Chris didn't know what to say.
"They want me to go to a goddamn psychiatric hospital. They think I'm having some kind of breakdown."
Though he didn't want to confess it, Chris had suspected the same thing for a while.
In a small voice, Alex said, "Is that what you think?"
"Absolutely not. Listen, I spoke to my old hematology professor up at Sloan-Kettering today. He scared me to death, Alex. Murdering someone by giving them cancer is more than just theoretically possible. Connolly has done it himself, to mice."
"How?"
Chris quickly recounted the scenarios Pete Connolly had outlined for him.
"My God. I wish I had talked to him a week ago."
Chris walked through a flower bed and up to the den window. Ben was still glued to the television, his mouth taut, his hands flying over the game controller.
"Listen," Alex said, "I called to let you know that I'm sending someone down to watch over you and Ben tonight."
"Who?"
"Will Kilmer, my father's old partner. You've heard me talk about him. He's an ex–homicide detective, now private. He's about seventy, and really nice. He's also sharper and tougher than he looks. I just want you to know he's going to be outside."
"I'm not going to turn him away. I'm walking around with my gun, nervous as a cat."
"That's good. Just don't shoot Will."
"Don't worry."
There was a brief silence. Then Alex said, "I also want you to know something else."
His stomach tightened in dread.
"Will has a detective staying up at the Alluvian Hotel. He's watching Thora."
Chris felt a surprising ambivalence about this. "Really?"
"I didn't tell you because it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. But I had to do it, Chris."
"I understand. Has the guy seen anything suspicious?"
Another hesitation. "The detective's wife thinks she may have seen Shane Lansing leave the hotel about five thirty this morning. She's not positive, though."
The knots in Chris's stomach eased a little. "I told you, I saw Lansing early this morning in Natchez. He couldn't have made it back here from Greenwood in that time."
"Unless he flew."
"There's no commercial service to Greenwood, and Lansing isn't a pilot."
"You've been giving this a lot of thought, haven't you?"
Chris colored. "Of course. I even waited outside his office in my car this afternoon, to make sure he was really there working."
"Was he?"
"Yes. But the fact that he hasn't pressed assault charges is pretty goddamn suspicious."
"We'll know the truth soon enough, I think. Be nice to Will, if you see him. He practically raised me, and he's doing this for free."
"When will he be here?"
"Probably within the next half hour."
"What am I supposed to tell Ben?"
"What time does he go to bed?"
"Probably an hour from now."
"I'll make sure Will doesn't come up to the house until after that."
"Thanks. When are you coming back?"
"I'm meeting with the OPR in the morning. They'll probably ask for my badge and gun. There may be paperwork to do up here, but I'm going to try to get back as soon as I can. You just make sure you're alive and well when I get there."
Chris turned and looked over at the hilltop. The eyes were still there, like golden spheres floating in the night. "Don't worry about that." He started to hang up, but he felt that he should say one thing more before he did. "Alex?"
"Yes?"
"Maybe you should think about taking that deal."
He heard only the hissing silence of the open connection.
"If we concentrate on the medical side of things," he said, "if we use people like Pete Connolly, I think we'll eventually have enough evidence to convince your superiors to look into this themselves."
"Not soon enough," Alex said bitterly. "Not for Jamie. I think he knows what his father did, Chris. He doesn't admit it to himself, but at some level, he knows."
"Have you made any progress getting the medical records of the other victims? From the families, maybe?"
"When could I have done that?" she replied testily.
"I understand. Look, just try to find out who their doctors were. Maybe I can get hold of them through a backdoor route."
"That's unethical, isn't it?"
"No. It's illegal."
"Well, well. Things change when it gets personal, don't they?"
A rush of anger went through him. "Look, if you don't—"
"I'm sorry, Chris. I couldn't resist. I've been alone in this for so long. You know I'll do anything to get those records."
"Okay. I need to get back to Ben. Don't do anything crazy in that meeting tomorrow."
Alex laughed, the sound strangely brittle through the cell phone. "That's what everybody tells me."
