Safe at Home (11 page)

David Pelham was short and wiry, good-looking in a socialist sort of way: all beard and corduroy. I’d seen him or his twin a million times at NDP church basement socials. He came into the kitchen carrying a bottle of the currently fashionable Canadian wine and a bouquet of flowers that he had obviously picked up at the fruit store up the street. Carnations. But, hey, flowers are flowers. Sally blushed sweetly to receive them. T.C. looked at me and rolled his eyes, then left the room, muttering something insincere about homework.

We were introduced, and he gave me a firm handshake.

“Did Sally tell you what a great admirer I am?” he asked. “I’m a big ball fan. That was some story about Kelsey. A bit sensationalist, but good. So what’s it going to do to morale? I don’t like the way things have been going so far.”

“It’s too early to panic,” I said. “There’s no one running away with the division.”

“I knew I shouldn’t get you two together,” Sally said, pouring him some wine. “And with T.C., I’m really outnumbered.”

“No shop talk,” I said. “I’m off duty.”

“Thank you, Lord,” Sally muttered.

Dinner was strained. T.C. obviously wasn’t pleased with a new man in his mother’s life, and didn’t bother to conceal it.

David tried to include him in the conversation, but T.C. answered in grunts and excused himself from the table the minute he had swallowed the last piece of pizza. Some of the tension left the room with him.

“Sorry about that,” Sally said. “I think he’s going through a jealous phase.”

“It’s understandable,” David said.

“Thanks for being so understanding.”

“Of course, adolescents are your business, aren’t they?” I asked.

“Yes, T.C. is a pleasure compared to some of the kids I deal with,” he said. “I’m used to rejection.”

“Where do you work? Mainly inner-city schools?” I asked.

“There’s a middle-class assumption for you. I have a contract with the school board. They send me to wherever they have problems. It’s not just poor kids who are fucked up.”

“Do you deal with those middle-class gang kids?”

“Among others,” he said.

“What effect are these murders having in the schools?” Sally asked. “Are kids scared?”

“They’re scared and confused,” David said. “There’s a certain amount of bravado among the older kids who are trying to be tough. But the kids who knew the victims are having serious problems.”

“It’s awful” Sally said. “Did you know that Kate is close with the detective in charge of the investigation?”

“Really,” he said. “I bet you’ve got all the inside dirt. What aren’t they telling us?”

I shot Sally a glance.

“I don’t know anything except what I read in the papers,” I said.

“Yeah, I bet,” David said.

I looked at my watch. It was only 9:30. My, how time doesn’t fly when you’re not having much fun. I hung in for another hour of fairly earnest conversation, trying to figure out what this bore’s attraction was. Maybe he was great in bed. At 10:30 I decided it was safe to depart without insulting Sally.

“I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go,” I said, insincerely. “Day game tomorrow.”

They didn’t try to stop me. But when I got upstairs, the only message on my machine spooked me so much that I went back down and got them. We listened to it together.

The man’s voice was gravelly, flat, and uninflected, like someone trying to imitate a robot. Under the circumstances, it was not a voice I recognized.

“Well, Ms. Henry,” he said, “it seems you have to help the police again. The first step would be to look under your front doormat.”

The beep made us jump.

“Let’s go look,” Sally said.

We went to the front door together, Elwy at our heels. The street was empty. I lifted the mat gingerly. There was an envelope with my byline, carefully clipped out of the paper, pasted to it. Elwy sniffed at it, then wandered off to sit at the top of the steps. I dropped the mat back into place without touching the note.

“Maybe I’d better make a phone call,” I said.

“This looks like a job for Staff Sergeant Munro,” Sally agreed, dropping her voice at least an octave. As we went up the stairs, she was humming the theme from
Dragnet
.

Andy was at the office. I told him about the note.

“Don’t touch it,” he said. “I’ll have someone there in five minutes. Stay inside, but watch the street. When the uniforms arrive, don’t let them touch anything. They’re more likely to screw it up than help.”

He hung up without saying goodbye. Sally and David sat on the couch while I hovered by my living-room window, feeling like an old biddy, peeking through the blinds. A patrol car was there within minutes. Two constables, a man and a woman, walked up the path together, hands on holsters. They didn’t ring the bell. I went down and opened the door anyway.

