What's not to love about it? Hell, there's a whole fucking WORLD not to love about this cluster fuck. But not now. Now is for looking. Prying into Mr. Spoda's dark world. Looking for icepicks and blood trails and creepy- crawlies.
The other box, in with the ballistics box in the sack, comes out, penetration of the cabinet again. Shit, I oughta get a key made, he thinks. He takes a better, moh puhfeck casting, brudder. This baby has to be el perfecto.
Finally, forty minutes later, he has run the whole nine yards. It's either done or it ain't. He opens his notebook and removes the paper. It appears to be a mimeographed or poorly photocopied “Miranda Versus” form. Two thick rubber bands hold it in place. But the Miranda ends under the second rubber band. He carefully unfolds what Nicki Dodd has signed and reads her brief suicide note. So-so.
Back at the typewriter, being extremely careful, hitting the keys slowly, one at a time, he types an identical note, leaving the message on the typewriter. He has debated putting a couple of neat, clear prints on the keys, but he has used an object that probably won't smear everything. Be funny if Schumway's prints would be clear and we can make HIM a suspect. Eichord smiles, but this isn't him smiling. Not now.
This is some other cat. Some rogue cop who is capable of taking the law into his own hands. This is a smiling murderer, baby. And fuck THAT, too. Sometimes the system fails.
Funny. He'd had an image register when they moved from the door. The rolling swagger so incongruous in a good-looking woman's walk. A tight end in drag. That Vegas hooker look, that's what she reminded him of. A Vegas casino hooker.
Think electric chair. Jack the Ripper Eichord, one-man firing squad. Jesus in heaven! At that second he felt as mad Saucy Jack must have felt, knowing your single contribution had been that of the razor's red kiss.
Donna was talking about some pamphlets she wanted Jack to read about how to discipline a two-year-old, and he was not trying to tune her out, it was just that he couldn't shake the images from the day. Going back to the house with the evidence guys and the M.E. and the shooting team from Buckhead North had been as bad or worse than the awful scene this morning. Every step, every word of dialogue, was a land mine.
Somehow he'd gotten through it, but he couldn't shrug it all off. He kept worrying it like a cat with an addled mouse, shaking it, letting go for a moment, then jumping on it again. All things being equal, it fell together well. The surveillance team last night hadn't been yanked into thin air, they'd planted ‘em over at the Starlight Motor Inn, watching Mrs. Lauder. Then, with a dozen people still at the crime scene, working the house, Alan Schumway picked up for questioning, a totally bizarre thing happened.
The medical examiner had phoned the cop shop, who radioed the people on the scene. Eichord was told by one of the guys from North that the decedent was a man. He couldn't fucking believe it. Nobody could. It was going to cut their possible murder one suspect a hell of a lot of slack. Suddenly Nicki/Nicholas had begun to look like a sure-enough suicide. He/ she popped a cap into her head, with a note that said, “I'm sorry. I just can't take it anymore.” Signed, sealed, and delivered. A fucking transvestite blew his/ her brains out all over the living-room shag.
“She said they had a residual, no? I can't read my own notes, residential treatment center. And the funny thing was that a lot of these girls that come in there, you know, as battered wives, and it's incredible, a lot of them end up battering their own kids because—'
“Hey, Eichord,” fat Dana with the all-time grossest joke of the day.
“What?'
“You know why Alan and Nicki lived together?'
“Why?'
“Well, he couldn't walk, man. So he had to get a TV for his bedroom.” Screaming laughter. Fucking peabrain.
“—in the emergency foster home. So I told her about Jonathan and she said that it was perfectly natural for —'
What happens when he gets a card in the mail from Diane Taluvera. “Gee—sorry I didn't get back to you, but Bonnie said you were trying to get in touch...” Christ. A million things could collapse on him. He fought to lock in on what his wife was saying to him. She was looking at him intently so he nodded sagely.
“On the other hand,” he said, trying to look like a normal human being and not a fucking murdering FREAK, “you know the old saying.'
“What's that?'
“Spare the rod and spoil the child.'
It was Sunday and Donna had taken Jonathan to church with her. She tried to get Jack to go and he begged off. Work.
“It's Sunday, honey,” she said.
“I know.'
“Do you have to work on Sunday?'
“No choice, Donna. Sorry,” he lied.
“We'll miss you. Won't we, my big boy?” He said nothing, dressed in his finery. Clean. “Won't we miss Daddy?'
“No,” the boy said loudly.
“There you are,” Eichord said.
“NO.'
“Say YES. Jonathan. Say YES. Can you say YES?'
'NO!'
“Please?'
“No,” the child cooed pleasantly.
“Okay.” Donna turned to Jack. “Come with us?'
“Can't do it, babe.” He was afraid that everything showed in his voice. He had the doll house and the three dolls waiting for them for after church. He'd had them for days, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't wait any longer. They had to start trying to pull the little boy out of whatever darkness had hold of him.
Church had been a disaster for Donna. Jonathan had misbehaved, she told him, and she'd finally been forced to take him to the cry room, off the nursery, where a woman had entertained him until the services were over and Donna could reclaim him.
“Were you a bad boy in church?” Jack asked.
'NO! NO! NO! NO!' Screaming at the top of his voice.
After he'd had some time to calm down, the three of them had a light lunch, and then Jack and Donna sat down on the floor with Jonathan and played dolls. This is Mommy and Daddy. They love each other very much. God gave them a little son. This is Jonathan. They loved Jonathan with all their hearts. They lived together in a house by the side of the road. And so on...
About five-forty-five Donna walked in front of the TV set in the family room where Jack sat vegetating in front of a football game. She was sobbing.
“What is it, angel?” He leaned forward, starting to stand up, and froze at the look of horror on her face as she showed him what she had in her hands.
“He-he brought them to me.” It was the Mommy and Daddy dolls. They were headless. Hey, things take time. No big deal. He's just a little boy.
He waited until about eight that night, and on the pretense of going out to pick up a magazine, he left the house and called Doug Geary long-distance from a payphone. He took him through the recent chain of events.
Dr. Geary said, “Jack, my friend, isn't it possible you've blown these things out of proportion? Two-year-olds don't take photographs out of picture frames. Their hand-to-eye coordination wouldn't allow it. Don't you think you may be reading into the—'
