Regina's Song (25 page)

“Maybe his kid brother borrowed the truck.”

“It’s possible, I suppose.”

“Does this Fergusson guy have a police record? If he does, maybe Twink should warn her friend about it.”

“He seems clean—hell, if he was dealing dope on the side, he could afford something fancier than an ’82 Jimmy pickup. I’m sorry I jumped on you about this, kid. I’ve got the grumpies. The other dispatcher’s down with the flu, so my work schedule’s all screwed up. It looks like I won’t be getting any days off for a while.”

“Has Twink made it back from Lake Stevens yet?”

“No. She and Sylvia usually have dinner with Les and Inga on these Fridays. She’ll probably make it back before I have to go to work. I’d better whip up some supper—I’m starving.”

“Enjoy,” I told her.

“Sure, kid.”

I set the phone back in the cradle and sat staring at the floor for a while. The story Twink had foisted off on Mary
could
have been legitimate. Twinkie
did
buddy up to quite a few sorority girls, and one of them
might
have asked her to track down that license plate number . . . But a guy who drives a fifteen-year-old pickup truck would have to look like Mr. America to get a sorority girl’s attention. It just didn’t ring true.

By eight-thirty that evening, the fog was thick enough to walk on. I probably could have scratched the stakeout that night, but I didn’t want to take any chances. My main goal now was to prove to myself that Twinkie didn’t have anything to do with all the killings, and that meant that I’d have to camp out near Mary’s house pretty regularly. I was sure missing a lot of sleep, but I didn’t have any real choice.

Fortunately, Twink seemed to be a creature of habit. If she
was
going out, she’d be out that back door at eleven on the dot. If she didn’t leave by eleven-fifteen, I could go home and crash. God knows I needed the sleep.

Mary left at the usual time. I could barely make her out in that fog, though I wasn’t parked far from her front door.

I took a chance at that point. I was fairly sure that if Twink
did
decide to go hunting, she’d stash her bike behind that Dumpster in the alley off Sunnyside Avenue, the way she had on Wednesday night. I knew where the alley was, and I could drive there faster than she could bike it, so I got out of the car and went around to the alley behind Mary’s place. I couldn’t see diddly from the street because of the fog, so I had to get closer.

Eleven o’clock came and went, and Twink’s bike was still on Mary’s back porch, so I decided to hang it up for the night.

A thought came to me on my way back to where my car was parked. If I could pick up a pair of bolt cutters, I could slip back about three in the morning, cut that chain, and steal Twinkie’s bike. That’d keep her off the streets for a while at least.

I decided against it. If I started tinkering at this point, I’d probably blow my chances of proving that Twinkie couldn’t possibly be Joan the Ripper.

The fog hadn’t let up much on Saturday morning, and I woke up tired, dejected, and unpopular. But I was determined to make some progress, and on a hunch I looked up the name Walter Fergusson in the phone book to get an address. As it turned out, there were three of them, but one was way off at the south end of town, and another was in a fairly posh retirement home. That left the one who lived on East Green Lake Way, and it put him in the general vicinity.

The more I thought about it, the less convincing I found Twink’s story about some sorority girl’s burning interest in a guy in his late thirties who drove a beat-up fifteen-year-old pickup truck. I had some time, and this Fergusson guy lived not far from the boardinghouse, so I decided to drive on over and have a look.

As it turned out, Fergusson lived in an apartment house on the west side of Green Lake—and there was a beat-up grey ’82 Jimmy pickup parked out front. I pulled off onto a side street and parked. I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to take this—I could make up some story and actually end up knocking on Fergusson’s door. Twinkie was interested in this guy, and that got my attention. I got out of my car and walked to the corner.

The fog had lifted a bit, and I looked out toward the lake. A park lined the lakeshore on the other side of the street, and the word “park” set off some bells for me. If Twink
was
the serial killer, she’d been taking out targets of opportunity up ’til now. If she was suddenly homing in on a specific guy, she must have a pretty good reason for it.

I walked on to the apartment house and went up to the front door to check the mailboxes. Fergusson’s name was on the box marked 2-A; that didn’t help all that much. The box marked MANAGER was 1-A, and the name was Sharon Walcott. That gave me an idea. I went back to my Dodge and drove around looking for a pay phone. I found one at a convenience store, leafed through the phonebook, and found a number for a Sharon Walcott at that Green Lake Drive address. I poked a couple of coins into the slot and punched in the number.

“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.

“I’m looking for a Walter Fergusson,” I told her. “There are three of them in the phone book, and I’m not sure which one is the fellow I’m supposed to contact.”

“Why didn’t you just dial
his
number?”