“Do you want to come in?”

“We’ll just wait here, miss. We have to secure the scene. Please don’t come out onto the porch.”

I closed the door. Sally and David joined me in the hall.

“I sure hope this isn’t just some kind of joke. I’d hate to see them use up all their cop equipment for nothing.”

“Not to mention getting Andy pissed off,” said Sally.

I didn’t think there was much chance of that. The last time I had opened an envelope full of evidence without calling him first, around the time of the Titan murders, he had given me royal shit.

We were still watching out the window in the front door. When Andy arrived, Sally and David went back to her apartment.

“I’ll be up for a while if you need me to give evidence,” she whispered. “And I want you to remember this next time you accuse me of meddling in your love life.”

I opened the door again. Andy and Jim were on the front walk. Andy was holding Elwy, who looked pleased with himself.

“Hello, gentlemen,” I said.

“Hi, Kate. Nice to see you again,” said Jim, cheerfully. Andy nodded at me as if we had just met. Even Jim looked at him funny.

“Is anyone going to cross the great divide? The note is under the mat.”

“We want to make sure there are no footprints on the porch,” Jim said.

“I can’t see any. I think Sally swept it this morning, though.”

We all stood like a bunch of idiots for a minute or so.

“She’s right, Andy. It looks clean.”

“We’ll wait for the identification team,” he said.

Another car pulled up as he spoke. Soon there was a total of seven cops on my front lawn, staring at the porch. Under Andy’s direction, they photographed the scene, lifted the mat, photographed the letter on the porch, spread around a whole bunch of powder, and generally messed things up, looking very efficient and pleased with themselves the whole while.

“I assume the official police cleaning lady is on her way,” I said. Andy didn’t look amused.

“You might as well come in,” I said. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

“We can’t stay, Kate,” Andy said.

“Of course we can,” said Jim, stepping inside. “The note is addressed to Kate, after all. I think we can show it to her. Besides, I could use a good cup of coffee. I assume she makes good coffee, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have stuck around her as long as you have.”

Either Jim didn’t know anything about our fight or he was trying, in a heavy-handed way, to help. Whatever his motivation, I could have kissed him for babbling on the way he was doing. I ran up the stairs and filled the kettle.

“Come sit in the kitchen,” I said.

“Nice place you’ve got, Kate,” said Jim, settling his bulk into one of the kitchen chairs.

Measuring coffee into the grinder, I glanced at Andy. He looked disgruntled. Jim had chosen the chair he usually sat in, but under the circumstances, he wasn’t going to object. He brought another chair in from the dining room, leaving “my” chair for me.

“Everyone comfy?” I asked. “It will just take a minute for the coffee to drip through. Let me look at the letter.”

Andy pulled a pair of surgical gloves out of his pocket.

“Put these on first,” he said.

“What is this? Safe sex?”

“Just put them on. We don’t want your fingerprints all over the letter.”

“Do you really think that a guy smart enough to pull off these murders and get away with it is stupid enough to leave fingerprints?”

“Just put the damn things on,” he said.

“Hey, cool out, Andy,” his partner said. “You’re among friends.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have kidded around like that. I’ll open it now. Or you open it. Whatever.”

Andy handed it to me, then smiled sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, too. It isn’t you I’m angry with.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

“Will you two cut the ‘After you, Alphonse’ shit and open the damn thing?” Jim said.

I got a knife from the rack and slit the envelope carefully, along the short end. I didn’t want to tamper with any possible tongue prints on the flap. It was a one-page letter, cut and pasted like the last one I saw.

“Next time you see your boyfriend, tell him he’s not even close. I can’t wait for him much longer. Give him a hand. He’ll never make it alone. I’m still stalking.”

At the top of the page was a picture published in the
Planet
the previous fall, when I was given a civilian citation for my assistance in the Titan murders. While some sort of police public-relations suit looked on, Andy and I shook hands. Typical
Planet
hype, and a very embarrassing moment for both of us. We had been together the night before, both overslept, and almost missed the ceremony. Then we had to pretend that we hadn’t arrived together.

“Goddamn him,” Andy said.

“Getting a little personal, isn’t he?” Jim said.

“How does he know to leave it here?” I asked, pouring coffee. “Do you think he’s been following you?”

“He must have been.”

