ONCE AGAIN, THE HOUSE WAS ALIVE WITH POLICE DETECTIVES, who were sifting through every disturbed book and paper in search of evidence. I’d done my best to describe the man I’d none-too-clearly seen driving the tan Chevy to an Identikit specialist (Officer Raymond corroborated my take) while I watched a detective dust the house for prints, then had managed to hold myself together as another detective took my second statement of the day. I sat in the kitchen, head propped up in my good right hand, occasionally taking a sip from the cup of coffee I had scrounged. My adrenaline shakes had settled into a nervous fatigue.
Whoever had dumped George Dishey’s files and books out onto the floor had made a clean getaway—save for a clumsy-looking old walkie-talkie he had left behiind—and it soon became apparent that both men—presuming whoever had been in the house was male—had cleared the neighborhood without a trace. I overheard police calls from officers’ radios that said they had found the car abandoned five blocks away, complete with two spent Wetherby .300-caliber rifle shells—belted Magnums, the kind of load you use for elk, or other large animals you want to stop with one shot—and a search was continuing throughout the neighborhood for pedestrians. “It’s as if they
just vanished,” one voice said. “No one saw anyone running. No one at all.”
Officer Raymond slipped into the room and leaned against the refrigerator. I blearily realized that he was dressed in civvies—a nice pair of jeans, white leather running shoes, and a dark indigo shirt that matched his eyes. But even dressed in casual clothes, he was extraordinarily neat and tidy, as if those jeans had never seen real dirt and those running shoes had never contacted anything messier than dry pavement, or perhaps the well-groomed turf of a ball field. I looked down at my own battered clothes. He was a city boy, and I was a country girl. I thought of how homespun I must look to him, and felt slightly nauseated. I felt an urge to find a comb and a fresh shirt. “Can I get into the guest bedroom now and pack my bag, Officer?” I asked.
“Not just yet. The detectives are still working. And you can call me Ray,” he said, coloring slightly.
“Seeing as how we’re getting so well acquainted,” I replied dryly.
He pulled his mouth up into a tight smile. “Well, and seeing as how we’re going to be seeing even more of each other.”
I shook my head. “No. They haven’t sicced you on me again, have they?”
“Looks like it.”
“Lucky you. Don’t you ever get to go home?”
“You’d think. My current assignment is to help you find other—safer—accommodations.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, at least they picked someone who likes to keep his suspects in one piece. I want to thank you for that tackle you put on me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Football, too, then.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m trying to figure out all the sports you’ve played. Never
mind. My brain is bouncing off its own walls. Happens every time I get shot at.” When Ray’s eyes widened, I added, “That’s a joke.” I turned away from him and took a sip of my coffee, trying not to stare. It was one thing that he was good-looking—anyone would notice that—but I now knew what it felt like to have his body full on top of mine, and as hair-raising as that moment had been, it had produced a bond, at least in me, one I wasn’t ready to acknowledge. He was kind, he was warm, he was drop-dead handsome, and I literally owed him my life. “So how did you just happen to be in the right place at the right time?” I asked.
“I’d been following you.”
I set the cup down, startled. “You were?”
He shrugged his shoulders unself-consciously. “Sure. It’s my job.”
“But I didn’t see you.”
He smiled wryly.
This time, I allowed myself to look him up and down, from his glossy black hair to his well-proportioned feet and back again. “You’re pretty good,” I said, then felt my face flush with embarrassment. I immediately wished I’d chosen different words.
He blushed again too, this time deeply, and with all the glory that men with ruddy complexions can muster. And he didn’t look away. But neither did he smile.
I said, “So you were following me. And you saw him pull up.”
“I saw you shake him by Little America; then lost you in that alley trick. I … guessed you’d be heading back here, and I picked you up again on South Temple.”
“And Mr. Tan Chevy made a dash here. So what do you make of him following me while the house was getting tossed? Had his walkie-talkie gone out? Like maybe they’re working together?”
