The Dream of The Broken Horses

13

Sunday morning

I had hoped to sleep in, but so many things nag at me, so many loose ends. I wake up at 6:00 a.m., and, unable to get back to sleep, do the unthinkable and go up to the rooftop gym.

There's no one around. At this hour my jock media colleagues are in their or their lovers' beds below sleeping off another drunken Saturday night.

I mount the Stairmaster, work out hard for twenty minutes, until, panting and sweating, I'm too exhausted to go on. Then I go back down to my room, shower, order breakfast, and look over the Sunday papers, which the hotel had kindly left by my door.

Finally, nurtured, rested and well-informed, I take up Dad's old agenda book, lay in on my hotel room desk, and see what I can make of the entries.

It's one of those one-day-per-page leatherette bound datebooks with a separate line for each hour increment. In it he lists all his appointments with patients: Mr. L; Dr. K; Mrs. M; Mrs. F; etc.

Mrs. F, I note, was scheduled, starting in late April, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:30 a.m.. After the Flamingo killings on August 27, Dad drew a line through her name whenever it appeared, this being his way to designate cancelled appointments. In fact, I discover, he had scheduled her at her usual hour through to the end of the year.

There are other appointments noted: medical conferences; Psychoanalytic Institute meetings; lunches with colleagues including a regular Tuesday lunch with Izzy Mendoza; various social engagements including the April 17 Parents Day at Hayes where he encountered Mrs. F; the April 22 Parents Day at Ashley-Burnett attended by my sister; and June 6, the day of my graduation from Hayes Lower School.

Yes, it's all fairly straightforward. This is a doctor's appointment datebook, not a personal diary. Still, looking at the pages pertaining to the summer months, I find several intriguing entries:

On July 11, a Friday, he writes: Difficult session. Headache. Cancel tennis/?

On July 14, the following Monday: Very difficult day. No sympathy from I (which initial, I reason, must stand for Izzy).

On Friday, July 18: Another tough week. See L about headaches/?

On Thursday, July 24: Call MHHC re show/G/?

And on Sunday, July 27, one of the very few weekend notations in the book: Attend show MHHC 2-5.

Monday, July 28: Very difficult session with F. Worried. Consulted I at 6:00 p.m..

Friday, August 1: Idea for new approach. Consulted I. Negative!

Monday, August 4: Implemented idea. Backfired. Will try again.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 14, all his regular sessions with clients are marked cancelled. A week later on August 20, he does the same thing, again freeing up his afternoon. At the end of the day, there's a cryptic notation: F/F.

On August 27, the day of the Flamingo killings, he sees all his regular Wednesday patients including Mrs. F at 10:30 a.m.. At the end of the day, he notes the calamity with a single word: FLAMINGO!

I sit back, reflect. The killings, I know, took place between 3:40 and 3:50 that afternoon. Dad had successive appointments with patients at 2:30, 3:30, and 4:30 p.m.. If he kept those appointments, he couldn't possibly have been at the Flamingo at the time Kate Evans thinks she saw him there.

Did he keep them? No way to know; his billing records were thrown out years ago. And though I have never really believed Dad was the Flamingo shooter, who did Kate see that afternoon?

I try to decipher his other entries. I'm pretty sure I know what he meant by MHHC: the Maple Hills Hunt Club, which, mid-summer every year, held a Sunday afternoon horse show. But why would Dad, who didn't much care for horses, be interested in attending such an event? Because it was at a dance there that Barbara Lyman met Andrew Fulraine? Perhaps… but I think his notation CALL MHHC re show/G/? gives the reason. G was the letter Dad used in his paper to designate Barbara's old instructor in dressage, the man who asked her to slap him and with whom she had her first experience of oral sex. But why would Dad want to see G? To validate Barbara's story? Or, God help him, did he view G as a rival, and like many a man pining after his beloved, feel a need to see his imagined rival in the flesh?

August 1, it's clear, was the day he decided to ‘enter into’ Barbara's seduction fantasy. He consulted Izzy about it, Izzy counseled against it, but the following Monday, August 4, he went ahead. It seemed to backfire when Barbara masturbated during the session, but despite that setback, he resolved not to give up his plan.

The two Wednesday afternoons he cancelled all his afternoon appointments suggest that on one or both days he followed Barbara to the Flamingo. But why twice? One reconnaissance would have been sufficient to verify her affair with Jessup. Why go back again? Could he have been so obsessed he took to stalking her? Or was there some other reason? Could F/F stand for Fulraine/Flamingo? If so, did she lure him there or did they meet there by prearrangement? Did they actually go to bed together there, and if so, was that the day Kate Evans saw him, an encounter Kate later mistakenly transposed to the day of the killings?

