Now or Never (39 page)

“I’ll fix some coffee,” Harry said briskly, snapping her out of the past, “then we’re going for a long walk. After that, I’ll feel guilty if I don’t pull out a few weeds. Then we can go fishing.”

A few hours later they were sitting on the bank of the busy little stream, dangling their feet and child-sized fishing lines into its clear waters. They leaned back against a convenient willow, happily watching the water rippling over smooth stones, wondering if any speckled trout were lurking in the still pools near the opposite bank.

“Did you ever actually catch a trout?” Mal asked suspiciously.

“Sure I did. I was about twelve years old at the time.” He grinned at her.

She sighed. “So how are we going to have trout for dinner, if we don’t catch any?”

“Easy. Uncle Jack has a trout river running through his place, the real McCoy. Every time he comes by, he brings some for Miffy. She can’t bear to tell him that she hates the darned fish, so we happen to have a freezer full of them.”

She nodded. “Logical, though not quite what I expected.” She relaxed against the tree. “Still, it’s a pleasant way to pass the time.”

“I told you it was good for thinking.” He glanced at
her out of the corner of his eye. “Want to tell me more about Golden?”

“It’s really not very interesting.”

“To me it is.”

It seemed easier, somehow, sitting on the bank of a stream on a sparkling early-summer day, light-years away from those hard times when she was young and still innocent because she hadn’t yet discovered any different. So she told him about her struggle to survive, to create something from the unloved chaos of her young life, her need to become someone. And she told him about her husband and how she had admired him and looked up to him, but that it couldn’t work because he wanted her to give it all up, and that meant giving up Mallory Malone and becoming no one again.

“It’s not true, you know,” he said when she had finished her story. “You’ll always be Mal Malone, the person you grew to be, and you’ll always be Mary Mallory, a victim of family circumstances beyond your control. Our parents are responsible only for a part of us, Mal. The rest is up to us. We are who we are because of what we do, the choices we make, the paths we take. Miffy Jordan is the woman she is because of herself, not because of what her mother was. It’s the same with me, and with you.”

She was still unsure, but she hoped he was right. Then the line jerked in her hand. She grasped it tightly, staring down into the water. “Look, look!” she yelled. “A fish!”

Squeeze leaped to his feet. He hovered excitedly on the edge of the bank, then took a flying leap into the stream, sending a shower of water over them. Shrieking with laughter, Mal fell backward. Harry grabbed the line, but it was too late—the fish was gone.

“I’m glad,” she gasped, still laughing. “I could never have let you kill it anyway.”

She jumped as his cell phone beeped. Their eyes met apprehensively. “Sorry.” He pulled a face and picked it
up. He listened, said no and yes, he would be right there, and good-bye. Then he looked at Mal.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, subdued. “You have to go.”

“That was Rossetti. They’ve had a couple of suspicious calls from the Boston area. They’ve got surveillance on them. It’s doubtful, but there might just be a chance one of them is the killer. I have to go, Mal.”

She scrambled to her feet and brushed the grass from her skirt. “I’ll get my things.”

“No need. I’ll be back in a few hours. I’m not letting hoaxers ruin our weekend.”

“What if it’s not a hoaxer? If it’s really him?”

“If I’m that lucky, I’ll send a car for you. But somehow I have a hunch it won’t be our man.”

He changed, then she walked with him to the car. “I’ll have dinner ready just in case,” she said. “And I promise it won’t be trout.”

Harry laughed as he waved good-bye. He watched her in his rearview mirror as he drove back down the lane. She was standing on the porch with Squeeze beside her, and he thought she looked as though she belonged there.

“There are two tapes, Prof,” Rossetti said.

They were driving through the busy downtown Saturday traffic on their way to Cambridge, home of the first caller.

“Plainclothes have this one staked out. He calls himself the Boston Killer on the tape, but his name is Alfred Trufillo. He’s called three times so far, made all the calls from the same pay phone half a block from where he lives. Doesn’t sound clever enough to be our man, but it’s worth a shot. He also goes by the name of Alfred Rubirosa—smart huh? Must think he’s a playboy or some-thin’. Anyways, it’s long odds, but a couple of things he said about the bodies made the hair rise on the back of my
neck. Like he knew more than we did, y’know what I mean?”

