to keep Van Durbin and his sidekick busy for a while.” He buttoned up his jeans and ripped off a length of gauze, which he folded and used to stanch the bleeding on his cheek. “I’m going to have a beer. Want one?”
She didn’t respond.
He took a can of beer from the refrigerator, opened it and sucked up the suds that spilled over the top, then took a deep swallow. He sprawled in the only easy chair in the apartment and calmly sipped at his beer, while Bellamy stared at him as though he was an exotic and potentially dangerous animal that should be caged.
The rings around her eyes were so dark they looked like they’d been put there by punching fists. Her face had been leached of color, but that might have been caused by the glare of his unforgiving overhead light. She looked completely done in, but his ire was such that he didn’t go easy on her.
“Well?” he said.
“What?” Her voice sounded rusty from disuse.
“You’re not going to ask?”
“Wouldn’t you just deny it?”
“Yes. But think what a great plot twist this would make for
“Flash forward eighteen years. He puts the moves on the baby sister, who’s all grown up now. Filled out real good. Makes his mouth water. She kisses like a bad girl till he acts on the invitation, then she shuts down like a maiden missionary. When she says ‘No!’ to him, he wigs out, takes her sweet body, and…” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “Grisly stuff. A page-turner for sure.”
She gave him a withering look, then went to the window, where colored lights were flashing on the slats of the uneven blinds. “The police are here. Three squad cars.”
“Why don’t you race down there and tell them that you’ve finally nabbed your sister’s killer?”
“Because I don’t believe you are. You are, however, a jerk.”
He scoffed. “You’re a writer and that’s the worst insult you can come up with? Baby sister also has the vocabulary of a maiden missionary. If you want me to, I can help you with some bad words.”
“I won’t buy into this asinine conversation, Dent.”
He finished his beer and set the empty can on the wobbly coffee table.
After a time, she said, “Van Durbin will tell them it’s a false charge.”
“Of course he will. But he’ll have to explain what he was doing down there with a photographer, which will amount to him admitting that he’s stalking you. He’ll have to do some fancy footwork.”
“They’ll trace the call to your phone.”
“They can’t. It’s a burner. The number doesn’t show up on caller ID. Eventually they’ll realize it was a hoax and let them go, but in the meantime that bloodsucker will be in the hot seat. If there’s a god, he’ll attract a boyfriend in lockup.”
She turned away from the window. “You’re clever. You respond quickly to a crisis situation.”
“A skill that makes me a good pilot.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I guess it would also make me a good murderer, wouldn’t it?”
She sat down on the matching love seat facing his chair, perching on the edge of the cushion as though she might have to make a quick getaway. “Why did you lie to the police?”
“I don’t think it would have gone too well for me if I’d told them that I’d intercepted Susan at the boathouse and that we’d had a lovers’ quarrel. And don’t read anything into the word ‘lovers.’ I don’t mean it literally.”
“How did you know she would be at the boathouse?”
“I was driving up that lane—you know the one, that led to the pavilion?” She nodded. “Susan flagged me down. She was alone.”
“What was she doing?”
“Primping.”
“Primping?”
“She was looking at herself in the mirror of a compact, putting on lipstick, fluffing her hair. Things girls do.”
“I described to you how pretty she looked when she returned to the pavilion.”
“Oh, so now you think I’m making that up so that it fits with your recollection?”
Wearily, she said, “Go on.”
“I said something to the effect of ‘Here I am, better late than never.’ But she didn’t think so. She told me that she’d made other plans that didn’t include me. At first I tried to placate her. I apologized for choosing a ride in an airplane over her. I promised to make it up to her, promised it wouldn’t happen again. Bullshit stuff that guys say when they—”
“Don’t really mean them.”
He shrugged. “She was having none of it. I could see that what was left of my Memorial Day was rapidly turning to crap, so I got mad, told her…” He stopped, and when Bellamy raised her eyebrows, he said, “More bullshit stuff that guys say when a sure thing is no longer sure. Unlike you, I have an…
She stared into space for a moment and when she refocused on him, she said, “In my mind’s eye, I can see the two of you quarreling. But I don’t remember anything after that.”
“I rode off into the sunset.”
“There was no sunset. The sky was stormy.”
“Another figure of speech.”
A thoughtful frown creased her forehead as she sank back into the cushions of the love seat, which made him embarrassed over the god-awful thing. It was a piece of junk, just like everything else in the place. When he’d sold his house, with its swimming pool and heavily wooded backyard on a bluff that overlooked downtown, he’d assumed a necessary indifference to his living conditions.
He’d rented this place because it was all he could afford. He slept here. Sometimes screwed here. Showered and kept his clothes here. He ate carry-out and hadn’t used the cookstove more than once or twice. The fridge was virtually empty.
He hadn’t given any thought to his lifestyle until he looked at his shabby habitat through Bellamy’s eyes. And now he realized that what he did within these walls you couldn’t call living.
Which was exactly what he’d said of his dad.
The similarity jolted Dent, and he angrily rejected it.
He was glad Bellamy diverted him by asking another question. “After you left the park, where did you go?”
“Everywhere. Nowhere. Gall had locked up the hangar and left when I did, so there was no point in going back to it. I didn’t want to go home and watch my dad watch TV. So I just drove around, blowing off steam, and looking for fun in some other place.”
“Who could corroborate that?”
“Not a damn soul. But that’s what I did. The weather turned really bad, really fast. The lightning was fierce. When it started hailing, I took cover under an overpass. The sky turned that greenish-black color. I was several miles from the funnel, but I saw it when it dipped down out of the clouds and realized that it was right on top of the state park, so I got on my bike and went back.” He spread his hands. “You know the rest.”
Bellamy lapsed into another thoughtful silence.
Dent left his chair, went to the window, and peered through the blinds. The parking lot below was clear of all activity; the only vehicles in it were those belonging to residents. He smiled at the thought of Van Durbin being at the mercy of cops who thought they’d captured a pervert.
But his smile faded when a twinge of pain reminded him of the man who’d attacked him. He wanted to retch whenever he thought of the man’s tongue sliding down his cheek and the crude references to Bellamy. Before Dent even realized his hands were forming fists, they were drumming the outside of his thighs.
“One thing puzzles me.”
He turned back to her. “Just one?”
“It’s a big one. I could have corroborated that you’d left the park. I watched you ride away. Why didn’t you tell Moody that I’d seen you leave the park while Susan was still alive and well?”
