Linda was the last to go. She paused to look back at him. “Should I close the door, Chief?”
He looked at her for a moment without saying anything. “You’re a cop,” he said. “You figure it out.”
Her eyes widened, and she hastily shut the door behind her. Nick drew off and kicked the wastebasket as hard as he could. It rolled across the floor and slammed into the wall opposite his desk.
And then he sat down at the desk and put his head in his hands.
Chapter Ten
He heard the baying as soon as he got out of the truck. It sounded like the hounds of hell had descended. He strode up to the front door of the house and knocked. When there was no answer, he walked around the side and followed the yapping past a couple of outbuildings and into the field behind the house.
There were several of them, black and tan hunting dogs, yelping with frenzied excitement and leaping in a vain attempt to reach something hanging from an outflung branch of an ancient oak tree. Shep Henley stood nearby, watching them with no expression on his weathered face. Nick’s predecessor was tall and squarely built, with a noticeable paunch and a permanently sour expression. They’d met just once, when Nick had flown to Elba to interview for the position of police chief. A week later, Henley had called to offer him the job.
As he drew nearer, he saw that it was some kind of animal carcass the dogs were trying to get at. It had been skinned and hung just beyond their reach. Henley turned and watched his approach. “DiSalvo,” he boomed, when Nick was within hailing distance.
“Chief Henley,” he said, over the baying of the dogs. He leaned his weight on one hip and stood watching their frenzied efforts.
Henley pulled a pack of Camels from his pocket and lit one. “Hear you had a bit of excitement last night,” he said, dropping his lighter back into the pocket of his plaid shirt.
“That’s one way of putting it.” As always, the smoke drew him in, made his mouth water. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing with the dogs?”
Henley flicked an ash and studied his dogs. “I suppose they don’t do much coon huntin’ up in New York City.”
The way he said the words
New York City
set Nick’s teeth on edge. “No,” he said flatly. “In New York, we only hunt two-legged prey.”
Henley drew on the cigarette, then flicked it to the ground and stepped on it. “Trying to quit,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I can do it.”
“I hear you,” Nick said.
“See, to train a huntin’ dog,” Henley said, “you skin a coon carcass and tie it up in a tree. Gets ‘em all excited, used to the scent of coon. You can tell a good coon dog early on, by the sound he makes when he sniffs that carcass and thinks he’s treed somethin’ mighty important. If the dog don’t get excited, best thing you can do with him is put a for sale sign ‘round his neck and turn him into somebody else’s problem.”
“I see. So what are these, some kind of hound?”
“These here are genuine, AKC-registered Walkers. Best coon dog there is. Good one’ll go you fifteen, sixteen hundred.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Dollars?” he said.
“Well, you see, DiSalvo, around these parts, coon hunting’s been elevated almost to the status of a religion. There ain’t much, not even the love of a good woman
—
” He paused suggestively, giving Nick the distinct impression that he knew a great deal more than he was telling. “That’s gonna come between a man and his dogs.” Henley eyed him speculatively. “Maybe you’d like to come along some night, see what the excitement’s all about. If you don’t have other, ah
—
obligations.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“I don’t imagine you came here to talk about dogs. What’s on your mind?”
“I’d like to ask you some questions about the McAllister case. I have this feeling. Call it a hunch, call it whatever. I think the two murders are related.”
It was Henley’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “McAllister and Crumley?”
“That’s right. I think whoever killed McAllister did Crumley, too. To shut her up.”
Henley considered it in silence. “What’s the connection?” he said.
“I’m working on that. McAllister’s widow believes that Crumley lied on the witness stand. If that’s true, she must have had a reason.”
“You think somebody put her up to it.”
“It stands to reason. Why else perjure herself?”
“Well,” Henley said, “I suppose we’ll never know now, will we? Seein’ as how she and Michael McAllister have both gone on to their eternal rewards.”
