Treasure Box (25 page)

Quentin could hear how she exaggerated the Bronx in her speech as she modestly refused her husband's worshipful words. A sweet woman, a good woman. And Bolt did love her. Too bad how he was in thrall to a witch whose daughter now had control of her and of the men she happened to possess. If Rowena wanted him, he'd walk away from Leda without a backward glance. And yet he'd know that he had done it. Could he bear living with that? Roz certainly wouldn't care; would Rowena?

They finished the chocolate. Quentin refused to talk about his plans. He didn't have any. He couldn't afford to have any. Drive to the rest home? Stay here waiting for Roz to arrive?

Leda went back to bed after rinsing the mugs. Bolt showed Quentin to his room. Not a couch, a fold-out bed, nicely made. A TV with a remote. "Not the Ritz," said Bolt.

"Beats Motel Six, though," said Quentin.

"Good night, then. You won't need no alarm in this house. We'll keep the door closed, but the pitter-patter of little feet will probably sound like World War II."

"I won't mind."

Bolt turned to go.

"Mike. Would I be wasting my time if I asked you for the loan of a gun?"

"You don't need a gun. Guns just go off and hurt people."

"You know what I'm up against."

"You can't shoot women who don't leave footprints, Quentin."

"The ones I'll be with, they leave footprints."

"Have you ever fired a gun?" asked Bolt.

"I promise you I won't shoot it around any civilians."

"What's to stop them from taking it away from you and shooting you with it?"

"I've got to have something, Mike."

"I'll get you something for self-defense. But don't even think about lethal force, Quentin. If there's any lethal force needed, I'll do it."

"You plan to be there?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"But will you be a free man, Mike?"

"What do you mean?"

"Rowena owns you, Mike. Her mother said so."

"Her mother's lying," said Bolt cheerfully. "I owe her a lot, but what she says about Rowena, you just got to consider the source."

No point in arguing with him. Maybe Mike would be an asset, maybe he wouldn't. But since Quentin refused to think of any plan besides to wing it, he didn't let himself consider the question.

"Aw, don't look so glum, Quentin. Just think—you've been seduced by a succubus and now you get to have a showdown between the witches and the macho guys."

"Sweet of you to include me with the macho guys," said Quentin.

"That's what it means to be... pals." Bolt grinned.

"Not just guys, but pals." Quentin laid his hand on his heart. "I'm touched."

Bolt shook his head. "Yeah, well, just remember that if one of us has to die in that house tomorrow, I sure hope it's you."

"I know Leda wouldn't have it any other way," said Quentin.

Bolt closed the door behind him as he left. Quentin undressed, and as he crawled onto the creaking, sagging fold-out bed with the paper-thin mattress he knew it would be the worst night of his life. He was asleep in three minutes.

In the morning, Quentin pulled on his clothes and staggered into the kitchen, where Leda was making pancakes and slapping them down on the kids' plates. "Don't you want to use the bathroom before you eat?" she asked.

"If the pancakes are ready now," he said, "I'm not going off to the bathroom and letting
these
guys eat them all."

The kids laughed and Leda introduced them and they ate breakfast together. Not until they had charged off to school did he realize that he hadn't seen Bolt this morning. Why hadn't he noticed? It was incredible that he hadn't noticed.

Roz, what are you doing?

"Where's Mike?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"Oh, he had some errands he had to run. He told me to tell you that's the burden of the working man. Also I'm supposed to give you this." She handed him a small spray can. Nothing was written on it by the manufacturer, but a label saying "MixPolDep" had been affixed to it. "It's Mace. The real thing, not pepper spray. Tear gas. He says don't use it outdoors because it's bound to blow right back in your own face, and if you use it indoors make sure your hand is no more than a foot from your target's face."

"He really thinks I'm a klutz, doesn't he?"

"I don't know about that," said Leda, "but he gives the same instructions to new cops when they start working for him."

"I can live with that," said Quentin. "Thanks for the breakfast. Best meal I've had in a week."

Which was true. What he had thought he was eating in the Laurent mansion was better, but it wasn't, strictly speaking, a meal.

"Should I wait for him to get back?" Quentin asked.

