and since everybody’s haranguing me, he’s not going to have them much longer.”
He recognized the gleam in Jaws’s eyes. “Don’t even think about jumping up here,” Simon warned, but cupped a hand around his own balls, just in case. “Why don’t you go get me a beer? Now that would be a useful behavior.”
Since none of them seemed inclined, he got up to get one for himself.
Once he got downstairs, he switched it to wine. She’d said she wanted wine, he remembered. He might as well go that route, too. He poured two glasses and sipped the first as he opened the refrigerator to study the contents.
They were going to starve to death, he decided, if one of them didn’t think about hitting the grocery store. He poked into the freezer and decided one of her frozen girl meals was better than starvation.
Marginally.
He picked up her wine and, with the dogs trailing him—again—started back for the stairs.
Beside him, Newman let out a quiet
She beamed a smile through the screen door. “Well, hello.”
Simon took a moment to think she was lucky he’d bothered to pull on his boxers. “Something I can do for you?”
“I hope so. I’d love to talk to you for a few minutes. I’m Kati Starr, with
Slick looks, slick manner, he thought.
“Here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to tell you, once, to turn around, get back in your own car. Go away. Stay away.”
“Mr. Doyle, I’m just doing my job, and trying to do it as thoroughly and accurately as I can. My information is there might be a break in the investigation. As I’ve been told Ms. Bristow’s now living with you, I’d hoped to be able to get her thoughts on this potential break. I admire your work,” she added. “I’d love to do a feature on you sometime. How long have you and Ms. Bristow been involved?”
Simon closed the door in her face, flipped the lock.
He figured he’d give her three minutes to get the hell off his property before he called the sheriff and had the satisfaction of pressing charges for trespassing.
But when he got back upstairs, Fiona, wet hair slicked back, sat on the side of the bed.
“I saw her through the window, so you don’t have to wonder if you should tell me or not.”
“Okay.” He passed her the wine.
“I was going to say I’m sorry she came here, started on you, but it’s just not my fault.”
“No, it’s not your fault. She said she had information that there’d been a break in the case. I don’t know if she was just fishing or if she’s got a source leaking her information.”
Fiona let out a muttered oath. “I guess we’d better tell Agent Tawney, just in case. What did you say to her?”
“I told her to go away, and when she didn’t, I just closed the door.”
“Smarter than I was.”
“Well, I considered giving her a quote, but I thought ‘Fuck you, bitch’ didn’t have any real creative zing. And it was all I could think of. If you’re going into brood mode, it’s going to piss me off.”
“I’m not going into brood mode. I’m going into neener-neener mode by calling the FBI and the sheriff’s office and tattling on her. And I’m asking for a restraining order after all, just for the fun of it.”
He reached out, smoothed a hand over her hair. “I like that mode better.”
“Me too. Then what do you say we flip to see who cooks dinner?”
“Buzzing up sissy frozen dinners isn’t worthy of a flip.”
“I was thinking of the steaks we have in the meat drawer of the fridge.”
“We have steaks?” The day got brighter. “We have a meat drawer?” She smiled and got to her feet. “Yes, we do.”
“Okay, the meat drawer probably came with the fridge. How did we get steaks? Do you have a magic cow somewhere?”
“No, I have a fairy stepmother, who delivers. I asked Syl if she’d pick us up a couple steaks, Idahos, some staples I needed. She dropped them off today, including a bunch of fresh vegetables and fruit because she thinks we need those, too. That’s why there are fresh vegetables in the crisper. And yes, we have a crisper.”
He decided there was no point in telling her he’d looked in the fridge and seen none of those things. There’d just be some variation of his mother’s standard crack about Male Refrigerator Blindness Syndrome.
“You make the calls. I’ll start the grill.”
“Works for me. You do know you’re only wearing your underwear.”
“I’ll put on the pants you’ve already picked up and folded on the bed you’ve already made. But that means if we have to have any of those vegetables, you’re dealing with them. I’ll take the steaks.”
“That’s a fair trade. I’ll make the calls downstairs.”
When she went down, he put on the neatly folded work pants she’d laid on the bed.
Before he went downstairs, he stepped into his makeshift gym.
Okay, maybe, like the rest of the house, the room smelled like a lemon drop. But his handprint was still on the window.
It was, he supposed, a strange kind of compromise.
He started down, cursed, walked back up and yanked open a drawer. He pulled on a fresh shirt.
She’d gotten the steaks, he reminded himself.
Steaks, fresh shirt. It was just another kind of compromise.
Twenty-Six
Tawney studied Perry on the monitor. He sat at the steel table, shackled, his eyes closed, the smallest of smiles on his face—as a man might when listening to pleasant music.
His prison-pale face, doughier than it had been seven years before, expressed quiet contemplation. Lines carved brackets around his mouth, more spiderwebbed from the corners of his eyes, only enhancing the appearance of an ordinary, harmless man who’d use his senior discount for the Early Bird Special at his local Denny’s.
The indulgent uncle, the quiet next-door neighbor who tended his roses and clipped his lawn meticulously. The simple Everyman people passed on the street without a second glance or particular interest.
“He used that the way Bundy used his charming looks and fake arm cast,” Tawney murmured.
“Used what?”
“His I’m-somebody’s-grandfather mask. He’s still using it.”
“Maybe. But he’s talking to us without his lawyer, and that has to be another device.” Mantz shook her head. “What’s he up to? What’s he thinking? Nobody knows him better than you, Tawney.”
“Nobody knows him.”
He kept his eyes on Perry’s face and thought, He knows we’re watching him. He’s enjoying it.
“He’s good at making you think you do, saying what you want to hear, or expect to hear. It’s the layers that trip you up with him. The ones he has already, the ones he adds on to suit the circumstance. You’ve read the files, Erin. You know it was mostly just his bad luck and the heroism of a canine cop that we caught him.”
“You don’t give yourself or the investigative team enough credit. You’d have bagged him.”
“He stayed in the wind nearly a year, a year after we had his face, his name. Fiona gave him to us, and still, it took months and the murder of a police officer before we took him down.”
And for that he’d never completely forgive himself.
“Look at him,” Tawney added. “A paunchy man past middle age, chained, caged, and still he finds a way. He found Eckle and lit the fuse.”
“You’re not getting enough sleep.”
“I bet that bastard’s sleeping like a baby. Every night, with that goddamn smile on his face just like he has