Harry listened as Rossetti played the tapes. He knew exactly what he meant. “Either the guy was there,” he said, “or it’s a coincidence, a lucky shot. It’s Rachel Kleinfeld he’s talking about, right? The body in the boat-house?”

Rossetti nodded. “Take a listen to the other one.” He put on the tape. This voice was more cultured and had an unctuous quality. “Like a preacherman,” Rossetti commented. “We don’t know about this guy, except he was making threats to Ms. Malone.”

Harry bristled as the man on the tape described exactly what he was going to do to Mallory Malone in graphic and vindictive detail. The voice was as smooth as watered silk, and knowledgable about the anatomy he was describing in detailed medical terms.

“It’s a mobile phone,” Rossetti said. “We traced the number. It’s in the name of a company, Gray’s Anatomical Supplies in South Boston. Trouble is, there’s no such company. And the address is a post office box, taken out about a week ago. But we tracked him to an apartment house nearby.”

Harry thought about it.
“Gray’s Anatomy
is one of the bibles of medical textbooks. You think he’s playing with our heads here?”

Rossetti shrugged. “I ran it by the pathologist. He said the medical terms were accurate, but what he was describing about the bodies wasn’t. He said he was probably an amateur with a fetish for medical equipment and terminology. Some folks get a buzz that way, he said. Some guys put on white coats and pretend to be doctors. They’ve even been known to go into hospitals and treat patients, and no one knew the difference—until they were caught.”

Rossetti took his hands from the wheel and casually
straightened his tie in the mirror. Harry threw him a look, and he laughed. “Not nervous about my driving, are you, Prof?”

“Any reason I shouldn’t be?”

“Nah. You’re safe with me. And with these suspects, because I’m not bettin’ seriously on either one.”

Harry thought regretfully of his interrupted peaceful Saturday afternoon with Mal. He hoped he could make it back in time for dinner. He wondered what she was doing.

As the afternoon drew on, Mal made herself a cup of Earl Grey tea. She sat on a green wicker sofa on the sunset porch and looked out over the lawn to the willow-shaded stream. Squeeze nudged her arm for a biscuit, which she foolishly gave him, because, like his owner, he was just too charming to resist. Then she watched the sun go slowly down in a flare of neon orange, until there was just a faint greenish reminder in the darkening sky that tomorrow it would be around again.

She picked up the tea things, called to Squeeze, and went back into the house. She turned on the lamps and wondered whether to light the fire but decided it was too warm. Anyhow, she didn’t want to turn on the air conditioning, because the breeze coming in the open windows was so pleasant.

She went upstairs, took a shower, and changed into a long dark green skirt and a soft cream silk shirt. She put on a little mascara, a touch of lipstick, and dabbed Nocturnes on her throat and wrists.

She sat for a while on a chintz-cushioned window seat, gazing out into the evening. As the twilight deepened into the intense blue-blackness of a country night, the porch lamps switched on automatically.

The night seemed silent compared with the constant growl of the city, but when she listened hard, she heard all
kinds of tiny sounds: the rustling of nocturnal creatures, a whirring of wings, the bubbling of the brook.

She was just thinking lazily about going downstairs to see what there was for supper when she heard a different sound.

She shot up, put her head on one side, her ears straining. It was the kind of noise you made when you stepped on a fallen twig. Then she remembered Harry telling her there were deer in the woods, and she shrugged it off.

Squeeze was sitting in the hall staring at the front door when she came down the stairs, his ears pricked. He turned and saw her, gave a little whine, then resumed his listening pose.

She was suddenly aware how alone she was—there wasn’t another house for miles. Apprehensive, she went to the front door and locked it. Then she rushed around locking all the other exterior doors—the one leading into the kitchen, the one onto the sunset porch, and the odd little wooden door that she assumed led into the basement.

Squeeze was still sitting in the hall when she returned. He wagged his tail, then ambled toward the kitchen. “It was nothing, was it, boy,” she said, convincing herself. “Just the deer.”

The kitchen had been the original small farm building, and the rest of the house had simply grown around it. It had white wooden cupboards, old wooden floors, and dark beams. The plaster stretches in between the ceiling beams were painted a cheerful sunshine yellow that Mal thought must light up the whole room, even on the coldest snowy winter nights.