"He says do what you need to. If you aren't waiting for him at the department, he'll drive on out to the house. Don't start without him, he says."

"Fair enough," said Quentin.

Then dread stabbed through him and he thought, I wasn't going to let Bolt out of my sight. I've got to go looking for him. He's already got at least an hour's head start on me. Got to call Sally and warn her that Bolt is on the loose.

But he didn't call her. He went to the bathroom and showered and shaved and got dressed in the last of his clean clothes. Maybe it would be the last time he'd ever need clean clothes anyway.

For a moment, as he left the house, he remembered vaguely that he had some kind of errand to run. Something that had seemed very urgent when he thought of it back in the kitchen, right after breakfast, but what was it? Couldn't remember. Well, if it was that urgent it would come back to him.

He drove to the police department. The receptionist said, "Chief Bolt was here a minute ago. He stepped out for a minute. He says for you to wait."

Only then did he remember his urgent errand, and in that moment relief swept over him. Bolt had just stepped out. Everything was going to be fine.

He opened the door and found Sally Sannazzaro waiting in Bolt's office.

She jumped to her feet. "I can't believe it," she said. "Mrs. Tyler said I'd find you here. I thought she meant that Chief Bolt would tell me how to reach you, but no, here you are!"

"It's fate," said Quentin. "You drove all the way down here? You must have left at five in the morning."

"I left at eight. The roads are clear and it's later than you think."

"Thanks for not holding a grudge," he said.

"No, I was terrible. Bolt just gets under my skin. Maybe he fools you with a nice-guy act, but I swear he's evil."

Quentin shook his head. "When he's himself, he's a good guy. He loves his wife and kids."

"Well, I guess I've only seen him when he wasn't himself," said Sannazzaro. "What about you? Are you yourself right now?"

"I hope not," said Quentin. "I'm trying to work up the courage to do some really stupid and dangerous stuff today."

"If you know it's stupid..." But she didn't finish the sentence. They both knew that sometimes stupid, dangerous stuff had to be done.

"What brought you down here?" asked Quentin.

"I'm on Mrs. Tyler's errand," she said. "Somehow she knew you'd be here."

"Amazing woman. I guess this means she's talking to you again."

"She's so alert since you visited. Even more than when she first came to the rest home. She assures me that you didn't cure her, but Quentin, I—can I call you Quentin again? Still?"

He had a sudden impulse to say, Only if I can call you Mrs. Fears. But he didn't say it. He knew at once that this sudden desperate desire he felt for Sally Sannazzaro was nothing but eve-of-death syndrome. The same need that made soldiers on the verge of war want to marry someone or sleep with someone, to leave seed behind in case they didn't come back.

She misunderstood his hesitation. "So you're still angry?"

"No, I'm not angry at all. I don't know what I'm feeling. Please call me Quentin."

She rested her hand on his for a moment, to cement their reconciliation.

Then she took a large manila envelope out of her purse. It had been folded in quarters to fit. She unfolded it, opened it, and pulled out a Ziploc bag filled with gray hair.

"She sent me her
hair?
" Quentin asked.

"I didn't say she was sane, Quentin, I just said she was alert. I can't explain it to you—she got up, found the scissors, and hacked her hair off before I even got there this morning. She looks dreadful but she said you'd know what it was for. And if you don't, there's a note."

"What does it say?"

"She didn't tell me I could read it."

He thought of the grande dame, complaining when he didn't seal the note he was leaving with her, and he smiled.

"You think I read it anyway?"

"I smiled because I knew you didn't," said Quentin.

She rolled her eyes. "That was mean," she said.

"Mean?"

"Of course I read it. One of my residents cuts off all her hair, gives it to me in a plastic bag, and tells me to take it to a millionaire in a town where he doesn't live so how do I know he's even there, and you think I didn't read the note?"

By now Quentin had it open and was reading it.

Dear Quentin,

If this is with you, then I am with you. Wear it over your heart. It isn't much, but it's all I can do for you now. Don't let it touch your skin. If it touches your skin, it won't be able to resist taking you, even if it wants her more. It's in your hands. God be with you.

Yours sincerely, Anna

"You read this?" asked Quentin.

"Does it make any sense to you?"

