Dream Man (8 page)

He went back to the office and started making phone calls. It took him an hour to get the name of the patrolman in question, Jim Ewan, a six-year street veteran. When he called Officer Ewan’s home, there was no answer.

He waited another hour, calling Officer Ewan four more times, without results. He checked his watch; it was almost eight o’clock, and he was hungry. He supposed he could get up early in the morning and catch Officer Ewan as he was coming off his shift, but he’d never been very good at waiting when he wanted something. What the hell; Ewan would be reporting in to work in less than three hours, so Dane figured he might as well get something to eat, then come back and talk to the officer tonight. Whatever he found out, it would give him the night to think about it.

He drove home and slapped together a couple of sand-wiches, then checked his messages while he munched and caught up on the scores of the new baseball season. He was still pissed at the San Francisco Giants, and wanted anyone but them to win.

Baseball couldn’t hold his attention, and his thoughts kept slipping back to Marlie Keen, to deep blue eyes that held more shadows than a graveyard. Whatever scheme she was running, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it; she became visibly upset every time she talked about Friday night. Not even an Oscar-winning actress could make her-self go as white as chalk, the way Marlie had been this afternoon. He remembered how her slender frame had been shaking, and the urge welled up again to put his arms around her, cradle her close to him and tell her everything would be all right. What was with this crazy protectiveness? He accepted his natural male instinct to take care of a woman; he was bigger and stronger, so why shouldn’t he put himself be-tween a woman and any danger that might threaten her?

Why shouldn’t he guard her when she went up or down stairs, always ready to catch her if those treacherous high heels women wore caused her to trip? Why shouldn’t he do any grunt work for her when he could, schedule permitting? When he’d been a patrolman, investigating car accidents, he had always gone first to check on any woman or child involved, without even thinking about it. But damn it, his protectiveness had never before extended to someone he suspected of murder. He was a cop; she was a suspect. He couldn’t allow himself to touch her in any way, except those necessary in his job. Cuddling her wasn’t included on that list.

But he wanted to. Damn, he wanted to. He wanted to let her rest her head on his shoulder, he wanted to stroke her cheek, her neck, then let his hand drop lower to investigate her breasts, the curve of her belly, the soft notch between her legs.

He surged to his feet, cursing to himself. He’d seen her for the first time that morning, and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since. That good old physical chemistry had sure blindsided him with this one.

He checked the time: nine-fifteen. Hell, he might as well go down to the station and wait for Officer Ewan. At least the usual bullshit going on would keep him from thinking about her so much. He paced restlessly for a moment, then got his car keys and put the plan into action. As he had hoped, Officer Ewan came in early, as a lot of policemen did, so he would have plenty of time to change clothes and drink coffee, kind of settle into routine before the shift began. Jim Ewan was average in almost every way: average height, average weight, average features. His eyes, though, were the alert, cynical eyes of a cop, someone used to seeing everything and expecting anything. He remembered the incident Friday night very clearly.

“It was a little spooky,” he said, thinking about it. “She was just sitting there, like a statue. Her eyes were open and fixed, at first I thought I had a stiff. I turned on the flashlight, but couldn’t see anything suspicious in the car, and I could tell then that she was breathing. I rapped on the window with the flash, but it took her a while to come around.”

Dane felt an uneasy tingle up his spine. “Had she fainted, maybe?”

Officer Ewan shrugged. “Only people I’ve ever seen with their eyes fixed like that were stiffs or crazies. The eyes close when it’s just a faint.”

“So what happened then?”

“It was like she was real confused, and she looked scared at first. She had trouble moving, like someone coming out of anesthesia. But then she managed to get the window rolled down, and she said that she was an epileptic and must have had a seizure. I asked her to get out of the car, and she did. She was shaky, trembling all over. I couldn’t smell any alcohol, and she didn’t seem to be on anything; I’d already called in her plate number, and it had checked out okay, so there wasn’t any reason to hold her. Like I said, she was pretty wobbly, so I followed her home to make sure she made it.”

“What time was this?” Dane asked.

