The Killer in My Eyes (21 page)

‘Yes, of course. Wait a moment, are you a relative of his?’

‘Gerald was my nephew.’

‘I’m so sorry. Gerald was a difficult kid, but I’m sorry he ended up like that.’

‘Did you know him?’

The response was immediate. ‘Nobody really knew him. We could sense he had talent but he was always on the edge. Closed, introverted, rebellious, sometimes violent. And alone.’

‘How about Chandelle Stuart?’

‘She was pretty much the same, except she didn’t have any talent to back it up. I think I was the only person she opened up to a little bit. She wasn’t really close to anyone at Vassar, though there were reliable rumours that outside the campus she led a fairly colourful life. If you’re investigating her, I guess you know what I mean.’

‘Perfectly. What can you tell me about their relationship?’

There was a moment’s pause. ‘Well, they knew each other. But as far as I remember, everyone was out for himself. Gerald was too hostile and Chandelle too rich to really connect.’

‘I’m going to ask you a question that may seem strange, but please think about it carefully before you answer.’

‘Go on.’

‘Did you ever hear either Chandelle or Gerald refer to the characters in the
Peanuts
comic strip? Linus, Lucy, anything like that.’

‘I don’t think so . . . No, hold on, now that I come to think of it, there was something once.’

Jordan’s heart skipped a beat.

‘One day I went into Chandelle’s room while she was taking a shower. As I was waiting for her to come out I went to the desk, and on it there was a handwritten note.’

‘Do you remember what it said?’

‘Yes. The exact words were:
It’s for tomorrow. Pig Pen
.’

‘Do you have any idea who this person was, who called himself Pig Pen?’

‘No.’

‘And what happened then?’

‘Chandelle came out of the bathroom, and when she saw me looking at the note, she took it from the desk and tore it up. Then she went back in the bathroom. I think she threw the pieces in the toilet because immediately afterwards I heard the sound of flushing.’

‘Didn’t you think that was strange behaviour?’

‘With Chandelle Stuart, everything was strange.’

‘Can you think of anything else? Any other detail?’

‘No. But I’ll give it some thought.’

She had started to sound excited. Jordan remembered he was talking to someone involved in the film world, constantly on the lookout for ideas.

If you’re thinking to turn this into a movie, Sarah Dermott, let us know in advance how it’s going to end.

‘Anything else you remember is sure to be of use. I’ll get your telephone number from President Hoogan and call you again.’

‘Feel free. And good luck.’

‘Thanks.’

He hung up and handed the cordless back to Hoogan. Then he stood up, as he always did when he needed to think.

‘Something new?’

‘Another
Peanuts
character. Pig Pen.’

‘I don’t know that one.’

‘He was a minor character, who was more or less dropped after a while. He’s a little boy who attracts dust. He’s always so dirty that the one time he shows up at a party looking neat and tidy they won’t let him in because they don’t recognize him.’

‘Now you mention him, he does sounds familiar. Did Sarah bring him up?’

‘Yes. And instead of clearing things up, it just makes them more complicated.’

‘Well, I’m not sure there’s anything else I can do to help you.’

‘You’ve been an enormous help. I’ll say to you what I just said to Sarah Dermott. Anything at all that you think of, get in touch.’

‘Of course.’

At that point Hoogan did the only thing he could. He stood up and looked at his watch. ‘I think it’s lunchtime. Officially, I’d like to invite you, but if you want my advice, refuse politely but firmly. The Vassar cafeteria isn’t too bad but your companion deserves better. And some of our teachers are deadly boring. Are you going back to New York now?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can recommend a very good restaurant a few miles from here. You won’t even have to make too much of a detour. It’s an old tugboat moored at the river bank. Very evocative. It’s the place I’d go if I were with someone like Lysa.’

Jordan picked up his helmet from the chair.

Hoogan came out from behind the desk. ‘That girl has the most incredible eyes I’ve ever seen. Nobody with eyes like that can be a bad person.’ He smiled and held out his hand. ‘I wish you luck, Lieutenant Marsalis. You’re a good man but I think you’re going to need it.’

‘So do I. Goodbye, Travis. You don’t need to see me out. I remember the way.’

Jordan left the President’s office and retraced his steps to the cafeteria. When he got there, the place was full. Some young men and women were standing in line, while others were already sitting at the tables, eating. He just had to follow the direction of some of their eyes to know where Lysa was.

She was standing just outside the glass door, leaning against the low wall next to the steps, and looking with a rapt expression at the trees in the grounds. He came up to her without her noticing.

‘Here I am.’

Lysa turned her head towards him. ‘Everything all right? Did you find what you expected to?’

He tried to be positive. ‘A few small things. It seems to me I’ll have to work a lot harder to get the big picture. In the meantime, I think we both deserve a decent lunch.’

‘Where?’

Jordan adopted a slightly mysterious tone. ‘I’ve just been recommended somewhere near here.’

A moment or two later, as Lysa’s eyes again disappeared behind the visor of the helmet, he couldn’t help recalling Hoogan’s words.

Nobody with eyes like that
. . .

The restaurant recommended by Travis Hoogan was a beautifully renovated tugboat, moored at a concrete landing-stage that extended into the Hudson. In the tranquillity of its shelter, between elegant streamlined small yachts, this short, squat craft that had once pulled huge steamships gave the impression of an aging lion benevolently watching over its young.

When Jordan stopped the bike and saw what the place was called, he was pleased he could hide his grimace behind the visor of his helmet.

Steamboat Willie.

It was the title of one of Walt Disney’s first cartoons. Right now, cartoon characters seemed to be everywhere. Maybe his own life was slowly turning into a cartoon –
his
life and that of every person involved in this absurd story.