“I’ve been trying, but his line’s busy. It’s sort of important. The one I’m trying to find is a distant cousin of mine. There’s a family estate involved, and I need to get in touch with him. He’d be about thirty-five or forty, and the last we heard, he was a construction worker. If the Walter Fergusson who lives in your building is a lawyer or investment broker, I’m obviously barking up the wrong tree.”

“Walt might be the one you’re looking for,” she told me. “He
is
in his midthirties, and he works with drywall panels. Is there an inheritance involved in this?”

“I wouldn’t call it an inheritance,” I told her. “Our great-aunt passed away, and there are a few legal technicalities involved in freeing up her house so that her daughter can sell it. I need to get hold of Walt so I can get his signature on some papers. Is he likely to be around for the rest of the day? I’m sorry I had to pester you, but I can’t get through on
his
phone.”

“He almost never gets up before noon on weekends,” she replied, “and he probably mutes his telephone when he doesn’t want to be pestered. He might even have left it off the hook.”

“That would explain it.”

“I could push a note under his door if you’d like. If you give me a phone number where he can reach you, he’ll probably call you when he wakes up.”

“I don’t
have
a local phone number, ma’am; I’m just passing through town on business. I haven’t seen Walt since we were kids, so I doubt if I’d even recognize him. Could you describe him for me?”

“Midthirties, like you said. Sort of balding on top, a little overweight, and he wears work clothes all the time. He keeps pretty much to himself, but he does go out at night fairly often. If you’ll give me your name, I’ll tell him that you’re trying to get in touch with him.”

“Marlowe.” I picked another fictional private eye name. “Phillip Marlowe. Walt probably doesn’t even remember me. How many apartments are there in your building? I might have to come by and start knocking on doors.”

“There are only four apartments. Walt lives in the second floor front.”

“I appreciate your taking the time to fill me in,” I said. “I’ll get off the line now and quit pestering you.” I put the phone back on the hook.

A lot of things didn’t exactly fit, but if Twink was homing in on Fergusson, now I’d know where to go if she gave me the slip the next time she left Mary’s place to go hunting.

The fog came back full force that evening, and Twink stayed home again. I watched until eleven-thirty, then went back home.

Mary had to work on Sunday night, so I watched the house again, but I drew another blank. The fog seemed to be settling in permanently, and until it lifted, Twinkie wasn’t likely to suit up for another hunting trip.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A wind came up early on the morning of Monday, the ninth of February, and it cleared away the fog in fairly short order. I was happy to see it gone when I got up, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to worry. That dense, freezing fog had kept Twinkie more or less housebound. Now that it’d cleared off, she’d be able to go hunting again.

I didn’t say much at breakfast that morning. I had a lot on my mind, and I was half-afraid that if I started talking, things might start popping out that I really should keep to myself. When you get right down to it, all I had to go on were several unconfirmed suspicions. I wasn’t about to go galloping down the Burpee path. It’d be best if I kept my mouth shut until I had something concrete to work with. All right, Twinkie went out on the town at night every so often. Big deal. Lots of people go out after dark. It’s not as if there was a curfew in Seattle. What’s more, she’d gone out for bike rides after Mary’d left for work, and nobody had turned up dead the following morning. That didn’t exactly prove a negative, but we were still well within “innocent until proven guilty” territory.

I hit my seminars that morning, but I wasn’t paying very close attention. Then I holed up in the library for the afternoon, mostly to avoid my housemates. I was wound pretty tight, and I didn’t feel like answering questions. This was most definitely
not
spill-your-guts time.

I got home just in time for supper. I wolfed it down without even noticing what I was eating, curtly excused myself, and got the hell out of there. I could apologize later; right now I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

I went back to the library, but that was really a waste of time. I couldn’t even begin to concentrate. I gave up and went back out to where I’d parked my car.

The wind that’d cleared away the fog had died down, and the fog was starting to seep back. It wasn’t as thick as over the weekend, but it still made anything more than a block away look pretty damn fuzzy.

I drove to Wallingford and parked about a block away from Mary’s front door. If this went on
too
much longer, I probably
would
have to get my hands on an alternative vehicle.

After Mary left for work, I drove around to the alley behind her house. It was a bit chancy, but I had a hunch that Twink wouldn’t notice me if she went out hunting.

Her bedroom light came on at quarter to eleven, and then it went out. Then the kitchen light came on briefly, and Twink came out onto the back porch.

I sat tight until she reached the end of the alley, then I drove directly to Sunnyside. I parked near that alley and waited. I’ll admit that I was wound up pretty tight. After what seemed like a long, long time, Twinkie came out of the alley on foot. She was wearing that black plastic raincoat again, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she kept stashing her bike behind that Dumpster.