10:00 a.m.

My room phone rings. It's Mace.

"Good news. I found Jessup's neighbor in the rooming house. Her name back then was Shoshana Bach. Now she's Dr. Shoshana Bach, Associate Professor and Chairperson of the Women's Studies Department at Calista State."

"You're sure she's the girl?"

"Positive. She was the only young woman living in the house at the time. I checked with the university. Her campus office hours are Wednesday and Friday, 3 to 5 p.m.. I'm going to drop in on her Wednesday afternoon. Thought you'd like to tag along."

"I'd love to."

"I'll pick you up at the courthouse quarter of three."

"Thanks, Mace. I appreciate your including me in this."

"My pleasure." He pauses. "So who was it jumped you the other night?"

"Robin Fulraine and a couple of his buddies."

"Barbara's son – Jesus!"

"Yeah, he and his brother heard I was sniffing around, they didn't like it, so they tried to scare me off."

"Going to bring charges?"

"No. I confronted them and they confessed. At least Robin did. Apologized, too. There's still a core of decency there."

"I think you're the decent one to let them off," he says.

Middle of the afternoon

The phone rings again. It's the long-awaited call from Pam.

"I'm in my car on Route 684," she says. "Just left Susan Pettibone. She really opened up. We talked four hours straight. It was like she'd been wanting to talk about all this for years."

She tells me Susan has vivid memories of her phone conversations with Tom Jessup those final weeks, far more detailed than the summary I found in the police file.

"I got the impression," Pam tells me, "that in some way Tom was the love of her life. He was the first man she ever lived with, her first real long-term lover. She's led a full life since, been married, divorced, raised kids, and developed a high-powered career, but I think in her mind Tom's almost mythical, the handsome long-lost lover of her youth."

"In their long phone conversations those last weeks, Tom told her he'd become involved with an older woman who was beautiful, wealthy, and socially prominent. He told Susan he was crazy about her, but that she had problems, was involving him in them, and this involvement had begun to frighten him."

"He wasn't specific, but Susan got the impression that the deeper his involvement, the more frightened he became. By the time he called her and virtually begged her to come out to Calista, she thought he sounded desperate."

"Tom also told her about the girl in his rooming house. When I asked if Tom ever characterized her as a stalker, Susan said no, Tom found her intelligent and sweet. He was only troubled because she made it clear she was attracted to him and he wasn't attracted to her at all. In fact, Susan said, Tom considered this girl and Hilda Tucker his only real friends in Calista, at least until he fell in love with Barbara Fulraine."

"What about that last conversation when she called Tom and he thought she was someone else?"

"That was the most interesting part. You told me that in the police report Tom's quoted as saying: ‘Hi, did you really do it?’ Susan says that's not right, that Tom said, ‘Did he do it yet?’ When I asked her how she could be positive after twenty-six years, she said she's never forgotten his words, that she can still hear them in her head as if he spoke them yesterday."

"There's definitely a difference between ‘Did you do it?’ and ‘Did he do it?’"

"Right! And later in that same conversation, Susan asked Tom what he'd meant. She says he mumbled something about ‘putting an end to some really bad business,’ and that he was expecting a call that night that would tell him it was ‘finally done with.’ Then he said something like ‘I think there's going to be a fire.’"

"Fire?"

"Yeah."

"I don't get it. Why didn't she tell any of this to the cops?"

"I asked her that. She said that at the time she didn't think it was connected to the murders. Also that the detective who called her told her their interview was pro forma, that the Sheriff's Department already knew who'd ordered the killings, that it was Barbara's gangster boyfriend and that very soon he'd be arrested."

"You did great," I tell her. "How're things going with the job offers?"

"I'm sticking around tomorrow morning for the finish. I'll fly into Calista tomorrow afternoon. Let's meet in Waldo's at seven, hoist a margarita or two, celebrate my deal however it turns out."

Downstairs, discovering it's raining, I step into Waldo's for a quick lunch and a beer. While I'm eating, I ask Tony if he knew that Waldo Channing may have done a little blackmailing on the side.

"There're rumors about everyone," Tony says. "It's a regular wasp's nest, this town. But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. C had more class in his little finger than the whole bunch of ‘em put together."

"And Spencer Deval – does he have class?"

