drawer of his desk, and got right to work.
He sewed the underwear together himself, making uniforms for the tellers and the loan arranger and everyone else who worked at the bank.
He neither washed the underwear nor dyed it a different color, but sewed the material together as it was, rayon to cotton to silk. While he called the clothes he made 'uniforms,' they were, in reality, nothing of the sort. If there were similarities between any two garments, it was strictly coincidental. He sewed without any plan or pattern but according to the dictates of the underclothes he found. The results, he had to admit, were spectacular. Before this, he had never picked up a needle or thread in his life, and he found himself imagining what he could have accomplished had he received formal training and guidance.
He placed the completed uniforms on hangers, which he hooked over the nails he'd pounded into the wall behind his desk. Bob Mackie could not have done any better. The uniforms were marvels of style over substance, each retaining the essence of the bras, briefs, or panties from which it was designed, yet somehow transcending its humble origins to become a unique and stylish customized bank outfit.
Sophocles had no idea whether or not the uniforms he was creating corresponded to the body sizes of his employees, but he didn't care.
That did not matter. The workers could adjust their sizes to fit the clothesgain or lose weight as necessary, wear platform shoes or flat sandals-and if they were not able or willing to. do so, then new workers would be found.
Anything was possible. Anything could happen. Anything. He had learned that the other night. When he had been out in the desert with his telescope, waiting for the meteor shower.
When he had seen Jesus.
When he had seen Jesus kissing Manuel Torres.
He looked up from the uniform he was working on, feeling suddenly uneasy. An uncomfortable sensation came over him, and he had the feeling that he had forgotten something or had done something wrong. He frowned, trying to think, to remember. Then he saw his handiwork hanging from the hangers on the wall, and he relaxed as, once again, all seemed right with the world.
It was dark outside, and the clock above the desk said it was ten-thirty, but he was not yet tired. He grabbed a pair of skivvies from the pile. He could continue sewing for hours. He could work through midnight with no problem. Maybe until dawn.
He grinned. With any luck, he would be finished with the uniforms by Friday.
The door to the town council chambers was open When he walked by, and Robert stopped for a second to peek inside. The room was dark, save for the line of dim ceiling lights above the council members' seats, and the gallery was shadowed, the aisles next to the walls bathed in gloom. There was something creepy about the pard al illumination of those, empty chairs behind the raised circular desk, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He hurried on, not looking back.
He had passed by the council chambers a hundred times before on evenings such as this and had never thought anything of it, but tonight was different. Tonight everything seemed creepy.
Part of it was that damned autopsy report. That thing had been haunting him now for two days, ever since he'd first received it.
Woods had declared the official cause of death to be, in layman's terms, exsanguination--loss of blood--but the circumstances surrounding that blood loss were truly frightening. For it was not only blood that had been removed from Manuel Torres's corpse, it was water, spinal fluid, saliva, semen, bile every liquid that the human body produced or retained. And all of these fluids had been sucked out through a single hole bitten into the mechanic's neck.
That was the word they had tiptoed around, had been afraid to say. It was ludicrous, of course, but it was also scary as hell. He had quizzed the coroner on the findings, asking if it would be physically possible for a deranged individual to suck out all of those fluids by placing his or her mouth on the wound. He knew from seeing Manuel's shriveled body that such an idea was absurd, but Woods had replied seriously that, yes, it would be possible with the aid of a pump strong enough to collapse inter organ membrane walls but not so strong as to significantly damage the organs themselves--although the coroner had to admit that he had never heard of the existence of such a device, and he didn't know how such a device could do exactly the same thing to the infinitely more fragile body structures of the animals found next to the corpse.
The truth was, neither of them had any idea how it had happened. The only theory that offered any explanation was vampirism.
But there were no such things as vampires.
Robert felt cold, though the night was not particularly chilly. The short peach-fuzz hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He was glad that Ted was on duty tonight. He would not have wanted to be alone in the police office right now. Pussy, he told himself.
He shook his head, smiling wryly as he pushed open the glass door.
Robert Carter. Pussy shit face Might be a good title for his autobiography.
He walked inside, nodding at Ted, who was sitting behind the front counter. 'How's it going tonight?' 'It's not.' 'Good.'
Ted stood, stretched, held his back. 'Mary Beth Vigil called again, though. She says Mike's still missing.' Robert frowned. 'What'd you tell her?'
'I told her she had to wait twenty-four hours to file a missing persons report. She said it's been twelve hours already.'
'Shit.' :
Mary Beth had phoned earlier in the afternoon to tell them that her father had not returned from a fig run to Casa Grande. He'd called her from the Gasa Grande Dairy Queen before heading back to Rio Verde and had told her that he'd be home in two hours, but when three and a half hours had passed and he still hadn't arrived, Mary Beth had called them. They'd contacted the Department of Public Safety to see if there'd been any accidents on the highway, but none had been reported, and they'd assumed that Mike had stopped off at a truck stop for a piece of pie, or maybe just stopped off for a piece. He had been known to frequent Nicole's and was not above picking up hitchhikers in his more desperate moments.
Now Robert was not so sure. It wasn't like Mike to disappear for this long without letting anyone know where he was, particularly once he'd called and specifically said he was coming home.
'Did you call DPS again?' he asked Ted.
The deputy nodded. 'No accidents, no stalls. Their helicopter flew the route an hour or so before sundown.'
Robert felt the chill return. It was probably unrelated he hoped to Christ it was unrelated--but he could not help thinking that whoever had killed Manuel Torres was still at large.
He imagined Mike lying at the bottom of the arroyo, his body shriveled and shrinking and dry.
The worry must have shown on his face, because Ted looked at him sympathetically. 'You seem pretty worn out.'
'Yeah,' he admitted.
'Go home then. Get some rest.' ,
He shook his head. 'We have to come up with some leads on this murder.' :::
'Tonight? There's nothing we can do tonight. Go home.'
Robert ran a hand through his hair. He looked at the deputy, felt the sting of tiredness, and was forced to rub his eyes. 'You're right,' he said. He reached over the counter and picked up a rubber-banded stack of forms. 'I'll take the answering machine off so I can hear the phone. If DPS calls or anything else comes up, give me a ring.'
'Will do.'
It was late, and the streets were empty as Robert drove home. He passed Rich's house and was going to give his usual shave-and-a-haircut honk as he drove by, but he saw that all of the lights were off and figured his brother and the family were already asleep. He turned onto Sagebrush, feeling slightly lonely. The moon was out, reflected in the front windows of all the homes on the right side of the street, and its dim bluish glow made the street look vacant and abandoned, like part of a ghost town.
The road curved at the foot of the hill, winding out toward the desert.
The houses here were farther apart, with stretches of sand in between.