The dogs continued their cacophony. “What can you tell me,” he said, almost shouting to be heard above the uproar, “about the day McAllister died?”
“Open and shut case, far as I was concerned. She found out he’d been whoring around, and she stuck him with the scissors. Who’d have thought a pretty little thing like that could hold so much of a grudge? Anyway, by the time we got there, she was in shock. Couldn’t believe what she’d done.”
His pulse quickened. “You were there?”
“Earl and I. She come runnin’ out of that house like a bat out of hell. Blood everywhere. And she fought like a wildcat.” Henley’s eyes grew glassy, as if he were enjoying the memory. “You ask me,” he said, “there’s your killer. I don’t give a rat’s ass that Clara Hughes claims the McAllister woman couldn’t have done it because she was somewhere else at the time of the killing. That woman was guilty as sin. I knew it then, and I know it now. You really believe the two killings are related, you’d best be checking out McAllister. She’s your damn killer.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Listen, while I think of it, mind if I ask you another question?”
Henley had already lost interest in him and was watching the dogs again. “What’s that?” he said.
“You familiar with snake handling churches?”
Henley looked at him. “That kind of thing’s illegal in North Carolina,” he said.
“Uh huh. I was just wondering. Do you know if there are any around here?”
* * * * *
It was nearly eight o’clock when he got home, drained and running on half his cylinders. He went to the refrigerator for a beer, and paused in puzzlement at the kitchen doorway. There was a new lace tablecloth on his kitchen table, a vase of fresh-cut flowers sitting dead-center. “Janine?” he said.
She came up behind him like a wraith. “What do you think, Daddy? Doesn’t it look pretty?”
Those dark eyes begged him to be pleased with the results of her handiwork. He cupped her cheek. “Sure, baby. It looks real nice.”
“Come see what I did in the living room!” She caught him by the hand and drew him along behind her. His head was throbbing, and all he wanted was to kick off his shoes and decompress with a cold one. Instead, propelled by guilt, he followed her. She switched on the overhead light. “What do you think?”
The plain but serviceable couch had been disguised by a new throw in a soft shade of peach. Miniature pillows in splashy colors were scattered about its length. In the corner by the window, a wicker basket held a six-foot palm tree, and on the wall, a framed picture of the New York City skyline dominated the room. “Wow,” he said.
“Do you like it?” She looked eager and breathless.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”
“Caroline took me shopping. Isn’t it great, Daddy? I thought the New York picture would make you feel more at home.”
“Sure, sweetheart. That was really thoughtful of you.”
She beamed at the compliment. “Are you ready to go for pizza?” she said.
Christ. He’d totally forgotten. This morning had been a lifetime ago, back when he’d still been strutting like a rooster, back before Kathryn had disemboweled him with one fell swoop. His face must have given away his feelings. “Daddy?” his daughter said, looking crestfallen. “We are going, aren’t we?”
No matter how tired he was, he just couldn’t do it to her. “Hey,” he said, “would I disappoint a face as gorgeous as yours? Give your old man ten minutes to shower and change, and then we’ll track us down some pizza.”
They ended up at the bowling alley, where they ate pepperoni and anchovy pizza and bowled a few strings. Janine was a fair-to-middling bowler, beating him by a spread of more than a dozen points. She was also tactful enough to overlook the gutter balls he threw due to lack of sleep and a churning brain. It didn’t really matter anyway. What mattered was that they were together, and his little girl was glowing in a way he hadn’t seen since before the divorce.
She chattered all the while, told him about her friends and her school, about joining the yearbook club and playing field hockey, about making the Honor Roll every single semester of her seventh-grade year, and he realized how little he really knew about this child he and Lenore had created. For the first time, it struck him that Lenore had been right all along. He hadn’t been there for Janine. He’d thought that working his ass off and being a good provider was enough. But he’d been wrong. His marriage had disintegrated, and his daughter was growing up a stranger right in front of his eyes.
