Nightlife_ A Novel Part 34

"I just had a bad feeling in there." She watched him. "I wanted to go there in the first place because it was where I met you and it was a really happy memory for me. But after we were there, it wasn't the way I remembered it at all."

His face turned down toward her, and she detected that his expression was false. Was it condescension, trying to pretend to take her seriously when he thought she was stupid? Maybe what he was feigning was any interest at all in what she said. Some men would patiently listen to all of the drivel a woman could say, biding their time until the woman seemed to wear herself out, free herself of nervous energy, and be receptive to s.e.x. Was he hiding something worse?

Her heart stopped, then started again. How could she have forgotten? He had been in the men's room. He had gone in there right after they had arrived from the Mine. He had ordered their drinks, then gone into the men's room. He had come back quickly, before the drinks arrived. The waitress had accepted a tip, but begun to run a tab for the cost of the drinks. Judith tried to sort out the details, hoping to bring back a clear image of Greg's face when he had returned. Had he been concerned? Shocked? She tried to think clearly, but the two martinis were making her brain slow and unresponsive. Even the count was wrong, she thought. She had forgotten that at dinner she and Greg had both ordered wine. d.a.m.n.

She forced herself to concentrate. He had gone into the men's room. There was no absolute proof that he had seen the pictures near the mirror and read the things that Catherine Hobbes had written about her. It was possible that Greg had glanced at the reams of garish nonsense plastered over the walls and seen none of it. Men stood to pee, so he wasn't even facing the poster most of the time; he was looking at the other wall, or maybe down at what he was doing. But how could he not have seen the poster right next to the mirror? Maybe his pitted complexion made him behave differently. Maybe he was obsessed with staring at his own reflection and didn't see things like the poster, or maybe he hated the sight of his face so much that he avoided looking at mirrors.

She held him in the corner of her eye as she walked. "I should have known not to go back to a place like that. It was a nice memory, and I shouldn't have tampered with it."

"What was the problem?"

"It was just an impression. That creepy older guy at the bar kept staring at me. Then I went to the ladies' room, and there were these s.k.a.n.ky girls ahead of me, waiting. And then I thought maybe I was kidding myself. The last time I had been in there, I was the one who picked up a guy. Then I had s.e.x with him on the first date. I wanted to remember the place as romantic, but tonight the whole mess was-I don't know-depressing."

"Then I guess it was a good time not to be there." They reached his car, and he opened the door for her.

"Do you mind leaving?"

"Not at all," he said. "Where do you want to go next-home?"

She reacted quickly, instinctively, and said, "Your place. I want to go with you," and only then asked herself why. She realized it was because she had to stay with him, to watch him for signs. If he went off alone, she would lose control over him. She didn't know if he had seen the poster, but if he had, then leaving him alone to think about it would be a bad idea. She could imagine him spending some time trying to decide, then making the call: "I think the person you're looking for might be my girlfriend."

They got into the car and Greg pulled out onto the street. "My place? That's great. Of course, if I'd known you were coming, I would have cleaned up a little. You'll have to be tolerant."

"I'm reasonably tolerant. But if I find a girl in the bed eating potato chips and waiting for you to get home, we might have something to talk about."

"Nope. No potato chips."

"Then we're fine." She had been watching him, and she was almost certain that they really were fine. He wasn't a good enough actor to lie to her about anything this important, and she didn't think he had the audacity to try. He seemed perfectly normal now that she had told him why she had wanted to leave Underground. He had not seen the poster in the men's room; if he had, he had simply let his eyes pa.s.s over it without having anything register in his mind. If he had actually recognized her and read the text, what he would have done was lead her outside the bar, and say something stupid very slowly. He would say it staring straight into her eyes, holding her shoulders so she couldn't look away, talking with that maddening ponderous slowness that dumb men used when they were being serious. He would make some promise to stand by her.

What he wouldn't know, because people like him never seemed to know it until it was too late, was that his standing by her now was worth nothing. It was holding her hand while a tidal wave approached, its frothy top rising to a crest a hundred feet above them, bearing things like the hulls of ships and the splintered timbers of wharfs aloft for an awful final second.