"Now that's another story," Tony says. "Let's put it this way – he'd like you to think he does. He and Mr. C were always afraid someone would find out they met." Tony smiles, brings his mouth close to my ar. "Spence used to work the DaVinci strip."

He's referring to the strip of porn shops and cheap whore's hotels on DaVinci Road where it runs along the edge of Gunktown.

"Deval was a hustler?"

Tony nods. "For years, Mr. C kept it quiet. In his set, it was okay to be gay. You sowed your wild oats in Europe or New York, then met someone from your own class and settled down. But if people found out Mr. C'd picked up his boyfriend on DaVinci – well, that would've been something else. Now, of course, everything's different. A thing like that can even be a plus. After Waldo died, Spence told a couple of his friends and they spread it around. Now people are fascinated he hast that in his past."

Which leaves me with no clear answer to my original question, whether Waldo, with his arch manner, malicious wit, and flaunted superficiality, was, beneath it all, a bit of a cheap crook. And though my first impression, upon hearing this from Chip's mother, was that if it were true it made Waldo scum, I now take a gentler view. In fact, I decide, it's the first thing I've heard about Waldo that makes him truly interesting… as does the fact that his boyfriend was a hustler. And perhaps, I think, since Waldo obviously didn't need to blackmail people for money, perhaps he did it as a kind of social service, his way of ripping the masks off the people he wrote about, a confirmation also of his world view – that everyone was some kind of hypocrite.

8:00 p.m.

The rain's stopped so I decide to walk to Jurgen's girlfriend's place. The address seems odd for a residence, a 1930s-era office building ten blocks from Calista Center. A uniformed doorman admits me to a restored art deco lobby embellished by contrasting slabs of marble and alabaster.

She I express surprise that people live here, the doorman tells me several upper floors have been converted to apartments.

"Very private, one residence to a floor," he says. "Ms. Hanks is expecting you. You're to go right up."

A high-speed elevator whisks me to the penthouse. Stepping off into a small foyer, I hear the wonderful old Ella Fitzgerald/Cole Porter album playing behind the facing door.

When Jurgen lets me in, the vision before me is so stunning I pause to draw my breath. We're on a balcony overlooking a double-story living room with a gracefully curving staircase leading down. The room below has been done up with a studied absence of color – black leather upholstery, black and white rug, black and white framed photographs on the walls. The wall opposite is a broad expanse of glass revealing a spectacular view: the entire Calista Valley from Irontown to Delamere Lake caressed by the light of the setting sun. The Calista River, a soft buff red, snakes its way through the ruins of the mills, while Lindstrom's twin glass towers catch and reflect the pink mackerel sky.

It's a drop-dead view from a drop-dead room in a drop-dead apartment. I'm amazed. If this is who a high-class call girl can live in Calista, I wonder why any girl in ‘the life’ would stick around L.A. or New York.

"What a fabulous place!"

Jurgen nods. "Dove inherited it from a client. He liked her, set her up here, then he died here, heart attack ‘in the saddle,’ as they say. His wife and children were pissed when they discovered Dove was in his will. Tried to buy her off cheap. I got her a good lawyer. Now she owns it free and clear."

As if on cue, Dove Hanks appears. Jurgen introduces us and we formally shake hands.

I smile and Dove giggles – we both know why I'm here. She's a lovely, tall, willowy black woman, mid-twenties, with rich, dark skin so silken smooth I'm tempted to reach out and touch it just to see how nice it must feel. Her features are cover-girl gorgeous and there's nothing at all call girl avaricious in her eyes. On the contrary, they convey a tender dreaminess. She's wearing strappy sandals and a simple white dress looped over her bare shoulders by spaghetti straps. Glossy, precision-cut black hair surrounds her face like a helmet.

"Been looking forward to meeting you, David. I've posed for plenty of photographers. You'll be my first real artist."

"I'm more an illustrator than an artist."

She smiles again. "I saw your drawing of Jurgy. Caught him just right, I thought."

She's well-spoken and knows how to flatter. I find her immensely likeable.

"I brought along some large sheets of paper," I tell her. "I thought we'd work on a bigger scale tonight."

"Speaking of sheets," she giggles, "I hear you want me to pose on mine."

"Only if it makes you comfortable."

"I'm always comfortable in my skin." She beams at Jurgen. "Ain't I, sweetpea?"

"Dove's always comfortable, " Jurgen affirms.

He pours each of us a flute of champagne, then the three of us sit on the glove-black leather couch, chatting and listening to Ella while watching the sun set and all color drain from the view. Finally we go silent, awed by the noir vision before us – Calista as night city, towers twinkling, river black as oil, traffic in the streets becoming ribbons of flowing amber light.

