go looking for him," she said.
O'Sullivan smiled at her. "I don't know whether to give you a kiss or pat you on the ass."
She smiled back. "Later on, why don't you try a little of both?" Goddamn, could she get corny about this guy, she thought.
And then, moments after the searchlight splashed acrdss the top of the stone medieval tower, somebody shouted, "Look, there's a woman in the window."
Chris turned to see and immediately got her first good look at Emily Lindstrom up there in the lonely tower window, the same kind probably that Rapunzel used to let her hair down.
And Chris screamed because this wasn't the Emily Lindstrom she knew at all.
Not with blood pouring out of her mouth and her hands fluttering wildly about her blood-splashed hair.
"Oh, God," Chris said, "Oh, God."
13
On the way to Marie Fane's, Dobyns several times saw police cruisers. One in particular, parked at a kerb, the patrolman obviously bored and looking for some action, studied Dobyns carefully. Dobyns felt the man's eyes on him, trying to find anything that could justify turning on the red light and pulling Dobyns over. Dobyns sat perfectly still at the stoplight, foot on the brake, hands held low on the steering wheel so the patrolman couldn't see the blood. There had been no time to clean himself.
The light changed to green.
Dobyns pulled slowly away, his stomach knotting, sweat glazing his face. His right leg was twitching.
He just wanted to kill Marie Fane and then he didn't care what happened to him.
He watched the patrol car in his rear-view mirror.
The patrolman sat up straight suddenly, as if he might clip on the headlights and come after Dobyns.
Dobyns's stomach was in such misery, he was afraid he might vomit.
A gentle curve in the road, and the patrol car was out of sight. For the next two blocks, Dobyns continued to glance anxiously in his rear-view but the patrol car was nowhere to be seen.
After three blocks Dobyns quit glancing backward entirely and concentrated on his driving.
The night was black and suddenly wet. Fat silver drops of rain splashed against his windshield. On either side of the street the spring trees bent under a hard, steady wind. An electric DX sign supported on a tall, thin pole looked as if it might be knocked off its base under the onslaught.
Dobyns passed through three distinctly different types of neighbourhood-a working class neighbourhood of small, orderly houses; a mixed ghetto where blacks and Mexicans lived out an armed and very tenuous truce; and a small boutique shopping district that did its best to resemble a Midwestern Rodeo Drive.
Then he was into the hilly, woodsy area known as the Highlands and it was here he found the redbrick apartment complex where the Fanes lived.
Dobyns parked a block away, on a dark side street. When he got out of the car, he took his jacket, shrugged into it, and the knife, which he stuck in his belt. Wind and rain invigorated him and he was appreciative of it. The car ride had made him dozy. He felt single minded, tough again.
He touched the wooden handle of the knife, almost for luck
He had no trouble spotting the police patrol car.
It sat almost directly beneath a mercury vapour light. Surrounded by older, drab vehicles, the patrol car shone like a beacon.
Dobyns paused at the edge of the parking lot, moving behind the corner of a garage so he could gather himself and decide what to do.
His heart hammered and even given the rain, his face felt oily with sweat. He sensed great danger, enormous risk. He was enjoying himself.
His first thought was to sneak up on the patrol car and kill the patrolman when he was unaware. But would he really be unaware? Sneaking up on a trained, alert police officer would not be easy. And more, it would probably not work
Abruptly, and making no attempt whatsoever to be hidden from view, Dobyns strolled boldly out into the parking lot. Unless the police officer was asleep, the man would spot Dobyns right away.
Dobyns started weaving.
Doing a drunk impression was difficult. The tendency was to overdo it and not be believable.
Dobyns effected a small, swaying rhythm, almost like a rumba. And every fourth step or so, he came down very hard, as if he'd tripped and were about to pitch forward.
He was halfway into the parking lot, wind and rain slapping his face, when he saw the dome light go on inside the patrol car.
A tall, chunky officer in a dark uniform got out of the car, closing the door behind him. He wore a green rain jacket.
Dobyns pretended not to see him, just continued his weaving, hesitant way across the parking lot.
The officer reached him in no time, a looming, imposing figure who smelled of aftershave and cigarettes.
"Good evening, sir," the officer said. He was the new breed, better educated, better trained. Even intercepting a drunk, he was polite and by-the-book. "I'd like to ask you where you're going."