“Not necessarily,” Jim said. “A lot of people know about you two.”

“But they don’t know where I live.”

“You’re not in the phonebook?”

“Not by my full name. I changed the listing after the house got broken into once when I was in Florida at spring training. An out-of-town byline is an open invitation to break and enter.”

“Well, there are ways he could find out, but I think we have to start operating as if he is watching us.”

The phone rang. I got up to answer it.

“Tell Munro to have a nice night,” whispered the same voice that had been on the machine. Then he hung up.

I stood for a moment listening to the silence until the dial tone kicked in. Then I hung up, gently, and went back to the table. Jim and Andy were talking, but shut up when I sat down. I guess I looked pretty weird.

“What’s the matter?” Andy asked.

It took me a moment to make my voice work.

“It was him. He. Whatever. He said to tell you to have a nice night. Then he hung up.”

“Shit,” Jim said. Then he stood up.

“It’s late. You stay here with Kate, Andy. I’ll take the letter down to the office and start the paperwork to get a tap put on her phone. With your permission, of course.”

I nodded.

“Do you have another tape for your machine? I’ll take the one with his voice on it.”

“All right.”

“Well, good night, then.”

Andy walked to the door with him, then came back and cleared away the coffee things. We were awkward together, our fight still unresolved.

“Jim’s a nice guy,” I said.

“He’s the best partner I’ve had. I just hope it can last.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been together three years now, and we’re a great team. We hardly have to talk. But he’s overdue for promotion to staff sergeant. Then I’ll have to start from scratch with someone new. That’s the way the system works.”

He poured two scotches, and handed me one.

“But I’m not going to worry about that tonight.”

He took my hand and led me into the living room. We sat on the couch. He took the glass out of my hand and put it on the coffee table, then put his arms around me and held me tight.

“Let’s talk about it,” he said, after a moment.

I started to cry. What a wimp.

We got mutual apologies out of the way quickly enough. I was sorry I’d behaved like an idiot, he was sorry he was so obsessed, and we spent an hour on the couch making amends. Elwy tried to join the fun, but was banished with a gentle kick. He retreated to a nearby chair to watch, disconcerting Andy for only a moment.

“That damn cat’s a voyeur,” he panted.

“Be fair,” I said. “It’s the closest he’s ever going to come to a sex life.”

Later, we took our clothes and drinks into the bedroom. I lit some candles, a belated touch of romance. It was also more flattering than electricity, a factor when you are likely to be compared to Margaret Papadakis.

“Did you have a nice lunch yesterday?” I asked.

“What a waste of time,” he said. “I asked her to come down to the station to talk, and she insisted we meet at Orso.”

“Who paid?”

“Are you kidding? The police department won’t cover a meal like that. Then she came on to me for an hour while I tried to get her to take notes about our appeal to the public.”

“Poor baby. It’s just that you’re so irresistible.”

“Kate, it wasn’t fun. Trust me.”

“Oh, sure. And you had to force down that fabulous food and wine, too, I bet.”

“Coffee.”

“While Margaret flattered you and told you what a wonderful cop you are.”

“She talked about you, too,” he said. “I don’t think she likes you very much. She kept talking about what good friends you were, but I think she told me every rumour that had ever gone through the newsroom about you.”

“Because she is concerned about her good friend.” I laughed, insincerely.

“Yes, I found it very interesting. I hadn’t realized that you and Sally are lovers. And I can’t imagine why you never told me about the time you got drunk on the road and took on the entire Titan outfield and then sent for the relief pitchers.”

“That bitch! She didn’t!”

“Calm down,” he said, pulling me back into his arms. “I didn’t tell her any of our secrets. Like how gullible you are.”

“You . . .”

He shut me up with a kiss. We both laughed. I lit a cigarette and we sipped our drinks. The silence was warm.

“I missed you,” he said.

“It’s only been two days.”

“It seems longer.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been busy,” he said. “I read your story this morning. It was good. What was the reaction?”

I told him all about it, then asked about his case.

“I spent today with a guy from the FBI who came up from Washington to give us some advice.”

“Good advice?”

“Who knows. It was hard to get beyond his ego. He treated me as if I was some hick sheriff with an IQ of seventeen.”

“Uh oh. And you?”

“I had to listen. He knows his stuff.”

