house. So lucky, and she didn’t even know it! But what was this? As she came closer, Roger saw that she was crying; not making a sound or anything like that-her mouth was closed-but tears were streaming down her face. Why?
And then facets rotated slightly in his mind, and he thought, Of course! She blames herself, the whore. He took a little satisfaction from that, but there was more-he could feel it coming, coming: a tremendous improvisation. Nothing mystical about improvisation, nothing more than normal, logical thought process, simply speeded-up exponentially, like subatomic particles in an accelerator. His brain had an accelerator mode, and now it offered up an improvisation based on the theme of Francie’s despondency and guilt over-could he push it that far? yes! — over engineering the murder of her tennis pal, an improvisation that would end on the final triumphant note of her suicide.
There was even a coda, written for a potential reappearance by Whitey: a few simple notes that tied Whitey, the instrument, to Francie, the mastermind. What credibility would a convicted killer like Whitey have, faced with the awesome probative impact of her suicide? And how tidy. The name Roger, for example? Why wouldn’t Whitey have heard the name of the mastermind’s husband, poor cuckold?
Maybe there was a God, after all.
Francie came up the brick walkway. Roger stepped back from the window. What kind of suicide would she choose, what method would be character-appropriate? An important question. Were there any asps in the house? Roger laughed aloud. What a brilliant joke! Francie would have loved it.
32
Savard walked into the station just before three that afternoon.“He cracked.”
“Yeah?” said Carbonneau, looking up from his chair at the duty desk.
Something was wrong; Savard knew that right away, but not what. “Cracked in the sense that he coughed up his alibi, anyway. And it checks out.”
The next question should have been: What’s his alibi? Instead, Carbonneau said, “Well, uh, maybe not surprising.”
Savard didn’t get that at all. Something was wrong: too crowded, for starters-Berry, Lisa, Ducharme, Morris, Feeney, more. The whole department in the room, every shift.
“This a mutiny?” Savard said.
“Oh, no, Chief,” said Carbonneau, but he didn’t seem to want to go on.
“Then what?” said Savard, starting to smile; a birthday or something like that he was supposed to remember but hadn’t.
“Those prints,” said Carbonneau, and glanced around for help that didn’t come. “Prints we lifted off that bedspread.”
“Duvet,” said Lisa. “Goose-down duvet.”
Carbonneau gave her a look; that wasn’t the kind of help he’d had in mind. “The lab got a match.” He bit the inside of his lip. Berry was doing it, too, biting the inside of his goddamn lip.
“And what?” said Savard. “They were mine? What’s going on?”
Their heads all swung around to Lisa, sitting at her desk with the coffee cup full of candy canes. She looked at Savard, almost in the eye. “They were Whitey Truax’s,” she said.
The name did something physical to him, sent a cold wave down his shoulders and back, heated up his face at the same time. He sat down in someone’s chair, heard a voice saying, “You all right, Joe?”
“Yeah.” Then, still in the grip of these weird physical sensations, he realized the mistake he’d made; the realization sent a pulse of adrenaline through him, made him normal again. He got up fast. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” someone said, but not Lisa; the best shot in the department, she was already unlocking the gun rack, taking her. 303 off the wall.
They drove to Lawton Ferry in three cars, eighty miles an hour, lights flashing, sirens wailing, the whole performance. For once, all that sound and fury suited Savard’s mood, calmed him down, if anything. Beside him, Lisa buckled on her vest.
“I called down to Florida,” she said. “You knew he was part of that rent-a-con thing?”
“Yeah.”
“He got parole early November, went missing from the halfway house after Thanksgiving. The asshole couldn’t even give me the exact date. But he’s wanted down there on an assault charge that could go up to something else if the victim succumbs. That’s what he said. The asshole, I’m talking about. Succumbs. A social worker.”
“They never sent us anything?”
“Nope.”
He’d always known Whitey would be free someday, had even wondered at one time what he’d do if he saw him on the street. But as the years went by, he’d thought less and less about Whitey, and after hearing of the transfer to Florida, almost nothing. Hadn’t forgotten him, more a case of reclassifying him as one of those bad accidents that can happen to people. Now, with Anne Franklin at the medical examiner’s, it was all fresh again, and personal.
They pulled up at 97 Carp Road, jumped out, took aim, summoned Whitey on the bullhorn. Nothing, of course. Savard walked up to the duct-taped front window and did what he’d been about to do the night before: looked through.
“Goddamn it,” he said. No one’s stupidity bothered him like his own. He strode to the front door and broke it down. They went into the lousy little place and stood around the body of Mrs. Truax. The cat came in the open doorway and rubbed itself against Lisa’s leg.
Whitey drank the last can of Pepsi, tossed it out the window. Late afternoon, deep in the woods on an old lumber road, maybe into Maine, running the engine from time to time to keep warm. The cold had never bothered him before, but it did now. Last can of Pepsi, and the gas-down to what? A quarter of a tank, although he could see space between the quarter line and the needle, a hair below. But call it a quarter. And on the radio, zip. Nothing but static-proving how deep in the woods he was.
What else? He felt like shit, hurt all over, chest and face especially. And that face in the mirror: nasty. Hungry, too, and nothing to eat. He counted his money: $542. Not bad-had he ever had more in his pocket? — but he couldn’t figure out how to make it help him.
Whitey saw his breath, smelled it, too. When was the last time he’d had pickles? He thought of the stripper bar where he’d had lunch before… whatever had gone down went down. Those silicone tits or whatever they were-was that the same stuff they made computer brains out of? — seemed a lot more appealing now, out here in the cold. Too fucking cold. He switched on the engine again, cranked the heat up full blast, lay down on the bench seat. From there he could gaze up at the trees, all bare and spiky, pressing down from high above. He didn’t like that at all, and closed his eyes.
When Whitey woke up, it was dark and the needle on the lit-up dash was down, way down, almost on empty, dropping closer and closer as he watched. Not that empty meant empty-he knew his car. Then the warning light went on. He switched off the engine. Metal popped for a minute or two, and by then it was getting cold again, much too cold already. A man, even a man like him, could freeze solid in the woods on this sort of night. Without gas in the tank, he would die. He turned on the light, counted his money again. Five forty-two: piss. Seventeen years and that was what he had to show for it. Made him mad.
And millions, or at least a million, had been in reach. He remembered how it felt to be a giant, capable of ripping trees out of the ground. He didn’t feel like that now. Master of puppets I’m pulling your strings. Those words meant something, contained some message for his ears alone, but he didn’t know what. And then there was the girl in the miniskirt, sucking on grapes. Sounded good. Worth a million or more, meaning it was painted by a famous artist, such as Picasso, or others, who didn’t come to mind at that moment. Had Roger ever mentioned the name of the artist? No. Just one more of his fuckups. Whitey went over the fuckups-no Brinks truck, no painting, no mention of a woman who would try to kill him. No mention either that Roger would park on the wrong side of the river, would be lurking around the cottage with an ax. What had Roger been planning to do with that ax? Whitey knew the
