Voodoo Moon

Part 3
ONE

Tandy was out of Susan Charles's personal Buick before the wheels had quite stopped rotating.

The same crowd of folks who had gathered here to watch Kibbe be carried out were back again. I recognized several of them. Maybe they were part of this portable crowd that got dropped off at all crime scenes.

As she struggled her way toward me-small against the taller, wider, heavier crowd-she looked young and frantic and scared.

She started to go around me, head for the open door where police officers and various other officials came and went.

But I stopped her, pulled her to me. "You don't want to go in there."

She tried to jerk herself free of me. "She was my sister, Robert. Now let me go."

"You don't want this to be your last memory of her."

Her struggling stopped. "Oh, God, is it that bad?"

"Pretty much. I'm sorry."

"But who did it?"

"Looks to be a murder-suicide." Then, "I was thinking about all the arguments they had over getting married."

"But Noah wouldn't-"

"I heard some of their arguments when I passed their door. He got pretty angry. And you told me yourself that he struck her a couple of times."

"But striking her-"

"Striking her means you're into violence. And the fact that she put up with it just made it worse. She showed him that there wouldn't be any serious consequences."

"She wouldn't talk to him for two or three days at a time."

"But she always took him back. And that was all he cared about. He could handle a few days of not having her as long as he knew that he'd get her back eventually. Which he did. Plus, he was a very possessive guy. And he drank a lot."

She'd calmed down. Tears gleamed in her eyes. "I just keep thinking of Laura. How-how did he do it?"

"Knife."

"Oh, God."

I decided to spare her any more details for now.

"Was it fast?"

"Her dying?"

She nodded.

"Probably very fast."

Which wasn't necessarily true. She'd put up some kind of fight. And if this was typical of most throat-slashings, her last minutes had been hell. But Tandy didn't need to know that. At least not now.

"I'm going to be sick."

I got her up to my room and into the bathroom. She vomited twice. I hadn't unpacked everything since I'd been moved. I turned on a nearby lamp, dug out toothpaste, mouthwash, and an unwrapped toothbrush for her. She thanked me between a half-inch of door and frame.

She spent twenty minutes washing up. I sat in the shadows on the other side of the room. Listened to all the activity downstairs.

When she came back, she sat down in the overstuffed chair and said, "He cut her throat, didn't he?"

"Yeah."

"That can be a terrible way to die, can't it?"

"There are a lot of terrible ways to die."

"You didn't answer my question, Robert."

"Yeah. It can be a terrible way to die."

"You think it took her a long time to die?"

"Probably not a long time."

"How long would you estimate?"

"I'm not a medical examiner, Tandy."

"You're evading my question again, Robert."

"I suppose a couple of minutes."

"A couple of minutes after he cut her throat?"

"Yes."

"God, when you're bleeding like that, and gasping for air, and all panicked and angry-a couple of minutes can be a long time."

"It probably can."

"I hope I don't see it."

At first, I wasn't sure what she meant.

Then she said, "Some psychics 'see' their loved ones dying. They can re-create the whole death scene. They live it over and over again."

"I hope you don't see it, either."

"It was starting to go well for us. I'm getting those funny feelings in my arms again. And all the time. Ever since we went out to where we found the bones."

She'd once told me that when her powers were operating at maximum efficiency, she'd get these tingles that raced up and down her arms.

"The tingles."

"Yeah," she said. "The tingles."

She put her face in her hands. "She would've been so happy about it. This whole night. Finding the bones and everything. The cable people would've been ecstatic."

Then she was weeping. More than simply crying but not yet sobbing. Weeping.

I went over and knelt next to the chair and started giving her a shoulder rub.

"That feels good?" she said tearfully.

"That's all the encouragement I need."

I lifted her up and carried her over to the bed, where I set her gently on top of the spread. I rolled her over and started working not only on her shoulders but her back as well.

"You're getting a woodie," she said.

"Sorry."

"I really don't want to do anything."

"I know. I'm sorry. This was something it did entirely on its own."

And isn't that always the way? Some nights when you need them, they're nowhere to be found. Other nights, they keep popping up at inopportune times.

I unstraddled her bottom, knelt next to her in such a way that the only part of my body touching hers was my hands.

"You really think he killed her?" She was done weeping. For now, anyway.

"Sure looks like it."

"Couldn't have been faked?"

"Could have. But it's tough to fake."

"She should've dumped him. I don't know what she saw in him, anyway."

"I guess she loved him."

"He was so unfaithful. I'm not sure why she put up with all the bad stuff Noah did to her. She must have really thought she loved him."

