Trace (Trace 1) (17 page)

Trace’s stomach hurt and he didn’t know if it was from the previous night’s pummeling or because he was hungry. He ate a bacon cheeseburger in the cocktail lounge and found out the pain was from the pummeling because he still hurt.

He tried Jeannie Callahan’s telephone number again, but when it didn’t answer after three rings, he hung up before the tape cut in on the fourth ring.

And because he didn’t have anything else to do, he drove back to Meadow Vista Sanatorium.

As he was parking in the lot, he saw a dark-colored car pulling out of a spot. Inside the car were Dr. Barbara Darling and Nurse Thelma Simons. He waved warmly to them, but they either didn’t see him or didn’t care to have him ruin their night, because they ignored him. He noticed that Nurse was wearing her starched white uniform. Maybe she slept in her uniform, he thought. Standing up, so as not to ruin the creases.

Trace went into Mitchell Carey’s room. A big young blond man wearing a white uniform was sitting in a chair next to the bed, reading
Hustler
magazine. A copy of a karate magazine was on the cabinet behind him and a gym bag was under the bed.

Carey’s bed was covered with a clear plastic tent and Trace could hear oxygen hissing faintly inside the plastic.

“Who are you?” the young man said as Trace entered.

“Devlin Tracy, a friend of the family. How is he?”

“He’s okay. I’ve got orders to call Dr. Matteson if anything changes.” Trace didn’t like the young man’s face. He talked with his lips pulled down tightly over his teeth and he had too many muscles by half.

“He say anything?” Trace brushed by the young man and stood by Carey’s bed, looking down at him.

“Him? Naah. I don’t think he’s likely to say much again. Maybe to you, not to me.”

“You might be right,” Trace said. “Then again, he might fool you.” Trace did not like him talking as if Carey could not hear or understand. “What’s your name?”

“Jack Ketch,” the young man said.

“You the night nurse?”

“Yeah. The family told me to come in tonight.”

Trace’s foot hit the young man’s gym bag and he felt somehow offended that there was a gym bag in a hospital room. He pushed it farther under the bed with his toe, but he had to push hard. The bag was heavy. Damned idiot probably carried his weight-lifting equipment around with him, Trace thought.

“I’ll probably stop in to see you later,” Trace said. “Don’t get up. I can find my own way out.”

“I wasn’t planning to get up,” Ketch said.

Trace walked to the telephone on the landing outside Three East and called Jeannie Callahan’s number again, but there was no immediate answer and he hung up after three rings.

He drove out of town to her apartment building, but she did not answer the doorbell, and in disgust at the prospect of spending another night alone in Harmon Hills, he stopped at a tavern and watched the news and a few innings of a baseball game. He called Jeannie’s number again, got no answer, and drove out to the Carey house.

He parked his car on the street behind a brown Volks-wagen whose owner also had ignored the no-parking signs.

As he walked up the driveway to the house, he saw the garage doors open and the two Cadillacs parked inside. But there were no lights on in the house. He walked onto the flagstone front porch, reached for the doorbell, then stayed his hand.

He listened for a few moments but heard no sound, and then he walked from the porch into the garage. The door leading into the house was unlocked.

He walked in quietly and paused. Down the long hall, he heard the faint hum of a voice talking softly.

The voice was coming from the study down the hall and it was low, hypnotically one-noted. He walked on the heavy sound-swallowing carpet and stopped outside the doorway. The door was partially open and he leaned to the side to look inside.

The room was illuminated only by a pair of black candles atop a small game table. Amanda Carey sat at one side of the table and Muffy on the other, their hands joined on the tabletop. Incense curled smokily from a saucer on the cabinet below the bookshelves.

The crystal ball was in the middle of the table, between the woman’s hands.

It was Muffy’s voice Trace had heard. Both women’s eyes were closed and Muffy’s head was thrown back so her neck muscles and tendons were stretched taut.

Trace saw her hands clench tightly around Mrs. Carey’s.

“She’s here,” Muffy whispered. “I can feel it now. She’s here.”

“Oh,” slipped from Mrs. Carey’s lips.

“Buffy, we’re here,” Muffy said. “Your mother and me. Talk to us.”

But there was only silence in the room and Muffy said again, “Talk to us. Please. We want to talk to you.”