One of her mother's boyfriends had been like that. His name was Michael. He had watched Charlene endure her mother's shrieking fits and whimsical punishments, and had tried to befriend her. He had said, "If you'd like to talk about it, I'm here for you." Charlene had been about ten, so she had taken him seriously. No grown man had ever offered her anything before, so she had a.s.sumed he meant he would hear what her problem was and then solve it. But he had only meant what he had said. He would listen to her for a while, then shake his head and say, "That's too bad." He had never intended to imply that he would, or could, make her mother stop.

Greg would be like the rest. The way she would learn he had found out about her troubles was if he told her he was here for her. It would mean he was here to shake his head in sympathy while she got crushed and ground up by Catherine Hobbes and the cops.

She gave herself more time to make up her mind about Greg. He was a gentle, affectionate person, and he had not seen the pictures yet. It occurred to her that she should appreciate his plight, because he was living in the perfect, fragile moment, just as she was. But he was going to know eventually. He lived in Portland, went to an office every day, talked to people, shopped, watched television, read the papers. The only reason he didn't know already was that Judith had been taking up so much of his time. He and his friends all worked sixty hours a week, and every second that wasn't occupied with work, Judith had claimed. She had made him come to her straight from work, and today she had not let him go to work at all.

Judith had kept him in an artificial vacuum with her, where no information had reached him. But as each hour went by, the barrier that had kept out the news became more brittle. He would have to go to work. He would have to open his newspaper, turn on his television. She couldn't save him forever. How long, then? If she tried hard, she might be able to preserve him until tomorrow morning. That was all.

She stared out the window of the car, watching the people on the street through the streaks of water. She wondered about them. If her picture had been in Underground, it had probably been in other nearby places. These people had seen her picture, and a lot of them had read all of the things that horrible Catherine Hobbes had written about her. Were they thinking about her right now, or had they just acknowledged that there was a poster-what was it this time, a missing woman or a woman who had taken off with her own child?-and gone on with their lives? She couldn't know. They were all potentially dangerous, all threatening to Judith. If they saw her face now, their knowledge might kill her.

She watched Greg, saw his eyes moving in their sockets, focusing on cars slowing ahead, cars rushing past him, the mirrors, the road. He was going to see the poster. He was going to recognize the pictures. He was going to be a problem. "You know, Greg, I think I haven't been as open with you as I should have been."

"Yeah?" He looked at her in horror. It probably sounded to him like the preamble to a breakup speech.

She was beginning to hate him. "I'm in love with you," she said.

He glanced at the road, then turned toward her and said, "I've been thinking that for a long time. I wanted to tell you."

"Why didn't you?"

"I was afraid it would seem too pushy, and turn you off."

Afraid, she thought. It was pathetic. He was so big and muscular. His flat, hard stomach and his thick hands and his success in business didn't seem to help him. He couldn't face the risk that if he dropped his protective timidity, he would find himself alone. "I'm not turned off. I think it's sweet."

"I should have said it first," he said. "I wanted to, but I thought I should wait a long time so you wouldn't think I was rushing you, or that it was too soon for me to love you."

"It's okay," said Judith. "Maybe I said more than I should have because we had such a beautiful day, or because the martinis loosened my tongue. But I'm glad I did."

"Me too."

Of course he would say "Me too." It was absolutely inevitable. Imagining him not saying it was like imagining him drumming only three fingers and keeping the fourth from tapping.

Judith let him drive to his apartment. She had been there only twice before, both times late at night like this, when they had been out all evening and his place was closer than hers.

He lived on the top floor of a commercial building on Northwest Vaughn in a s.p.a.ce like an artist's loft that had high ceilings with steel girders and big south-facing windows. Since he wasn't an artist, he was freed of the responsibility to be tasteful. He had a basketball backboard and hoop at one end of the room, and at the other a treadmill, weights, and exercise equipment. The pictures on the walls were mostly advertis.e.m.e.nts that relied on near-naked girls in odd places. Two that were astride motorcycles. One, wearing an open blouse with the sleeves rolled up and short cutoff jeans, held a chain saw. Several others draped themselves like cats on the hoods and roofs of shiny new cars. He had a work area set up on a twelve-foot table, divided between computer equipment and piles of papers, schematics, and mechanical drawings. Behind a part.i.tion was a king-sized bed with a bedspread made of the fake fur of a bearlike animal.

