In the Woods Page 10

  From the couch, Alex asked quietly, "Do you know who it was?”

  The two senior policemen exchanged looks. Then Pellman said, curtly, "Not yet."

  Gorham was more forthcoming. He'd known Alex since grade school, having played on the same little league teams, having bought their first illegal beers together, having shared locker room stories about their adolescent sexual activities and other macho bullshit. Though they'd gone their own ways upon graduation and didn't frequent the same social circles, it wasn't that big of a community and Larry still thought Alex a friend, albeit an absent one. And he felt bad enough for the man's dazed state to be considerate.

  "We still need to perform an autopsy. It’s not like we’ve got a wallet . . . or even finger prints to go on. It’ll take some time unless someone’s turned in a new missing person’s report. That would speed things up considerably."

  Alex nodded distractedly, no further questions surfacing in the tapioca his mind had become after going from killer hangover to shock therapy.

  While the detective disappeared into the kitchen to confer with his team of experts, Pellman kept a wary eye on Alex. This was a new development in the case, grisly, but new, something to feed the press to appease their ravenous appetite for gruesome detail. They'd snap it up and hopefully, wouldn't be snapping at his tail, for a little while anyway. Especially not now that he had a prime suspect sitting on the couch in front of him. Mood elevating slightly, he reached into his jacket for a pack of cigarettes, shaking one out and taking it between narrowed lips. When his lighter flared, he was aware of a sudden sharpening in Kerwood's expression.

  "I'd appreciate you not smoking in here. It pisses my wife off."

  And just as Gorham returned to the room, Pellman asked, "And where is your wife, Mr. Kerwood?"

  Evasion. "She's staying at her mother's house for a few days."

  "So she wasn't here . . . when you made the discovery this morning?"

  Alex began to frown, catching on to Pellman's silky insinuations. "No, she wasn't."

  "We'd like the number where she can be reached, just in case she might have noticed something—strange."

  Alex rattled the numbers off to his mother-in-law's by rote then added, "But you'd probably have better luck catching her at the store.She's manager at Fur, Fins and Feather's pet store . . ." His voice trailed off.

  At the pet store . . . Where he'd tried to call her earlier.And she hadn't been there even though the store was already open.Helen was a stickler for punctuality. She was never late, not without a good excuse. Not unless it was a matter of life or . . . He couldn’t complete that thought.

  All the color washed from his face.

  "Alex?" Larry called in concern. "You okay?"

  He was fumbling for the phone. "I—I need to make a call." He could barely get the words out. His heart had wedged up into his throat and was beating a panicked rhythm to which his nerve ends could dance.The receiver slid in his sweat-slicked palm. In his anxiety, he dialed the wrong number and almost screamed at the impatient man who answered. He dialed again, pressing the buttons in a careful sequence.

  "Fur, Fins and Feather. How can I help you?" jangled a cheery voice on the other end.

  "Delores, has Helen come in yet?" Was that him, with his words strung as tight and trembling as guy wire in a gale force wind?

  The pleasant tone cooled considerably. "She's in back, Alex, and she's mucho steamed at you. She doesn't want to talk right now."

  Obviously the judge and jury had already been polled for a guilty verdict in the pet shop but Alex didn't care if he was persona non grata.

  Helen was there and she was royally pissed at him.

  Which was heavenly news to Alex. Because it meant she wasn't reduced to a rack of ribs in the garage. He hung up without another word to Delores, having to sit down pronto before his knees gave way like a sandy bank undercut by a strong current.

  "It's not my wife," he sighed to no one in particular as shaky hands covered his face.

  "What's not your wife?" Pellman asked.

  "In the garage. That's not my wife, if that's what you're thinking." His voice toughened upon that truth. "Call her at the store and check for yourself."

  "We plan to, Mr. Kerwood."

  "And, for your information, I don't know who it is. There wasn't much left to recognize. I'm not exactly a DNA specialist."

  Pellman simply nodded, closing up his pocket notebook. He glanced at Gorham. "Let's wrap this up and get those remains to the examiner."