Chris hung up and looked over at the hilltop. Now there were five pairs of eyes. He clapped his hands together once, hard. As if controlled by a single mind, the eyes aligned themselves and focused on him. The cheep of crickets died, and even the frogs down at the pond fell silent. Chris whistled once, long and low, utterly perplexing the deer. They stared for a moment that dilated into something immeasurable, then bolted into the woods with a drumming of hoofbeats.
Gone.
As he walked back into the house, the floating eyes hovered in his mind like the afterimage of an exploding flashbulb. At about the same intensity, a shadowy film was running through his mind: Thora sitting astride Shane Lansing in a darkened hotel room, the air fetid with humid Delta heat, her body glistening with sweat, her eyes wild with abandon—
"Dad?" Ben called. "Where you been?"
"Watching some deer."
"How many?"
"Five."
"Yeah? Come play me a game."
Chris stepped around the refrigerator and laid the .38 on top again. "Okay, buddy. I want to be the Colts this time."
"No way!"
Chris lay on the sofa bed in his home theater, just up the hall from the master bedroom suite, and listened to the slow, regular sound of Ben's breathing. Ben had asked him to open up the bed on the pretext that it was more comfortable for watching a movie, but Chris knew that with his mother gone, the boy wanted to sleep down here rather than upstairs in his room. Chris picked up the remote and switched off the TV, then got out of the bed carefully, so as not to wake Ben.
Thora had called from Greenwood about twenty minutes after his conversation with Alex. Her tone was light and breezy as she gushed about the quality of the spa, and she laughed as she read the names of treatments to Ben, who by then was on the other extension. The experience seemed surreal to Chris, who was thinking about the morning-after pill and his scuffle with Shane Lansing while Thora giggled out names like the Mississippi Mudpie, the High-Cotton Indulgence, the Sweat Tea Soul Soak, the Muddy Waters, and the Blues Bath. He thought she might get serious once Ben was off the line, but to his amazement, she told him that they should both return in a month or so for the Couple's Renewal Treatment. No mention of Shane Lansing—nothing but sweetness and light. Chris wasn't about to get into anything while Ben was awake, so he'd matched his tone to Thora's and ended the conversation.
An hour had passed since that call, so he walked to the front door, opened it, and poked his head outside. "Mr. Kilmer?" he called. "Are you out there?"
No response.
He called out again, but no one answered. Mildly annoyed, he walked back to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. He was taking his first bite when someone knocked at the garage door. He walked through the pantry and put his eye to the peephole. Through its bubble lens, he saw a gray-haired man wearing glasses.
"Who is it?" he called loudly.
"Will Kilmer," said a strong male voice. "Alex Morse sent me."
Chris opened the door. Kilmer was about five feet ten, and in surprisingly good shape for a man his age, except for a paunch above his sagging belt. He wore khakis, a generic polo shirt, and gray running shoes. When he smiled and offered his hand, Chris shook it, getting the iron grip he expected from an ex-cop.
"I'm sorry you had to drive all the way down here, Mr. Kilmer."
"Call me Will, Doctor." Kilmer released his hand. "It's no problem. I'm getting to where I can't sleep more than three or four hours a night these days."
"That's pretty common with the onset of age, I find. The opposite of teenagers who want to sleep twenty hours out of twenty-four."
"I was out here when you called from the front door, but that was the first time you'd showed yourself since I got here, and I wanted to see if anybody made a move."
"You don't really think somebody's out there, do you?"
"From what Alex told me, I'd say it's reasonable to expect trouble."
"If someone were out there, wouldn't they have seen you come up?"
"I walked in," Will said. "And I'm pretty quiet when I put my mind to it. Parked out by that restaurant built in the shape of a black mammy, and I've got a night scope in my pack."
There was an awkward silence. "Can I offer you something to drink?" Chris asked. "I was about to eat a sandwich."
"I don't want to put you out."
"You can guard us just as well from inside as out, can't you? Get your pack, and I'll make you a sandwich. You can tell me why Alex Morse isn't crazy."
Kilmer chuckled softly. "Hard to turn that offer down. I'll be right back."
