The Hellfire Club

twisted her back twice sharply to the right, then twice to the left.

Davey had not left the family room during the night, but her irritation with him had passed. After nearly a week of keeping his fears inside him, he had finally blurted out his confession. Even if only a tenth of it was true, it was still a confession.

Nora went downstairs and peeked in on her husband. Above the rug, his face was tight with an anxious dream. She switched off the light and turned off the CD player. Upstairs, she put Spectre back in its rubber bands. She felt at once utterly tired and completely awake. Why not now, in the gift of these extra hours, take her run, and then make breakfast for them both before Davey left for New York? Inspired, she put on her shorts and running shoes, slipped into a tank top and a cotton sweater, pulled a long-billed cap on her head, and left the house. After a few minutes of stretching in the dew-soaked grass on a front lawn that looked exotic in the unfamiliar gray-blue light of dawn, Nora was loping past the sleeping houses on Fairytale Lane.

Tendrils of doubt and worry continued to prod at her concentration as she ran through the almost hallucinatory landscape of the Bird Shelter. Paddi Mann was not a problem; nor, really, was whatever Davey had been hiding. Davey's secrets invariably turned out to be less significant than he imagined. The problem was whether or not to tell him what she had inadvertently discovered about Clyde Morning.29

Nora picked up The New York Times from her doorstep, unlocked her front door, and automatically checked the signal on the security keypad. The green light burned; no one had touched the system since she had left the house. She carried the paper downstairs and opened the door to the family room. There, lost in untroubled sleep, was Davey, throw rug twisted around his hips, eyes closed, mouth open just wide enough for him to lick his lips.

She knelt in front of Davey and drew her hand down his cheek. His eyes fluttered open. 'What time is it?'

She looked at the digital clock next to the CD player. 'Seven-seventeen. You have to get up.'

'Why? Jeez, did you forget it was Saturday?'

'It's Saturday? Good God,' she said. 'I'm sorry. I'm so mixed up, I guess I thought it was Monday.'

He noticed what she was wearing. 'You already did your run? It's so early.' He sat up and took a closer look at her face. 'Did you get any sleep?' He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. A faint smell of used alcohol clung to his skin. He drooped back against the wall and looked at her. 'You really have this completely wired look. I didn't think Spectre was that exciting. In fact, from what I saw, it was kind of sucky.'

This did not seem the time to risk telling him her theory about Clyde Morning. 'Well, I had an idea or two, but I should take another look at the manuscript before I talk about them.'

'Oh?' He tilted his head and looked wary.

'I just want to make sure of a few things. Do you want to go back to sleep?'

He rubbed his cheek. 'Might as well get up. Maybe I can get in some golf before lunch. Would that be okay with you?'

'Good idea.' Nora kissed his whiskery, slightly stale cheek and stood up. In the living room, she realized that she was still carrying the newspaper and tossed it onto a chair.

After a hurried shower, Nora turned off the water and left the compartment just as naked Davey entered the bathroom. When she reached for a towel, he grabbed one of her buttocks. She bunched the towel in front of his chest and pushed him toward the shower.

She toweled herself dry, wrapped the towel around her trunk, and came out into the bedroom to get dressed. Naked pink, and rubbing his hair with a towel, Davey came out of the bathroom and said, 'The only problem with going to the club so early is that you have to play with these old jock-type guys, and they all treat me like somebody's retarded grandson. They never pay attention to anything I say.'

The telephone next to the bed rang. Both of them stared at it. 'Must be a wrong number,' Davey said. 'Get rid of them.'

Nora picked up the telephone and said, 'Hello?'

A male voice she had heard before but did not recognize pronounced her name.

'Yes.'

'This is Holly Fenn, Mrs Chancel. I'm sorry to bother you so early, but in the midst of all the excitement down here, something came up that you might be able to help us with.'

Davey appeared before her in a pale green polo shirt, boxer shorts, and blue knee-high socks. 'So who is this idiot?'

She put her hand over the mouthpiece. 'Holly Fenn.'

'I don't know anybody named Holly Fenn.'

'That cop. The detective.'

'Oh, that guy. Swell.'

Fenn said, 'Hello?'

'Yes, I'm here.'

'If you wouldn't mind performing a little public service for your local police, I wonder if you and your husband could come down here to the station. As friends of Mrs Weil's.'

Davey removed a pair of khaki pants from the dry cleaner's plastic bag and tossed the bag, now entangled with the hanger, toward the wastebasket, missing by a yard.

'I don't quite understand,' she said. 'You want to talk to us about Natalie?' Davey muttered something and thrust one leg into the trousers.

'I might have some good news for you,' Fenn said. 'It seems your friend may not be dead after all. LeDonne found her, or someone who claims to be Mrs Weil, down on the South Post Road just a little while ago. Can you be in soon? I'd appreciate your help.'

'Well, sure,' she said. 'That would be great news. But what do you need us for, to identify her?'

'I'll fill you in when you get here, but that's about it. You might want to come around to the back of the station. Everything's crazy around here.'

'See you in about ten minutes,' she said.

'In the midst of the pandemonium, I'm grateful to you,' Fenn said. 'Thanks.' He hung up.

Still holding the receiver, Nora looked at Davey, who was now at his shoe rack, deliberating. 'I still don't get it,' she said. Davey glanced at her, made an interrogatory noise in his throat, and bent down to select penny loafers. 'He wants us to come down to the station because that policeman who was at Natalie's house - LeDonne? - because he says LeDonne found a woman who said she was Natalie down on the South Post Road.'

Davey slowly straightened up and frowned at her. 'So why do they need us?'

'I'm not really sure.'

'It's stupid. All they have to do is look at her driver's license. What's the point of dragging us in?'

'I don't know. He said he'd explain when we got there.'

'It can't be Natalie. You saw her bedroom. People don't get up and walk away from a bloodbath like that.'

'According to you, Paddi Mann did,' she said.

His face turned a bright, smooth red, and he moved away to slip on the loafers. 'I didn't say that. I said she disappeared. Natalie was murdered.'

'Why are you blushing?'

'I'm not blushing,' he said. 'I'm pissed off. You expect cops to be kind of dim and incompetent, but this is a new low. They pick up some screwball who says she's Natalie, and we have to waste the morning doing their job for them.' He paced to the door, shoved his hands in his pockets, and gave her a guarded look. 'I hope you know enough not to blurt out anything I told you last night.'

Nora noticed that the receiver was still in her hand and replaced it. 'Why would I?'

'I wish we had time to get something to eat.' Davey said. 'Let's get this over with, shall we?'

A few minutes later, the Audi was zipping beneath the trees that lined Old Pottery Road as Davey wondered aloud if he should tell the police about finding Paddi Mann's copy of Night Journey in Natalie Weil's bedroom. The problem is, I took it. I bet I could get into trouble for that.'