MASS MURDER (37 page)

“Where are the kids?” he finally asked, p
ouring himself a glass of milk.

“Doing homework.”

She placed a last cup into the dishwasher, poured in the liquid soap and shut the door.
The
motor roared
into action while she wiped her hands on a towel.
Giorgio waited, wondering what word or gesture would finally
melt her cold demeanor
.
A honk startled him
,
and he got up to look out the kitchen window.
A Honda Accord sat at the curb with its headlights on and motor running.
Angie didn’t seem surprised and tu
rned to him, hands on her hips.

“You should probably check on the children.
I’ll be home by nine-thirty.”

“What?”
But she was already in the front entry.
He followed, sandwich in hand.
“Angie, I have to
go back to
work.”

“It’ll have to wait, unless you can get Rocky to come over and baby-sit.
I have a class that starts at seven.”
With that, she settled her coat around her shoulders, grabbed her
purse and started for the door.

“What do you mean, you have a class?”

“I signed up for it today.”
She stepped outside, heading for the waiting car.
He stood in the doorframe, staring dumbly after her.

“What class?” he repeated to her retreating back.
“Angie!” he yelled.
“I have to go back to work!”

“Then hire a nanny,” she s
narled as she got into the car.

The car pulled away from the curb leaving the head
of the household
trying to make sense of the last few minutes.
He returned
to the kitchen
and
dropped his sandwich onto the table before grabbing the phone to
call
Rocky in the hopes he really could come over and watch the kids.
When no one answered, Giorgio slammed down the receiver feeling betrayed by yet a second member of his own family.
When he reached for the sandwich again, it was gone.

His mouth dropped open in surprise
,
until he turned in Grosvner’s direction.
The dog couldn’t help swiping his long tongue from one side of his muzzle to the other.
That
,
and the few crumbs on the floor next to the web-sized feet
,
told the whole story.

“You ate the whole thing didn’t you?” Giorgio blurted.
“No, you didn’t eat it!
You inhaled it!
I mean, why
eat
a sandwich when you can inhale it whole?”
He paced in front of the table, venting his frustration.
“Why have a conversation with your husband when you can run off to a
class and avoid confrontation?”

Grosvner cowered, his snout nearly touching the floor.
Giorgio stopped, feeling ashamed.
He took a deep breath, patted Grosvner on the head and went to the living room where he plopped into his favorite chair.
Grosvner came and sat next to
him
, his droopy eyes imploring Giorgio for some attention.
Giorgio leaned over and rubbed him aro
und the neck.

“Why is Angie so mad at me?”

Grosvner gave the back of his hand a good lick, as if apologizing for eating the sandwich.

“She can’t be mad about you.
Jeez, look at that face,” he said, reaching out and cupping Grosvner’s chin in his hand.
“How c
ould anybody resist that face?”

Grosvner threw his head back and wiggled happily as if he knew how cute he could be.
A noise like the infantry landing at N
orman
dy Beach
announced the arrival of
Tony and Marie.

“Where did mom go?”

Tony reached the dog first and was already throwing his arms around him.
Grosvner reacted as if he’d just been released from jail.

“She had a class,” Giorgio replied tight lipped.

“I think she’s mad at you.” Marie had come to sit in her father’s lap.

He settled her against his chest, smelling something fruity as she leaned against him.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed.
“I heard her talking to Marianne’s mom.
She said you could just stay
home and baby-sit tonight.”

Tony had draped himself over Grosvner’s back
. T
he dog rolled over so that his feet stuck straight up in the air, his genitals flopping out in the open.
Marie
turned her face away
in a sneer
.

“What’d you do, dad?” Marie had the same look of reproach he often saw on Angie’s face.

Just then, Tony burst out laughing as he wrestled with the dog.

“Don’t you kids have homework?” he said, hoping to avoid any further reference to the disintegrating relationship with his wife.

“You know you could just call M
rs. Greenspan to come over, Dad.”

Giorgio looked at Marie for a moment as if she might be teasing him.

