'Christ, I'm sorry,' I said.
'It's not you, it's the situation,' she said, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. 'All those years, I kept it at a distance, and now I can't let it go. Or it won't let me go.'
'I'm glad to talk about it if you want. Believe me, I'm plenty interested.'
'Are you sure? I could use a reality check.'
'I'm sure.'
She finished off her wine and stood. 'I could use another glass of this, too.'
I took my own plate to the kitchen and poured myself a little more whiskey.
'Here's how wacko I'm getting,' she said when we were settled again. 'I keep thinking of more people who could have done it. Like that guy at Astrid's cabin. Remember what he yelled about 'nothing to be proud of'? Whoever he is, he didn't like her.'
'I already decided we should tell Gary about it, and give him that license number.'
'Then that got me going about Ward and his father,' she said. 'Boone's the same kind of nasty redneck-he just tries to hide it.'
'I'm with you there. Anything more specific?'
'When I came home this afternoon, the two of them were over at the carriage house looking in the windows. If Boone was the one who put the photos in there, he'd be worried about the work going on, right?'
'So then you showed up, wearing the earring. Any reaction from him?'
'He gave it a hard look, that's all. But he'd seen where you tore up the floor, so he'd be prepared, and he's very cool anyway.'
'All right, let me try a reality check,' I said. 'Suppose they looked in the carriage house because they were using the work to prop up their bullshit claim. And Boone was beyond cool and prepared-he was completely wrapped up in the song and dance he gave us. If the earring had meant something to him, he'd have shown it somehow.'
'I guess,' she said, slightly crestfallen. 'I thought about a motive, too, but it's a stretch. Say he'd had his eye on this place for years, hoping he could scheme his way in when my parents got older. Then Daddy married a woman in her twenties and Boone was furious.'
'It's an interesting stretch,' I said, remembering my earlier thoughts about secret antagonisms among people who'd known each other a long time. Renee's guess might be off the mark specifically, but point at something closer. 'I'm not saying I'm right about those other things, either. I think Boone definitely belongs on the suspect list. Who's next?'
'Travis Paulson. He couldn't take his eyes off the earring and all of a sudden he's my long-lost best friend. I'll bet you anything he wants to take me out so he can try to pick my brain.'
'He might have another agenda in mind,' I said.
'I'm sure not going to find out. As it was, he asked me where I was staying, if anyone was with me, how long I'd be here. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I was too distracted. But now it seems creepy.'
'People try to be sympathetic and those are just the kinds of things they ask,' I said, although I had to agree that I didn't like the sound of it. And Paulson, like Boone, had pointedly noticed the carriage house work. 'So what about his motive?'
She shook her head. 'Like I said, I barely remember him-just that he'd stop by once in a while, and I had the feeling my father wasn't all that happy to see him. It was like Travis was glomming on, maybe because Daddy was famous.'
Then she raised her hands palms up in a wry, helpless gesture.
'But I'm just babbling about all this,' she said. 'I don't know who the police suspected-I'm realizing I hardly know anything. I was living in Seattle when it happened, and my mother kept me insulated. I never talked about it with my father-I only saw him twice more before he had his strokes.'
That brought sadness back to her face.
'Time for you to crash,' I said. 'You must be wiped out.'
'I am,' she admitted.
'Go ahead. I'll take care of the dishes.'
'You really don't mind?'
'I really don't.' I was compulsive by nature, driven to impose order on chaos, but my scope was limited. Cleaning up a kitchen was just right.
'I'll make up the couch bed,' she said, rising from her chair.
'It's fine like it is.'
'Oh, come on. You'd be a lot more comfortable.'
'I don't want to be too comfortable. I'm on guard duty, remember?'
'All right, macho man. Can I at least get you a pillow and blankets?'
'Sure. I don't want to be too uncomfortable, either.'
She got the bedding from a closet, then started upstairs to her own room. On the way, she paused to give me a glance.
'I used to have a terrific crush on you, back when,' she said.
I stared after her as she climbed on out of sight.
22
That got my thoughts spinning in a very different direction from where they'd been most of the day.
Of course, that crush was a long time ago. Renee was barely a teenager then.
I headed into the kitchen to clean up. It wasn't much of a job; she was a tidy housekeeper, and there were only the dinner dishes.
The more I learned about her and the circumstances surrounding the murders, the more I sympathized with her psychological quagmire. Now I was starting to see the heavy burden of guilt she must be carrying. She'd never had a chance to talk to her father about the event that had ruined his life. No doubt she'd harbored resentment and jealousy toward Astrid, the interloper who'd stolen him away, broken up their family and home-and was closer in age to Renee than to him. Then came the nightmarish crime itself, probably bringing the irrational fear that her anger was somehow to blame.
All that was seething beneath the surface, along with the tangible troubles crowding in on her. She was holding up a hell of a lot better than I would have.
As I finished up in the kitchen, drying the dishes and swabbing the counters, I was aware of the sound of the shower running upstairs. Then that ceased, and the old house was quiet.
Until I heard Renee's voice say, 'Ohhhhh'-almost a groan, faint and far away but still conveying horror.
I went up the stairs three at a time and ran to her open bedroom door. She was wearing a bathrobe, her hair damp-backed up against a wall, arms drawn tight against her chest and fists clenched, staring at her open lingerie drawer.
Inside it was a dark bristly mass that looked loathsome even from fifteen feet away-a big pack rat, shot through the body.
I pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped it around Renee, then held her for a minute, trying to calm her shivering and my rage. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the work of Ward Ackerman. I hadn't even thought about him still having a key to this place, but of course he would. Maybe he'd killed the rat somewhere else, maybe in the woods right here; after living in this house for years, he'd know where their dens were. In fact, he was probably on a first-name basis with them.
The only time he could have done it was while we were in Phosphor. I wondered if he'd just been driving around and realized we were gone, or if he'd been watching more actively. The Ackerman clan certainly might own an SUV like I'd seen up on the overlook earlier today.
Or maybe it was Boone who was watching.
The corpse had leaked blood and fluids on some of the garments; others might have been salvageable.
'You want to keep any of this?' I said.