Tonight the loft was in the usual state of disarray. Magazines, books, socks, papers, sweatshirts all mingled in a circular pile around the overflowing laundry basket. In the part of the big room that was supposed to be the kitchen, the counter held two-day-old dirty dishes, a few beer cans, and a bowl half full of soggy popcorn.

She watched Greg go to the end of the apartment and disappear into the bathroom. She wandered in the empty s.p.a.ce and looked at it in new ways. She had removed all but a tiny residue of uncertainty about Greg, but there was still that last layer, so she stepped close to put her ear to the door of the bathroom to be sure he wasn't talking on a cell phone. There was no voice, so she returned to her study of the apartment.

Greg came out, tossed his wallet and keys on the long counter near where she'd left her purse, and began to make drinks.

"Don't make one for me," said Judith.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm tipsy enough already. Any worse and you won't be able to wake me up to take advantage of me." She watched his face as she talked, and she could see that he was happy, amused, but also calm and contented. He a.s.sumed that she cared for him sincerely-that maybe she really did love him.

He came to her, held her hand and gave her a very soft, gentle kiss on the cheek, then kissed down to her neck, where it tickled. She liked it, and she knew that she was going to miss him. When she thought about Greg, she felt flattered, but she also felt the same surprised, distant curiosity she felt about dogs. He really seemed to love her in the same way dogs did, wildly out of proportion to the near indifference she felt for him. He always seemed to be quivering all over the way they did, wanting to dance around with joy. It must be wonderful to feel that joy.

Greg walked her toward the screened enclosure of his bedroom, and kissed her again. She glanced at the bed. "My turn to use the bathroom. You see if you can make that mess look romantic, like someplace a girl would willingly go." He released her and watched her walk off.

She stood in the bathroom, looking at her face in the mirror. There was a ringing in her ears from the alcohol in her system, and her brain felt sluggish. The remnants of the smile she had forced for Greg were still there, making her facial muscles feel tired. She regretted the martinis again. Was she thinking clearly enough for this? There were so many details to consider, and she had to think of all of them right now. She had no choice. Tonight was the only night.

So far tonight she had touched nothing but the doork.n.o.b. Had she ever left any prints in this loft? Maybe she had, weeks ago, and Greg certainly would not have cleaned anything. Did Greg have any photographs of her? No. He had once said he would like to have one for his desk, but she had made an excuse and he had forgotten to ask again. Was there anyone who had seen them together? Thousands of people probably had, but they were all strangers, just the undifferentiated mix of people sitting in restaurants or theaters and walking down streets where she and Greg had been. She had resisted meeting any of his friends from work.

Poor Greg. He had not known what he was getting into. If he had been stronger, smarter, maybe she could have taken a chance on him. But now, it was already after midnight. In a few hours he was sure to go to work, to read a newspaper, to turn on a television set, to talk to people. Judith had to stop him. She had to keep Greg in his current state forever-it was like a snapshot. There would be a flash and he would freeze-ignorant, trusting, and happy.

She looked into the mirror and fixed the smile on her face. She opened the door, walked out into the loft, picked up her purse. As she came around the part.i.tion she saw that Greg was already in bed, under the sheet, with the bedspread folded down to the foot of the bed. She set the purse on the floor by the near side of the bed, lowered the lights, took off her clothes, and laid them out neatly on the chair. It gave Greg a long time to watch her doing it, and she knew he enjoyed that.

She went to his coat rack, took a scarf, crawled onto the bed, and slipped it under his head.

"What's that? What are you doing?"

"It's a blindfold. I'm blindfolding you. Don't struggle." She finished tying it and straddled his body.

"Is this an execution?"

She was taken aback for a half second. "It's something nice. Don't peek or you'll spoil it."

Judith reached into her purse and took out the gun. She drew the end of the soft, fake-fur bedspread toward her and wrapped it around the gun, held it there with her left hand, and pressed it gently to his head. When he felt the soft, smooth fur touch him, he smiled.

52.

Catherine Hobbes examined the blood-spattered screen beside Gregory McDonald's bed. The coroner's crew had taken his body out earlier, but this s.p.a.ce was going to be the property of the visiting blood-spatter expert for a day or two, so Catherine had to stay back and look in from the opening at the side. She didn't need to be any closer. Catherine Hobbes, or any other experienced homicide detective, could stand at the end of the screen and see what had happened.