“Seriously,” she said.
“Mrs. Greenspan loves to snoop through mom’s cupboards.
I bet she could be here in ten minutes.”

“I do have work to do.”

Tony scratched Grosvner’s stomach causing his leg to kick as if he was trying to kick start a motorbike.
The dog whined in ecstasy.

“Dad, it’ll be fine.”
Marie seemed so grown up.
“Mrs. Greenspan has come over before.
She smells like garlic and onions all the time, but we’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed in between giggles.
“She makes excuses that she’s going to the kitchen for a glass of water.
Then we find her with her nose in the cupboards.
Once, she took a piece of chicken off a plate in the icebox, ate half of it
,
and put it back.
Mom was really mad.”

Giorgio frowned as if the prospect of having Mrs. Greenspan was becoming less and less a viable option.
All of a sudden, Tony rolled away from Grosvner with his hand over his nose.

“Oh, no, he farted again!”

“That’s it!” Giorgio stood up.
“I’m calling Mrs. Greenspan
.”

By eight o’clock
,
Giorgio was parked on Eagleton Drive
where
Dorman’s
car had been found
.
He hadn’t meant to return to the monastery, but decided on the after-dark excursion partly to get Grosvner out of the house
,
and
partly because
i
t would give him an opportunity to approach the property the same way he believed
Dorman
had the night
he was killed.

The moon sat high in the sky, illuminating a bank of clouds in a bright halo.
Grabbing a flashlight and his cell phone, Giorgio got out of the car, consci
ous that if anyone saw the
shadow of a man passing their windows they m
ight
call the police.
The neighborhood was quiet except for the sound of a TV blaring.

He set off down the path towards the dirt road he assumed
Dorman
had used.
The road was riveted with deep tire tracks and runoff trenches
, so
Giorgio
was forced
to use the flashlight to avoid twisting
an
ankle.
He breathed in
the smell of sage brush just as
Grosvner stopped to take a dump
, making him
hold his nose
.
Giorgio waited patiently while the dog did his business and then tried to mentally mark the spot so he wouldn’t step in it on the way back.

He followed the road
up and over an embankment
until it turned north.
This was a fire road that wound its way up into the hillsides.
He’d participated a year earlier with the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team on a drill and remembered the road started to climb pretty steeply about a hundred feet ahead.
It wasn’t going in the right direction.

He f
ound a small deer path and followed it over the crest of the hill in the direction of the upper gardens of the monastery.
Although he couldn’t see the lights from the building yet, he judged he had less than a quarter of a mile to cover.
Grosvner kept up, making Giorgio think he could see in the dark as well as a cat.
They made their way through scrub oaks and scratchy underbrush until they climbed a small hill.
In the distance, he could see the flickering lights from the retreat center.

Moving at a faster pace now, he made it to the perimeter of the flower garden.
Lights blazed at the entrance with yet another event.
Apparently not everyone had cancelled bookings.
Giorgio stayed to the north of the garden until he found the vegetable garden where
Dorman
had met his killer.
They had released the guard earlier in the day
,
and so Giorgio was alone.
He stopped to look at his watch.
It had taken him only eleven minutes to make the trip in the dark and that included Grosvner’s bathroom break.

The flashlight cut an arc around the surrounding area.
To his right was a regiment of ghostly corn stalks.
Together with the bushes and nearby trees, they camouflaged the building.
I
t would have been easy
for a conference guest
to leave the cocktail party,
kill
Dorman
and return unnoticed.
It would have been more difficult for one of the
catering
staff since they would have had to leave the catering routine.
Giorgio remembered
however,
that Colin Jewett routinely came out for a smoke after dinner.
Perhaps
Dorman
was trafficking drugs and Jewett was the buyer.
Corey Poindexter had also gone for a walk that night, as had John Marsh.
Even the monks had to be considered
now that he knew
a few occasionally left the building after dark.
Grand Central Station came to mind, with people crisscrossing the yard as they hurried to their various destinations.
It was a wonder they didn’t all bump into each oth
er in the dark.