The Dead Room (42 page)

His eyes were fixed on the brake fluid, following its trail through the snow. When the second set of footprints registered, he filed it away and rose up the porch steps until he stood before the window like a zombie. He threw his elbow into the glass, reached inside for the lock, and hoisted the frame up and out of the way. Then he plunged through the hole, pivoting his stiff legs around the shattered glass on the floor and moving deeper into the house.

The rooms felt warm and toasty. When he spotted the thermostat on the wall, he became worried because it was only forty-five degrees. He turned the dial up to ninety, heard the furnace in the basement fire up, and searched for the stairs. He couldn’t find them. Room after room of closed doors led in a circle until he found himself in an entryway off the kitchen and stopped.

The boxes were stacked against the wall, and he wondered which house he was in. They looked like the same cartons he’d seen with Powell and Vega at the Trisco’s estate in Radnor. He counted fifteen of them. He ripped one open, then another. Most of the boxes contained men’s clothing. Others were packed with pictures still in their frames and odd bric-a-brac. When he found the photograph of Edward with his wounded dog, the picture he’d seen on the mantle, Teddy understood what was going on.

Trisco’s parents were getting rid of the evidence. But not from the crimes. Not the kidnappings or even the murders. They were trying to hide their relationship to their own son.

He shivered as he took it in.

After a moment, he reached inside the box for the last of the photographs. He couldn’t place it at first, his mind still icy and dull. It was a young woman with blond hair. A photograph taken a long time ago. Still, the face seemed so familiar to him. He stared at it and forced himself to think. Her mouth was shaped something like Valerie Kram’s. Her eyes reminded him of the picture he’d seen of Rosemary Gibb....

He dumped the photograph into the box, grabbed an armful of dry clothing off the floor and stepped into the den. Emptying his pockets onto the desk, he ripped off his wet clothes and sorted through the pile. The pair of jeans he found were tight, but fit. As he slipped a T-shirt over his head and found a sweater, he couldn’t help thinking that he was getting into the killer’s clothes.

He shook it off, his eyes on the phone. Above the number pad were the names of people the Triscos frequently called. Beside the names were twelve buttons which activated the number programmed into the phone. What struck Teddy was button number three. The entry was blank. Leaning closer, he noticed a faint impression of someone’s name that had been erased.

He glanced into the entryway and thought about the Trisco’s attempt at boxing up memories of their only son. Then he picked up the handset and hit the third button. The number flashed up on the display as the phone started dialing. He recognized the exchange from his days as a student at Penn. It was West Philadelphia, a depressed part of town.

As he listened to the phone ringing through the handset, Teddy opened the top desk drawer, found a pad of paper and grabbed a pen. He wrote the number down and thought it over. How many people could the Triscos know living in that part of the city?

Only one.

SIXTY-SIX

The fucking phone wouldn’t stop ringing....

Eddie looked at Rosemary stretched out on the table and couldn’t believe the lousy timing. Her engines were just heating up. But the phone rang past the usual eight and just kept going.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

He ran upstairs into the kitchen, grabbed the handset and slammed it back down again. Reveling in the silence, he parted the curtains and peered through the window toward the house on the corner. A man dressed like a plumber was getting out of a van and starting up the drive reviewing his clipboard.

The man was good actor, but not good enough. Eddie knew it was
them
. It had to be them, and they were destroying the moment.

The phone started ringing again.

Eddie screamed at the house through the window, then caught himself as the satellite dish on the roof caught his eye. It looked bigger than usual. Different. The eavesdropping device was pointed straight at him.

He shuddered. He couldn’t take the chance that his Fed neighbors were watching their monitor and knew what was going on inside his head right now. Turning away from the window, he spotted his Walkman by the sink and slipped the headphones over his ears. As he rolled the FM tuner back and forth, he searched for the country station but couldn’t find it. He took a deep breath, switching over to the TV band and settling for a rebroadcast of
The Lawrence Welk Show
on public television. Lawrence Welk would have to do.

He dialed the volume up until the sound of the phone became negligible, then headed upstairs to prepare for Rosemary’s final contribution to world history and the arts. Turning on the shower, he waited for the hot water and got out of his shirt. Inside the bedroom closet he pulled his robe off the hanger and laid it out on the bed with care. Then he kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned his pants and sat down at the end of the bed.

The headphones had slipped out of position. Eddie pushed them over his ears and listened. It was a recording from a live broadcast at the Champagne Theater in Branson, Missouri. All five living Champagne Ladies were there, and Welk promised that the Hotsy Totsy Boys would be singing a special tribute to Dixieland music later in the show.

Eddie smiled. Pure heaven waited in the wings.

He glanced at the clock radio on the side table, then removed the bandage from his leg and examined the wound. The cut was scabbing over and appeared to be healing. When he touched it with his finger, it stung a little but the morphine was still in play. He wouldn’t need to see a doctor, he thought. All in all, he was glad he only carried a sharp blade.

SIXTY-SEVEN

Teddy listened to the ring over the speakerphone as he searched the place. He hadn’t found Trisco’s address in the city, but the keys to the Explorer were in his pocket and he had a pair of boots on. Even better, he’d stumbled onto a locked cabinet built into the bookshelves by the fireplace in the den. He’d broken through the wood with the letter opener and pried the door away from its hinges. Eddie, Jr., the killer’s old man, liked to hunt pheasants and grouse. Inside the cabinet, Teddy had found an assortment of guns.