It hadn't at first. Until he realized that when she said not to let it touch his skin, she didn't mean her hair, she meant the beast. Or did she?

"She's crazy, isn't she?" asked Sally. "I love her, but the old lady's gone bananas, hasn't she?"

"Is that a clinical term?" asked Quentin.

"It's a serious question. I knew she was mentally gone as soon as I read it. But I couldn't let it go. I knew I had to come down here and show it to you."

"She's not crazy, and you know it," said Quentin.

Sally hesitated a moment, then nodded. "I know. But I want to know what this is for."

Quentin opened his shirt, then took it off. "Bolt must have some duct tape in here somewhere. He's too macho to have nothing but this wimpy office tape."

Sally joined him in opening drawers and file cabinets. "So you aren't going to explain anything?"

"Sally, all I'll do by explaining is make you think I'm even crazier than Mrs. Tyler."

"Here it is. This file drawer is like a tool cabinet."

"Help me tape this bag over my chest, would you? And don't bother with the cheap joke about putting hair on my chest. I know how stupid this looks."

"Quentin, I don't know what you think you're doing, but this isn't exactly a bulletproof vest, you know." One thing Quentin really liked about her: She might be complaining, but at the same time she was still taping.

He had to tell her the truth. It wasn't fair to leave her in the dark. And if he was going to lose this struggle, he didn't want Bolt to be the only one who knew what was at stake. "Mrs. Tyler's a witch, Sally. She can send her spirit out of her body into the world. Wherever some relic of her physical body is, she can focus and be drawn to it. I'm wearing this so when I confront the devil, I'll have her power between him and my heart."

Sally shook her head. "OK, don't tell me." She patted the bag on his chest, now outlined with duct tape. "You were right, it really does look stupid."

"Her daughter Rowena is also a witch," said Quentin. "Mike Bolt worked for the family as a kid, and she kissed him and enthralled him so that whenever she wants to, he's her complete slave and does whatever she commands. That's why he tried to smother Mrs. Tyler. He probably didn't even know he was doing it."

Now she knew he wasn't joking, but that didn't mean she believed it. "Come on, Quentin." She wound the tape all the way around his torso several times. "Why would Mrs. Tyler's daughter send some guy to kill her?"

"Because Mrs. Tyler killed her son, Paul, when he was a baby, and Rowena knows it and never forgave her." There was no point in trying to explain about Roz and the treasure box and Madeleine. Even this much was obviously more than Sally could believe.

"This story is crazier than Ross Perot," said Sally.

He pulled on his shirt and buttoned it over the bag of hair taped to his chest.

Sally was still trying to find something believable in Quentin's account. "Chief Bolt really did intend to kill Mrs. Tyler?"

"He doesn't intend anything," said Quentin. "It all depends on what the witch who controls him wants him to do."

"You're the one with witch friends, Quentin. When is the next time he's going to try it?"

They stood looking at each other for a long moment, there in Chief Bolt's office, as they thought of at least one possible reason why he wasn't there in the office with them. Why hadn't they realized it before?

Quentin opened the door and rushed out to the receptionist. "Where's Chief Bolt?"

"He doesn't report to me, Mr. Fears, it's the other way around."

"Can't you raise him by radio?"

"He didn't take a radio car."

"I thought all police cars had radios."

"The radio cars are all needed for on-duty officers," she said. "He was going out of the city anyway, what does he need a radio car for?"

"Out of the city? Where?"

"Check with me Friday when he has me type up his mileage report for the week."

Sally put her hand on his arm. "Quentin, I'm going back to the rest home."

"If he's really there, Sally, you can't stop him yourself. You get in the way, he'll plow right through you."

"I'll call the police," she said. "I'll call them as I go."

The receptionist looked puzzled. "What are you two talking about?"

"Nothing to do with you," Quentin reassured her. "Thanks for letting us use Chief Bolt's office."

"Oh, he said you should make yourselves comfortable if you showed up."

"Our
selves?
" said Quentin. "He was expecting both of us?"

"Sure. Sally Sannazzaro and Quentin Fears. He wasn't sure you'd come in, Mr. Fears, but he said
you
were coming for sure, Ms. Sannazzaro."