They got off the Ducati and Jordan again watched the ritual of Lysa’s hair emerging from the helmet, and again it aroused complicated feelings in him, feelings he preferred to attribute to the nervous state in which the investigation had put him.

They walked across the short wooden footbridge and entered the dimly lit restaurant, which smelled of wax polish and, perhaps through the power of suggestion, the sea. The furnishings were in strictly nautical style, with shiny brass fittings and tables covered with rough canvas tablecloths as blue as the colour of the hull.

A youngish waiter immediately came towards them with a gait that remined Jordan of the movements of a spring. He had a friendly demeanour and a tanned face that made him seem more like the cabin boy of a sailing ship than the waiter of a restaurant on an old tugboat chained to the bank of a river.

‘Hello. Do you prefer to eat inside or, as it’s such a nice day, do you want to sit at a table on deck?’ He immediately switched to a conspiratorial tone. ‘If I can give you a piece of advice, there’s a better view outside and you’ll be more private.’

Jordan left it to Lysa to choose.

‘I think outside sounds perfect.’

They followed the waiter to a table in the shade of a wooden pergola near the stern. The waiter placed two menus with oilcloth covers on the table and left them alone to choose.

Jordan took one of the menus and opened it. As he stared at the words describing the food, he thought again about the conversations with Travis Hoogan and Sarah Dermott. According to the rules, he should have called Burroni and told him about Sarah Dermott’s revelation, but he preferred to wait until he had absorbed it himself.

What was the role of this fourth
Peanuts
character, after Linus, Lucy and Snoopy? The first two had revealed their identity when they had died. Snoopy, whoever he was, was running the same risk, if he wasn’t at this moment receiving a visit from a man with his hood up and a limp in his right leg.

It’s for tomorrow. Pig Pen
.

What was supposed to happen tomorrow? Who was Pig Pen?

‘If you tell me where you are, I can try to get to you, or at least call you.’

Lysa’s voice brought him back to the here and now. Jordan put the menu on the table and looked up at Lysa’s ironic smile and the waiter standing there expectantly with a pen and notebook in his hand.

‘I’m sorry. I was thinking. Have you already chosen?’

‘A few minutes ago.’

‘Then, to speed things up, I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

The waiter nodded, scribbled something in his notebook, and said, ‘OK, fried snake for both.’ He responded to Jordan’s look of surprise with a disarming smile. ‘Oh, don’t worry, sir, it’s a speciality of the house. The chef cooks it so well, even the rattle is tender.’

He turned and walked away along the deck with his strange, elastic walk. Jordan turned to look at Lysa.

Nobody with eyes like that
. . .

Jordan realized he didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know anything about her life or why she was in New York. He couldn’t decide if the reason he hadn’t asked was because he was afraid of being indiscreet or because he was afraid of what she might say.

During the brief time they had spent under the same roof, they had seen little of each other. Jordan had been busy with the case, and whatever Lysa was busy with, she seemed to be in possession of an enviable resource: a sunny but determined character, an optimistic irony with which to confront any small unpleasantness she might find in her path.

There had been just one night when he had come back very late and, as he tiptoed past her room, had thought he heard her crying. But when they had seen each other in the morning, there had been no trace of those tears on her face.

‘How come there’s such a big difference in age between you and Christopher?’

‘Oh, it’s a very simple story,’ Jordan replied, trying to keep his voice as light as possible. ‘My father was a good-looking young man without a penny who played tennis very well. Christopher’s mother was a good-looking and very rich young woman who played tennis very badly. They met and fell in love. There was just one small problem. He was a young man with qualities that in some circles are considered faults, she was a young woman born and brought up in one of those circles. Before the wedding, her parents made my father sign a prenuptial agreement as big as a phone book. Things were fine for a while but then the inevitable happened. My father gradually realized that his wife was growing closer to her circle and leaving him more and more on the outside. When he asked her to follow him and make a life of their own, he was rejected in no uncertain terms. His father-in-law was of course only too ready to show him the door. My father left that house as he had entered it, without a cent in his pocket. And it was made harder and harder for him to see his son. Then he met my mother, and twelve years after Christopher, I was born. The first time Chris and I met, he was already launched on his political career and I’d just left the Police Academy. Through no fault of our own, we were two brothers with no brotherly feelings towards each other. And that’s how things have always stayed.’

At this point, the waiter arrived, carrying two plates.

The food Lysa had ordered wasn’t fried snake, but an excellent fish dish cooked in a delicate basil and coconut milk sauce. As they started eating, Jordan made up his mind to tackle the subject he had avoided up until now.

‘I don’t think my life has been all that interesting, when you come down to it. But you haven’t yet told me anything about yourself.’

Lysa made a gesture with her hand that did not chime with the shadow that had passed for a moment across her eyes. She hid behind a smile that was still not sufficient to conceal her bitterness.

‘Oh, well, it’s quite simple. All I need to tell you is that nothing has been simple for me.’ She paused briefly but significantly. ‘Ever.’

She seemed to be talking as much to herself as to him.

‘I was born in the middle of nowhere. If I told you the name of the place, it wouldn’t mean anything to you. It was the kind of place where everyone knows everything about everyone else. My father was a Methodist pastor and my mother was the kind of woman who could only have been the wife of a man like that. Devoted, silent, accommodating. Can you imagine how it must have been for a man obsessed by God, proudly watching his only son grow up and then realizing that by the age of fourteen he’s sprouting breasts? I was hidden, like a punishment for his sins, and for the world’s sins, until his love of God prevailed over his love for his child, male or female. At sixteen, when I left home, without even touching the door, I saw it close behind me.’