A half hour later, we're in the bedroom – Dove sprawled naked on her rumpled sheets, Jurgen seated in an easy chair beside the bed, I perched on a stool facing her and my portable easel, outlining her sprawled nude form in the manner of Matisse, trying to depict her as a twenty-first-century odalisque.

Dove does a line of coke, while Jurgen and I continue to sip champagne. Occasionally we nibble from a platter of cold hors d'oeuvres he's brought over from his restaurant cooler.

I enjoy drawing Dove. She makes for a gorgeous subject, and the wrinkled, white bedding surrounding her chocolate body sets up delicious contrasts between furrowed and smooth, light and dark.

"The other day I heard a surprising thing about Waldo Channing," I tell Jurgen, as I draw the undulating curve of Dove's back. "I heard Waldo and Maritz had a blackmail racket going. Did you know about that?"

"I think Jack mentioned it a couple of times. Like I told you before, he had no use for Maritz. He liked Waldo well enough since Waldo always mentioned The Elms in his column."

"Why would Waldo, with so much going for him, have to stoop so low?"

Jurgen smiles. "That he didn't have to was probably why he did. He wrote all that gossip about the Happy Few, but I think he really hated them. Jack, on the other hand, truly liked those people. They were fun and spent a lot of money at his club. But what do I know? I was just maitre d'."

"Maitre d' at The Elms – that would've been a good position to observe."

"Yeah," Dove drawls, "don't put yourself down, sweetpea. Maitre d's and whores, we know folks' secrets like servants always do. We know all about them, but they don't know batshit about us."

Jurgen blows her a kiss.

"So tell me, Jurgen, from the maitre d's point of view, what was it between Cody and Barbara Fulraine besides sex?"

Jurgen raises and eyebrow. "Isn’t it always sex?"

"For me it always is," Dove says.

I draw the sweet crevice between her buttocks.

"There must have been more to it. People say Cody was stringing her along about her daughter the same way you told me Maritz did."

"Not true!"

Jurgen's annoyed. I've discovered something interesting about him: that he's still such a loyal acolyte of Jack's that the slightest hint that Jack was less than admirable spurs him to tell me things he'd probably prefer to keep to himself.

"That's what the cops say."

"They don't know anything. Mrs. Fulraine believed her daughter was still alive. Jack knew better. Still he wanted to find out who took her. If he could find one of those people, he'd beat the truth out of him, then track down the rest of them and administer his own kind of justice."

"Kill them?"

"In the Legion we called it execution prejudicelle."

"So in the end what did Jack find out?"

"He developed some leads. He was sure it was a child porno ring. The nanny had performed in porn so she knew those kinds of fucks. Jack figured they put her up to the snatch, then something went wrong, the kid died on them, they got scared, killed the au pair, cut her up, and tossed her torso in Delamere Lake."

Now that I've got Dove's body down, I start on a more elaborate rendering of her face.

"I've heard that theory," I tell him. "It's also the police theory. But the cops never got anywhere with it."

"They didn’t have Jack's connections. He had ways of finding out who made those kinds of films."

"You're saying that for the two and a half years of the affair, Cody was trying to track those people down?"

"He was financing it. It was an expensive project, not an easy one either. People who do that stuff operate undercover. ‘I'm finally getting close to the fucks, Jurg,’ he told me that summer. He hated people who'd kill a kid. He couldn't wait to get his hands on them, make then wish they'd never been born."

"Okay if we take a break?" Dove asks.

We break, she gathers herself into a soft white robe, and withdraws to her bathroom for a while. When she comes out, her eyes flash brilliantly and there's sassiness in her gait.

"Kitten's gettin' hungry," she says, reassuming her position on the bed. "Daddy Cat want to feed his bitch?"

I smile at the mixed metaphors while Jurgen fetches the platter of hors d'oeuvres, brings it to the bed, dangles food above her mouth, then feigns fear when she grins, snaps her jaws, lasciviously chews and swallows.

"She snaps like an alligator," he says.

"Alley cat," she corrects.

Hunger assuaged, she resumes posing. I'm pleased with my drawing, think it's going to be one of my best. I also think Jurgen owes me more for it than he's given. I decide to provoke him by making another slighting remark about Jack.

"Cody knew a lot of gossip. I suspect from time to time he tipped Waldo off."

"So what? They liked to gab."

"Was Cody in on Waldo's blackmail deals? Did he get a cut?"