There was only silence again. Trace saw that the blinds were drawn on the big windows in the front of the house, but they were open on a side window, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could see the clumps of dark bushes on the sprawling lawn beyond the window.

He heard Muffy whisper, “Ask her, Nana. Talk to her. She might answer you.”

Haltingly, hesitant, Mrs. Carey said, “Buffy, are you here?”

Only silence answered and Mrs. Carey said again, “Buffy? Please?”

And then there was a sound. It was faint, but it seemed to come from all over the room as if it had no central source. It was the voice of a young woman, saying, “Nana, Nana I’m here, Nana.”

Involuntarily, Mrs. Carey clamped a hand to her mouth.

Muffy reached across the table and took Mrs. Carey’s hand again and replaced it on the table. Mrs. Carey’s eyes had opened, but now she closed them again and said, “Buffy, I’m so happy you’re here. Are you all right, darling?”

“Oh, Nana, I’m so cold. And scared.”

Mrs. Carey was silent, and Muffy said quickly, “Why are you scared, Buffy?”

“Nana, I’m afraid for my father. He’s so sick,” the voice came back.

Trace looked around the room but could see no one else.

“What should we do?” Mrs. Carey said.

Trace saw the old woman screw her eyes tightly closed as if willing an answer, and Muffy tossed her head back with a snappy little jerk and the voice again responded. “Oh, it’s so lonely in the house without him. So lonely.” The voice was a mournful, pitiful wail.

There was silence again and Muffy said, “What should we do, Buffy?” Then she jerked her head back as if awaiting an answer and the voice came again.

“Nana, don’t let them hurt Pop-pop. Bring him home, bring him home. Listen to Muffy and bring him home.”

There was a flickering on the heavy dark drapes at the front of the room. Muffy’s eyes were still closed, her head back. Mrs. Carey’s head was slumped forward on the table and Trace could hear her weeping. Suddenly, Muffy opened her eyes and she hissed, “See. Nana, look.”

The old woman lifted her head and Muffy released her hands to point toward the drapes. On them appeared the lighted image of a young woman. It was vague and amorphous because of the folds of the drapes, but it was a young woman with long hair, and her arms were extended outward.

“It’s her,” Mrs. Carey said. “It’s Buffy

“She’s calling you,” Muffy said.

“I love you, Nana. I love you, Muffy. Bring him home,” the voice said.

Mrs. Carey jumped to her feet and stepped toward the drapes. The image vanished. One moment it was there and then it was just gone.

She looked about in confusion, then turned back to Muffy, who got up from her seat and walked to the old woman and put an arm around her.

“It’s all right,” she said soothingly. “It’s all right. She’s here in the house. She’ll always be here with us.”

Trace quietly ran back through the house. In the kitchen was a door leading outside, and he let himself out onto the paved patio and ran around the back of the house.

He moved silently toward the windows of the study, but there was no one there. He knelt down to feel with his fingers. The soft earth was mashed with footprints, but he could not tell if they were ten minutes or ten days old.

He looked in through the window and saw Muffy still comforting Mrs. Carey. The window was streaked and dusty, but in the lower right-hand corner, there was a precise three-inch circle where the glass shone clear, as if it had been washed recently.

He looked around on the ground to see if anything had been dropped, but saw nothing.

When he returned to his car, he noticed that the brown Volkswagen that had been parked in front of his was gone also.

Trace looked up and saw Police Officer Lauren Wilcox entering the country club’s cocktail lounge.

She looked around the almost-empty lounge, saw Trace, smiled, and started toward him.

Trace noticed Hughie watching the woman as she came near. Even in her uniform blues, she was very trim and moved smoothly, and Trace said, “Hi, officer. How’s the law’s most beautiful minion?”

“Hello, Trace,” she said. She looked around to make sure no one was able to hear them, then said softly, “You’ve got to come with me.”

“Why?”

“My husband wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, Christ, I knew it was going to happen. I fool around just once in my life and now a husband is after me.”

“Not about that, you idiot. That’s our secret. Come on, we’ve got to hurry.”

“Okay.” Trace followed her outside.

“We’ll take my car,” she said, and Trace got into the front seat of the squad car.

“What’s going on?” he asked as she drove away.

“You don’t know?”

“I wouldn’t ask,” he said.

“Last night, at that apartment, you were visiting a friend?”

“Yeah.”

“That was Jeannie Callahan, wasn’t it?”