"I'm sure she did."

"God, I wish I could get my hands on him."

The calming effect of my massage was starting to lose its charm, apparently.

The knock was curt. "Hello," a female voice said. The uncertainty in her voice suggested that she wasn't sure that anybody was even in here.

Police Chief Susan Charles.

I eased off the bed and opened the door for her.

"I'll turn on another light," I said.

The light revealed Tandy sitting on the edge of the bed, combing through her short hair with her fingers.

Susan said, "I was actually looking for Tandy. There are two detectives here from the state, and they were asking if we could all talk to Tandy at the same time."

"Fine," Tandy said. "I need to go to the bathroom first." She went in and closed the door.

Susan stepped closer. "You get a good look at Laura West?" I nodded.

"He must've really been angry."

"There's one thing that's strange, though." I told her about his phone call and wanting to see me.

"Did he say about what?"

"He seemed to think Paul Renard is still alive."

She smiled. Obviously couldn't help herself. "Are you serious?"

"That's what he said."

"God, I knew he wanted ratings but-"

"That's what I thought. But I wanted to hear his story, anyway."

"I'll let you go through his effects with me if you want. See if we can turn anything up. I need to talk to you anyway. About the crime scene when you saw it. We'll go through his things afterwards."

"I'd appreciate that."

Tandy came back. "Do you have any Tums or anything like that? My stomach is a mess."

"I'm afraid I don't," I said.

"I've got some in my car:," Susan said.

"Thanks."

She looked around the room. "Forgive me for saying so, but this is kind of depressing."

"Gee," I said. "I hadn't noticed."

She smirked at me. "Uh-huh." Then, "You ready, Tandy?"

Tandy nodded. Then, "Robert says that maybe she died pretty quickly."

Susan knew she was being put on the spot. She avoided glancing at me to tip her hand. "Sometimes, it can be very fast."

"Did you see her?"

"Yes."

"You think it was fast?"

This time, Susan did glance at me. "I think there's a good possibility it was fast."

"She should have dumped him," Tandy said. "I told her to." She wasn't talking to us. She was talking to Laura. "Big TV star. I think she actually went for that somehow. She was so smart. I don't know why she'd fall for that. Do you?"

This time, she directed her question at me.

"No," I said gently. "I don't know why she'd fall for that, either."

Susan led her quietly out the door.

The retired man was still at the desk. He looked, if possible, even worse than I felt, in his old cardigan, old flannel-type shirt, and old tired eyes.

"This here is town is becomin' quite a place."

"It sure is."

"And both of 'em'll make the national news."

"Probably will."

I had two questions for him. But he wasn't going to make it easy for me.

"There was a senator out here once. State senator by the name of Gibbons. Found out his mistress was bein' unfaithful so he killed her. Shot her eight times. Right out on the highway. Couldn't even wait for her to get out of the car, he was so pissed. Shot her eight times inside the car, then took her body and threw it in the ditch. Now, that's pissed."

"That's pissed, all right."

"Then, when they caught him, he hanged himself in jail. And then you know what?"

"What?"

"Three weeks after that, his wife got in a car wreck. Killed her and the oldest boy."

I didn't need any more depressing stories. "Right at the point where tragedy becomes absurdity" has always been one of my favorite phrases. When things get so bad you have to start seeing the ridiculous nature of them.

But tonight, because of Tandy, pale, frail, fucked-up Tandy, I wasn't able to find anything humorous, let alone absurd, about any of it.

"Well, that's quite a story," I said.

"Ain't done yet."

"You ain't?"

"Oh, no. So the youngest boy of the family?"

"Yes."

"Guess what happens to him?"

"I don't think I want to hear."

"He starts stickin' up banks when he's sixteen."

"God."

"And so they catch him one day down to the Missouri border same-place Jesse James was always workin'-and they kill him."

"Well," I said. "I'm sure glad you shared that with me."

He grinned with his shining store-boughts. "And I ain't done yet."

"You ain't?"

"No, sir. Seems the bank-robbin' kid had a girlfriend and she was just about due to have a baby-this here girl couldn't have been more than fourteen; jailbait, we used to call little gals like her-when she finds out that the bank-robbin' kid has been shot to death by Highway Patrol cops."

"Lord Almighty."

"Then she tries to kill herself."

"She does?"

"Yep. But she don't make it. They save her life. So she can have the kid. So she has the kid, except she dies when he's ten-overdose, she was a junkie-and the kid is raised by his aunt and uncle. And guess where I seen him the other night?"

