“Well, yeah, but in view of—”
“In view of nothing. We’re going to be the scapegoats now. Neff and Wilson get case. Carbon monoxide and wild dogs. Neff and Wilson close case. New evidence comes in. Case reopened. Neff and Wilson scapegoats for closing it in the first place.” His throat rumbled in a suppressed cough. “Goddamn Luckies,” he said. “Goddamn, you know I could be resigning soon.”
“You won’t resign.”
“No, not voluntarily. But it depends on how hard Underwood wants to stick me with blame for misunderstanding the case.”
“But it’s only one damn case.”
“It’s police officers killed in the line of duty. If it gets out that Underwood himself closed the case he’ll lose his shot at Commissioner. Therefore you and yours truly are going to be blamed. Might as well relax and enjoy the fun.” His shoulders shook with mirthless laughter.
“Maybe there’s something more conclusive. If there is it’ll help a little.” She paused. The silence grew. “Who do you think is doing it?” she asked.
“Not who—what. It’s not human.”
Now he had said the words, words they had previously been unwilling to face. Not human. Could not be human. “What makes you so sure?” Becky asked, half-knowing the answer.
Wilson looked at her in surprise. “Why, the noise, of course. It wasn’t human.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? It sounded perfectly human to me.” Or had it? Becky remembered it now like something that had taken place in a dream, a child’s voice or… something else. Every few seconds it was as if she woke up and heard it again— horrible, inhuman parody full of snarling menace… then child again, soft, wounded, dying.
“Look out!”
She slammed on the brakes. She had been about to glide broadside into the traffic of Third Avenue. “Sorry. Sorry, George, I—”
“Pull over. You’re not in good shape.”
She obeyed him. Despite the. fact that she felt fine, there was no denying what she had almost done. Like the little cries were still taking place, but in a dream. “I feel OK, I don’t know what came over me.”
“You acted hypnotized,” he said.
She heard the noises again, feral, snarling, monstrous. Sweat popped out all over her. She felt cold, her flesh crawling. Her mind turned back to the stair, to the terrible danger that had been waiting for her, the same as the torn, bloodied corpses, the jagged bones and skulls.
With her hands over her mouth she fought not to scream, to give up completely to the terror.
Wilson came across the seat as if he had been waiting for this. He took her in his arms; her body rattled against his thick shoulders; she pressed her face into the warm, scruffy smell of his ancient white shirt, distantly she felt him kissing her hair, her ear, her neck, and felt waves of comfort and surprise overcoming and pushing back the panic. She wanted to pull away from him but she also wanted to do what she did, which was lift her face. He kissed her hard and she accepted it, passively at first, then giving in to the relief of it, and kissed him back.
Then they separated, propelled apart by the fact that they were in a car recognizable to any policeman. Becky put her hands on the steering wheel. She felt sick and sad, as if something had just been lost.
“I’ve been wanting to get that out of my system,” Wilson said gruffly. “I’ve been—” Then his voice died away. He clutched the dashboard and laid his head on his arm. “Oh, hell, I love you, dammit.” She started to talk. “No, don’t say it. I know what you’ll say. But just let it be known and leave it like that. We go on like we were. Unrequited love won’t kill me.”
She looked at him, amazed that he could bring up something so… extraneous. She had always wondered if he loved her. She loved him in a way. But that wasn’t important, it had been accepted a long time ago. And their relationship was established. Certainly it shouldn’t intrude now. When he turned his face toward her he registered shock. She knew her mascara must be running with the tears, she knew her face must be twisted in fear. “What happened to me?” she asked. Her voice was not her own, so distorted was it by the rush of emotions. “What was going on back there?”
“Becky, I don’t know. But I think we’d better find out.”
She laughed. “Oh, that’s for sure! I just don’t know if I can handle it. We’ve really got some problems here.”
“Yeah. One of them is you. I don’t mean that harshly, but I’m going to have to break my cardinal rule at this time. Let’s change sides, I’m going to drive.”
She hid her amazement. In all the years they had worked together, this was an absolute first. “I must be falling apart,” she said as she sank into Wilson’s usual seat. “This is really a big deal.”
“It’s no big deal. You’re rattled. But you know you shouldn’t be. I mean, you weren’t the one in danger. It was me.”
“You! I was being lured upstairs.”
“To get you away from me.”
“Why do you even say that? You’re a man, a lot heavier than me, not an obvious target.”
“I heard noises on the stairs at the other end of the hall. Breathing noises, like something hungry slavering over its food.” The tone of his voice frightened her. She laughed nervously in self defense, the sound pealing out so suddenly that it startled Wilson visibly. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye but kept the car moving.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re the last person I’d think of as one of their victims.”
“Why?”
“Well, they eat them, don’t they? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Everybody they’ve hit has been eaten.”
“Old men, junkies, two cops in a hell of a lonely place. The weak and the isolated. I fitted two key criteria in that house—older man, isolated from all except you. And they damn near lured you away upstairs. You ever go hunting?”
“I don’t like it. I’ve never been.”
“When I was a kid I hunted with my father. We went after moose up north. We used to track for days sometimes. One summer we tracked for a week. And finally we got on to our moose, a big old bull that moved with a slanty track. A wounded bull. Weak, ready for the slaughter. I’ll never forget it. There we were just getting ready to take a shot when wolves stole out of the shadows all around us. They went right past us into the clearing where the moose was grazing. My dad cursed under his breath—those wolves were going to scare our trophy away. But they didn’t. That big bull moose looked down at those scrawny wolves and just snorted. They moved in closer and he stopped grazing and stared at them. You’d never believe it. The damn wolves wagged their tails! And the moose let out a great roar and they jumped him. They tore at him, bled him to death. We were fascinated, we were rooted to the spot. But it was like they agreed together that the killing be done. The wolves and the moose agreed. He couldn’t make it anymore, they needed meat. So he let them take him. And those timber wolves are scrawny. They’re like German shepherds. They look like they’d never be able to bring down a full-grown bull moose. And they wouldn’t, unless he agreed to let them try.” He was watching her again, barely keeping an eye on traffic. He was no better a driver today than she was.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m the bull moose in this version of the story. I wasn’t scared, but I knew they were coming down those stairs. If they had gotten any closer to me, I think I would have been a goner.”
“But you didn’t want them to kill you! We’re not like animals, we want to survive.”
“I don’t know what was going on in my mind,” he said. By the choked gruffness of his voice she knew that if he hadn’t been Wilson he would be sobbing. “All I know is, if they had come any closer I’m not so sure I could have even tried to stop them.”