Sleep No More

khakis and a button-down shirt. “You know,” he said, “having experienced sex as both male and female, I have to say I like being the man better. I was always more of an aggressor in sex. But…I couldn’t ask that of you.”

Ask what? Waters wondered, realizing the answer even as he asked the question.

“Unless,” Cole said softly, “you don’t mind the idea.”

Cole took hold of his hand, and before Waters could overcome his shock, Cole kissed his wrist, then slid his tongue along Waters’s inner forearm.

Waters jerked his arm free with a cry.

Cole laughed. “I knew you’d be like that. Oh, well. Men can’t bear children, anyway.”

Waters’s stomach churned with fear and revulsion. “Tell me one thing before I go. When you told me how you moved from person to person, you said it took you a while to control people’s minds. How are you doing it now? To people you just entered?”

Cole smiled cagily. “I learned a lot in ten years, Johnny. And some people just aren’t very challenging. Lily is depressed. She still blames herself for her miscarriages. Basically, she’s just weak. Cole is a burnout case. Eaten up with guilt about his debts, insecure about sex with his young conquests. His mind is a nest of snakes drowning in scotch. He takes Viagra to cheat on his wife, for God’s sake. There’s not enough of the original Cole left to resist me.”

Waters shook his head. The parallels to virus transmission kept hitting him; when a person’s resistance was down, the virus gained a foothold and grew exponentially.

“The people in your life are empty,” Cole said. “They could never make you truly happy. But I can. You know I can.”

Cole pressed a button on his desk phone. After a moment, Sybil said, “Yes?”

“Could you come in for a minute, Sybil?”

“I’m pretty busy.” Her voice was clipped and cold.

Cole chuckled and whispered, “She’s pouting.” He raised his voice. “Come on, Syb. It’ll only take a sec.”

He turned off the intercom. “Take a good look, Johnny. I like her.”

Waters stood mute as Sybil walked in wearing a classy skirt suit. Her hair was pinned up, showing her long neck to advantage, and her smoldering Cajun eyes settled on Cole with open resentment.

“What is it?” she asked. “Hey, John.”

Waters only nodded, knowing he could never make his voice sound normal under such stress.

“Damn, I forgot what I called you in for,” Cole told her. “My mistake. I’ll remember what it was in a minute.”

Sybil expelled air from her lips with obvious anger, then turned and marched out. Cole’s eyes followed her tiny waist and shapely hips as she went through the door.

“What do you think about her?” he asked. “Cole may be a mess, but he does have an eye for beauty.”

“She’s beautiful,” Waters replied. “But I’m going now. Tell me, will Lily remember having sex with Cole?”

“Probably not. Of course, she’ll always remember the first times they did it. Nothing I can do about that, I’m afraid.”

Waters bit off his reply and turned to go.

“What about Sybil?” Cole called after him.

Waters paused in the door but did not turn.

“Maybe. I have to think about it. Right now I have a date with the police.”

“A lot of clocks are ticking, Johnny. Don’t take too long.”

Chapter 17

The police grilled Waters for sixty-four minutes. They would have gone on longer, but as the questions became aggressively repetitive, Penn protested that the interrogation was bordering on harassment of a model citizen who had cooperated from the beginning. If there were new questions, Penn told them, he would get the answers from Waters and relay them to police headquarters.

Tom Jackson handled the interrogation, flanked by a silent partner with a pockmarked face who glared at Waters as though he held some personal grudge against him. Waters decided it was class resentment. Both detectives seemed uncomfortable in the upscale law office of Penn Cage’s friend. Most of the questions were about Eve Sumner, the rest intended to uncover the current state of Waters’s marriage. Where Eve was concerned, Waters mostly lied. He denied ever having had sex with her. As for the videotape of his Land Cruiser by the Eola Hotel just prior to the murder, he explained that the EPA investigation of his company had been giving him sleep problems, and that he had recently done a lot of late-night driving. Tom Jackson was forced to admit that he’d stopped Waters late one night in the act of doing just that. On the night of the murder, Waters told them, he’d driven downtown with the idea of having a gin and tonic at one of the bars near the Eola, but the rainstorm made him reluctant to get out. He’d turned onto Pearl Street with the intent of going home via Franklin Street. At that point he saw the crowded accident scene, and decided to back up and take a different route home. He couldn’t tell what Jackson thought of his explanation, but it was clear that Jackson’s partner thought he was lying. Still, no one placed him under arrest.

After the police left the law office, Waters gave Penn an inquiring glance. Penn shook his head, as if to say, “Not until we’re outside.”

Once they were in the Audi, Penn started the engine and turned to Waters with curiosity on his face.

“You’re a hell of a liar, John. I think you could have passed a polygraph if you’d been hooked to one during those questions.”

“My family’s at stake,” Waters said quietly. “It’s really that simple. I’ll do whatever I have to do to save them. You’d do the same.”

Penn looked as though he was recalling something troubling, and Waters suddenly remembered that the lawyer in Cage’s novel had lied to the police about several important events.

“You have done the same.”

“Lying to police is tricky business,” Penn said. “They tend to get pissed off when they find out you did it.”

“But you said-”

“Nothing,” Penn finished. “Nothing at all.”

He pulled into the street and headed toward Waters’s office. “When the DNA match comes in and you recant your statements, I presume your position will be that you concealed adultery to save your marriage?”

“Does it matter? At this point, I don’t really care.”

“That worries me, John.”

“Don’t give it another thought.”

Penn stared but said nothing else as he drove down Main Street. In the parking lot of Waters’s building, Waters shook his lawyer’s hand, then got into his Land Cruiser and headed for home, his mind on the videotape that now rested in the glove box. The next few hours would be the most difficult of his life.

Waters found Lily asleep in the master bedroom and Rose sitting on the back steps, watching Annelise ride her motorized scooter on the patio. He sat beside Rose and watched his daughter make circle after circle on the stones, waving and smiling each time she passed them.

“Something ain’t right with Lily,” Rose said. “She usually goin’ like a top from the time she wake up till she lay down at night. You know that.”

Waters nodded soberly. “I think she’s been a little depressed lately.”

“Depressed? That girl been depressed since she lost them babies. You knows that too. What’s really going on, Mr. John? You playing around on that poor girl?”

“No.”

“You’d best not be. You need to get Lily to Dr. Cage. He’ll fix her up quick, or else get her to a specialist who can.”

“I may do that, Rose.”