He wondered if it was too late to make it up to her.
They finally called it quits around eleven. He was so tired he could barely see straight, and he couldn’t wait to fall into bed. As they were taking off their bowling shoes, he said, “I was wondering. Are you afraid of snakes?”
She rolled her eyes and gave him a look that clearly said he was an idiot. “Oh,” he said. “One of those things I should already know, right?”
“Geez, Daddy. For years and
years
I wanted to be a veterinarian. Don’t you even remember?”
“I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind right now. I was thinking about going to church tomorrow. Want to go with me?”
“
You
want to go to
church
?”
“Well,” he said, bending to tie his shoelaces, “this isn’t just any ordinary church. They have snakes there. Big, poisonous ones.”
“Are you serious? You mean like rattlesnakes and stuff?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Oh, wow. I’d love to!”
“It’s a long drive,” he said. “It’ll take us a while to get there.”
“I don’t care. This is too good to pass up.”
They left the air-conditioned comfort of the bowling alley, and the hot, steamy night hit him in the face with almost physical force. His truck was one of the few left in the parking lot, a dark, hulking shape turned orangey by the sodium-arc light above it. They were halfway across the parking lot when he saw the lettering, a good eighteen inches tall, spray-painted in white down the driver’s side of his Blazer.
FORNICATOR.
The word was ugly, turning something that had been meaningful into something dirty, indecent. Beside him, Janine stopped dead. “Daddy?” she said.
He swore. “Stay here,” he said, and stalked off toward the truck. He unlocked the passenger door, yanked it open. Checked out the front seat, then opened the glove compartment and took out his high-powered flashlight. He walked all around the vehicle, aiming the beam of light at it. The paint had run, giving the lettering a slightly eerie appearance. Nick got down on his knees with the flashlight and checked the underside of the Blazer. Brushed off his hands and pointed the beam of light at the vehicle’s interior, slowly scanning it for anything that might be out of place. Or that shouldn’t be there. A rattlesnake, for instance.
He popped the hood and checked beneath it. There was nothing. “It’s all right,” he said, turning off the flashlight. “Just somebody being a wise-ass. Let’s go home.”
Janine climbed reluctantly into the truck, but she wouldn’t let it rest. “Who would do something like that?” she said indignantly.
He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “Probably just kids with nothing better to do.”
“Daddy? Are there people here who don’t like you?”
“I’m a cop, sweetheart. There are always people who don’t like cops.”
After a time, she said, “I know what that word means.”
“Yeah,” he said grimly. “So do I.”
“Why did they say it? Why did they call you that?”
He didn’t know what to tell her. At thirteen, was she ready to handle the truth, that her father had the same sexual needs as everybody else? Would he run the risk of alienating her if he admitted that he was human?
He cleared his throat. “Somebody,” he said, “apparently doesn’t approve of the company I keep.”
She looked at him for a long time without speaking. “You didn’t sleep at the station last night, did you?”
He gnawed at the inside of his cheek. “No,” he said.
“I knew you didn’t. Rowena called the house this morning, looking for you.”
He turned into his driveway and shut off the engine, and they sat there in the darkness for a while, listening to the chirping of crickets and the drawn-out whine of a tractor trailer out on Route 1. “Is it the lady from the grocery store?” she said.
Nick let out a long sigh and leaned back against the headrest. “I’m sorry if you’re disappointed in me, Janine, but I’m not any kind of hero. I’m just a guy, just a goddamn ordinary guy, and—”
“Do you love her?” she said.
He toyed with the blinker switch. “It’s complicated.”
“Does she love you?”
He thought about last night. There had been tenderness, and passion, and the fulfilling of a blinding need. But had there been love? “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Right now, she’s pretty upset with me. I guess there’s a lot of that going around.”
“I wish you’d told me the truth in the first place. I’m thirteen years old, not a baby. But I’m not mad at you, Daddy. I told you, I just want you to be happy.”