"You got him all wrong!" Jurgen's angry again. "Jack was a stand-up guy. Compared with him, Waldo was a creep and Maritz was just something you piss on."

"How did Rakoubian fit in?"

"Max took the pictures, Maritz squeezed the people."

"So it was a three-way deal?"

Jurgen nods. "Say Waldo found out a couple, both married to other people, were having an affair. He'd tell Maritz, Maritz would follow them, get the goods, then bring in Max to take pictures. Then Maritz would sell the pictures to the lovers and split his take with Waldo."

"Did Mrs. Fulraine know about this?"

"She might have. Jack might have told her."

"Or Max?"

"Yeah, Max might have mentioned it to her. They were pretty tight there for a while."

"When Waldo spoke to the police after the killings, he said some pretty mean things about Mrs. Fulraine. Did you hear anything about them having a fight?"

"Can't remember, but that sounds about right."

I'm rapidly finishing up the drawing, sketching the sheeting, going for a classic drapery effect.

"Something I forgot to mention the other day," Jurgen says. "Another reason I know Jack didn't order those killings."

"What?"

"I think Jack knew Mrs. Fulraine was having an affair with the teacher. I think he even approved. Don't know why." Jurgen shakes his head. "There was something going on there I didn't get."

Interesting.

I finish the drawing. Dove relaxes, slips again into her white robe, and joins Jurgen at my easel to take a look.

"Oh, real good!" she coos. She slips her arm around Jurgen. "think so, sweetpea?

"It's excellent," Jurgen agrees.

Dove slips her hand inside the waistband of Jurgen's pants.

"I'm all cramped out from lying so still."

She leans against him, whispers something into his ear while probing her hand deeper.

"Dove wonders if you'd like to party with us," Jurgen says.

I look at her. She's grinning at me, sassy and kittenish.

"That's very sweet," I tell her. "I'm flattered, but I think I'd better pass. Time for the lonely artist to be on his way."

Dove shrugs slightly to show disappointment. Jurgen looks relieved.

Dove offers me her hand. "Thank you, David. You made a beautiful picture."

"Easy," I tell her, "when the sitter's so beautiful."

We embrace, all awkwardness past, everyone happy now.

Outside the building. I decide against walking back to the hotel. The streets are too empty, the night too ominous. I slip the doorman a couple of bucks, ask him to call me a cab. When it comes and we take off for the Townsend, I notice headlights come on in a car parked across the street. The same car does a U-turn, then follows us back to the hotel. It slows when I get out, then, before I have a chance to see who's driving, picks up speed and rounds the corner.

I pause in the lobby. Am I imagining things? Investigating a twenty-six-year-old murder could hardly be a threat, especially as all my prime suspects – Jack Cody, Andrew Fulraine, Max Rakoubian, and Dad – are dead.

I open the door to Waldo's, check the room, survey the Monday night media crowd. Conversation seems more active than usual, perhaps because with the start of the defense presentation, the Foster trial is finally picking up.

I spot Foster's attorney sitting with Spencer Deval and an aggressive female reporter from The Star. Judge Winterson has forbidden the lawyers to talk about the case, but there's nothing to prevent them from socializing with journalists, then leaking information with little eyebrow moves and nods.

I take a seat at the bar, order a beer, ask Tony where Sylvie is tonight.

"She was here, then got bored. I think she went out to a jazz club with the guy from Rolling Stone."

I ask him about Waldo Channing's demise, whether he was working the bar the day Waldo dropped.

Tony nods. "It was ten years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was standing right where I'm standing now. He was sitting in his usual spot, the table beneath the painting. ‘Course the painting wasn't up there then. Anyhow, it was a little after 5 p.m.. Mr. C was sitting there alone like he often did afternoons, finishing up his column on a yellow legal pad. That's how he wrote it, longhand right here in the hotel lounge, then he'd call The Times-Dispatch and they'd send over a runner to pick it up. Mr. C was nursing his usual, a dry vodka martini with a twist. Suddenly he calls out to me: "Tony! I look over at him, see him rise up out of his chair, then he drops there on the carpet. Died instantly. Heart attack. None of us could believe it. The man was so alive. You'd feel his energy whenever he walked into the room. I was the first one who got to him. Was me who closed his eyes. A sad day, one I'll never forget. ‘Course a month later we had a big party here like he said we should in his will. That's when management decided to rename the lounge to honor the memory of the man."

Tony squeezes shut his eyes. When he opens them, I detect a little moisture.