Gregory McDonald had apparently been blindfolded with a scarf. The killer had wrapped the gun in the bedspread, held it to the left side of Gregory McDonald's head, and pulled the trigger. The blood had sprayed mostly from the exit wound on the right side of the head, and the blowback spatter had been taken mostly by the bedspread, but the killer had almost certainly been bloodied too. The upper end of the bed and the pillow under the victim's head had been soaked. Just from a glance at the bathroom, it looked to Catherine as though the killer had needed to clean up before leaving.

Catherine stepped away and surveyed the loft. What she could see made the murder seem even worse, more wasteful. Gregory McDonald had been a well-paid software designer with an engineering degree, but the loft was decorated in fraternity-boy baroque, complete with a basketball net and a few empty beer cans. He had not had time to reach anything she would have recognized as adulthood.

As Catherine thought about the simple, unembellished facts-a single man found naked in bed shot once through the head, but no gun at the scene, and a killer who had cleaned up afterward-she began to have a sinking feeling.

Her cell phone rang, and she took it out of her purse. "Catherine Hobbes."

"Hey, Cath." It was the captain. "I'm moving my knights around on the board. Where are you?"

"Gregory McDonald's loft. Where do you want me?"

"You may as well stay there. This one is going to be yours too. One of the prints the forensic people lifted off the tile in the shower belongs to your girl."

"I was afraid of that." Instantly she wished she hadn't said that. The captain didn't need to be reminded that she had predicted this. He had given her as many people as he could spare to canva.s.s the area where Tanya had used the credit card. She had to think ahead, not back. "Captain, I wonder if we could delay releasing the news about the fingerprint for a day or two."

"Why? Do you think if she hears it, she'll take off again?"

"I'm not sure, but it's a distinct possibility. I'm sure that she watches the television news."

"All right. Let's keep the print out of the press for the moment."

"Thanks."

She heard him disconnect, so she folded her phone and put it away. She raised her voice so all of the officers in the loft could hear her. "Attention, everybody. One of the prints on the shower tile has turned out to be a match for Tanya Starling. That is not to be released to the press for the moment. We've got a female perpetrator who sometimes dyes her hair. The minute you find hairs that don't match the victim, please find me or call me. I need to know what color Tanya's hair is this week."

She walked to the door of the bathroom and looked inside. The tiled walls, the sink, and the mirror were almost completely blackened with print dust. The crime scene people loved mirrors and tiles. Anything that got cleaned frequently and was smooth and gla.s.sy was made for preserving clear prints.

Catherine stood still and imagined the scene, putting herself in Tanya's place. Tanya had been in the bedroom area with Gregory McDonald. He had been naked, and so she had been too, probably. She had blindfolded him in some playful way. But she had done it because she had needed to have him lying still and not fighting her for the gun or ducking behind things. She had wrapped the bedspread around the gun to m.u.f.fle the sound and then pulled the trigger.

The sound had not been as quiet as she had hoped. The gun must have sounded like a cannon in this loft. Catherine could almost hear the blast in her imagination.

Catherine imagined she felt the gun kick upward, heard the ringing in her ears. The bedspread had not m.u.f.fled the sound. Tanya was afraid, and Gregory looked terrible now. She placed the pillow over what had been his face. She became conscious of her nakedness and felt vulnerable; the blood spattered on her was warm, almost hot, and the feel of it made her sick. She didn't know what to do. She wanted to put on her clothes and run, but she had Gregory McDonald's blood on her-on her face, in her hair, on her chest, her belly. She had been beside him, or maybe above him, straddling him, and now she rolled off the bed and crouched, the gun aimed at the door of the loft.

She stayed there for a long time, listening. Maybe it was ten minutes, maybe only five minutes, but it seemed to her to be much longer. She was waiting for a sound that would indicate that someone had heard. Cautiously she moved in the dark to the window and looked down at the street. Probably she knew that if a neighbor were coming to investigate, he would already have banged on the door. If the Portland Police Bureau had been called, their response time would not be this long. She rea.s.sured herself, because she knew the secret of shots fired in a city. When people heard one shot they told themselves it was a car backfiring or a firecracker. It was only when they heard multiple shots that they couldn't tell themselves that it was something harmless.