“Let’s see. I can check my paperwork for that night to give you the exact time, if you need it, but I think it was a little after midnight, maybe twelve-fifteen.”

“Thanks,” Dane said. “You’ve helped a lot.”

“My pleasure.”

He drove back home, mulling over everything Officer Ewan had said. For such a brief meeting, it had given him a lot of information.

For one thing, Marlie Keen had been on the opposite side of town from the Vinick residence at about the same time Nadine Vinick was being murdered.

Officer Ewan’s observations pretty much verified what Marlie had told him about how the “vision”

affected her.

So what did he have now? Logically he could no longer consider her a suspect, and something inside loosened with relief. She hadn’t been there; she had an alibi. There was nothing to connect her to the murder… except her own words. She had
seen
the murder happen. There was no other way. But how?

She knew something, something she hadn’t told him. Something that put those shadows in her eyes. He was going to find out what she was hiding, find out exactly how she was tied to this murder. The only alternative was that she really was psychic, and he couldn’t buy that. Not yet. Maybe not ever, but… not yet.

He could feel the anger burning in him as the woman marched away, and he sternly controlled it, as he controlled everything. Now wasn’t the time to let his anger show; it would be inappropriate. Everything in its own time. He looked down at the complaint form the woman had filled out and smiled as he read her name: Jacqueline Sheets, 3311 Cypress Terrace. The guarantee of retribution gave him a certain peace. Then, taking care that his body blocked Annette’s view of what he was doing, he slipped the complaint form into his pocket to be disposed of later. Only a stupid person would leave it lying about, perhaps for some busybody to look at and remember later, and Carroll Janes did not consider himself stupid. Quite the opposite, in fact. He prided himself on taking care of every little detail.

“I don’t know how you can be so calm when people talk to you like that, Mr. Janes,” Annette muttered behind him. “I wanted to punch her in the face.”

His expression was perfectly calm. “Oh, someday she’ll get hers,” he said. He liked Annette; she had to put up with the same things he did, and she was always sympathetic when someone gave him a hard time. Most people were acceptably courteous, but there were always those few who needed to be taught a lesson. Annette, however, was unfail-ingly polite, calling him Mister. He appreciated her percep-tion. She was a homely little thing, short and dark and plain, but generally amiable. She didn’t irritate him as so many other women did, with their silly airs and pettishness.

Carroll Janes carried himself in an erect, military posture. He had often thought he would have been perfectly suited for the military—as an officer, of course. He would have been at the top of his class in any of the academies, had he been able to attend. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had the connections necessary to get into any of the military acade-mies; connections were imperative, and those who lacked them were shut out. It was how the upper class kept their ranks closed. Joining the military as an enlisted man was unthinkable; he had likewise rejected both ROTC and OCS as being a poor second to the academies. Instead of the distinguished military career he should have had, he was stuck in this degrading job handling customer complaints in a ritzy department store, but that didn’t mean he would let his personal standards slide.

He was five foot ten, but his erect carriage often fooled people into thinking he was taller. And he was generally considered a nice-looking man, he thought: in good shape, thanks to twice-weekly visits to a gym; thick, curly blond hair; even features. He enjoyed dressing well, and was always meticulous in his grooming. Attention to detail meant the difference between success and failure. He never let himself forget that.

He wondered what Annette would say if she discovered the power he kept concealed, under perfect control until it was time to be unleashed. But no one suspected, least of all Annette. Fooling them all so completely gave him immense satisfaction; the cops were so stupid, so utterly outclassed!

He was patient enough to wait until Annette took her afternoon break before going to the computer to see if Jacqueline Sheets had a charge account with the store; to his delight, she did. It was always so much easier when he had this initial access to information. He wasn’t interested in her payment record, however. The information from each cus-tomer’s credit request form was at the top of each file, and that information included the spouse’s name and occupa-tion. Jacqueline Sheets was divorced. He clucked his tongue. What a pity, she couldn’t maintain a relationship.