"The kid?"

"Yeah. The one the jailbait delivered. He was on TV, and it was last Tuesday. 'Cept he ain't a kid no more. He's twenty years old. And guess what show he was on?"

"You got me."

"America's Most Wanted. Armed robbery and two murders in Florida. And guess what?"

"I don't want to guess."

"He's got this sixteen-year-old gal travelin' with him and she's pregnant. Ain't that a pisser?"

"Oh, that's a pisser all right."

"The little gal he's travelin' with is knocked up. Who-ee!" And he slapped the countertop.

I said, wanting to change the subject quickly, "Kibbe get any calls the night he died?"

"Cops already asked me that. And you ain't a cop. At least Noah Chandler played one on TV. You didn't even do that."

"I used to be with the FBI."

He looked at me in a new way. "No shit?"

"No shit."

"Well, I'll be damned. The bureau, huh? That's what you folks call it, ain't it? The bureau?"

So I laid some fanciful FBI tales on him. People like him always like the helicopter-to-helicopter shoot-out story. I saw it one night on a TV movie and decided to put it in my repertoire.

"God, so you were just hanging on with one hand?"

"One hand."

"Over the Atlantic Ocean?"

"Over the dark and brooding Atlantic Ocean?"

"You kill him?"

"Two bullets in the heart."

"Wow."

"He hung on to the strut as long as he could, but then he finally fell into the ocean."

"Wow. They ever find the diamonds?"

"I found 'em next day. I used to be a frogman, so I insisted on diving myself. Took me twenty minutes but I had some luck"

"That Atlantic Ocean is big. You were sure lucky."

"Very lucky," I said. "Frogmen don't usually have that kind of luck."

"Say, you want a beer?"

"That sounds great."

While he went back and got us beers, I watched the show in the parking lot.

Everything had started to resemble a movie set. The crowd, the cops, the boxy white ambulance, the flashing, whipping emergency lights. I thought again of a portable scene moved whenever needed. You had a suspicious death, the entire menagerie would show up in only a matter of moments.

Mrs. Giles was the only surprise. I hadn't noticed her before. She wore a dark winter coat wrapped tight about her. She'd been there when Kibbe had been murdered. Now here she was again.

He brought the beers and we drank. I gunned mine. I wanted to ask Mrs. Giles something.

"You ever shoot anybody?"

"Once."

"Bet that was fun, wasn't it?"

"Not really."

He looked stunned. "Shoot a guy and get away with it 'cause you're law? And that ain't fun?"

"I felt kind of sorry for him, actually."

"How come?"

"Oh, he'd lost his job and his wife and his little boy was sick. And he just sort of went crazy one day and held some people in a bank for hostage."

"You kill him?"

"Yeah. But not because I was trying. He slipped at exactly the moment I fired the gun, and that put his chest in direct line of the bullet. Got him in the heart."

The made-up stories were always filled with macho swagger; the true ones were less imposing but a hell of a lot sadder.

I could see I'd disappointed him. He didn't want stories that talked about the human condition. He wanted tales that distracted him from the human story. No time to worry about misery or disease or heartbreak when you're caught up in an adventure story.

So I told him the whopper about the time I caught an assassin on the scaffolding of a building, thirty-eight floors up it was (the number of stories increased every time I told the story), and how he almost flung me to my death as I tried to wrestle his gun away. I think, though I'm not sure, that this story had its origin in one of the early James Bond movies.

"Wow," he said, impressed.

The phone rang and he took it.

I strayed to the window. She was still there, Mrs. Giles, shabby and cold and angry in the chill night.

When he got off the phone, I said, "You know, you'd be helping me out quite a bit if you told me about Kibbe's calls."

He looked at me, assessing. My stories had changed his attitude. "There's a doc in this town name of Williams. A head doc. You know, for nuts."

"Right."

"He called a couple of times the night Kibbe bought it."

"He leave any messages?"

"Just that Kibbe was supposed to call him back ASAP."

"Did you give Kibbe the message?"

"No. When I came on, Janice told me she hadn't been able to find him. And now he's dead."

I was the one who supposedly had the interesting stories. But here was one far more engaging than any I could concoct.

Dr. Williams calling Kibbe after Kibbe had stolen certain items from Dr. Williams's office. I wondered if Kibbe had found something. Or knew something. He must have. I doubted Dr. Williams had been placing a simple social call.

"Anything else?"

"Just that little copying joint down on Main."

"Copying joint?"

"Yeah. You know, they make Xeroxes and stuff. Said his order was ready."