She walked down to the corner and got into a tan Honda that was parked there. Boy, did
that
explain a lot of things! Of
course
she stashed her bike every time she went out. She had an alternate means of transportation. That gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d been clinging to the notion that some of the Ripper murders had been
way
out of bicycle range. Twink had a car, though—a car that none of us knew about—and that put everything within a fifty-mile radius close enough for her to reach while Mary was at work.

The car didn’t move for quite a while, but the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe told me that the motor was running. I couldn’t quite figure that out, but then it dawned on me that she
had
to run the motor for a while to get warm air coming out of the defroster. It was foggy enough and cold enough to ice up her windshield.

After about five minutes, she turned on her lights and drove off. I let her get a block or so ahead of me, and then I turned on
my
lights and followed her. I was almost positive that I knew where she was going, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

She drove north on Sunnyside, took a left at Fiftieth, and went on to the south end of Woodland Park. Then she turned right on Green Lake Way and drove straight to the neighborhood where Fergusson lived. If I was reading this correctly, Twink wasn’t out looking for targets of opportunity—not this time. She was after one specific guy, and his name was Fergusson. I didn’t know exactly why yet, but an awful lot of things were coming together. I could worry about that later, though. For right now, all I could do was stay close enough behind her that she couldn’t slip off into the fog.

She drove past Fergusson’s apartment house and parked about two blocks away. I took a quick left onto a side street, parked, and ran back to that main road. I could see that tan Honda, and it looked to me as if the motor was still running. I stepped back out of the light and watched.

The dome light in Twink’s car came on when she opened the door and got out. She wasn’t wearing that raincoat, but it looked as if she had it slung over her arm.

I’d brought my binoculars with me, and I scoped her out. I almost choked when I got her in focus. She was wearing a very short skirt and a blouse that didn’t leave much to the imagination. The term “bait” pretty much covers what she had on. She was definitely displaying the merchandise.

She crossed the street and sauntered along the sidewalk in front of Fergusson’s apartment house. She didn’t even
look
like the Twinkie I knew. After she’d graduated from Fallon’s bughouse, she’d seemed in many ways to be gender neutral. She’d always worn nice clothes and makeup, but there’d never been any element of sexual provocation in her behavior. I guess I’d assumed that Regina’s rape and murder had suppressed those instincts. Evidently the fugue state unleashed them, and now they were coming through loud and clear. If she’d been walking through the various parks and construction sites in the Seattle area in the way she was parading past Fergusson’s place, she wouldn’t have had much trouble getting lots of attention from exactly the kind of guys she was trying to attract. “Asking for it” comes pretty close.

I raised my binoculars up to look at Fergusson’s front window. The light in the front room of his apartment wasn’t on, but I could see the outline of somebody standing there. I’d say that Twinkie was definitely getting Fergusson’s attention.

She strolled on down to the end of the block. She was getting pretty close to me, so I stepped back behind a tree to avoid a “fancy meeting you here” exchange. I waited a couple of minutes, then poked my head back out. Twink had turned around and was going back up the block, walking slow and sensual.

The figure in Fergusson’s window was gone.

Twinkie sauntered across the street again and stood on the sidewalk. Even with my binoculars I couldn’t see her very clearly. The fog was rolling in off the surface of Green Lake.

Then I caught a flicker of movement on my side of the street. I swung the binoculars around and saw a dark, almost shadowy figure moving along the side of the apartment house. I was fairly certain that it was Fergusson, and he wasn’t moving very fast. He obviously didn’t want to attract attention.

Twink turned and strolled into the foggy park. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

Then that goddam fog swirled in and blotted out everything. I couldn’t see more than ten feet away. Well, if I couldn’t see
them
, they couldn’t see me, so I crossed the street. I was the third player in this little game, and my advantage lay in the fact that the other two didn’t even know I was there.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if I suddenly encountered one—or both—of them in that fog.

City fog isn’t much like the fog you’ll run into out in the country. It glows because of all the streetlights and automobile headlights, where country fog is pale but dark at the same time. Trees and bushes—and other things—seem to leap out at you in city fog.

It occurred to me that I was taking some dangerous chances. Fergusson was out there in the fog, and he had some evil intentions. Twinkie was
also
out there, and maybe her intentions were even worse. If Twink happened to mistake me for Fergusson, I could wind up being Joan the Ripper’s next victim. The concept of actually being afraid of one of the Twinkie Twins had never even entered my mind. But if Twink was carrying a syringe loaded with curare and she jumped me, I wouldn’t have time enough to identify myself. Even if I could, there was a distinct possibility that if Twink
was
going through an episode of fugue, she wouldn’t even recognize my name.