Chris walked back to the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him. Before he finished making the second turkey-and-Swiss, Kilmer had joined him in the kitchen. The detective set a camouflage backpack on the floor and sat on one of the barstools at the counter. Chris slid a plate over, then opened a Corona and passed it to the detective. Kilmer's eyes lit up when he saw the beer.
"Thanks, Doc. It's pretty damn hot for May."
Chris nodded and went back to his own sandwich.
"You've got a nice place out here," Kilmer said. "But I hear you're moving."
"My wife's idea. Keeping up with the Joneses, I guess."
Kilmer took another swallow of beer, then started on his sandwich.
"So you used to work with Alex's father?" Chris prompted.
"That's right. First at the PD, then at our detective agency. Never knew a better man in a tight spot."
"He was killed recently?"
"Yessir. Trying to help some people in trouble, which is about what I'd of guessed."
"Crime's pretty bad in Jackson, I hear."
"Bad? You take the Jackson I grew up in as a boy and compare it to now, it's like the end of the world. It started in the eighties with the crack. Now the inmates are running the asylum. Now that Jim's gone, I doubt I'll stay at it more than another couple years. Close the agency, retire up to Virginia."
Chris nodded. "You've known Alex her whole life?"
Kilmer's eyes sparkled. "From the day she was born. Worst tomboy I ever saw in my life. Been handling guns since she was eight. And smart?" Kilmer shook his head. "By the time she was fourteen, she made me feel stupid. Not just me, either."
Chris laughed. "What about that murder theory of hers?"
Kilmer pressed his lips together and sighed. "I'm not sure what to think. The technical side is over my head. But I'll tell you this: I worked homicide for more years than anybody ought to, and I think a lot more people have been murdered in divorce situations than anybody knows or even suspects—especially before the forensics were what they are now. I had lots of cases where I just
knew
the husband had offed his wife and made it look like an accident. Same way I knew it was sex abuse when I'd find a mama and her daughters over a dead husband. But divorce is a lot more common than child abuse." Kilmer looked suddenly abashed. "Look, just because I think Alex may be onto something don't mean I think your wife is doing you wrong. I'm just here as a favor to Alex."
"I understand. I've only known Alex a few days, but I can see why you like her so much." Chris took a swallow of beer. "But I have wondered if she hasn't gone through so much in the past few months that she's not quite in control of her faculties."
Kilmer raised his eyebrows, as though considering this possibility. "She's been through a lot, all right. And you may not know the worst of it. I believe Alex loved that fella who got killed the day she was shot. But he was married, and she wasn't the type to break up a family. So that day was pretty rough. She lost half her face and the man she loved in about five seconds. She feels guilty that she loved him, and guilty that she got him killed. A lot of people
would
crack under strain like that. But excepting her daddy, Alex is the last person out of anybody I ever met who would lose her grip on reality." Kilmer met Chris's eyes. "If she believes you're in danger, watch out. She ain't down here to waste her time or yours."
Kilmer's furrowed face had been hardened by years of smoking cigarettes, and his belly had probably grown during years of eating bad food on stakeouts. How many years had he taken off his life by choosing the life he had? Would Alex look that rough when she was seventy? It seemed unlikely, but her facial wounds had already taken her partway down that road.
"Well," Chris said, getting up and taking his plate to the sink, "I'm going to hit the rack pretty soon. You're welcome to sleep in the house tonight. There's a guest room right off that hall over there."
"Where's your boy?" Kilmer asked.
"He fell asleep in the TV room." Chris pointed. "That glow right down there. I'll be just past it."
"If he wakes up and sees me, what should I tell him?"
"He won't. But if he should, just come get me."
As Chris reached up to the top of the refrigerator, a sudden thought struck him. He brought down the .38 and said, "Do you have any identification on you, Mr. Kilmer?"
Kilmer stared back for a long moment, then nodded, walked to his backpack, and reached inside. Chris felt himself tense, as though preparing for violence, but Kilmer only brought out a wallet. He showed Chris a Mississippi driver's license. The good-natured face on it matched the man in front of him.