“What does he think?”

“The same thing we do. The killer is apparently normal, is in some kind of position of authority that these kids would trust. He’s ready to kill again. He’s starting to want to get caught. Big revelations from the hotshot from south of the border.”

He sat up in bed.

“Give me a cigarette, will you?”

“You don’t smoke.”

“I did, for ten years. I just quit a year ago. I want one now.”

“If you’re sure. I’m certainly in no position to stop you,” I said, passing him the pack and the lighter.

He lit one, and took our glasses out to the kitchen. Elwy hopped on the bed. I heard Andy with the ice and bottle. It was going to be a long night.

“This is the crucial period,” he said, when he came back. “He’s at his most vulnerable now. If we don’t catch him, it will be as if we have given him permission to kill again. It’s as if the sane part is making one last cry for help. We have to get him soon.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to trace one of the phone calls. Or maybe there will be fingerprints on the note.”

“I can’t count on that. Neither can you, for that matter, now that he’s sending you notes. What do you want to do? I could get you a bodyguard.”

“Oh, no, not that again.”

During the Titan murders, a large, eager young constable followed me around for a few days, causing me no end of embarrassment in the press box and locker room.

“I know it cramps your style,” he said, “but you’re in this now. I don’t want you in danger because of me. Not that I think you are. With the profile we’re developing on this guy, I don’t think you’re a target.”

“And if I had a bodyguard, it might scare him off trying to get through me to you. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to have someone watching the house in case he comes back?”

“That’s already taken care of.”

I looked at the window, which had no curtains.

“I hope he’s not using binoculars,” I giggled.

“It would do my reputation some good.”

“More than you know,” I said, sensing a chance to get back at him for his lunch with Margaret. “You realize that your great and good comrade in arms, Bob Flanagan, refers to you as the faggot?”

“He doesn’t.”

“Does.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Oh, now you’re offended. When I told you all the filthy things he said to me, that didn’t bother you.”

“That asshole,” he said, really steamed.

“Hey, lighten up, Andy. He’s a good cop, just a little rough around the edges.”

He pinched me. I pinched back, and we rolled around for a while. Elwy dug in his claws and rode the foot of the bed like a sailor on a stormy sea, determined to hang in this time.

“We’ve got to go to sleep,” I said. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. I have to be at the ballpark in seven hours,” I said, later.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Neither of us moved.

“I just can’t turn off my brain,” he said, after a few moments. “Not while he’s out there.”

“Mocking you.”

“He may be right. I’m getting nowhere. Maybe I ought to get off the case.”

“Whoa. Wait a minute. Don’t beat yourself up. That’s not going to accomplish anything.”

“Yes, Mother,” he said, then rolled over on his side, away from me.

“You’re right,” he said, after a moment of silence. “Thanks. I’m just tired and down about the whole thing. Actually, these communications are probably good. I think he’s losing it.”

“Tell me about it.”

He rolled back and propped himself up on the pillows.

“All right, ask questions.”

“Have you talked to the parents again?”

“Yeah, but they weren’t any help. They are destroying themselves with guilt, but not for any reason. They were good parents. They didn’t let their kids run free. They were strict. The Goldmans spoiled them with things, but they had rules. All the kids had to call home if they were changing their plans. It’s not as if these were little rebels. They were safe, boring little kids who would never go off with a stranger.”

“But you can’t find anyone who knew them all.”

“There’s no connection, I’m as sure of that as I can be. We’ve been over and over it again.”

“Different schools.”

“Right.”

“What about outside teachers? Music teachers, scout leaders, coaches?”

“Nope.”

“Did they play in the same league? Maybe referees.”

“We’ve checked that, too.”

“I hate to say it, but what about a cop? Even the most well-trained kids would go with a cop.”

“Or someone disguised as a cop. We haven’t rejected the possibility. I hope to Christ it’s not a cop.”

“Priests are suspect these days, but these kids were all different religions. What else?”

“Someone they all look up to. A well-known athlete. A television performer.”

“I can’t stand to think about it.”

“And I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Neither can I. But let’s try.”

I got up, set the alarm for 8:30, and blew out the candles, then got back in under the duvet. We spooned, with his body against my back.

“Good night,” he murmured into my neck. “I’m glad I’m here.”

“Me too.”