Monster (7 page)

Nguyen finally nodded. “That's f
ine
,
Angela.
”
He led
her to the door of his office. “
We have your number, don't
we? Let’s stay
in touch. If anything new happens, be sure to give
me
a call
.”

“I p
romise,
” Angela said. “
Is
Jim
Kline here?
”

“He left a few minutes
ago
,”
Nguyen said.

“
Ho
w is he?”

Nguyen smiled.
“Y
ou asked that when you came in
.”

Angela nodded. “You're right.” She flashed a smile. “I just thought
I'd ask again. Goodbye
,
Lieutenant. Thanks
again for saving my life.”

“
Thank you for coming in
,”
Nguyen said.

After
Angela Warner left, a uniformed police officer
brought
in a cassette tape and a tape player and placed
them
on Nguyen's desk.
The officer left, and Nguyen re
wound the cape to listen to the conversation between Angela and Mary. He had, of course, listened in while
Angela
and Mary had been in the room. If he felt any
guilt
about eavesdropping on the two girls, he was un
aware of it. A horrible cri
me had been committed, and
he
was determined to ge
t
to the bottom of it. That was his r
espo
nsibility. Angela was right
about L
ieutenant Nguyen
– he was
very good a
t
h
is job.

What struck Nguyen as
he went over the conversation again
was not so much what Mary had said but the strength
in her
voice. She was not a flaky teenager. He remembered
how sh
e had stood up to him in the woods. She had more
guts th
an most of his soldier
s in
the war.

But
what about her story?
It
was preposterous, of course,
but it
disturbed Nguyen in ways he couldn't explain. Long
ago
he had learned to trust his intuition, even above
reason. But
what was he to do here? The
b
oy Mary had
tried
to kill
–
Jim
Kline –
perhaps he was a murderer
. Ng
uyen
had personally interviewed
Jim
and had not liked him.
The boy was hiding something. The w
ay his eyes h
ad
darted
to the left and right when he was being questioned
reminded Nguyen of a caged animal. He was guilty of a
cri
me
,
of that Nguyen was sure. But Nguyen couldn
't
spare manpower to have
Jim
followed, not day and night.
He doubled he had the legal right to have the boy
trailed
anyway.

It had impressed Nguyen tha
t
Angela had
not divulged
Mary's story. Those two were friends; that had not ch
anged
with the events of last night. Perhaps that friendship
could
be exploited.

When the tape was finished Nguyen pushed the bu
tton
on the intercom on his
desk. He got one of his men, Officer
Martin
. The man had helped him
capture Mary the
night
before.

“
Any word on Mary Blanc's bail?
” Nguyen asked.

“
She won't get a hearing with a judge until Mon
day,”
Martin said.

“
Can you postpone the hearing?
”

“
Blanc'
s lawyer will complain.”

“
They always do. Have the judge be ill when it co
mes
time for the hearing. Ask him as a personal favour to
me. I
don'
t
want
that
girl getting
ou
t.
She's dangerous.”

“I understand. Anything else?”

“
I want a list of all the boarded-up warehouses in
Bal
ton,” Nguyen said. “Can you get it for me?”

“
Sure
,” Martin said. “
What do you want it for?
”

“I
want
to
sweep a concrete floor,”
Nguyen said
. “To see
what
I
find.”

CHAPTER
THREE

Th
e
funerals for Todd Green and Kathy Baker were held
the
Tuesday morning after the Friday nigh
t
shoot-out. The
principal
at Point High cancelled classes for the day, and approximately one quarter of the student body attended. Todd
a
nd Kathy had been popular, and as the minister
eulogized
them, crying could be heard. But the families of the slain, bunched together in black in the front pews of
the
chapel, remained silent.
Grief was etched on thei
r faces along with hatred. Angela
Warner sat at the back of
th
e
chapel and wondered if the families knew she was a
fri
end
of Mary's.

Angela didn't go to the grave sites after the ceremony.
She
'd had enough of gri
ef; she didn
't
know why she'd c
ome at all. Yet, deep inside, she did know the reason. It
was
guilt. She continued to
f
eel she should have spotted Mary
's
disturbed state of mind before the shots had been fired. Of course, Mary had not acted disturbed, not even
aft
er
she'd finished her murderous mission.

Ange
la
hadn't talked to Mary since Saturday morning.