She found some tapes and put on Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony because it seemed to suit the time and place. She turned it up loud, then went and rummaged through Miffy’s well-stocked pantry and refrigerator.

She was happily chopping tomatoes for a sauce when
she heard a noise again. Only this time it sounded like footsteps. And this time Squeeze leaped for the door, his fangs bared in a snarl.

Her heart jumped into her throat as she remembered Harry saying the dog attacked only strangers. He might have been joking, but right now it didn’t feel that way.

The windows were still open to catch the evening breeze, and the light from the porch shone through the screens, but when she looked, no one was there.

Squeeze sank to the floor, whining, still staring at the door. Her mouth went dry as panic hit her. Harry had told her that she was on the killer’s turf now, that he might seek revenge. Then she thought of the young women he had already killed, and their families, and sudden rage and adrenaline flooded her veins, lending her courage. If the killer was coming after her, he wasn’t going to find her an easy target.

“You bastard!” she yelled, unthinkingly echoing Summer Young’s last words. “You fucking bastard, you’re not going to get me!” She ran to the windows, slamming them shut, until the house was tight as a fortress.

Still panting with rage and panic, she retreated to the kitchen, looked around wildly, drew the curtains, then grabbed the phone and called Harry’s number at the precinct. It rang and rang; finally the machine picked up. Banging down the receiver, she took a deep shaking breath, wondering what to do next.

She thought about dialing 911—and then thought again. She told herself to be calm, to act rationally. Odds were, it was just some wild creature roaming round. She could just imagine the headlines: “Mallory Malone Calls Cops to Save Her from Deer.” They would go to town on the fact that she was at Detective Harry Jordan’s farmhouse. She didn’t want her personal life splashed all over the tabloids, especially now, when it would upset the impact and dignity of the program that had just aired.

Still, her hands trembled as she opened a bottle of red wine and poured herself a glass. Sipping it, she told herself not to be so foolish. Then she noticed Squeeze, sitting on his haunches, staring fixedly at the kitchen door.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She took another gulp of the wine, watching the dog watching the door. She should have called the cops, but it was too late now. She was in the middle of the countryside, miles from anywhere. “Goddammit, Harry, where the hell are you when I need you,” she muttered.

It flashed into her mind that when Harry had taken her on a tour of the house, he had shown her the “mud room.” It contained a collection of old boots and jackets, and a glass wall-cupboard with an assortment of guns he had said were used for shooting wild duck.

Calling the dog, she walked quickly through the hall. Her heels clicked as loud as pistol shots on the wooden floors. She thought nervously, it was a dead giveaway. She slipped off the sandals, then opened the mud-room door.

It was little more than a closet, with one tiny window set high in the wall. Faded green Barbour jackets hung on iron pegs, giving off a musty smell from years of rainy weather, and old rubber Wellingtons moldered next to scarred leather riding boots in various sizes and states of decrepitude. A collection of wicker baskets and some vases were stored on shelves next to the deep pot sink, and a vegetable trug with an uncleaned trowel sat on the long wooden table beneath. On the wall immediately before her was a glass-fronted cupboard containing half a dozen shotguns.

Mal tried the door, but it was locked. Apologizing silently to Miffy, she picked up the trowel, smashed a pane, unlatched the door, and took out the nearest gun.

She had never held a gun in her hands before, and this one was a beauty. It was a Purdey with an exquisitely carved silver stock, engraved
Harald Jordan 1903
. She
hoped nervously that it still worked. Then she remembered she would need ammunition.

Her hands shook as she hastily searched the cupboard for bullets, or cartridges, or shot, or whatever it used; she didn’t even know. Anyhow, there wasn’t any. “Oh, God,” she whispered, crumpling. What good was a shotgun without ammunition? She stared helplessly at the gun. At least it looked the part.

She ran back to the kitchen, turning out the lights as she went, imagining eyes watching her through the window.

In the kitchen her courage suddenly deserted her. She switched off the light, then her legs turned to jelly, and she sank into a chair facing the door leading to the hall. Squeeze plumped down next to her, and she thought, comforted, that he would defend her. She had no idea where Harry was. All she could do was wait and hope.