“Don’t worry,” Bubba said, his eyes on his food, fork and knife hovering above the mess like hawks about to descend, “I respect a woman likes to drink. Kinda respect that nympho-lesbian action you got going on the tape, too.”
Bubba dove back into his food, and for a few moments the only sounds in that room came from his shoveling and snarfing.
“About the videotape,” I said.
Diane Bourne tore her eyes away from Bubba and gulped the rest of her wine. She poured another half goblet, looked at me as a brazen pride swept over the unsettlement Bubba had placed there.
“Are you angry with me, Patrick?”
“No.”
She took another meager bite of turkey. “But I thought Karen Nichols’s death was a personal crusade for you, Patrick.”
I smiled. “Classic interrogation technique, Diane. Kudos.”
“Which?” All wide-eyed innocence.
“Using the subject’s first name as much as possible. Unnerves him, supposedly, forces intimacy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Ah, well, maybe not, but-”
“Doctor,” Angie said, “you’re fucking both Karen Nichols and Miles Lovell on that tape. Care to explain?”
She turned her head, locked Angie in her calm gaze. “Did it turn you on, Angie?”
“Not particularly, Diane.”
“Did it repulse you?”
“Not particularly, Diane.”
Bubba looked up from his second turkey leg. “I got major wood, though, sister. Keep it in mind.”
She ignored him, though another of those tremors found her throat for a moment. “Come, Angie, no latent desires to experiment sexually with another woman?”
Angie drank some beer. “If I did, Doctor, I’d pick a woman with a better body. Call me shallow.”
“Yeah,” Bubba said, “you need to get some meat on those bones, Doc.”
Diane Bourne turned her eyes on me again, but they were less calm, less certain. “You, Patrick, did you enjoy watching?”
“Two girls and a guy?”
She nodded.
I shrugged. “It was a lighting issue, really. I like my porn with higher production values, to tell the truth.”
“Plus the hairy ass factor,” Bubba reminded me.
“Good point, Ebert.” I smiled at Diane Bourne. “Lovell had a hairy ass. We don’t be digging hairy asses. Doctor, who shot that video?”
She drank some more wine. In the face of her probes into our psyches, we’d grown more glib. One of us she might have been able to make progress with, but all three of us together could outglib the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and Neil Simon combined.
“Doctor?” I said.
“The video was on a tripod. We shot it.”
I shook my head. “Sorry. Won’t wash. There’s four different angles on that tape, and I don’t think any of you three got up to move the tripod.”
“Maybe we-”
“There’s also a shadow,” Angie said. “A man’s shadow, Diane, against the east wall during foreplay.”
Diane Bourne closed her mouth, reached for her wineglass.
“We can burn you down, Diane,” I said. “And you know it. So don’t fuck around with us anymore. Who shot the tape? The blond guy?”
Her eyes snapped up and then dropped just as quickly.
“Who is he?” I said. “We know he maimed Lovell. We know he’s six-two, weighs about one-ninety, dresses well, and whistles when he walks. We’ve placed him with both Karen Nichols and Lovell at the Holly Martens Inn. We go back and ask questions, I’m sure we’ll get a description of you there as well. What we need is his name.”
She shook her head.
“You’re not in a position to negotiate, Diane.”
Another shake of the head, another draining of her goblet. “I won’t under any circumstances discuss this man.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, I do, Patrick. Oh, yes, I do. It may not be an easy choice, but it’s a choice. And I will not cross this man. Ever. And should the police question me, I will deny he even exists.” She emptied the wine bottle into her goblet with a shaky hand. “You have no idea what this man is capable of.”
“Sure, we do,” I said. “We found Lovell.”
“That was spur-of-the-moment,” she said with a bitter grin. “You should see what he’s capable of when he has time to plan.”
“Karen Nichols?” Angie said. “Is that what he’s capable of?”
Diane Bourne gave her bitter grin a derisive turn downward as she looked at Angie. “Karen was weak. Next time, he’s choosing someone strong. Add to the challenge.” She gave Angie a flat, contemptuous smile, and Angie damn near knocked it off when she slapped her.
The wine goblet shattered against the serving dish and a red mark the shape of a salmon steak obscured Diane Bourne’s left cheekbone and ear.
“Damn,” I said, “no leftovers for this house.”
“Don’t get the wrong impression of us, bitch,” Angie said. “Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean things can’t get physical.”
“Very physical,” Bubba said.
Diane Bourne looked at the shards of her glass sticking out of the plate of carved white meat. She watched as her wine pooled in the divots of her hammered copper.
She jerked a thumb at Bubba. “He’d torture me, maybe even rape me. But you don’t have the stomach for it, Patrick.”
“Amazing how your stomach feels when you walk outside,” I said. “Come back after it’s all done.”
She sighed and settled back into her chair. “Well, you’re just going to have to do it. Because I won’t betray this man.”
“Out of fear or love?” I asked.
“Both. He engenders both, Patrick. As all worthy beings do.”
“You’re done as a psychiatrist,” I said. “You know that, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “I think not. You release that tape to anyone, I’ll file breaking and entering charges against the three of you.”
Angie laughed.
Diane Bourne looked at her. “You are breaking and entering.”
“You should have fun explaining this,” Angie said and swept her hand over the table.
“Officer, they were cooking!” I said.
“Basting!” Angie said.
“And, madam, how did you respond?”
“I helped carve,” Angie said. “And, of course, I showed them to my china.”
“Did you go with the light meat or the dark?”
Diane Bourne lowered her head and shook it.
“Last chance,” I said.
She kept her head down, shook it again.
I pushed my chair back from the table, held up the videotape. “We’ll make copies and it’s going out, Doctor, to every psychiatrist and psychologist listed in the yellow pages.”