He pressed the speakerphone button down and the room quieted. Then he picked up the handset and called Nash. No answer. He would’ve liked to have called Powell, but he couldn’t remember her number and his cell phone had drowned along with his car. As a last resort, he punched in his own number at the office. Jill picked up in a panic.

“Where are you?” she said.

“What’s happened?”

“I need to close the door,” she said.

Teddy grimaced, but waited, listening to dead air. After a moment, Jill picked up the phone again.

“The letter’s sitting on your desk,” she said. “You’ve been fired. Stokes had the locks changed an hour ago. We’re not supposed to talk to you.”

Old news. Still, Teddy wondered why his termination notice was on his desk if he couldn’t get into the office to read it. Stokes was an obvious genius, he figured, and had his own way of doing things.

“I need you to do me a favor, Jill.”

“Anything.”

“Find Carolyn Powell. If not Powell, then Detectives Vega or Ellwood in homicide. You’re only to speak to them or Nash. No one else no matter what.”

“Right,” she said.

He gave her Trisco’s phone number in the city and asked her to repeat it once she’d copied it down.

“Give them the number,” he said. “And tell them that’s where he is. My cell phone’s dead. I’ll check back with you in half an hour.”

He hung up, pressed the speakerphone button down and punched Trisco’s number in again. He’d let it ring forever, he decided. Maybe it would drive Trisco all the way over the edge and he’d do himself in.

Teddy sprung from the desk, crossing the room for another look at the gun collection. He spotted a twelve-gauge shotgun he recognized and pulled it out of the case. It was a Winchester Model 12 pump gun. Boxes of shells were in the drawer. As he tore into the box, he noticed they weren’t light field loads like the rounds he kept in his own gun. Instead, they were three-and-a-half-inch magnums.

The full monty.

He pressed three shells through the ejection port into the magazine, then noticed someone had removed the plug. Probably Edward. After loading two more shells, he pumped the slide and heard a round enter the chamber. Then he added a last shell to the magazine, making it a hot six.

He grabbed the box of shells and bolted into the entryway. When he spotted a closet, he ripped the door open. He was hoping he might find something warm to wear, but the long raincoat would have to do. He got it on, emptied the box of shells into the pocket and hustled to the door.

He was ready, he decided. If not ready, at least he was armed.

SIXTY-EIGHT

He didn’t have a key to the lock and chain around the barn doors. He didn’t need it. He gave the engine a heavy shot of gasoline and broke through, ignoring the sound of the barn doors crashing behind him and tearing across the lawn until he reached the private drive that led to Lakeview Road.

Once he hit the four-lanes, he brought the car up to eighty-five miles an hour and started weaving his way into the city. A speed trap would’ve been a blessing, but unfortunately, he didn’t see a cop the whole way. As he vaulted up the exit ramp and swung around Thirtieth Street Station, he made a right onto Market. He’d had time to think as he drove. Trisco was used to the good life. There were neighborhoods on the other side of campus. Large homes from the past that were being refurbished after decades of white flight. He wondered if Eddie wasn’t playing a part in the gentrification of the neighborhood. It seemed to make sense that Trisco would seek out a place where he wouldn’t stand out and felt like home. Beyond comfort, the size of the houses would offer some degree of privacy as well.

He spotted a 7-Eleven on the corner and pulled in. There were three pay phones by the doors. Two of the handsets had been cut away from the phones, but the third one looked as if it still worked.

He counted his change. Most of it was in the lake. Opening his wallet, he punched in his office number, then the number printed on his phone card. As he waited, he noticed the cashier staring at him through the window. At first he thought it was because gentrification hadn’t reached this part of the neighborhood yet. When he caught his reflection in the glass, saw the black circles beneath his eyes and his wasted face, he realized it had nothing to do with the neighborhood and turned away as Jill finally picked up the phone.

“Did you reach them?” he said.

“Just a few minutes ago,” she said.

“Where are they coming from?”

“The Trisco’s house in Radnor.”

Teddy thought it over. The search warrants must have come through.

“What about Nash?” he said.

“His assistant said she’d give him the message. I’ve got the address, Teddy. But I think you’ll be disappointed.”

“Why?”

“The house is owned by a woman, Diana Yap. She runs a small realty agency, specializing in rentals. No one can seem to find her, but the man in the office told me the house is leased to someone by the name of Evan Train. He’s never heard of Eddie Trisco. He told me Evan Train has lived in the house for years.”

“What’s the address?”

She read it to him and he wrote it down. Then he jumped into the car, rumbling down the street and wishing he’d had time to buy a pack of dry cigarettes. He wanted one, needed one. But he was close. Just five blocks away.

*          *          *

No one was there....

Teddy pulled over and checked the address, then cracked the window open and listened for sirens. The city remained quiet, even still. Dusk was settling in—the Christmas lights strung about the neighborhood popping on as if the holiday spirit was in the air.

He grimaced, turned back to the house, saw a car hidden beneath a canvas tarp in the driveway as he chewed it over. After a moment, he grabbed the pump gun and got out. He couldn’t wait any longer. Couldn’t take the chance. It was about the girl, he told himself.

He crossed the street, shielding the Winchester beneath the long raincoat. As he approached the car in the drive, he spotted a woman pushing a stroller along the sidewalk two doors down. Teddy lifted the tarp, his eyes taking in the holes in the sheet metal, the smashed rear window. Then he noticed the sound of a telephone, ringing endlessly from inside the house. This was the place. The one with the shot-up BMW in the drive.