“Please stay away,” his mother said to her son, “from that thing up there.”
Richie started to answer but his father gave him a look that said it was best not to get into this with his mother. His son took the hint. And of course Roy knew, for all his blustering at the boy, that Richie would no doubt spend a good deal of time talking to his “friend.”
As long as his friend doesn’t enter the conversation, Roy thought wryly, we’re probably okay...
Lovely in a pink pants suit, her hair pony-tailed back, Helen fixed lunch — tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The conversation ran to Richie again saying he wanted to go to the park and go rowing when “Dad gets over the flu.” The child also commented on how nice it was of his mother to come and be his daddy’s nurse.
She’d let that pass with an “Um-hmmm.”
Chief Cutter showed up after lunch and, as Helen worked with Richie with the homework assignments that had been delivered and on his coloring books in the study-cum-library area of the living room, the officer and the doctor took the couch by the unlighted fire for an update. Roy was in a white polo and off-white slacks that unintentionally gave him a medical look; Cutter, his usual shirt-and-tie and chinos.
“I’ve enlisted some help,” Cutter said, still in his windbreaker but with the Stetson in his lap, “from several Atlanta suburbs.”
“Not the Atlanta PD itself?”
Cutter made a slight face. “I can do that you insist, Roy, but I frankly prefer to keep in charge of this thing myself, and bolstering my team with these suburban troops allows me to work closely with you. The Atlanta boys would likely blow in and roll over both of us.”
Nodding, Roy said, “I’m content with what you’re doing, Blake. How are you deploying these extra men?”
“Some’ll be here on the grounds. Detective Janet Hodges from Buford is following up by phone on some leads and a detective from Decatur is going over the files of the three deceased doctors, looking for tie-ups. But I also have a roadblock set up, checking anyone who approaches the road past your house, and then shooting them off on a detour.”
“Well, that’s fine, but you don’t really expect our sawed-off intruder to drive a car, do you?”
Cutter shrugged. “Vehicles can be customized for little people — pedal extenders, hand controls, thick seat cushions to enable seeing over the steering wheel.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Roy said, just a little insulted, “but we have a pretty specific idea of what this individual looks like. You’ve circulated my wife’s sketch?”
“Of course,” Cutter said, no happier at being underestimated than Roy had been.
“Well, would our half-man risk being stopped at a roadblock? Or being spotted?”
Cutter cocked his head. “Let’s say this is a little person with a grudge against doctors, specific doctors like yourself, as we’ve theorized. For one thing, he’s wearing black and striking at night. And he may be making his appearance seem more fearsome on purpose, to better terrorize your household.”
“I hadn’t considered that seriously,” Roy admitted.
Cutter nodded over toward the library where Richie was on the floor hunkered over an Emergency! coloring book. “Is your son at all aware of what’s been going on?”
“No. He’s all caught up with his new ‘friend,’ the Aztec mummy.” Roy shook his head, sighed a laugh. “I’ve been trying to get him to keep away from the grisly thing, and Helen wants it out of here, like now.”
Cutter frowned thoughtfully. “It’s none of my business, but... no. It’s none of my business.”
“Of course it’s your business, Blake. What?”
The chief took air in, let it out. “Maybe postpone getting rid of it. Maybe it’s not entirely a bad thing, having something to distract the boy. Till we get a handle on this thing. Till we catch this bastard.”
Roy hadn’t considered that, either.
But now he did.
“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll lay off a little. But it’s not healthy. Hell, it’s not sanitary.”
Cutter was just getting up to leave when a knock came at the front door. The chief, Stetson still in hand, waited by the couch while the doctor answered the knock.
Sgt. Leon Jackson, Cutter’s man-in-charge at the scene, nodded to Roy, who gestured for him to step inside.
“Dr. Ryan,” the uniformed officer said, “I need a word with the chief, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly.”
Roy traded places with Cutter, who then huddled near the front door talking sotto voce with his second-in-command. Then the chief came over and rejoined his host.
“Doc, your father-in-law’s at the gate wanting to be let in. We’ve checked his ID and he’s who he says he is.” Cutter half-grinned. “And he’s driving a Lincoln Continental, which supports his claim even better than his driver’s license.”
“What good are roadblocks,” Roy muttered, “if you’re going to let just anybody through.”
The chief gave up half a grin and said, “I’ll admit him, with your permission.”
“Please do.” Although it sounded more like “Please kill me.”
Cutter raised an eyebrow. “You want me to stick around? Back you up? Answer any questions he may have?”
“No. Thank you, but I’ll handle this.”
The chief tugged on his hat, slipped outside, went down the steps and got into his gray Dodge Challenger. Moments later, he was pausing at the gate to allow the new visitor passage.
The silver Lincoln, with Alexander Parsons himself at the wheel — the man was rich enough to have a chauffeur, but Atlanta just wasn’t that kind of town — rolled in and settled on the gravel apron near the porch, where Roy stood waiting, arms folded.
Parsons climbed out into a perfect, sunny day that didn’t seem to impress him, a big, handsome man in his early sixties in Ray-Bans, his silver-gray hair swept back, his wide-lapel suit light gray with blue pinstripes, his tie a matching blue, his shirt white with blue stripes. He looked like a million bucks, but was worth plenty more.
At the foot of the porch steps, the CEO of one of Atlanta’s biggest businesses glanced up and said, “Roy,” and nodded, as if acknowledging a door man.
“Alex,” the doctor said, returning the nod, as his father-in-law strode up the groaning steps, grimacing just a little, as if the shape the old house was in indicated what a failure his daughter had married.
Neither man initiated the handshake ritual — the nods would suffice.
“May I come in?” Parsons asked, making it barely a question. “I’d like to speak to you and my daughter.”
Not with — to.
“Certainly,” his son-in-law said.
Now Roy really did serve as literal doorman.
Helen, sitting in the library on the floor with her similarly seated son, looked over, saw her father coming in with her husband trailing, and her eyes popped. She got to her feet. Richie didn’t notice.
“Dad,” she breathed, barely audible from the distance between the front door and library portion of the vast living room.
Richie turned away from his coloring book and saw who had arrived. He got to his feet slowly and winced as he considered what his grandfather showing up here, in enemy territory, might mean.
But then human emotion took over and the boy ran to his grandfather and gave him a hug around the waist. Alexander Parsons smiled, faintly, tousled the boy’s hair.