Knickknacks and mementos were not to be found anywhere in the house. And until now Junior had seen nothing hanging on the barren walls except a calendar in the kitchen.
A cast-bronze figure, fixed to lacquered walnut in want of raw dogwood, suffered above the bed. This crucifix, contrasting starkly with the white walls, reinforced the impression of monastic economy.
In Junior's estimation, this was not the way that a normal person lived. This was the home of a deranged loner, a dangerously obsessive man.
Having been an object of Thomas Vanadium's fixation, Junior felt fortunate to have survived. He shuddered.
In the closet, a limited wardrobe did not fully occupy available rod space. On the floor, shoes were neatly arranged toe-to-heel.
The upper shelf of the closet held boxes and two inexpensive suitcases: pressboard laminated with green vinyl. He took down the suitcases and put them on the bed.
Vanadium owned so few clothes that the two bags had sufficient capacity to accommodate half the contents of the closet and dresser.
Junior tossed garments on the floor and across the bed to create the impression that the detective had packed with haste. After being imprudent enough to blast Victoria Bressler five times with his service revolver- perhaps in a jealous rage, or perhaps because he had gone nuts-Vanadium would have been frantic to flee justice.
From the bathroom, Junior gathered an electric razor and toiletries. He added these to the suitcases.
After carrying the two pieces of luggage to the car in the garage, he returned to the study. He sat at the desk and examined the contents of the drawers, then turned to the file cabinet.
He wasn't entirely sure what all he hoped to find. Perhaps an envelope or a cash box with folding money, which a fleeing murderer would surely pause to take with him. Suspicions might be raised if he left it behind. Perhaps a savings-account passbook.
In the first drawer, he discovered an address book. Logically, Vanadium would have taken this with him, even if on the lam from a murder rap, so Junior tucked it in his jacket pocket.
When his search of the desk drawers was only half completed, the telephone rang-not the usual strident bell, but a modulated electronic brrrrr. He had no intention of answering it.
The second ring was followed by a click, and then a familiar droning voice said, 'Hello. I'm Thomas Vanadium-'
Like a spring-loaded novelty snake erupting from a can, Junior exploded up from the chair, nearly knocking it over.
'— but I am not here right now. '
Swinging toward the open door, he saw that the dead detective was true to his word: He wasn't here.
The voice continued, issuing from a device that stood on the desk beside the phone. 'Please don't bang up. This is a telephone answering machine Leave a message after you bear the tone, and I will return your call later '
The word Ansaphone was imprinted on the black plastic casing of the machine.
Junior had heard of this invention, but until now he'd never seen one. He supposed that an obsessive like Vanadium might go to any lengths, including this exotic technology, to avoid missing an important call.
The tone sounded, as promised, and a man's voice spoke from the box: 'It's Max. You're psychic. I found the hospital here. Poor kid bad a cerebral hemorrhage, arising from a hyperensive crisis caused by? eclampsia, I think it is. Baby survived. Call me, huh?'
Max hung up. The Ansaphone made a series of small robot-mouse noises and then fell silent.
Amazing.
Junior was tempted to experiment with the controls. Maybe other messages were recorded on the machine. Listening to them would be delicious-even if every one of them turned out to be as meaningless to him as Max's-a little like browsing through a stranger's diary.
Finding nothing more of interest in the study, he considered searching the rest of the house.
The night was in flight, however, and he had a lot to do before it swooped straight into morning.
Leave the lamps burning, the door unlocked. A murderer, frantic to vanish while the victim remained undiscovered, wouldn't be worried about the cost of electricity or about protecting against burglary.
Junior drove boldly away. Zedd counseled boldness.
Because he kept imagining the stealthy sounds of a dead cop rising in vengeance behind him, Junior switched on the radio. He tuned in a station featuring a Top 40 countdown.
The deejay announced song number four for the week: the Beatles' 'She's a Woman.' The Fab Four filled the Studebaker with music.
Everyone thought the moptops were the coolest thing ever-ever but to Junior, their music was just all right. He wasn't stirred to sing along, and he didn't find their stuff particularly danceable.
He was a patriotic guy, and he preferred American rock to the British brand. He had nothing against the English, no prejudices against people of any nationality. Nevertheless, he believed that the American Top 40 ought to feature American music exclusively.
Crossing Spruce Hills with John, Paul, George, Ringo, and dead Thomas, Junior headed back toward Victoria's place, where Sinatra was no longer singing.
Number three on the charts was 'Mr. Lonely,' by Bobby Vinton, an American talent from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Junior sang along.
He cruised past the Bressler residence without slowing.
By this time, Vinton had finished, commercials had run, and the number-two song had started: 'Come See About Me,' by the Supremes.
More good American music. The Supremes were Negroes, sure, but Junior was not a bigot. Indeed, he had once made passionate love to a Negro girl.
Harmonizing with Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard, he drove to the granite quarry three miles beyond the town limits.
A new quarry, operated by the same company, lay a mile farther north. This was the old one, abandoned after decades of cutting.
Years earlier, a stream had been diverted to fill the vast excavation. Stock fish were added, mostly trout and bass.
As a recreational site, Quarry Lake could be judged only a partial success. During the mining operation, trees were cleared well back from the edge of the dig, so that much of the shore would be unshaded on a hot summer day. And along half the strand, signs were posted warning Ungraded Shore: Immediate Deep Water. In places, where lake met land, the bottom lay over a hundred feet below.
The Beatles began singing the number-one song, 'I Feel Fine,' as Junior turned off the county highway and followed the lake road northeast around the oil-black water. They had two titles in the American top five. In disgust, he switched off the radio.
The previous April, the lads from Liverpool had claimed all five of the top five. Real Americans, like the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons, were forced to settle for lower numbers. It made you wonder who had really won the Revolutionary War.
No one in Junior's circles seemed to care about the crisis in American music. He supposed he had a greater awareness of injustice than did most people.
On this chilly January night, no campers or fishermen had staked claims along the lake. Because the trees were far enough back to be lost in the night, the immediate shore and the pooled blackness that it encircled appeared as desolate as any landscape on a world without an atmosphere.
Too far from Spruce Hills to be a popular make-out spot for teenagers, Quarry Lake was a turnoff for young lovers also because it had a reputation as haunted territory. Over five decades, four quarry workers had died in mining accidents. County lore included stories of ghosts roaming the depths of the excavation before it was flooded-and subsequently the shoreline, after the lake was filled.
Junior intended to add one stocky ghost to the party. Perhaps on a summer night in years to come, at the edge of the light fall from his Coleman lantern, a fisherman would see a semitransparent Vanadium providing entertainment with an ethereal quarter.