  Larry looked through the front picture window to see the rear doors closing on the meat wagon. "All set. Chief, we're just about done here."

  Pellman fixed Alex with a long penetrating stare. "Mr. Kerwood, please make yourself readily available . . . in case we have any further questions, you understand."

  "Oh," Alex drawled out, "I understand just fine."

  "We'll see ourselves out."

  "Alex, you take care of yourself," Larry added with the outstretch of his hand. Alex took it in a firm clasp as he said, "We'll get this mess straightened out. When things hit the press, we'll try to keep your name out of it, but it might not be a bad idea to lay low for a while. They can really push their way into your life, if you let them."

  Alex smiled thinly. What life? His wife was gone. He was teetering on the edge of la-la land.

  Pellman turned back to him as if with some last minute thought but to Alex, the move was pure calculation. "By the way, Mr. Kerwood, who does that truck in the drive belong to?"

  Like he hadn't already checked that out? "The fire chief, Wayne Higley. I borrowed it yesterday."

  "And I assume there's some explanation for the bullet holes and blood?"

  Alex regarded him with a glacial cool. "An accident with his .12 gauge. I'm sure he made a report of it to his insurance company.As for the blood, I don't know. Could be mine. We went hiking on some of his property and I got scratched up pretty bad." He grinned, a brief barring of teeth. "Just a city boy, I guess."

  Scowling, Pellman nodded, question answered but not the way he'd hoped. Of course, Kerwood could say anything he wanted, but if the blood on that bumper tested the same as that rack of ribs from his garage, they were looking at their killer. He made a mental note to check on the health and welfare of one Wayne Higley. Wouldn't hurt to see if he was missing some vital parts of his person.

  And grimly, Pellman wished he was.

  The sooner they nailed the lid down on their killer, the sooner he could get serious about a political campaign. Nothing looked sweeter in the polls than a solid victory over criminal elements.With his silvery hair and patrician features, he could launch a powerful visual campaign, smiling a "Trust me, I can protect you" smile from thousands of posters and television spots. He had the personal affluence to buy up all the ad time he'd need.

  What he didn't have was popular support.

  A man who allowed a murderer to roam their streets, slaughtering at will, didn't inspire confidence in the voting populace. The grassroots vote liked a winner, a hero, not someone who merely had a long prestigious record of doing a good job. An admirable career meant nothing. What he needed was flash. A brilliant fifteen minutes of fame on the front page of every newspaper. An interview on network news. If he could cinch this case, he could woo them all. He could write his own ticket to the governor's seat.

  And then Larry Gorham shot down his illusions as they stepped out into the front yard.

  "He's not your killer."

  Pellman glared at his detective. "What?"

  "I know Alex Kerwood and he's no closet psycho chopping up his neighbors in his spare time."

  That was the last thing the future state governor wanted to hear.

  "And you want me to base our entire case on that opinion? Be a professional, Gorham. Everything we have right now points to that man in there. I want him under a microscope, and in particular, that blood on the back bumper of that truck. If it matches the remains and a Fire Chief Higley turns up
missing, we've got our man. He's not going to slip us this time. I want him, signed, sealed and delivered.”

  Larry held to his temper to remind, "Let's not make a rush to judgment here. We don't have anything to support that theory.Kerwood called us in. We found nothing suspicious in our search of the house. Don't forget, we've got a lot of missing bodies out there and I see no sign that they're buried in Kerwood's azaleas or that he's dissolved them in his bath tub. The man's got citations for bravery. He's not the one we're looking for."

  "We'll let the lab tell us that, Gorham," Pellman snapped, unwilling to tarnish his hopes. "I think we have our man and it's your job to make sure we've got him good."

  "I'll do my job, chief. Count on it. And it will be thorough and in triplicate, not a witch hunt to placate the press. I won't arrest a man on less than solid evidence, and we've got nothing."

  "Yet."