Now she was getting
into her car after the ceremony.
Jim
Kline approached, and she felt no fear of him. She had run over Mary's story two or three times and had come
to the
same conclusion. Something deep inside Mary'
s mind had snapped. Case closed.

“Angie,”
Jim
said.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Jim
was what was known as a tota
lly r
ad dude. God had
desig
ned
his body and fitted him snugly into it.
Jim
was
tall, six
two
, and built like a hardy redwood. Hi
s
hair was brown, always neat, and his
face
was chiselled. He had
the broad shoulders and strong arms of an exp
e
ri
enced
quarterback
.
Yet his brown eyes were somehow clu
msy or
shy, as
was his smile. He moved awkwardly
for an a
thlete.
He didn't look particularly intelligent, and that was because if he
’
d had brains along with
that
body
there
would have been no resisting him.

Angela had always been attracted
t
o
Jim
and was
happy
when he'd invited her to his party. She tried not to
think
about it now.

“
Sure, we can talk
,”
Angela said, s
t
anding beside
her
open car door. More than half the people weren't goi
ng to
the grave sites. Her car was trapped in the chapel p
arking
lot by at least three other cars. She wasn't going anyw
here
for a minute anywa
y. “
How
’
s the leg?
”
she asked.

“Better,”
Jim
said, glancing down.
“
She just winged
me.”
He looked
up again, his eyes shifting to t
he chapel,
then
back
t
o her
.
He seemed embarrassed
. “
I just wan
ted to
thank you
f
or what you did Friday nigh
t.
You saved my
life.”

Angela chuckled softly. “L
ieutenant Nguyen saved
your
life.
He's the one you should thank.”

“
I wouldn't have been alive for Nguyen to do an
ything
if you hadn't slowed Mary down at the house and i
n the
woods,
”
Jim
said. “
If there's anything I can do for you,
ever, don't hesitate to ask.
I mean that
– seriously.”

Angela blushed
. “
Maybe some lonely night I'll take
you up on that. No, just kidding. Thanks.
I mean, it
’s OK.” Her
tone b
ecame serious, and she sighed. “I just
wish I'd
been
able to do more
–
that we weren't having these fun
erals today.”

“
Ain't
that
the truth,
”
Jim
said. Twin black hearses
waited
in front of the chapel. Soon the coffins would be
l
oaded
into them.
Thankfully they'd remained closed during
the
ceremony. Word was that the mortician hadn't been
able
to do a thing with Kathy's head.

“How are the families?”
Angela asked.

“
Real bad
.” J
im
gestured helplessly.
“
This is all so
sudden.
They want
t
o st
ri
ke back, bu
t they can't.”

“
Mary will be convicted. There's no chance she'll get
off.”

“I
suppose,
”
Jim
said miserably. He s
t
uf
f
ed his hands in
the
pocket
s
of his underside grey
suit and focused on his feet.

Angela touched his arm. She could feel him shaking beneath her fingers.
“
What happened?
”
she asked
. “Do you know?”

Jim
looked at her
. “
Didn't
you talk to her on Saturday?
”

“Yeah.
But
I
couldn't get anything out of her.
”

“
Didn't she say anything?
”

“Just a bunch of gibberish.”

“Like what?”

Angela
shrugged.
“
I
can't even remember most of it.”

Jim
shook his head.
“
What happened is I told her I wanted to break up with her and go out with other girls. She got real upset
–
actually it caught me by surprise. You know how strong Mary always is. So when she told me
I
couldn't leave her, that
I
belonged to her,
I
didn't know what to do. I avoided her at first, but she kept coming to ou
r
practices and wouldn't leave me alone. She
cal
led Todd and told him to tell her if I went out with any other girls
.
She cornered Kathy
at school and told her if she so
much
as
looked at me she'd kill her
.”

Angela frowned.
“I can't believe Mary'd act that way.”

“
You can't believe it? She was my girl
–
I
thought I
knew
her better than anybody.
”

“W
h
y
did you want to break up with her?
”
she asked
.

Jim
glanced once more at the hearses, the steps of the chapel. The front l
ine of pallbearers had appeared.
Jim
was
prob
ably supposed to be with them. “
This is a lousy plac
e to be having this discussion,”
he said.

“We can talk about it later,” she said quickly.

“
Would that be all right? I'd like to talk about a lot of
th
ings.
How abou
t Friday night, after the game?”