Though he didn't want to confess it, Chris had suspected the same thing for a while.
In a small voice, Alex said, 'Is that what you think?'
'Absolutely not. Listen, I spoke to my old hematology professor up at Sloan-Kettering today. He scared me to death, Alex. Murdering someone by giving them cancer is more than just theoretically possible. Connolly has done it himself, to mice.'
'How?'
Chris quickly recounted the scenarios Pete Connolly had outlined for him.
'My God. I wish I had talked to him a week ago.'
Chris walked through a flower bed and up to the den window. Ben was still glued to the television, his mouth taut, his hands flying over the game controller.
'Listen,' Alex said, 'I called to let you know that I'm sending someone down to watch over you and Ben tonight.'
'Who?'
'Will Kilmer, my father's old partner. You've heard me talk about him. He's an ex-homicide detective, now private. He's about seventy, and really nice. He's also sharper and tougher than he looks. I just want you to know he's going to be outside.'
'I'm not going to turn him away. I'm walking around with my gun, nervous as a cat.'
'That's good. Just don't shoot Will.'
'Don't worry.'
There was a brief silence. Then Alex said, 'I also want you to know something else.'
His stomach tightened in dread.
'Will has a detective staying up at the Alluvian Hotel. He's watching Thora.'
Chris felt a surprising ambivalence about this. 'Really?'
'I didn't tell you because it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. But I had to do it, Chris.'
'I understand. Has the guy seen anything suspicious?'
Another hesitation. 'The detective's wife thinks she may have seen Shane Lansing leave the hotel about five thirty this morning. She's not positive, though.'
The knots in Chris's stomach eased a little. 'I told you, I saw Lansing early this morning in Natchez. He couldn't have made it back here from Greenwood in that time.'
'Unless he flew.'
'There's no commercial service to Greenwood, and Lansing isn't a pilot.'
'You've been giving this a lot of thought, haven't you?'
Chris colored. 'Of course. I even waited outside his office in my car this afternoon, to make sure he was really there working.'
'Was he?'
'Yes. But the fact that he hasn't pressed assault charges is pretty goddamn suspicious.'
'We'll know the truth soon enough, I think. Be nice to Will, if you see him. He practically raised me, and he's doing this for free.'
'When will he be here?'
'Probably within the next half hour.'
'What am I supposed to tell Ben?'
'What time does he go to bed?'
'Probably an hour from now.'
'I'll make sure Will doesn't come up to the house until after that.'
'Thanks. When are you coming back?'
'I'm meeting with the OPR in the morning. They'll probably ask for my badge and gun. There may be paperwork to do up here, but I'm going to try to get back as soon as I can. You just make sure you're alive and well when I get there.'
Chris turned and looked over at the hilltop. The eyes were still there, like golden spheres floating in the night. 'Don't worry about that.' He started to hang up, but he felt that he should say one thing more before he did. 'Alex?'
'Yes?'
'Maybe you should think about taking that deal.'
He heard only the hissing silence of the open connection.
'If we concentrate on the medical side of things,' he said, 'if we use people like Pete Connolly, I think we'll eventually have enough evidence to convince your superiors to look into this themselves.'
'Not soon enough,' Alex said bitterly. 'Not for Jamie. I think he knows what his father did, Chris. He doesn't admit it to himself, but at some level, he knows.'
'Have you made any progress getting the medical records of the other victims? From the families, maybe?'
'When could I have done that?' she replied testily.
'I understand. Look, just try to find out who their doctors were. Maybe I can get hold of them through a backdoor route.'
'That's unethical, isn't it?'
'No. It's illegal.'
'Well, well. Things change when it gets personal, don't they?'
A rush of anger went through him. 'Look, if you don't-'
'I'm sorry, Chris. I couldn't resist. I've been alone in this for so long. You know I'll do anything to get those records.'
'Okay. I need to get back to Ben. Don't do anything crazy in that meeting tomorrow.'
Alex laughed, the sound strangely brittle through the cell phone. 'That's what everybody tells me.'
Chris hung up and looked over at the hilltop. Now there were five pairs of eyes. He clapped his hands together once, hard. As if controlled by a single mind, the eyes aligned themselves and focused on him. The cheep of crickets died, and even the frogs down at the pond fell silent. Chris whistled once, long and low, utterly perplexing the deer. They stared for a moment that dilated into something immeasurable, then bolted into the woods with a drumming of hoofbeats.
As he walked back into the house, the floating eyes hovered in his mind like the afterimage of an exploding flashbulb. At about the same intensity, a shadowy film was running through his mind: Thora sitting astride Shane Lansing in a darkened hotel room, the air fetid with humid Delta heat, her body glistening with sweat, her eyes wild with abandon-
'Dad?' Ben called. 'Where you been?'
'Watching some deer.'
'How many?'
'Five.'
'Yeah? Come play me a game.'
Chris stepped around the refrigerator and laid the.38 on top again. 'Okay, buddy. I want to be the Colts this time.'
'No way!'
Chris lay on the sofa bed in his home theater, just up the hall from the master bedroom suite, and listened to the slow, regular sound of Ben's breathing. Ben had asked him to open up the bed on the pretext that it was more comfortable for watching a movie, but Chris knew that with his mother gone, the boy wanted to sleep down here rather than upstairs in his room. Chris picked up the remote and switched off the TV, then got out of the bed carefully, so as not to wake Ben.
