“No, really. There are biological reasons. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
He stopped by the car door. “What biological reasons?” I'm starving.
“Oh.” He opened the door for her then went around to the driver’s side. “Okay, so we’ll make a quick stop at the market on the way. You can fix lunch.” I can?
“I fixed breakfast.”
“Oh, so you did.” She settled back, finding the idea of a cozy
Sunday afternoon appealing. “All right, I’ll fix lunch. I hope you like cheese sandwiches.”
He leaned close, so that his breath feathered over her lips. “Then I’ll show you what people are supposed to do on Sunday afternoons.”
Tess let her eyes flutter half closed. “And what’s that?”
“Drink beer and watch football.” He kissed her hard, and started the car as she laughed.
He watched them huddled together in the car. He’d seen her in church. His church. It was a sign, of course, that she should come to pray in his church. At first it had upset him a little, then he’d realized she’d been guided there.
She would be the last one. The last, before himself.
He watched the car pull out, caught a glimpse of her hair through the side window. A bird landed in the branch of the denuded tree beside him and looked down with bright black eyes, his mother’s eyes. He went home to rest.
Chapter 12
“I think I FOUND a place.”
Ed sat solidly at his desk, hammering away two finger-style at his typewriter.
“Oh, yeah?” Ben sat at his own, the map of the city in front of him again. Patiently, he drew lines with a pencil to connect the murder scenes. “A place for what?”
“To live.”
“Umm-hmm.”
Someone opened the refrigerator and complained loudly that their A amp; W had been stolen. No one paid any attention. The staff had been whittled down by the flu and a double homicide near Georgetown University. Someone had taped a cardboard turkey onto one of the windows, but it was the only outward sign of holiday cheer. Ben put a light circle around Tess’s apartment building before he glanced over at Ed.
“So when are you moving?”
“Depends.” Ed frowned at the keys, hesitated, then found his rhythm again. “Have to see if the contract goes through.”
“You having someone killed so you can rent their apartment?”
“Contract of sale. Shit, this typewriter’s defective.”
“Sale?” Ben dropped his pencil and stared. “You’re buying a place?
“That’s right.” Ed patiently applied Liquid Paper to his last mistake, blew on it, then typed the correction. He kept a can of Lysol spray at his elbow. If anyone who looked contagious walked by, he sprayed the area. “You suggested it.”
“Yeah, but I was only- Buying?” To cover his tracks, Ben pushed some excess paper into his trash basket on top of the empty can of A amp; W “What kind of dump can you afford on a detective’s pay?”
“Some of us know how to save. I’m using my capital.”
“Capital?” Ben rolled his eyes before folding the map. He wasn’t getting anywhere. “The man has capital,” he said to the station at large. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me you play the market.”
“I’ve made a few small, conservative investments. Utilities mostly.”
“Utilities. The only utilities you know about is the gas bill.” But he studied Ed with an uncertain eye. “Where is this place?”
“Got a few minutes?”
“I’ve got some personal time coming.”
Ed pulled his report out of the typewriter, cast a wary glance over it, then set it aside. “Let’s take a drive.”
It didn’t take long. The neighborhood was on the outer and rougher edges of Georgetown. The row houses looked more tired than distinguished. The fall flowers had simply given up for lack of interest, and stood faded among tangles of unraked leaves. Someone had chained a bike to a post. It had been stripped down of everything portable. Ed pulled up to the curb. 1 here it is.
Cautious, Ben turned his head. To his credit, he didn’t groan.
The house was three stories high, and narrow, with its front door hardly five paces from the sidewalk. Two of the windows had been boarded up, and the shutters that hadn’t fallen off tilted drunkenly. The brick was old and softly faded, except for where someone had spray painted an obscenity. Ben got out of the car, leaned on the hood, and tried not to believe what he was seeing.
“Something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, something. Ed, there aren’t any gutters.”
“I know.”
“Half the windows are broken.”
“I thought I might replace a couple of them with stained glass.”
“I don’t think the roof’s been reshingled since the Depression. The real one.”
“I’m looking into skylights.”
“While you’re at it you ought to try a crystal ball.” Ben stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Let’s have a look inside.”
“I don’t have a key yet.”
“Jesus.” With a mutter, Ben walked up three broken concrete steps, pulled out his wallet, and found a credit card. The pitiful lock gave without complaint. “I feel like I should carry you over the threshold.”
“Get your own house.”
The hall was full of cobwebs and droppings from assorted rodents. The wallpaper had faded to gray. A fat, hard-backed beetle crawled lazily across it. “When does Vincent Price come down the steps?”
Ed glanced around and saw a castle in the rough. “It just needs a good cleaning.”
“And an exterminator. Are there rats?”
“In the basement, I imagine,” Ed said carelessly, and walked into what had once been a charming parlor.
It was narrow and high ceilinged, with the openings of what would be two five-foot windows boarded up. The stone of the fireplace was intact, but someone had ripped out the mantel. The floors, under a coating of dust and grime, might very well have been oak.
“Ed, this place-”
“Terrific potential. The kitchen has a brick oven built into the wall. You know what bread tastes like out of a brick oven?”
“You don’t buy a house to bake bread.” Ben walked back into the hall, watching the floor for any signs of life. “Christ, there’s a hole in the ceiling back here. It’s fucking four feet wide.”
“That’s first on my list,” Ed commented as he came to join him. They stood for a moment in silence, looking up at the hole.
“You’re not talking about a list. You’re talking about a lifetime commitment.” As they watched, a spider the size of a man’s thumb dropped down and landed at their feet with a noticeable plop. More than a little disgusted, Ben kicked it aside. “You can’t be serious about this place.”
“Sure I am. A man gets to a point he wants to settle down.”
“You didn’t take me seriously about getting married too?”
“A place of his own,” Ed continued placidly. “A workroom, maybe a little garden. There’s a good spot for herbs in the back. A place like this would give me a goal. I figure on fixing up one room at a time.”
“It’ll take you fifty years.”
“I got nothing better to do. Want to see upstairs?”