  ӜӜӜ

  Alex collapsed back against the sofa cushion and let the silence swirl about him. For a moment, after all the questions, all the probing, all the strangers rattling around in his private space, it felt good, that silence. Then it deepened and stretched out like shadows upon his soul. Instead of peace, he found emptiness. Instead of relief, sorrow.

  Helen was gone.

  As surely as if she'd been gobbled up by whatever had left table scraps in his garage.

  Tremors of delayed shock swept over him, rendering him helpless to fight the fear. The fear that he'd known like a fist to the gut when he'd thought those bones were Helen's.

  Because they could have been.

  He'd failed to protect her. He'd allowed his fright, his cowardice to weaken him when she needed him most. When a devil stalked the night and struck whom it pleased with vicious intent.

  What if it had been his wife?

  But it wasn't. It was some poor bastard who'd taken the wrong turn somewhere and paid a fateful price. In his shivery gratitude, Alex didn't shed a tear over some other anguished family torn apart by loss. It wasn't his loss, not this time.

  But it could have been.

  They could have been carrying what was left of his wife to the morgue in a dishpan.

  Suddenly, he had to escape these tidy rooms bearing Helen's influence in every tasteful picture on the wall, in the careful selection of each coordinating chair pillow, where the scent of her bath oil and cosmetics lingered like a sensual caress in the bathroom, and a stray shoe peeping out from under their shared bed reminded him that he, too, was without a mate.

  How was he going to drink a cup of coffee in the kitchen without listening for her clever morning banter? How was he going to brush his teeth without looking for her reflection in the mirror? How could he sleep in that big, big bed without searching for her loving figure beneath the covers? The whole house was alive with her, but he couldn't touch, couldn't hold, couldn't talk to memories.

  And that made him all the more alone.

  Behind it all was the terrible fear that this time he'd screwed up beyond redemption.

  He had to get out, away from the perfumed air and unrumpled sheets where Helen's smile beamed at him in taunting innocence from countless photos, from countless corners. He needed to lose himself, not in a bottle, but in his job.

  And maybe by the time he returned home, she'd have called to say she missed him, too.

  ӜӜӜ

  The click-click-click of the Wheel of Fortune spinner punctuated the laughter and ribald conversation in the firemen's lounge as the day shift gathered around a game of cards while the television blared, unwatched, behind them.

  Alex hoped to slip by just as unnoticed but Al Fargo glanced up from a pair of deuces to grin and exclaim with a loud boom, "Alex, how are ya?"

  Caught, Alex smiled tightly and swerved into the day room, resigned to plopping on the couch. "Tired and I have a damn headache."

  "Want some pills?" Stan called from the kitchen where he was frying up something greasy for lunch. The spattering of hot oil mixed with the clatter of the Fortune wheel to pound at Alex's temples.

  "Sure," he moaned.

  Stan shook out a couple of pain relievers and brought them over with a mug of water. Alex took both down gratefully then leaned back with eyes closed. The room's unaccustomed quiet made a comfortable rest impossible. Like snoozing under a Sword of Damocles. It was only a matter of time before the blade dropped. Better later than sooner.

  Maybe if he pretended they didn't exist . . .

  "Alex?"

  No such luck.

  "Don't think I'm prying, but how's Helen?"

  Maury's concern might have irritated him at one time but today, Alex was just too tired to muster the annoyance.

  "She's fine. I'm the dumbshit."

  Al glanced up from his cards. "She's all pissed off because you've been hanging out at the bar, huh?"

  "Yup." That wasn't news.

  "She'll get over it."

  Alex wondered if Al applied that cavalier logic in his own failed marriages. "Maybe."

  Maybe not.

  He closed his eyes again, not wanting to dwell on it when it was the only thing in his thoughts.

  Chet Patterson gave him a shrewd look. "This mother of all headaches wouldn't have anything to do with Wayne's day off, would it?"

  Alex's defenses snapped up. What had they heard? He forced himself to stay calm. Nothing. They didn't know anything or they wouldn't be treating it all so casually. But there was something they weren't talking about, something lurking behind the covert glances and puckered brows. He decided to take it lightly, to make a joke out of the whole thing in hopes that it would blow over quickly.

