listlessly mulling over whether she approved of the decor.
Carver moved into the room. The apartment was hot, but there was an air-conditioner in one of the bedroom windows, thrashing away at the heat and spitting out tiny ice crystals that glittered beautifully in the lamplight.
Melanie Star was wearing red shorts, a tucked-in white T-shirt lettered “Shit Happens,” and red high heels. She extended both arms straight out in front of her with her fingers spread wide. She backed away from Carver, around to the other side of the bed. Tight muscles rippled in her long legs.
“She’s okay!” she said, motioning with her head toward Birdie. “She’s okay! Really! Please?” Her voice broke to a terrified whine, as if it were changing in adolescence.
Birdie hadn’t moved.
“She’s on meperidine, that’s all,” Melanie Star explained. “It’s like Demerol. Won’t hurt her. No kidding. Just to keep her quiet till Raffy’s back.”
Carver limped toward the bed. “Raffy’s not coming back.”
“Why not?”
“It’s impossible. It’ll stay that way.”
Her voice hit that broken whine again. “He’s not dead, is he? I know he’s not dead!”
“You’ll be able to visit him,” Carver said.
He sat on the edge of the bed and bent over Birdie. When he touched the back of her hand, he was shocked by the coolness of her flesh.
“I only did what I had to,” Melanie Star said. “To get what I needed. Honest, there was no other way for me.”
Carver ignored her. He was tired of people telling him there was only one way for them in life.
Melanie Star said, “Goddamn it, what was I supposed to do? What do you want outta me?”
Carver said, “Birdie?” Trying to rouse her. In the corner of his vision he saw Melanie Star edging around the bed toward the door. He didn’t try to stop her. “Birdie?” He heard the staccato burst of high heels on linoleum, the squeak and slam of the back door, fainter footfalls on the wooden porch and step. The rusty barbecue grill clanged on concrete again.
Birdie gazed up at Carver, smiled dreamily, and said, “Wheee!”
Carver said, “I know everything.”
Birdie worked her elbows beneath her and scooted backward so her head was supported on a fluffed white pillow. She looked like royalty resting in the vast, canopied bed. Carver wondered how drugged up she really was. She said, “Know everything? Know I helped?”
“Know you killed,” Carver told her.
She smiled faintly. “Helped is what I did. A mercy. What they wanted even if they didn’t know it. You understand that, don’t you, Mr. Carver?”
“No.”
“Raffy’d give me the name of a resident and I’d shine up to him. Get something going, you know what I mean? Not necessarily sex, like, but intimate stuff. I’d sneak into his room when I was on the night shift, sometimes even when I wasn’t on duty but’d come out to Sunhaven without being seen. Sometimes get in bed with him, like with my father. Do things. Let him do things. Kiss him on the ear and use my tongue, like was done to me. And then one day Raffy’d give me the word.”
“What word?”
“To end it.”
“How would you end it, Birdie?”
She sniffled. Her innocent child’s eyes were moist but he didn’t think she was crying. It seemed hard for her to find words, drifting between sleep and awareness, on a hazy plateau where she had little control.
“When I was real, real young,” she said, “I read or heard about this long-ago princess, or maybe it was a peasant girl, that killed the evil king by letting a drop of melted lead fall in his ear when he was sleeping. I remembered that, Mr. Carver. In fact, it’s still my favorite story. Raffy knew how I did it but he didn’t care, long as it worked out all right.” She smiled and looked around. “You ever see walls like these? So bright?”
“Is that how you killed the Sunhaven victims?” Carver asked. “Melted lead?” He was still trying to grasp this. He hadn’t completely believed Dr. Pauly. Was he actually looking at a mass murderer?
Birdie said, “Sure. Me or Dr. Pauly’d see they got a strong sedative before they went to bed. Then I’d creep into their rooms. Oh, if they woke up they was glad to see me, even though they’d be in a foggy state of mind. Some of them said they loved me. Well, I loved them back. Really I did. I’d have this bunsen burner and this little glass beaker, and just a few ounces of lead. And I’d let the lead be melting while they was asleep or I was in bed with them. Most of them thought I was a nurse or something anyway, so even if they’d wake up they didn’t ask questions. And if they did I’d just say it was a medical procedure for another resident I was getting ready to see. And when they was asleep I’d take this little glass funnel and lean over them and put the end of it in their ear, just like the princess in the story, and I’d pour the melted lead into the funnel. At times, if the funnel tickled at first, they’d think I was giving them a kiss, but then they’d just moan and kinda curl up. Sometimes their eyes’d fly open and they’d sit bolt upright and you could see they was confused and wondering what happened. Even try and struggle up outta bed. But that was only for a moment. It was quick. None of them ever made much noise, only thrashed around some.” She licked her lips and sighed drowsily. “There was never any bleeding or anything.”
Carver could imagine the melted lead, lumping up and sizzling through the brain like a slow-motion bullet, cauterizing tissue behind it so there was no bleeding. No obvious cause of death. The pain, if there was any after the initial burning, would have been paralyzing and occurred simultaneously with disorientation in the last few seconds of life, while the lead seared through delicate matter until it cooled enough to become a solid mass again and stop at the core of the brain. He said, “Sweet Jesus!”
Birdie said with sudden alarm, “They won’t send me back, will they?”
38
McGregor laid a small lump of lead on his desk in front of Carver. It was the size of a. 45-caliber bullet and shaped something like a comet with a short, curved tail. He said, “This one’s from James Harrison.”
Harrison’s name had been only one of four that Birdie hadn’t included in her list of residents who’d died at Sunhaven during the past year. The list had included Kearny Williams’s name because she’d known Carver was investigating his death. The bodies had been exhumed and autopsied under court order. The order had extended to all male Sunhaven fatalities since Birdie’s employment there. There was no other way. The news media had gotten hold of the story and were playing it big. All stops had been pulled and the investigation was roaring ahead. It had taken on a momentum that couldn’t be reversed. Professional reputations and careers were on the line.
Carver sat in the cool breeze from McGregor’s new window unit and stared at the streamlined ball of lead. He wondered if a real princess had ever actually killed her father the king that way.
“Fucking clever, huh?” McGregor said. “Might not have fooled a doctor curious about the actual cause of death, but it’s a damned effective way to kill somebody without visible trace. Good enough so Pauly could sign the death certificate and not worry about being found out, so long as there wasn’t a legitimate autopsy with thorough internal examination. Nothing would even show up in blood, tissue, or hair samples. Puts me in mind of that case in Fort Lauderdale where this one queer kills another by straightening out a wire hanger and running the sharp end up his ass all the way to the vital organs. There was some bleeding there, though. This hot-lead business seals the wound, the M.E. said. Cauterization. Not a drop of blood. Nothing suspicious unless you get inside the body and look hard.”
“Nonviolent death in an old-folks’ home,” Carver said. “There wouldn’t be an autopsy unless the family requested one.”
“Exactly. And since the family was suddenly richer than before, they’d let the matter lie. Nobody’d even think the word murder except the heir in on the deal.” McGregor dropped the lump of lead back into its clear plastic bag and deftly sealed the flap. “Hey, you see me on the TV news?”
“Which time?”
