I listened to Sasha run a pair of twenty-second “doughnut” spots — which are not ads for doughnuts but commercials with recorded beginnings and endings that leave a hole for live material in the center. She followed these with some way smooth historical patter about Elton John, and then brought up “Japanese Hands” with a silky six-bar talk-over. Evidently the Chris Isaak festival had ended.
Taking me off hold, she said, “I’m doing back-to-back tracks, so you’ve got just over five minutes, baby.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Only a handful of people have this number, and most of them are asleep at this hour. Besides, when it comes to you, I’ve got great intuition. The moment I saw the phone light flash, my nether parts started to tingle.”
“Your nether parts?”
“My female nether parts. Can’t wait to see you, Snowman.”
“Seeing would be a good start. Listen, who else is working tonight?”
“Doogie Sassman.” He was her production engineer, operating the board.
“Just the two of you there alone?” I worried.
“You’re jealous all of a sudden? How sweet. But you don’t have to worry. I don’t measure up to Doogie’s standards.”
When Doogie wasn’t parked in a command chair at an audio control panel, he spent most of his time with his massive legs wrapped around a Harley-Davidson. He was five feet eleven and weighed three hundred pounds. His wealth of untamed blond hair and his naturally wavy beard were so lush and silky that you had to resist the urge to pet him, and the colorful mural that covered virtually every inch of his arms and torso had put some tattooist’s child through college. Yet Sasha wasn’t entirely joking when she said that she didn’t measure up to Doogie’s standards. With the opposite sex, he had more bearish charm than Pooh to the tenth power. Since I’d met him six years ago, each of the four women with whom he’d enjoyed a relationship had been stunning enough to attend the Academy Awards in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, sans makeup, and outshine every dazzling starlet at the ceremony.
Bobby says that Doogie Sassman (pick one) has sold his soul to the devil, is the secret master of the universe, has the most astonishingly proportioned genitalia in the history of the planet, or produces sexual pheromones that are more powerful than Earth’s gravity.
I was glad Doogie was working the night, because I had no doubt that he was a lot tougher than any of the other engineers at KBAY.
“But I thought there’d be someone besides the two of you,” I said.
Sasha knew I wasn’t jealous of Doogie, and now she heard the concern in my voice. “You know how things have tightened up here since Fort Wyvern closed and we lost the military audience at night. We’re barely making money on this airshift even with a skeleton staff. What’s wrong, Chris?”
“You keep the station doors locked, don’t you?”
“Yeah. All us late-night jocks and jockettes are required to watch
“Even though it’ll be after dawn when you leave, promise me you’ll have Doogie or someone from the morning shift walk you out to your Explorer.”
“Who’s on the loose — Dracula?”
“Promise me.”
“Chris, what the hell—”
“I’ll tell you later. Just promise me,” I insisted.
She sighed. “All right. But are you in some kind of trouble? Are you—”
“I’m all right, Sasha. Really. Don’t worry. Just, damn it, promise me.”
“I did promise—”
“You didn’t use the word.”
“Jesus. Okay, okay. I
“Will you wear your old Girl Scout uniform?”
“The only part of it I could duplicate are the kneesocks.”
“That’s enough.”
“You’re stirred by that picture, huh?”
“Vibrating.”
“You’re a bad man, Christopher Snow.”
“Yeah, I’m a killer.”
“See you in a little while, killer.”
We disconnected, and I clipped the cell phone to my belt once more.
For a moment I listened to the silent cemetery. Not a single nightingale performed, and even the chimney swifts had gone to bed. No doubt the worms were awake and laboring, but they always conduct their solemn work in a respectful hush.
To Orson, I said, “I find myself in need of some spiritual guidance. Let’s pay a visit to Father Tom.”
As I crossed the cemetery on foot and went behind the church, I drew the Glock from my jacket pocket. In a town where the chief of police dreamed of beating and torturing little girls and where undertakers carried handguns, I could not assume that the priest would be armed solely with the word of God.
The rectory had appeared dark from the street, but from the backyard I saw two lighted windows in a rear room on the second floor.
After the scene that I’d witnessed in the basement of the church, from the cover of the creche, I wasn’t surprised that the rector of St. Bernadette’s was unable to sleep. Although it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, four hours since Jesse Pinn’s visit, Father Tom was still reluctant to turn out the light.
“Make like a cat,” I whispered to Orson.
We crept up a set of stone steps and then, as silently as possible, across the wooden floor of the back porch.
I tried the door, but it was locked. I had been hoping that a man of God would consider it a point of faith to trust in his Maker rather than in a dead bolt.
I didn’t intend to knock or to go around to the front and ring the bell. With murder already under my belt, it seemed foolish to have qualms about engaging in criminal trespass. I hoped to avoid breaking and entering, however, because the sound of shattering glass would alert the priest.
Four double-hung windows faced onto the porch. I tried them one by one, and the third was unlocked. I had to tuck the Glock in my jacket pocket again, because the wood of the window was swollen with moisture and moved stiffly in the frame; I needed both hands to raise the lower sash, pressing first on the horizontal muntin and then hooking my fingers under the bottom rail. It slid upward with sufficient rasping and squeaking to lend atmosphere to an entire Wes Craven film.
Orson chuffed as though scornful of my skills as a lawbreaker. Everyone’s a critic.
I waited until I was confident that the noise had not been heard upstairs, and I slipped through the open window into a room as black as the interior of a witch’s purse.
“Come on, pal,” I whispered, for I didn’t intend to leave him outside alone, without a gun of his own.
Orson sprang inside, and I slid the window shut as quietly as possible. I locked it, too. Although I didn’t believe that we were currently being watched by members of the troop or by anyone else, I didn’t want to make it easy for someone or something to follow us into the rectory.
A quick sweep with my penlight revealed a dining room. Two doors — one to my right, the other in the wall opposite the windows — led from the room.
Switching off the penlight, drawing the Glock again, I tried the nearer door, to the right. Beyond lay the kitchen. The radiant numerals of digital clocks on the two ovens and the microwave cast just enough light to enable me to cross to the pivot-hinged hall door without walking into the refrigerator or the cooking island.
The hallway led past dark rooms to a foyer lit only by a single small candle. On a three-legged, half-moon table against one wall was a shrine to the Holy Mother. A votive candle in a ruby-red glass fluttered fitfully in the