  "Yeah, it would. We stopped at the watering hole, as Helen calls it, after hunting yesterday."

  "Hunting what?" Stan prodded, back to tending his grease. "I didn't know anything was in season."

  "Except maybe those sweet, sweet little bartenders," Chet chuckled.

  Alex made an appropriate hand gesture.

  "From what I understand," Al continued, "you and Wayne drank the place dry."

  "What can I say?" Alex's tone was testy, wanting to get on to something else, pronto. "We were thirsty. Did he catch a cab?"

  "I stopped in later and took him home," Davy told him, relieving his worries. "Good thing you had his truck. He couldn't even stand up."

  "Is he in yet?" Suddenly, Alex needed to talk to him about what they'd seen yesterday, about what he'd found this morning, about the way the two things kept tangling up in his mind as if they were related.

  He was doomed to disappointment when Al said, "You were the better man. He called in sick."

  "Hung over," Chet snickered. He watched Davy lay out his hand, three nines, and threw down his own pair of sixes with an exasperated, "You cheatin' bitch."

  Just then, Stan bellowed from the kitchen in the world's worst French accent, "Dinner is served."

  They gathered around the table, Alex dragging slightly behind because the smell of fried kielbasa, potatoes and onions wasn't being very kind to his abused system. He helped himself to a heap of greens and went light on the cholesterol-soaked entre.

  "Good cooking today," Al announced with a satisfied smack of his lips.

  "Thank you." Stan grinned. "The chef always takes compliments better than complaints."

  "By the way, Alex," Davy slid in innocently. "What was going on at your place this morning? Heard all sorts of commotion on the scanner at your address." They’d been hashing over theories right up until the time he’d come in, settling on drunk and disorderly over possible domestic violence–unless it was Helen exacting the violence?

  Alex choked on a crouton that found its way into his windpipe, and was treated to a bout of vigorous back pounding by Al, who turned to the rookie with a wry, "That was real subtle, Miller."

  Wheezing and wiping at his eyes, Alex pushed Al's hand away.So that was it, the other shoe waiting to fall. Since he had no way of knowing how much they knew via the police radio communiques, he decided the best thing
to do was come clean with what would soon be public knowledge anyway. Once Pellman released the information to the press, his name was going to be smeared in serial killer red across every headline. So much for innocent until proven guilty. He didn’t care about that. He cared about what his friends thought. About what Helen would think when she heard the news.

  That in her absence, her home had turned into a crime scene complete with a taped off square.

  "I almost ran over what was left of the killer's latest victim in my garage this morning."

  His bluntness had them blinking.

  "Serious?" Al murmured at last.

  "Yeah. They don't have a clue as to who it is or how it got there."

  "Holy shit," Chet muttered as a mood of darkness settled over inhabitants at the table like congealing grease in the pans on the stove.

  "Is Helen all right?" Maury demanded, shaking off his shock first.

  "She's at her mother's house. She doesn't even know. I tried to call her but she won't talk to me. I guess she'll be hearing it from the police. I get the distinct impression that our chief of police makes up in efficiency for what he lacks in personality."

  Al frowned, mulling over this new development in the case the whole town was following. "Damn. Is it safe for you at your place?"

  Alex shrugged. Concern over his own safety never entered his mind. "Yeah, I guess. They're patrolling the neighborhood heavily.Searching all over the woods. Maybe they'll turn up something." He didn't sound too sure.

  The woods. Where something big and malevolent lived. Where he and Wayne had almost met their maker at the hands of . . . what? Some deranged hermit? Some fantastical beast right out of the tabloid front pages? Again, Alex wished he could vent all these possibilities with Wayne, to find out if his boss and hunting companion was thinking along the same lines.

  That they'd stumbled onto something bigger than either of them could begin to conceive of.

  But Wayne wasn't in to hear his suspicions, and until he could get that feedback, better he not say anything.

  Perhaps it was better to be a suspected serial killer than a known lunatic.