"You know, he left his entire estate to Spencer Deval, the house, cars, all his art and furniture, but he also left mementoes to all the people he liked – pens, watches, cuff links, stuff like that. And not just to important people, to the little people, too, folks he loved and wrote about – copy boys, shoeshine boys, cabbies, ushers, cabbies, ushers, doormen, even the restroom attendants here at the hotel. Me, I got what he used to call his lucky piece. I'll show it to you."

Tony reaches into his pocket, pulls out a gold coin about the size of a fifty-cent piece, and places it gently on the bar.

"that's a 1918 Double Eagle, year of Mr. C's birth."

I make a quick calculation. If Waldo was born in 1918, he was seventy-two when he died, fifty-six when Flamingo took place. It seems a stretch to imagine a man that age, no matter how angry or threatened, coldly executing Barbara and Tom.

Tony flips the coin in the air, calls out ‘heads,’ catches it, smacks it down on the back of his hand.

"Heads it is," he says. "Yeah, Mr. C's lucky piece." As Tony repockets it, he nods at the glowing portrait across the room. "Mr. C always had good luck. He lived a charmed life, he truly did."

Tom told Susan: I think there's going to be a fire.

I put in a full day's work at the Foster trial, produce four drawings, hand them off to Harriet, then walk swiftly to the Calista Public Library across from Danzig Park, arriving just an hour before closing.

In the periodicals room, I pull microfilm of issues of The Times-Dispatch from the week of the Flamingo shootings, take the spools to a microfilm reader, and start searching for news of fires.

In Tuesday's paper, I find two house fires – one in Covington, another on Thistle Ridge in Van Buren Heights – plus a three-alarm brewery fire in Iron City.

On Wednesday, there's mention of an explosion in a machine tool factory on Danvers and 18^th and a grease-trap fire that started in a neighborhood Italian restaurant on Torrance Hill.

Discouraged, I unroll down to the Thursday morning edition to read once again the first accounts of the Flamingo murders. Then it occurs to me that if a fire took place Monday night, it might not have been reported for several days, and even if it was the sort of fire that would have been significant on a normal news day, on that particular Thursday it would have been eclipsed by the huge scandal of Flamingo.

Fifteen minutes before closing, I start searching the single-paragraph stories that appear in vertical columns in the Metro section of Thursday's Times-Dispatch.

A hit-and-run on Thorn Street; a man found dead in a parked car near the corner of Wales and Lucinda; a house fire on Tarkington near Tremont Park; another fire on Indiana; a street holdup on Gale, and, a few minutes later, a similar holdup on Pear. None of these stories is promising, but then, just as the librarian flashes the ten-minute warning, I come across a follow-up on the Thistle Ridge fire:

Arson inspectors, examining the remnants of the house at 1160 Thistle Ridge Road that erupted in flames Tuesday night, told reporters that the charred bodies of two persons, a male and a female, were found bound to iron beds in the basement.

"There's clear evidence of arson," Fire Inspector James Halloran said. "And with the discovery of these bodies, a strong inference of murder."

Halloran said that the County Sheriff's Department had been brought into the case and that the Calista County Coroner's Office will autopsy the bodies.

"We're not in a position to say yet who these people are or what they were doing," Halloran said. "The faces of both victims were burned away."

The house, according to county records, is owned by Mr. Vincent Callistro of 1492 Laverne. When called for comment, Mr. Callistro stated that the house has been rented for the last four years through the Lee-Hopkins Agency in Van Buren Heights.

A person answering the phone at Lee-Hopkins said the agency, due to privacy concerns, would provide no information on the names of the tenants, however, he did confirm that the house was rented and that it was fully insured.

A source close to the County Sheriff's Department, told The Times-Dispatch that there is preliminary evidence that the victims may have been tortured prior to the fire. This same source affirmed that the cause of the fire was arson, that empty gasoline cans were found behind the house, and also that there were items of a ‘sordid nature’ found at the site. The source refused to describe these items or speculate further about the fire and apparent homicides.

The librarian approaches to tell me I must leave. I insert a dime into the built-in photocopier, print out the article, then walk back to the Townsend to wait for Pam, due in on the late afternoon flight from New York.

Entering Waldo's. I spot her right away deep in conversation with Tony. She looks good tonight, blond hair gleaming, eyes and face aglow, the confident flush of a winner.

"There he is!" She beckons. "Please, Tony, a margarita for the gentleman."

Tony grins, starts making me a drink. I kiss Pam on the lips, then perch on the bar stool to her right.

"I get the feeling, don't ask me why, that things worked out well for you today."