Of course, that didn’t mean she lived alone. She might have children, or a live-in boyfriend, or a lesbian roommate. She might live with her mother. Any of those scenarios would make his task more difficult, but by no means impossible. He almost hoped such a complication would develop, for it was a truer test of his nerve and intelligence. It was unusual to have another transgressor so soon after the last one; he was a bit curious to see if he would be sharper, like an athlete intensifying his training, or if the opposite would be true. He hoped he would be even stronger and faster, his mind clearer, the surge of power more intense.

When he left work, he could already feel the anticipation humming in him. He ignored the pleasurable sensation and followed his normal routine, for of course, he couldn’t allow it to strengthen now; it wasn’t time. The pleasure would be all the more intense for having waited, once he let it go. So he drove to his apartment, read the newspaper, popped a microwave dinner into the oven. While it was heating, he set the table: place mat, napkin, everything just as it should be. Just because he lived alone was no reason to let his stan-dards slide.

Only after it was fully dark outside did he allow himself to get out his map of the Orlando area and locate Cypress Terrace, marking the route from his apartment with a yellow highlighter, carefully memorizing the turns. It was closer than he’d expected, no more than fifteen minutes by car. Convenient. Then he went for a pleasant, leisurely drive, enjoying the mild spring weather. This first reconnaissance was little more than a drive-by, to locate the house and fix it in his mind. He’d also notice a few other details, such as how close the other houses were, if there were a lot of pets in the neighborhood, how many children seemed to be around. If there was a fence around the yard, how many cars were parked in the driveway, or if there was a garage. Little things like that. Details. Later he would find out more, much more, discovering more on each trip until the final reconnaissance, when he would go inside the house itself, learn the layout of the rooms. He would let the pleasure begin building then, for there was something delicious about wandering through her house when she wasn’t there, touching her things, looking in her closets and bathroom cabinet. He would already be inside her, and she wouldn’t even know it. It would lack only the finale.

He drove past 3311 Cypress Terrace; there was a narrow, one-slot carport instead of a garage, and a five-year-old Pontiac occupied the space. There were no other cars, no bicycles, no skateboards, nothing to indicate kids. Only one light was on in the house, indicating that there was either only one person there, or everyone was in one room. Usually it was the former. He circled the block and drove by a second time; twice was all he allotted himself on one trip. If anyone was watching, which wasn’t likely, the second pass would be attributed to someone lost, while a third pass would be suspicious. The second time he noted the fence that ran down the left side of the house, on the opposite side of the carport. Good. A fence was nice concealment. The right side was more open than he liked it, but all in all the situation was very nice. Very nice indeed. Everything was falling into place.

Marlie had been curled up on the couch, reading a book that was only mildly interesting and slowly feeling herself relax. She had felt the strain all day long, wondering if Detective Hollister would be waiting in the parking lot when she left work as he had been the day before. She wasn’t certain she could handle another of those hostile confrontations with him, but at the same time she felt curiously cast adrift when she walked out of the bank and he wasn’t there. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop, only it never did.

She leaned her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. His face formed behind her eyelids: the rough planes, the broken nose, the hazel green of those deep-set eyes. Not the face of a sophisticate; even if the features had been more even, the expression in those eyes would always set him apart. They were the piercing eyes of a predator, always watching. She rather thought that the people of Orlando could count themselves lucky that he had come down on the side of the law, making criminals his natural prey instead of themselves. Now, added
to
the force of his own nature, was the look that all cops had: that all-encompassing cynicism, the cool distance, the wall that those in law enforcement erected between themselves and those they served.

She had known a lot of cops, had seen it in all of them. Cops relaxed only with their own kind, with others who had seen the same things, done the same things. None of them went home and told their spouses about the meanness and depravity that they saw every day. What a great topic that would have been over dinner! Cops had a high divorce rate. The stress was incredible. Cops had never known how to take her. At first, of course, they had all thought of her as a joke. After she had proved herself, though, they had all become very uneasy around her, because her psychic insight had included them. Only a cop understood another cop: That was a given. But
she
had felt their emotions, their anger and fear and disgust. They couldn’t erect that wall against her, and they had felt vulnerable.