Black House

So thinking, Fred falls asleep.

Beside him, in her own sleep, Judy begins to whisper. Gorg . . . abbalah . . . the Crimson King. And a woman’s name.

The name is Sophie.

6

IN THE READY ROOM of the French Landing P.D., the phone on the desk rings. Bobby Dulac has been mining for nose-gold. Now he squashes his latest treasure on the sole of his shoe and picks up the phone.

“Yell-o, Police Department, Officer Dulac speaking, how can I help you?”

“Hey, Bobby. It’s Danny Tcheda.”

Bobby feels a prink of unease. Danny Tcheda—last name pronounced Cheetah—is one of French Landing’s fourteen full-time RMP cops. He’s currently on duty, and ordinary procedure dictates that duty cops radio in—that’s what the R in RMP stands for, after all. The only exception to the rule has to do with the Fisherman. Dale has mandated that patrol officers call in on a landline if they think they have a situation involving the killer. Too many people have their ears on out there, doubtless including Wendell “Pisshead” Green.

“Danny, what’s up?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe something not so good. I got a bike and a sneaker in the trunk of my car. I found ’em over on Queen Street. Near Maxton Elder Care?”

Bobby draws a pad toward him and begins to jot. The tickle of unease has become a sinking feeling.

“Nothing wrong with the bike,” Danny continues, “just sitting there on its kickstand, but combined with the sneaker . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I see your point, Danny, but you never should have fooled with what could be evidence of a crime.” Please God don’t let it be evidence of a crime, Bobby Dulac is thinking. Please God don’t let it be another one.

Irma Freneau’s mother has just been in to see Dale, and while there was no screaming or shouting, she came out with tears on her cheeks and looking like death on the half shell. They can’t still be sure the little girl has become the Fisherman’s third victim, but—

“Bobby, I had to,” Danny is saying. “I’m ridin’ solo, I didn’t want to put this out on the air, I hadda find a phone. If I’d left the bike there, someone else coulda monkeyed with it. Hell, stolen it. This is a good bike, Schwinn three-speed. Better’n the one my kid’s got, tell you that.”

“What’s your twenty?”

“7-Eleven, up the hill on 35. What I did was mark the location of the bike and the sneaker with chalk X’s on the sidewalk. I handled them with gloves and put the sneaker in an evidence bag.” Danny is sounding more and more anxious. Bobby knows how he must feel, sympathizes with the choices Danny had to make. Riding solo is a bitch, but French Landing is already supporting as many cops—full-time and part-time—as the budget will bear. Unless, of course, this Fisherman business gets totally out of control; in that case, the town fathers will no doubt discover a bit more elastic in the budget.

Maybe it’s already out of control, Bobby thinks.

“Okay, Danny. Okay. See your point.” Whether or not Dale sees it is a whole ’nother thing, Bobby thinks.

Danny lowers his voice. “No one needs to know I broke the chain of evidence, do they? I mean, if the subject ever came up. In court, or something.”

“I guess that’s up to Dale.” Oh God, Bobby thinks. A new problem has just occurred to him. All calls that come in on this phone are automatically taped. Bobby decides the taping machinery is about to have a malfunction, retroactive to about two o’clock in the afternoon.

“And you want to know the other thing?” Danny is asking. “The big thing? I didn’t want people to see it. A bike standing all by itself that way, you don’t have to be Sherlock Fucking Holmes to draw a certain conclusion. And folks’re getting close to the panic line, especially after that goddamned irresponsible story in the paper this morning. I didn’t want to call from Maxton’s for the same reason.”

“I’m gonna put you on hold. You better talk to Dale.”

In a vastly unhappy voice, Danny says: “Oh boy.”

In Dale Gilbertson’s office there is a bulletin board dominated by enlarged photographs of Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham. A third photo will be added soon, he fears—that of Irma Freneau. Beneath the two current photos, Dale sits at his desk, smoking a Marlboro 100. He’s got the fan on. It will, he hopes, blow the smoke away. Sarah would just about kill him if she knew he was smoking again, but dear Jesus Christ, he needs something.

His interview with Tansy Freneau had been short and nothing short of purgatorial. Tansy is a juicer, a regular patron of the Sand Bar, and during their interview the smell of coffee brandy was so strong it almost seemed to be coming out of her pores (another excuse for the fan). Half drunk, she had been, and Dale was glad. It kept her calm, at least. It didn’t put any sparkle in her dead eyes, coffee brandy was no good for that, but she had been calm. Hideously, she had even said “Thank you for helping me, sir” before leaving.

Tansy’s ex—Irma’s father—lives across the state in Green Bay (“Green Bay is the devil’s town,” Dale’s father used to say, God knows why), where he works in a garage and, according to Tansy, supports several bars with names like the End Zone and the Fifty-Yard Line. Until today, there has been some reason to believe—at least to hope—that Richard “Cubby” Freneau snatched his daughter. An e-mail from the Green Bay Police Department has put paid to that little idea. Cubby Freneau is living with a woman who has two kids of her own, and he was in jail —D & D—the day Irma disappeared. There is still no body, and Tansy hasn’t received a letter from the Fisherman, but—

The door opens. Bobby Dulac sticks his head in. Dale mashes his cigarette out on the inside lip of the wastebasket, burning the back of his hand with sparks in the process.