She shows me her warmest smile. "Oh, they did." She lowers her voice. "CNN's tripling my salary, I'll be based in L.A., and, best part, I'm going to have my own show, an afternoon interview show, The L.A. Report with Pam Wells."

"Congratulations! We should order champagne."

Tony's delighted to make us a pair of champagne cocktails.

Pam fills me in. Monday morning Fox offered her great money for a political reporting job in the Washington bureau. She was tempted until this morning when CNN counteroffered with an even better package plus the concept for the new show.

"It'll be soft content mostly – celebrity interviews, West Coast lifestyle pieces. But I don't mind. A talking heads show's how you make your name."

She tells me she'll stay in Calista till there's a verdict, then relocate to L.A.. It'll take her a couple of months to set the show up. She hopes to be on the air by Thanksgiving.

As we click glasses, I notice Deval, sitting beneath Waldo's portrait, speaking into a cell phone. I turn to Tony.

"Isn't that where Waldo used to sit?"

Tony raises an eyebrow. "He thinks he's Waldo reincarnated."

"How did he come to inherit the column?" Pam asks.

"He was Waldo's gofer, so it was a natural promotion."

"He's definitely got that gofer look," she says.

Tony grins. "Waldo used to call him ‘lickspittle’ behind his back. When he wanted Spence to feel good about himself, he'd call him ‘my Man Friday.’

"How ‘bout that phony British accent?"

"Is that what it's supposed to be?" Tony conjures an ultra-haughty expression. "‘How you doin’ old boy, old boy, old boy?’"

We laugh. "Very good, Tony!" Pam tells him. "Excellent impersonation."

"He's not that hard to imitate," Tony says, moving away.

"Listen," Pam says, draining her glass, "I'm starved. Can we go to that Sicilian place? I feel like pasta. I think I need a carbohydrate fix."

As we drive over to Torrance Hill, I check my rearview mirror. In night traffic, I can't tell whether anyone's following or not.

En route I tell Pam about the extraordinary experiences I've had over the few days she's been away – the ambush on Riverwalk, my encounters with the Fulraine brothers, my meeting with a retired dominatrix, and last night's drawing session with J u rgen Hoff and Dove Hanks.

"I've got a new suspect, too," I tell her. "A sleazy ex-cop named Walter Maritz. Seems he and Waldo Channing had a little blackmail business going. Also, at the time of Flamingo, he was working as a private investigator for Andrew Fulraine, tracking Barbara to find evidence Andrew could use against her in their custody battle. But according to Jurgen, the story Maritz told the cops about not informing on Barbara because he liked her was a pack of lies. Seems a couple years before Flamingo, Maritz, playing on Barbara's obsession about her daughter, conned her out of a lot of money. When Barbara took up with Cody, the first thing Cody did was have Maritz beaten up. I'm talking multiple broken bones. So it's occurred to me that Maritz, on Barbara's trail, despising both her and Cody, could have decided to kill her to avenge the beating. He'd know Cody would suffer, too, when he found out his girlfriend was killed in a motel room with another lover. Maritz might even have counted on Cody becoming the prime suspect… which, in fact, he was."

Pam shakes her head. "Jesus, what a maze!"

Torrance Hill is the oldest Italian section of the city, also geographically one of the city's highest points. Southern Italians, who came to Calista with the great waves of immigrants early in the twentieth century, clustered here, built houses, churches, stores, and restaurants. And as in other ‘Little Italys," along with the carpenters, masons, culinary, and construction artisans, there arrived a small number of underworld characters.

Calistians loved hearing tales about these men, soon dubbed "The Torrance Hill Mob," tales that romanticized their influence and power. When I was a kid, I was excited to dine at restaurants where mobsters allegedly hung out, characters with monikers like Tony ‘Machete’ deCapo, Johnny ‘The Priest’ Romano, and Jimmy ‘Big Lips’ Franchetti.

Enrico's, the restaurant Pam likes, was one of these hangouts. And though the ambience here is the same as when my parents took me, the food's now a good deal more sophisticated. Instead of gross platters of veal parmigiana accompanied by meatballs and spaghetti, Enrico's now serves genuine Sicilian specialities, Pasta alla Norma and Pasta col Nero delle Seppie.

After we order, Pam turns to me with a question.

"You said Waldo and this ex-cop Maritz had a blackmail racket. Why would Waldo get involved in a thing like that? I thought he had lots of money."

"Jurgen thinks Waldo went into it for sport. He liked to play games, mess with peoples' heads."

I tell her all I know about Waldo, his career and also his decline, how he lost most of his influence near the end.