"They say what kind of order it was?"

"Huh-uh."

"When was this?"

"Last night. Right at nine. Lady said she was just closing up and that he could pick up his order in the morning."

"I see." Then, "You happen to notice Dr. Williams around here the last couple of nights?"

"Not really. For one thing, we been kinda busy. And for another, when we ain't busy, I read them supermarket papers. They're always a lot of fun."

"But you'd recognize Dr. Williams if you saw him?"

"Oh, sure. They always have him on the tube whenever it's Mental Health Day or somethin' like that."

"I appreciate your help."

"Hell, no. I appreciate the stories. Not often you get to hear an actual FBI agent tell actual stories like that."

"Former FBI man."

He shrugged. "Still and all."

She angled her head away from me when she saw me.

She probably would have run but reasoned that would attract even more attention.

I went up to her and said, "Terrible thing, Mrs. Giles."

The faded prettiness, the animal fear of the eyes, the nervous, awkward movements of the mouth. Mrs. Giles hadn't changed much.

"You know the man who died last night?"

She looked at me as if I were speaking in a foreign language. "Man named Kibbe. Private detective, actually. He ever stop out your way and ask you questions?"

"I didn't know him." Curt, quick.

"And I don't suppose you knew Noah Chandler, either."

"I told you he asked us questions."

"Or Laura West?"

"Her, too. I didn't like the way my husband kept lookin' her over." Then, "Why are you asking me these questions?"

"Just want to know everybody's relationship. By the way, how's your petition going?"

She made no secret of what she was doing. Took a pint bottle from her coat pocket. Took a nice long swig.

"It's goin' all right. But the way you people keep dyin, we won't need no petition drive."

I changed the subject. "I'd like to see Claire tomorrow."

She looked as if I'd slapped her. "Can't be done."

"Why?"

"She's not feeling well."

She was lying and she didn't care that I knew. "What you're saying is that I can't see her."

"What I'm saying is that she's sick."

I stayed on her, the interrogator. "I'm told she used to see Dr. Williams."

"So what if she did? She don't any longer, anyway."

"I don't suppose you'd tell me why."

For just a moment there, her alcoholic features morphed themselves into the grinning, belligerent face of a gargoyle. "I don't suppose I would. You're right about that, Mr. Payne."

One of the bodies was being brought out now. We watched in silence. It was still a waste, all this death, of brisk and bracing football weather. We should have been in the bleachers at some high school game, cheering on the Rough Riders and spiking our coffee with a little bourbon.

The body was on a gurney. They fit it inside the ambulance and then closed the doors again and went back to the motel room. "I'd better get back. Fred's expecting me."

With that, she turned and started away. I took the sleeve of her winter coat. "Something happened to Claire, didn't it?"

"Nothing happened to her. Not that it's your business even if it did."

"I'd like to talk to her."

"Impossible."

"For just a few minutes."

"If you even try, I'll call Chief Charles and raise so much hell, you'll be in trouble. And don't think I can't, Mr. Payne. Don't think I can't. I may not be important, but I do know the law and I have a cousin here who's a lawyer. He can make your life hell, believe me."

I believed her.

"Now let go of my sleeve."

I let go. She walked away.

Susan Charles came up. "Looks like you two may never be fast friends."

"You may be hearing from her."

"About what?"

"Me. She thinks I'm harassing her." Then, "You know anything about Claire, her daughter?"

"Not much. She's supposedly autistic, although she didn't have any problems until after the fire at the asylum. She almost died in it. Now she lives up in the attic and only the people who watch her when her parents have to go somewhere see her. She got lost a few times when I was younger. There were big searches for her, I remember that. Now they keep her locked up."

"They're sure she's autistic?"

"Meaning what?"

I shrugged. "Meaning, I'm not sure. But certain kinds of trauma can pass for autism. To the untutored eye, anyway."

"You're suggesting what?"

"I'm suggesting that I'd like to get in and see her for myself."

She smiled. "No wonder Mrs. Giles doesn't like you. She doesn't let anybody see Claire, ever."

"No one?"

She nodded. "Oh, a country social worker comes to see her, once a month or six weeks for fifteen, twenty minutes a visit. Nothing in any depth. Just makes sure she's being treated well and things like that."

"Ever been any complaints."

"None that I know of."

A uniformed cop came over. "They'd like to see you inside, Chief."

"Thanks, Merle. I need to get back, Robert. I wouldn't push Mrs. Giles. She can really raise a lot of hell when she wants to."

"Yeah," I said. "I got that impression."