"Wait a minute," I said. "The old man. The husband." It stuck in my throat. "He has a dog, right? And he takes it for walks. Same time, every night?"
"Take a look. Christ, the mutt's only got three fucking legs. Can you beat that?"
I couldn't.
"He's got an idea she's a tramp, you get the drift? So I tail her. Everywhere. I should blush to tell you how much he pays me. But all I got to do is wait and watch…"
"No, I can't beat that, man," I said. "I really can't."
And started walking.
And heard footsteps on the pier, footsteps echoed as from far below, my footsteps, saw shoes falling on the boards, my shoes when I looked for them seemed very far away my shoes, as I watched the water, then the sand under the pier, the cracks between the planks shuttering over the sand, and I saw as from a height, the distance growing, from all angles, directions, lengths, myself there, the sand pocked with breathing holes leading to sand crabs, remains of mussels, clams, oysters, lobster, squid, anemones, puffers, eel, sea snakes, sharks, rays, barracuda, lungfish, trilobites, sea spiders, spiny horrors, sentinels buried in the layered scape, as / approached the bar, footsteps passing the split moorings, the black layers on the roof, drying ropes frayed by the sojourns of rats from out the tumbling foundations, the high tilted windows, their panes pulsing with the passing of the tide, the frames beginning to crack, footsteps, giving in, giving out, my footsteps the laughter and the absence of laughter nearing the wooden buildings, the restaurant, the bar beating like wings against the glass.
And I watched her.
We Have All Been Here Before
She sat in the concrete building, in an office with frosted glass partitions and barred windows, her fingers moving like praying mantises on the table. Her eyes half-closed, she saw:
A body. The body of a woman. The nude body of a young woman, the shiny flesh slipping from its bones, floating face up in a swimming pool. What was left of the face.
"Right," someone said, after she told them.
Her eyes were still rolled up. She squirmed in her straight-backed chair, struggling against the rattle of typewriters from the next room, and said, "And there is another one."
"That's news," said the Chief. To one of his men, a lieutenant, he said, "Better check it out. Ask Fitz to run the list again, will you, Billy? You never know." Then, "Where? Can you tell us that?"
"I see. trees. A hill. A river. Stream. It was a stream, but now it's a river. The rains, yes. The rains. The rains did it."
He leaned over her to see that the tape recorder was still on. "Isn't there something else, Polly?" he asked gently. "Take your time, now."
"No." She began swaying. "Yes. A tower. Airport nearby. Yes. Control tower…"
The Chief nodded, smiling. "Now tell us about the man, Polly. Tell me about the man who did it."
"The man?" she said faintly. "Oh yes, the man. I see. red Pendleton shirt. Trousers filthy. Mud. Driving away. Old car, can't see.
"Wait. Yes. Apartment. Two oak trees. Dead-end street. West side of town. Pink stucco building."
She fell silent, breathing heavily, her eyeballs straining behind the lids.
The lieutenant hadn't moved. He stood at the door, his hand frozen on the knob. The Chief jerked a thumb at him impatiently, motioning him out.
"Blood," she said abrupdy. "Face. Skin." She scraped at her arms. "Washing the blood off. It won't…"
The Chief put a hand out to steady her.
She stiffened, arching her back. "Branford Way," she said matter-of-factly. "Seventeen-something. Sixth door, on top. A black Toyota in the garage. No, on the street. Always park on the street. Kids play in the garage. The sixth apartment. Six. Six.»
The Chief looked at the other men. He winked.
"She's got it," he said. "Just like she got the Valley Stran-gler and — what did the papers call the other one? That creep at the University, remember?"
"The Library Rapist," said one of the men, snickering.
"Right," said the Chief.
He moved with them to a corner of the room.
"Now go out and get on the horn — I want every available unit over there so fast he won't know what hit him. And get this. No leaks this time, understand? Tell the Information Officer that this investigation is strictly SOP. That's the official line, got it? We're pursuing leads, searching the area, blah blah. He can give the press the bit about the latent prints if he wants. C.I.D. says it can't be traced, of course, it's not clear enough, but don't tell Riley that. I don't trust that son of a bitch."
"What do you want on the warrant?"
"Shove the warrant! Go in on narco, traffic tickets, any damn thing, I don't care, but get in."
Suddenly the woman slumped forward and rested her head on her wrists.
"Wait," said the Chief.
He hovered over her again, his tie flopping against the worn surface of the table.
"Polly? Can you hear me?"
She inhaled deeply. Then she sat up, blinking rapidly, as if awakening from a dream.
"Hi, Jack," she said. "How'd I do?"
"Like a top. You did it again, babe. How do you feel?"
"Oh, I'm fine," she said. "Swell." She rubbed her eyes. "Hey, what're those two guys doing hiding in the corner?" She made a raspy laugh. "What'd I do, say something about their sex lives?"
"What sex lives?" said the Chief. "You were right on the money, babe. You hit it. Didn't she hit it? Everything. The hill, the pool, the victim. And the creep. You're batting a thousand today, doll."
"Don't I always? Hey, look at them. I must've popped their virgin ears. Who's got a smoke?"
The men patted themselves down. The Chief tossed a pack of Viceroys onto the table. Then he took a disposable lighter out of his coat pocket and waited while she smoothed her hair and dug out one of the cigarettes with her fingernails. A tremor passed through her hands.
"Oh, I can still see it," she said, shuddering. "The trees and the mud. The pool. And the body. How do you suppose it stayed in the pool for so long, Jack, without anybody noticing?"
"You said it yourself, Poll, remember?" He reached for a file folder, removed a newspaper clipping which he handed to her. "It was the rain. The rain did it."
She read the headline.
47 Bodies Reburied
ORPHANS OF THE STORM
"Oh, I remember that," she said, scanning the article. "It was on the wire services, even back where I live." She tsked. "What a horrible, horrible story."
"It happened over by the Point," said the Chief. "The February rains were just too much, apparently. After that last storm, forty-some bodies came floating up out of their graves — that's the estimate. Some slid down the hill next to the cemetery, into the road, into back yards, even into swimming pools like this one did. They came right up out of the mud that way, like earthworms, I reckon. Right out of their coffins and down the hill. They still haven't found 'em all. Grisly story, all right," he added with a chuckle.
She made another sound with her tongue. "I still don't get it," she said. "How did your people know that the one in the pool hadn't just, you know, been buried up there like the rest?"
"She had, she had," said the Chief. "But not as a certified interment, you see. Someone — our man in the red shirt now, thanks to you — murdered her, hid her along with the gun in one of the fresh graves sometime around Christmas. We were there when the Forest Glade people came in with their bulldozers for the mass reburial. The city ended up footing the bill for something like fifteen grand in mudslide damages, by the way. And while they were busy tagging the remains, they found a bullet hole in this one's skull. Polly, there's one more detail I —»