“I’m supposed to ask
you
that.”
I stared into my coffee again. We were back to cop and suspect once more. “These guys are smart, or at least one of them is, but they’re amateurs. Here’s my evidence: They have enough intelligence to send one to keep an eye on me so I don’t interrupt the other one’s search. But Mr. Chevy is a rank beginner at tailing, doesn’t know he isn’t supposed to get noticed, or just doesn’t care. Likewise Mr. Toss, or he’s a bit too emotional or maybe he got to crashing things about so much that he couldn’t hear Mr. Chevy warning him over the radio. So Mr. Chevy finds me already here and he does the dumbest thing in the books: He takes a shot at not only me but also a police officer.”
“I’m out of uniform.”
“What kind of car you driving this time?”
“Unmarked.”
“Okay, so let’s give him back ten points on the IQ scale for thinking he’s aiming at open game. But shooting is patently stupid. It’s overkill. It’s panic.”
“I won’t argue there.”
“So maybe these guys did whatever they did to George in a moment of panic, too.”
I was expecting another rejoinder, such as,
We don’t know these are the guys who did George,
but instead Ray drew himself inward. He closed his eyes and stiffened, shutting down outside stimulus.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I forgot. There’s something really bad about the way George was killed.”
His eyes snapped open again, wide, alarmed. “How do you know that?”
I straightened up and pushed the coffee away in disgust. I was more than tired of this suspect business; I was all the way to irritated. “Because it’s written all over you. I recommend
you keep with the sports, but do not—I repeat,
do not—take
up poker. You’re as guileless as I am.”
Just then, Detective Bert popped into the room and slathered us both with one of his impertinent grins. “So, you two lovebirds, we’re all done in here. I’ll be seeing you. You have a nice night’s sleep, okay?” With that, he showed me his first bit of mercy of the day by simply leaving. Which was lucky for him, because I now knew that he knew that the man in the Chevy wasn’t one of his, and I have been known, when that angry, to kick. Not that I condone violence, but when you ride horses, you learn to defend yourself when they pull dirty tricks that might endanger you.
Steadying my breath, I got up and headed into the bedroom to try once again to pick my clothes up off the floor. Mr. Toss had had himself a party. From the doorway, Ray said, “I’m going out to my car for a moment. I’ll lock the door behind me. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”
I nodded and knelt down to sort underwear from once-pressed shirts, folded them, and laid them back in my suitcase. It took me several moments to find my toilet kit; Mr. Toss had kicked it underneath the bed. As I picked it up, it sloshed. Opening it, I found that he had also stepped on it, rupturing both my tube of toothpaste and my shampoo. “That’s why I know it was a man in the house,” I grumbled aloud. “A woman would’ve had more respect.”
Holding the dripping kit away from my clothes so I wouldn’t get them any messier than they already were, I carried it into the kitchen to clean it out in the sink. As I ran water into it, I saw a dark form slip across the backyard. In the half second it took me to assemble data and react, I thought first that it must be Ray coming back, but as the shape slipped briefly out of deep shadow into the dull remnants of the light from the window, it was entirely too small.
I dropped from the window and scuttled across the floor, fetching up in the narrow space between the refrigerator and the stove. It smelled as if it must usually be home to the garbage can. Sticky residues stuck my shoes to the floor as I squeezed farther back into the nook. Something tickled the top of my head. I looked up, saw the dangling cord of the kitchen phone. I jumped quickly up and grabbed the receiver, and was relieved to find that the buttons were on the handset. Falling back to the floor, I dialed 911.
“State your emergency,” said a voice.
“This is Em Hansen,” I whispered, not bothering to give the location I knew would already be illuminated on the dispatcher’s desk set. “Please radio Officer Raymond in his car.” My mind sped ahead, worrying that the dispatcher wouldn’t know which car he had.
“Can you speak louder?”