"How do you know all this?" Pam asks.

"For years I've been an out-of-town subscriber to The Times-Dispatch."

She shakes her head. "Just couldn't let it go, could you?"

"I guess not. Also I kept hoping I'd open the paper one day and read that they'd solved Flamingo. It was years before I realized that if that's what I wanted, I'd have to come back and make it happen myself."

As we drive back downtown from Torrance Hill, I again check my rearview mirror. There are a lot of cars, it's difficult to tell, but one set of headlights seems to be sticking with us.

"Hold on tight," I tell Pam. "I'm going to make some moves."

"What's going on?"

"I think we're being followed."

I swerve into the right lane of Thurston, do a hard turn onto Lester, make another right onto Fairlane, then do a quick U-turn, pull in front of a paint store, and cut my headlights.

"Hey! Is this a joke?"

"the guy who was asking about me over at the Flamingo – I'm pretty sure he's been in my room poking through my drawings."

"I can't believe-"

"Shhhh. Here he comes. Slide down in your seat."

As the car, a dark, nondescript sedan, sails toward us, I can't decide whether its headlights show the same signature. As it passes, I try to get a look at the driver, but I can't make out anything except the silhouette of a hated figure hunched over the wheel. After he's gone, I try to make out his license plate, but by then he's too far away.

"Shit! I guess I should follow him, get his plate at least."

"Sure, go for it, David! This is fun!"

I make another U-turn, then speed up, hoping to catch him at the next stop sign. But the car, which should be ahead of me, isn't there.

"Where is he? Do you see him?"

Pam twist in her seat. "Could be him," she says, indicating a car parked in the opposite direction across the street.

"Jesus! He did the same maneuver!"

"Well, you got him now. Make another U and pull up behind."

But I keep driving. I don't like the neighborhood, it's dark and lonely, and I don't feel like playing games.

"You're sure that was him?"

"I'm not sure, no."

"Do you think I was cowardly not to double back?"

"I think you played it smart. But if he was following you, now he knows you're onto him."

"I wish I knew how long this has been going on. He could've been tracking me for weeks. If the folks at Flamingo hadn't told me, I never would have noticed."

It feels good to be back in Pam's arms, feel the warmth of her body, inhale her fresh sand-and-sun scent, run my fingers along her silken skin. It does my soul good to make love to this gorgeous woman, whom, I'm certain, is going straight to the top.

"How far is L.A. from San Francisco?" she asks, when we settle back.

"An hour by plane. Six by car."

"So you could visit me anytime."

"And you could visit me."

"But will either of us do it, that's the question?"

She goes silent. When she speaks again, it's in a different voice.

"I'd like this not to be over so soon," she says. "I'd like this not to be, you know, my ‘Calista affair’."

"Yeah, that could definitely sour it for you – thinking of me whenever Calista comes to mind."

"You really hate this place, don't you, David?"

"How could I? It's the Athens of the Midwest."

"This is where your early life came apart."

"Please, let's not talk about it. Let's talk about you and your brilliant future."

'I'd like it if you'd be part of it."

"God, that's so sweet-" The ironic pose I've been assuming dissolves in an instant. Tears spring to my eyes.

"I wish I could learn to love," I whisper to her.

"You already know how. It's just a matter of allowing yourself."

"I don't get it. You're supposed to be the hard-assed reporter and I the cool forensic artist. So now here we both are talking about not wanting this to end. Pretty funny, huh?"

"Maybe it is funny," she says, "but the thing I've discovered about out-of-town affairs is that you can't accurately evaluate them till you're back on your home turf. Then, back in the rhythm of your life, you either miss the person or you don't. Truth is I've never missed ‘the person’ very much, though I've always thought fondly of him if he happened to come to mind. But after just a few days in New York, I started missing you. That tells me something. And soon, when this stupid trial's over and you go back to San Francisco, it'll be your turn to discover how much you miss me… or not."

Early in the morning, when Pam goes up to the hotel gym, I borrow her tape recorder, take it down to my room, and listen to her full interview with Susan Pettibone.

The content is just as Pam described, as is Susan's emotional investment in memories of Tom. No question she loved the guy. I don't dare hope any of my old girlfriends will speak so kindly of me. What comes through most keenly is her regard for his personal integrity. "He had integrity to burn," she says.

Seeing Tom through her eyes, I shiver at the thought of him falling into that nest of Calista vipers – Barbara Fulraine, Jack Cody, Waldo Channing, and God-knows-who-else – a fall that cost him his life.