I started being very cautious along about then.

Suddenly a bright light came lancing in amongst the trees. Somebody in the street was obviously probing around with a spotlight. It wasn’t hard to figure out
who
was so curious: the Seattle Police Department had been very interested in parks for quite some time now.

The playing field was getting a little crowded. My only advantage was that
I
knew who all the other players were.

The spotlight moved on, slowly sweeping back and forth through the fog, and I stepped out from behind the bushes where I’d taken cover.

Then, from down near the lakeshore, I heard a peculiar sound that made my blood run cold—the undulating sound of a woman’s voice singing wordlessly in a minor key. There was no specific melody involved, but I recognized it immediately. God knows that I’d heard it often enough. The sound coming out of the fog was an almost perfect duplication of the woman’s voice on that unlabeled audiotape that Twinkie could listen to by the hour. And from off in the distance, another sound joined with the woman’s voice in an eerie counterpoint. My skin crawled as I realized that the wolves in the Woodland Park Zoo were howling a response to the soulless song of the woman in the fog near the lakeshore.

Then the spotlight returned, probing through the fog as that police car came back down Green Lake Way. The cops had obviously heard the same sounds that I had, but I was sure that they didn’t have any idea of what they really meant.

My head sort of shut down at that point. Cops usually work in pairs, and it wouldn’t be too long before two cops—with guns—would be searching the foggy darkness by the shore for the source of that strange sound Renata was making. If they found her while she was cutting Fergusson to pieces, they’d probably shoot first and ask questions later. I absolutely
had
to get to Renata before they did. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d do when I caught up with her, but I could worry about that later. Right now, I
had
to get her out of the line of fire.

I didn’t exactly run as I moved through the fog, but I was going pretty fast.

Then the spotlight made another sweep, and I dove for cover. If those cops happened to get trigger-happy, I could end up being their first target.

Renata was still singing somewhere out there in the fog, and the Woodland Park wolves were still singing along, so I was fairly sure she hadn’t finished with Fergusson yet.

The spotlight from Green Lake Way swept past me, and I could tell by looking at that light that the police car had stopped and wasn’t moving. It’d only be a few minutes before the cops realized that they were going to have to get out of the car and come down through the park on foot.

I came up running. My original plan had been to cut Renata off before she could nail Fergusson with her curare, but that’d gone out the window once she’d disappeared in the fog. The way things stood now, about all I could hope for was to get her away before those cops caught her in the act.

The singing rose in a crescendo, and then it faded—almost regretfully, it seemed. The wolves kept singing, though.

Then I heard a faint splash out in the lake. Renata was going for a swim after she’d finished butchering her latest victim. At least she wouldn’t be standing over Fergusson’s bloody corpse when the cops arrived.

I glanced back over my shoulder. Sure enough, I could see a couple of flashlights moving around in the fog back near Green Lake. The cops
were
out of their car, searching that park.

Off in the distance, I could hear sirens wailing, coming this way. Those first two cops had obviously radioed for backup. Ironically, they’d probably made the call to Mary.

I was still quite a ways ahead of them, though. If I got lucky, I might be able to catch Renata when she came out of the water, and get her away from the murder scene before the cops nabbed her. If I could just get her back to my car, I’d be able to take her to Mary’s place. Then
I’d
be the one who’d root around in Mary’s medicine cabinet looking for sleeping pills. If I could pull
that
off, I could have Twink back in Fallon’s bughouse before daylight.

The only problem was that I could see several blinking red lights back out on the street. The backup cars were arriving, and it wouldn’t be long before that narrow strip of trees and grass was crawling with cops. Several other flashlights joined the first pair and they began to fan out.

I reached the shore of Green Lake and started along the edge of the water. I couldn’t see more than ten feet out because of the fog, and I couldn’t be sure if Renata was just wading or if she was out farther, swimming in deeper water.

Then I heard a faint splash. That answered the question: Renata was swimming. I looked back again and saw why. There were flashlights all over the place back near Green Lake. Renata might be crazy, but she
wasn’t
crazy enough to swim right into the arms of the Seattle Police Department.

I kept moving along the edge of the water, following the occasional splashes. I couldn’t
see
anything, but I could
hear
enough to stay with her.

Then I saw that black plastic raincoat on the grass at the edge of the water. A few yards back from the raincoat, there was something huddled motionless near a tree trunk. I was fairly sure that it was Fergusson’s body. I wasn’t thinking very clearly at that point, and it occurred to me that if I dragged Fergusson away from the shore and shoved him under some bushes, the cops wouldn’t find him immediately. That might give Renata time enough to get clear. I’d have to hurry, though. Those flashlights were getting closer.