Ghouls

return and set up my own private practice, but believe it or not, I found I rather liked the military. It gave me a chance to see the world that my father had blinded me to, and this fascinated me. And I did quite well as a medical officer. Eventually my medical specialties became secondary, and I got into medical field administration, which isn’t uncommon for medical officers once they’ve gained some years. To my father, though, this success was the ultimate insult, the knowledge that for all that time, I was right, and he was wrong. He scarcely spoke to me the few times I took leave. He never apologized, never once shared my enthusiasm. I’m told that when he learned of my most significant promotion, he had a heart attack which eventually led to his death.” Willard paused to eye the painting, his lips tightened to a checked smile as he sucked the cigarette down. “My father left me everything when he died, not for the love of his only son, but simply to keep the property in the family name. He’d garnered quite a fortune, I’ll give him that. So there was no need for me to finish my military career through to proper retirement. I returned to civilian life as soon as I could, after seventeen years in the medical corps, and my father in the grave.”

Kurt viewed the painting through something close to a wince. The portrait grimaced back at them both, as if to test all of Willard’s derision. Kurt thought, Anyone that ugly’s got a right to grimace.

“So it looks like the old cockrobin has the last laugh after all,” Willard said.

“How?”

“At least his wife didn’t run out on him.”

“Well, don’t forget, we’re not absolutely sure your wife has gone anywhere,” Kurt reminded. He cast a final glance at the picture, then opened the door. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Officer Morris.”

Kurt trotted down the porch steps, rushing to be free of the foyer’s locked-in scents. The dark, silent abode had tried his nerves. But was it the house itself, or Willard, that disturbed him? He wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was both.

Before he got back into the Ford, something glossy caught his eye. He stopped, turned very slowly. A fine shaft of sunlight projected diagonally into the garage through one of the shoulder-high window panels. When Kurt looked in, he saw that the sun was reflecting off the hood of Nancy Willard’s black Porsche.

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Bad subject, huh?”

“That’s right. That’s what they said. They said I was a bad subject.”

“All it means,” Kurt explained, “is that your polygraph results are inconclusive. Lots of people who take lie detector tests get labeled as bad subjects, only because certain physiological conditions prevent the operator from reading their responses right. I don’t care what Bard’s asshole right-wing surveys say; polygraphs and stress evaluators don’t work on a given percentage of those tested, and since the county’s tagged you a bad subject, that means you fall into that percentage. It’s rare, sure, but it happens. Some people can tell the truth over and over, and the poly will say they’re lying. Others can lie like rugs, but the machine will never know the difference. Goddamn things should be outlawed, just a bunch of strongarm fascist bullshit.”

Glen still didn’t seem to understand. “So do the cops think I’m lying?”

“No, they just think you’re a bad subject, which means you’ve got nothing to worry about. They can’t even legally consider you a suspect now. It was smart that you volunteered for it.”

“For all the good it did,” Glen said, shielding his eyes from the sun. “I was hoping the damn thing would clear me.”

Kurt watched the road, and swore at himself for not owning a pair of sunglasses. Glen looked like something washed up by the tide, his face thin and blanched, his hair a mess. Even his familiar straight-leg jeans and poplin jacket looked wrong on him, as though they belonged to someone else, someone larger. Higgins had brought Glen back from CID at midafternoon, and Kurt had offered to drive him home, more a maneuver than a gesture of a friend. How to begin? Kurt asked himself. There was so much he wanted to ask, but he felt a wave of doubt now that the opportunity had been made. He wanted to light a cigarette, to kill more time, though whenever he reached for his left shirt pocket, he thought of Dr. Greene’s bucket. He doubted he would ever smoke again.

“Hooligans,” Kurt muttered, and swerved just in time to miss some beer bottles in the road. “Goddamn scruds think the Route’s their own private bottle depository.” His flipped his visor down, half blind from a wall of glare. “I talked to Dr. Willard today, while you were in Forestville. What’s with all the motion detectors?”

Glen answered with little interest, his mind roaming. “About a week or so ago he started putting it all in. And not just motion, either. He’s got contacts on all the doors and windows, electric eyes on the stairs and second-floor hallways, plus the carpets are all tapeswitched. He’s also got a couple of those closed circuit jobs, with color monitors in the bedroom.”

A fortress. But against what? “Has he ever been burgled, ever been ripped off?”

“Not since I’ve been working for him.”

“How about vandalism?”

Glen slouched back and chuckled. “Couple of Halloweens ago some kids t-p’d the house and filled his mailbox with Crazy Foam.”

More bottles appeared around the bend. Kurt wobbled the wheel almost crazily. Glass popped under the left- rear. “Then what’s he so scared of, that he’s gotta drop a few G’s on security equipment?”

“More than a few,” Glen said. “Ten, at least. He’s even talking about razor-wire and microwave. Rich man’s wild hair, I guess. But you have to admit, the Annapolis B & E wave is slowly moving toward us; maybe the papers are scaring him. I see your point, though. It is kind of strange, in all the years I’ve known him, he’s never been that concerned with the house, just the land. Then in the space of a week he’s got the whole house loaded. Hell, he’s got me to watch his place. What he needs all that junk for I’ll never know.”

A mile lapsed, without a word. When the trees finally blocked out the sun, Kurt asked, “What were you going to tell me yesterday at McGuffy’s?”

Glen’s brow tensed, lips drawing tight, but he said, “Oh, hell, Kurt. I don’t know. I was shit-faced.”

“Something Mrs. Willard had told you. You seemed pretty shook up.”

Glen eased out a laugh, eased the query away. “Just some ghost story she hit me with, that’s all. You know me—when I get ripped I’ll believe anything.”

“You sounded dead serious.”

“Lotta damned nonsense. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

Kurt let it pass, but could it be that simple? Another mile lapsed; he was running out of time. “I’m not one to pry into a guy’s private life, but I know you would tip me off if the situation was reversed…” His throat felt thick, blundering the flow of words. At last he said, “So I guess I better tell you.”

Glen looked over at him, eyes hooded, solemn.

“Willard knows all about you and his wife,” Kurt said.

Glen remained absolutely motionless, as if flash-frozen.

“I’d figured out most of what was going on between you two,” Kurt picked up, “but I’d never mentioned it to you, ‘cause I don’t like to get in other people’s business.”

The words rattled from Glen’s throat. “Are you sure he knows?”

“He told me flat out himself. He said he was certain you and Nancy were having an affair.”

“He must be mad enough to kill me.”

“No, he seemed pretty level about the whole thing. In fact, he implied that he expected it to happen eventually. The guy all but came out and said he’s impotent.”

Glen covered his eyes with his hand. He shimmied down in the seat as if physically shrinking. “Shit. Oh, shit”