“Okay. If you know anyway, yes.”

“Did you see her tonight?”

“No.”

“Somebody did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Trace snapped. “Dammit, what are you talking about?”

“Somebody beat her up.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes. Is she all right?”

“Yeah, I think so. Frank just asked me to bring you in. Were you there?”

“Where?”

“At her office.”

“No,” Trace said. “Where is she now?”

“At the sanatorium. It’s the closest emergency room.”

“Take me there, will you?”

“After you talk to Frank,” she said.

“Why me?”

“Damned if I know,” she said. “He didn’t tell me.” She paused a moment, then reached out and touched his leg. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t think you’re the lady-beating type either. You know, if I knew I was going to be bringing you in, well, last night…”

“Don’t worry,” Trace said. “My lips are sealed.”

“I didn’t fill out a report about the vandalism or anything,” she said.

“I won’t mention it,” Trace said.

The door to Jeannie Callahan’s office was open, and Lt. Wilcox, his back to them, was looking at the file cabinet when Trace and the policewoman walked inside.

“I’ve got him, Frank,” the woman said.

Wilcox turned around, looked at Trace in disgust, and said, “Okay, Tracy. Sit over there.”

His wife lingered in the doorway and the lieutenant said, “You can go back now, Lauren. I’ll call you when we’re through.”

“All right.”

Trace noticed that the second drawer of the four-drawer file cabinet was open, and the metal rim of the drawer was twisted, as if it had been bent.

Wilcox leaned on the file cabinet and said, “My wife tell you what happened?”

“Yes. How bad was it?”

“Not too serious. Where were you tonight?”

“I was at the country club just now and earlier. I stopped at the sanatorium and at Mitchell Carey’s house. Lieutenant, what’s going on?”

“Where were you about nine-thirty or so?”

“At the Carey house.”

“They vouch for you?”

“I didn’t see them. The house was dark, so I went back to the country club. Why are you questioning me?”

“All right, why were you angry with Miss Callahan?”

“Who said I was?”

“You said you were,” Wilcox snapped. “Dammit, Tracy, I want some answers out of you.” In the harsh light of the desk lamp, his pitted face looked like a lunar landscape.

“Listen, Lieutenant—”

“No, you listen. I think you were ticked off at Miss Callahan and you busted in here to steal something. When she surprised you, you clocked her and then you beat it. What do you think of that?”

“I think it, and you, are both full of shit,” Trace said evenly. “Are you going to charge me?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You better make up your mind real fast. Charge me now or I go out that goddamn door. Charge me now and do it wrong, and I’ll have your ass for lunch.” He stood up.

Trace had to admire Wilcox. The bluff didn’t work and the policeman didn’t blanch. Instead, he said, “Then I guess I’m going to have to charge you.”

“Fine,” Trace said. He sat back down. “Ask away. I’ll wait a couple of minutes to make my phone call.”

“Why did you threaten Miss Callahan?”

“I didn’t.”

Wilcox walked behind the lawyer’s desk and fiddled with an oblong gray box. Then he pressed a button and Trace’s voice filled the room.

“This is Trace and I’m still staying at the Golden Age Golf Club. I think it’s rotten of you, cheating on me in public, but I’ve decided not to give you the beating you deserve and I’m going to forgive you instead. This offer’s only good for an hour. Call me…”

“What’s that all about?” Wilcox said. “What the hell are you laughing about?”

“Hoist by my own petard,” Trace said.

“What?”

“Never mind. Do you think that’s a threat on that tape? Tell me, Lieutenant, do you get many muggings where the muggers call first and leave their ID so you can be sure to pick them up later? Dammit, the call I made was a joke. She was having lunch with some other guy today and I was joking.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“What other guy?”

“She was having lunch with Dr. Matteson at the golf club.”

“Matteson, huh?”

“He’s a client of hers,” Trace said.

“Well, if you didn’t bop her, who did?” Wilcox said.

“What happened?” Trace asked. “Maybe I can help.”

“Miss Callahan came to the office at half-past nine. She was specific about the time. She let herself in and then she realized someone was here. She headed for the door, but whoever it was grabbed her, spun her around, and punched her. It knocked her out. When she woke up a couple of minutes later, she called us. She said that whoever it was must have been rifling her files, but she couldn’t see anything missing. So now, help. You add anything to that?”