My throat tightened as if an invisible hand were clutching it. “Please radio Officer Raymond. He should be in his car. It’s right
outside
here, for crap’s sake!”
“Please repeat your …”
My attention shifted from the dispatcher’s voice to the door that led to the backyard as I heard the small sound of metal striking metal, a key rolling the tumblers of the lock. The knob turned. It was too late to dash out of the kitchen. Instead, I squeezed farther in between the counter and the refrigerator, trying in vain to hide myself from whoever was now opening the door, now stepping inside the house … .
I heard soft footfalls. A voice, light and cheery. “Hell-
ooo!
” it called.
The telephone crackled in my ear. “Miss? Are you there?”
The door closed, and the source of the cheery greeting stepped into my line of view. It was a small woman, barely more than a girl—petite, almost fragile. An elf, a fair wisp of a person, covered in a dark cloak that looked like it had been
cut from an army-surplus blanket. She knocked back its hood and peered at me. She was plain, not pretty. Twentyish, but so diminutive and work-worn that I could not tell exactly. She could have been eighteen or even younger. She had pale, washed-out blond hair, but her skin was dry and cracked from long and early exposure to the sun. Her gray eyes were bright behind thick, unattractive glasses, and her lips were bowed in a tentative smile. I knew in a flash that there was nothing to fear from this person, except—
Into the phone, I said levelly, “Please just ask him to come,” and hung up. To the little female staniding in front of me, I said, “Hello yourself,” more confidently than I felt.
Her smile bloomed, bringing roses to her cheeks, a surprise from one so otherwise indistinct. “Ooooo,” she cooed, then jubilantly cried, “Stand up! Stand up!” When I did, she closed the remaining few feet between us, swept my hands into hers, and clutched them to her waifish breast. “We meet at last,” she said, sighing passionately.
“We—”
“I’m just so glad! I can’t tell you. George promised me a birthday treat, but I had no idea it could be you! He’s been so silly about this, really, thinking we shouldn’t meet, but now we
have
met, and it’s just perfect, isn’t it? Have you been here long?”
“I—”
“Oh, I’ve dreamt of this day. We shall all be in the Celestial Kingdom together, at the highest level of heaven, I know it! We shall—”
“No, wait! Let me talk. Who
are
you?”
Her smile tightened into a pucker. She bowed her head slightly and looked up at me from underneath her almost colorless eyelashes, as if I were having a very funny little joke with her. “Oh, come now, silly. I’m Nina. You can’t tell me George hasn’t told his wife my
name … .”
“I’m not—” I stopped myself. Whoever this creature was, she thought I was George Dishey’s wife. But George hadn’t had a wife, had he? No, I was certain of that; he had been a known bachelor. I’d heard that fact advanced as an explanation for his eccentricities, his rather unusual public persona.
And he stood right there and called himself an eligible bachelor not twenty-four hours ago, back when he was
…
alive. So who is this creature? His daughter? Had he, in fact, been married but separated, or divorced? Surely there’s no trace of female habitation in this house, no evidence of a wife … .
Nina was still holding my hands, at waist level now, and had begun to sway back and forth, as if we had just been dancing and the music had ended before she was ready to let me go. Her cloak parted, showing a drab, shapeless frock made of cheap, faded broadcloth. She seemed oblivious to the oddity of her dress, and was still waiting for a welcome of which she felt confident.
I took a breath, noting that it came shallowly. My abdomen had grown tight with that weird little fear that says,
Something’s happening here, and it doesn’t look
good … . I said, “Okay, Nina. I see you have a key to this house, so, ah … welcome. Now, excuse me, but I’m still not tumbling to who you are.” About there, my mind prompted me that I had not yet corrected her, not told her that I was not George Dishey’s wife. Did she think I was her stepmother?
Nina raised her arms exultantly and strung them around my neck. “Oh, Heddie, I’m Nina!” she sang, “Nina Dishey, George’s
other
wife!”