She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She was freckled with Gregory's blood, and she had to get it off. She turned on the shower, adjusted it to a bearable temperature, and stepped into it. She scrubbed herself, washing her hair and her skin, then stayed in the shower for a long time, being sure that the bright red blood was off her and the pink diluted remnant had long since washed off the tub. Maybe she was even aware that firing a pistol had left a residue of burned powder and heavy metals on her skin, so she scrubbed harder. She came out and dried herself with the cleanest towel she could find, then wiped the floor with it and the faucets and anything else she could remember touching. The one place that she missed was where she had touched one of the shower tiles and forgotten it: had she lost her balance for a second while she was getting out, or leaned against it to dry her foot? She took the towel back to his bedroom enclosure, stuffed it in the laundry basket beneath his clothes, or maybe tossed it in and then picked up some clothes from the floor and threw them in to cover the towel she had used.

Then she got dressed. If the gun was a revolver, she put it in her purse. If it was semiautomatic, she found the sh.e.l.l casing and put it in her purse with the gun. She went to the front windows again and looked outside to be sure the police were not visible in the streets below the building. Since they weren't, she explored the loft, probably with a flashlight. She was looking for money, or jewelry, or anything else that might be valuable. She took some time looking around, probably using something like one of Gregory's socks over her hand to open drawers. She bothered to do it not because she was desperate for money but because there was no reason not to, and the sound of a gun should not be followed by the sounds of someone leaving the building until a long time had pa.s.sed.

Catherine knew that Tanya had learned that by now-that one reason people got caught was that they did not take time to think and prepare and act normally. They ran and they sweated and they looked suspicious. When she felt ready, she glanced outside once more, took Gregory McDonald's car keys, went down the stairs, and drove his car away. It had not turned up yet, but Catherine was sure it would later in the day, parked at a shopping mall or an airport or a public parking lot.

Catherine walked away from the bathroom and up to two of the forensic people who were dusting the long counter by the window. "If n.o.body's done it yet, I'd like somebody to take out the trap in the shower drain to check for her hairs. I'm almost certain the reason she touched a tile was that she took a shower after she killed him. Another good place to look is in his laundry basket. There should be a damp towel about halfway down."

Catherine walked down the stairs, not touching the railings, and stepped outside the building to look up at the windows of Gregory McDonald's loft. n.o.body could have seen anything from down here, and the buildings across the street were lower. They seemed to still be used for some industrial purpose, not yet part of the gentrification that was gripping the neighborhood, but she would find out who occupied them and ask.

She hesitated for a moment, then took out her cell phone and dialed a Los Angeles number.

A woman who sounded younger than she was answered, "Pitt Investigations. May we help you?"

Catherine said, "This is Catherine Hobbes. Is Joe in?"

"No, I'm sorry. He's out right now, but I'll transfer your call to his cell phone."

"You don't have to do that," said Catherine.

"Yes, I do," said the young woman. Catherine thought she heard amus.e.m.e.nt in her voice. "He told us all that if he misses a call from you, then whoever dropped it is in trouble. Please hold for a moment."

After a few seconds she heard Joe's voice. "Catherine?"

"Yes," she said. "It's only me. Do you really threaten your employees?"

"Sure. Don't you?"

"I don't have any. I just called to give you more bad news. Tanya has done it again. I don't know why I'm bothering you with it, but I felt as though you had earned a right to a share of the misery."

"Who was it?"

"A young guy named Gregory McDonald. He was some kind of software engineer. He was shot in the head while he was in bed with her in his loft."

"So it's like some of the others-Dennis Poole and the guy in the hotel down here."

"That's what I've been thinking. I'm not sure yet if it was a one-night thing or a bad end to a relationship. I just got word a few minutes ago that one of the prints in the loft belonged to Tanya, so I'm just getting started. n.o.body has checked yet to find out whether they were seen together, and so on."

"Would you mind if I flew up there tonight or tomorrow to take a look around?"

"Yes," she said. "I definitely would mind. This is my case, and my job, and you're the biggest distraction in the world. I've got to follow up the leads now, and then maybe later I'll talk to you about what it all means."

"It means she's still there," said Joe. "Be thorough, and be careful. I love you."

She said, "Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Say 'I love you' when I'm just about to hang up. I could listen to you until my ears dropped off, but you never say it except at a crummy time like this."