“I was full … stuffed from.…” He let his voice trail off, and looked away with a half smile. “I was full and I was still hungry. You wouldn’t understand.”
The phone rang.
It was so sudden, so loud, that Selma Conroy screamed. She recoiled from the sound as if it had tried to bite her.
Homer smiled at that. He looked from the phone to Selma and back again. The phone was on the counter in the kitchen. It rang a second time.
“You going to get that?” he asked calmly.
“No.”
“You should. It could be that reporter again. Don’t want to make them suspicious.”
Selma stared at him as the phone rang a third time.
“Go ahead,” Homer prompted.
Selma reached out for the wooden chair that stood in the corner. She pulled herself up slowly, her joints creaking and popping.
“You got old,” Homer said.
She said nothing, grunting with the effort. The phone rang again and again before she tottered into the kitchen and picked it up.
“Hello?”
There was no sound behind her, nothing to let her know that Homer had also gotten up, but suddenly he was there, his body pressing against her. When he was a baby his skin was always furnace hot. Now he was cold. So cold.
“I would like to speak with Selma Conroy,” said a voice. A stranger’s voice. Male, accented. And hesitant.
“This is she,” murmured Selma, her voice still small. “Who’s calling, please?”
Homer bent close to listen. Selma could barely feel his breath, but what little there was stank of corruption. It was like the open mouth of a sewer.
The caller said, “My name is Dr. Herman Volker from the State Correctional Institution at Rockview.”
The breath caught in Selma’s throat.
“I would like to speak with you about Homer Gibbon.”
The breath in Selma’s throat wanted to burst out of her as a scream. God, how she needed to scream.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Trout called Marcia to get an update on the Volker research and put the call on speaker.
“Marcia, we got what you sent but—”
She cut him off. “Where are you idiots?”
“Heading to Dr. Volker’s place. Why, what’s up?”
“I don’t know but all hell seems to be breaking loose around here. I called you a dozen times. Murray’s been on my ass about you. The police are keeping it off the regular channels, but all I hear are sirens, and Nell over at the diner says that about a dozen state police cars and half as many ambulances have gone by in the last fifteen minutes.”
“Heading where?”
“Doc Hartnup’s. Whatever’s going on there is getting worse.”
“I know,” Trout said. “I can try going back there, but Dez will just run me off again.”
“Mm,” grunted Marcia. “I still can’t understand what you see in that piece of trailer trash. I mean, sure, she’s got the body and the face, but she is seriously damaged goods. You’d need to win the lottery just to pay her therapy bills. Providing she ever got her head out of her ass long enough to go to therapy.”
“Jealousy is an ugly thing, Marcia.”
Marcia snorted and hung up.
A line of National Guard troop trucks passed them, heading south. Trout counted thirty of them.
“Lot of men for flood control,” said Goat.
“No shit,” agreed Trout. He said nothing for a few seconds, then he punched in another number. He did not put this call on speaker. It rang three times, and he was rehearsing what he was going to leave on the voice mail when a voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Dez…?”
A pause. “I don’t have time for this, Billy.”
“No, don’t hang up. Listen, Marcia’s been telling me that some weird stuff’s been happening at Doc’s. Or at least in town somewhere.”
“That’s none of your—”
“Stop,” he said. “I’m not calling for a story. I … just wanted to see if you’re all right. She said there were ambulances and all.”
A much longer pause.
“Dez?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Come on, Dez … don’t be like that.”
“I’m working here, Billy.”
“I know … that’s the point. You’re on the job and something bad is happening. I need to know you’re okay.”
This time the pause was so long that Trout had to check the screen display to make sure the call was still connected.
Dez said, “I’m … not injured.”
It was the same thing she’d said earlier and it was a funny way to phrase it. It felt awkward and evasive to Trout.
“You sure?”
“I’m fine, Billy,” she snapped, then she took a breath and said it again. This time it was a softer voice than he’d heard her use in months. “Really, Billy. I’m okay.”
Trout relaxed by half a degree. “JT?”
“We’re both good,” she said, and before Trout could say another word, Dez hung up.
Trout held the phone in his palm, weighing it, wondering if he could throw it all the way through the windshield. Beside him, Goat was studying him and for once he wasn’t wearing a joker’s smile.
“Everything cool?” Goat asked.
Trout shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think it is.”
Raindrops began spattering on the windshield as they made a right and drove under a stone arch that read GREEN GATES 55-PLUS COMMUNITY.
Below that, in painted script, it read LEAVE ALL YOUR TROUBLES BEHIND.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Lee Hartnup stood in the shadows of his family house and watched the officer die.
Because he did not need to breathe, he was able to scream continually the whole time, from first bite until the thing that was his body turned away from the lifeless meat.
