TWENTY-ONE
Monday, October 9, 2000
18:45
We got Huck to the office and interviewed her at length. She seemed to be in that semi-euphoric state you reach after some heavy emotions, and was pretty frank and cooperative.
I'd given the new spelling of Daniel Peale to Sally as soon as we got in the door. She produced the basics in a few seconds. I put on my reading glasses, and read the descriptors to Huck.
“Okay, closest one we get, from the national computers, is this.” I held up the torn-off perforated sheet. “It says here that Daniel Gordon Peale is a white male, thirty-five, six feet one, one eighty-three pounds, black and brown.” I glanced up. “That would be black hair and brown eyes.” I purposely left out the address information and put the paper down. “That sound like him?”
“Yes it does.” She mused, “Gordon? Gordon. Never knew that.”
“And… we have a black '96 Lexus, and a green '81 Dodge four-door. Ever seen either of these cars?”
“He doesn't own cars here,” she said. “He either gets a rental car when he gets into O'Hare, or we go pick him up in Dubuque when he gets a commuter connection.” In answer to the question of who transported him, she said that it was often Toby, and sometimes Kevin. This last time it had been Toby.
“Why does he fly?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, “it's a really long swim from London.”
“London?” asked Hester.
“Well, yeah. He's an Englishman, after all.” Huck looked perplexed.
“How about this,” I said. “He lives in Moline, Illinois.”
“Oh, no,” said Huck. “No, that's not the right man. Dan lives in London. England.”
“Well,” I said, trying to sound immensely competent, “we'll check that.” I picked up the phone and got Sally. “I need a really fast check, U.K., London. For the same dude. Dan Peale.”
“This one is gonna cost you big,” said Sally. “How soon is really fast?”
“Five or ten minutes or less.”
“Shit, Houseman… I can't be any quicker than the machines. Okay. Lemme see what I can get… ” And her voice trailed off as she began concentrating. I hung up.
“So,” I said, “while we check that out, what can you tell us about Dan Peale?”
Even now, Huck was a little reluctant. I honestly think that it was William Chester who had disturbed her the most. Well, with a boost from seeing Edie in her coffin, and the death of Randy Baumhagen. But Chester had dropped in a dollop of fear from an unknown and unexpected source. I decided it was time to push her over the top.
“Oh,” I said, almost as an afterthought. “Before you start, did you know that Alicia Meyer was reported missing last night, over in Conception County?”
“What?” said Hester. “When did we get that?”
“That's what Byng was telling me up at the funeral home,” I said, watching Huck. “I was interrupted just as I was going to tell you.”
Huck took a deep breath, and said, “I can't go with this. Not anymore. This is just so over. So damn over.”
We both looked at her expectantly.
“What is it you want? All the sordid little details, I suppose. Right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I'm afraid so. Start wherever you need to.”
At that point, Sally knocked at the door, stuck in her head and one arm, and held out a computer printout. “For you.”
I was impressed.
I read it to Hester and Huck.
“This is from a computer search, done at our request, by the Metropolitan Police, London. City Directory. There is no such person as Daniel Peale, Dan Peale, or D. Peale in all of North London.” I handed the sheet to Hester. “Not one single one, Huck,” I said.
After a second, Hester handed the printout to Huck.
She looked at the sheet for some time, then handed it to me and said, “He has an English accent. He may not live in London itself… ”
“We're checking with Scotland Yard on that,” I said. “I'm afraid it looks like he's an American, though.” I put the sheet down on my desk. “Anyway, while we wait, what else do you know about him?”
“Well, he's from England… ” and she gave a forced smile. “At least, that's what I was told, anyway. He visits us along with Jessica about three or four times a year. He's Jessica's guest, not ours.” She dropped her voice. “Lately, he's been showing up maybe every other month, when she's not along. She doesn't know about that, I think. Well, didn't.”
As she talked, any reticence disappeared, and she began divulging some of the more sordid details about the Mansion.
For example, Huck thought Daniel Peale had been sexually active with all the young women in the house, and she thought maybe he'd had sex with Toby as well. No real surprises there, but I was rather startled that she was starting off with these details.
“Everybody up there's poly, you know? But he's the full-time lover of Jessica Hunley,” she said. “She owns him, like.”
Blow me down. So to speak. I had to nail down just one term.
“Poly? Poly what? Sexual?”
That elicited a smile. “Polyamorous. You can love more than one person at a time.”
“Okay.” You have to be sure. “But he's mostly Jessica's full-time lover?”
“He is as far as she's concerned. She was really pissed off that he was there without her this time,” she said, “because he's not supposed to do that.” She tossed her hair. “They've been down that road before. I've never heard a screaming match like that one.”
“Anybody get hurt?” asked Hester.
“Well,” she said, “they both had a little blood on them after… but they're into that anyway.”
“Violence?” I picked the one that was easiest for me to handle.
“Nope. Blood.”
Blood games were something I'd heard about, but had never encountered in more than twenty years of police work. One of the things I'd enjoyed about working in the rural areas. As it turned out, everybody that Dan Peale had relations with ended up donating a little blood to his fetish.
“How about Jessica?” asked Hester. “Does she sleep with everybody up there?”
“Well, I don't know about Toby, maybe some heavy snogging, but he told Kevin that she only screwed him once, and I think she was a little higher then than she usually lets herself get, you know? A little carried away. Anyway, it made Toby's whole year, but she never did him again. I know that Kevin did her a few times, about a year ago. Then she dumped him, and she just never came back for more.” She smiled wickedly. “I like to bring that up once in a while, when he gets obnoxious in bed.” She found her thread again. “But to answer your question, yes, she drew a bit of blood from him.” She shrugged. “Jessica and I got into a smoochy phase for a while, too. It happens.”
She was so open about it, I was a little disconcerted, somehow. I wasn't positive she was telling the truth, and if she was, I wasn't too sure I wanted details. “Much blood, ah, exchanged in these encounters?”
“You aren't into that, are you?” she said, with a little laugh.
“No, 'fraid not.”
She scooched down in her chair, and regarded me in earnest. “Okay, look, this is how it goes… ”
She explained that, most of the time, there wasn't much blood involved at all. It was frequently produced by nicking the skin between the fingers or toes, for instance. Just a few drops. Sometimes, if things were truly intimate, blood could be taken from a tiny cut on the lip, or the earlobe, and exchanged with kisses. Sometimes, if things really heated up, little cuts on the buttocks, or an area near the genitals or breasts.
“Depends,” she said.
