She looked angry.
6
Last week, on Thursday evening, at the twice-a-month poker game he’d been attending for more than eight years, Jack had found himself defending Rebecca. During a pause in the game, the other players—three detectives: Al Dufresne, Witt Yardman, and Phil Abrahams —had spoken against her.
“I don’t see how you put up with her, Jack,” Witt said.
“She’s a cold one,” Al said.
“A regular ice maiden,” Phil said.
As the cards snapped and clicked and softly hissed in Al’s busy hands, the three men dealt out insults:
“She’s colder than a witch’s tit.”
“About as friendly as a Doberman with one fierce damned toothache and a bad case of constipation.”
“Acts like she don’t ever have to breathe or take a piss like the rest of humanity.”
“A real ball-buster,” Al Dufresne said.
Finally Jack said, “Ah, she’s not so bad once you know her.”
“A ball-buster,” Al repeated.
“Listen,” Jack said, “if she was a guy, you’d say she was just a hard-nosed cop, and you’d even sort of admire her for it. But ’cause she’s a hard-nosed female cop, you say she’s just a cold bitch.”
“I know a ball-buster when I see one,” Al said.
“A ball-crusher,” Witt said.
“She’s got her good qualities,” Jack said.
“Yeah?” Phil Abrahams said. “Name one.”
“She’s observant.”
“So’s a vulture.”
“She’s smart. She’s efficient,” Jack said.
“So was Mussolini. He made the trains run on time.”
Jack said, “And she’d never fail to back up her partner if things got hairy out there on the street.”
“Hell’s bells, no cop would fail to back up a partner,” Al said.
“Some would,” Jack said.
“Damned few. And if they did, they wouldn’t be cops forlong.”
“She’s a hard worker,” Jack said. “Carries her weight.”
“Okay, okay,” Witt said, “so maybe she can do the job well enough. But why can’t she be a human being, too?”
“I don’t think I ever heard her laugh,” Phil said.
Al said, “Where’s her heart? Doesn’t she have a heart?”
“Sure she does,” Witt said. “A little stone heart.”
“Well,” Jack said, “I suppose I’d rather have Rebecca for a partner than any of you brass-plated monkeys.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. She’s more sensitive than you give her credit for.”
“Oh, ho! Sensitive!”
“Now it comes out!”
“He’s not just being chivalrous.”
“He’s sweet on her.”
“She’ll have your balls for a necklace, old buddy.”
“From the look of him, I’d say she’s already had ’em.”
“Any day now, she’ll be wearing a brooch made out of his—”
Jack said, “Listen, you guys, there’s nothing between me and Rebecca except—”
“Does she go in for whips and chains, Jack?”
“Hey, I’ll bet she does! Boots and dog collars.”
“Take off your shirt and show us your bruises, Jack.”
“Neanderthals,” Jack said.
“Does she wear a leather bra?”
“Leather? Man, that broad must wear steel.”
“Cretins,” Jack said.
“I thought you’ve been looking poorly the last couple months,” Al said. “Now I know what it is. You’re pussy-whipped, Jack.”
“Definitely pussy-whipped,” Phil said.
Jack knew there was no point in resisting them. His protestations would only amuse and encourage them. He smiled and let the wave of good-natured abuse wash over him, until they were at last tired of the game.
Eventually, he said, “Alright, you guys have had your fun. But I don’t want any stupid rumors starting from this. I want you to understand there’s nothing between Rebecca and me. I think she is a sensitive person under all those callouses. Beneath that cold-as-an-alligator pose she works so hard at, there’s some warmth, tenderness. That’s what I think, but I don’t know from personal experience. Understand?”
“Maybe there’s nothing between you two,” Phil said, “but judging by the way your tongue hangs out when you talk about her, it’s obvious you wish there was.”
“Yeah,” Al said, “when you talk about her, you drool.”
The taunting started all over again, but this time they were much closer to the truth than they had been before. Jack didn’t know from personal experience that Rebecca was sensitive and special, but he sensed it, and he wanted to be closer to her. He would have given just about anything to be with her—not merely near her; he’d been near her five or six days a week, for almost ten months—but really with her, sharing her innermost thoughts, which she always guarded jealously.
The biological pull was strong, the stirring in the gonads; no denying it. After all, she was quite beautiful. But it wasn’t her beauty that most intrigued him.
Her coolness, the distance she put between herself and everyone else, made her a challenge that no male could resist. But that wasn’t the thing that most intrigued him, either.
Now and then, rarely, no more than once a week, there was an unguarded moment, a few seconds, never longer than a minute, when her hard shell slipped slightly, giving him a glimpse of another and very different Rebecca beyond the familiar cold exterior, someone vulnerable and unique, someone worth knowing and perhaps worth holding on to. That was what fascinated Jack Dawson: that brief glimpse of warmth and tenderness, the dazzling radiance she always cut off the instant she realized she had allowed it to escape through her mask of austerity.
Last Thursday, at the poker game, he had felt that getting past Rebecca’s elaborate psychological defenses would always be, for him, nothing more than a fantasy, a dream forever unattainable. After ten months as her partner, ten months of working together and trusting each other and putting their lives in each other’s hands, he felt that she was, if anything, more of a mystery than ever....
Now, less than a week later, Jack knew what lay under her mask. He knew from personal experience. Very personal experience. And what he had found was even better, more appealing, more special than what he had hoped to find. She was wonderful.
But this morning there was absolutely no sign of the inner Rebecca, not the slightest hint that she was anything more than the cold and forbidding Amazon that she assiduously impersonated.
It was as if last night had never happened.
In the hall, outside the study where Nevetski and Blaine were still looking for evidence, she said, “I heard what you asked them—about the Haitian.”
“So?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Jack!”
“Well, Baba Lavelle is our only suspect so far.”
“It doesn’t bother me that you asked about him,” she said. “It’s the way you asked about him.”
“I used English, didn’t I?”
“Jack—”
“Wasn’t I polite enough?”
“Jack—”
“It’s just that I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” She mimicked him, pretending she was talking to Nevetski and Blaine: “‘Has either of you noticed anything odd about this one? Anything out of the ordinary? Anything strange? Anything weird?’ ”
“I was just pursuing a lead,” he said defensively.
“Like you pursued it yesterday, wasting half the afternoon in the library, reading about voodoo.”
“We were at the library less than an hour.”
“And then running up there to Harlem to talk to that sorcerer.”
“He’s not a sorcerer.”
“That nut.”
“Carver Hampton isn’t a nut,” Jack said.
“A real nut cas
e,” she insisted.
“There was an article about him in that book.”
“Being written about in a book doesn’t automatically make him respectable.”
“He’s a priest.”
“He’s not. He’s a fraud.”
“He’s a voodoo priest who practices only white magic, good magic. A Houngon. That’s what he calls himself.”
“I can call myself a fruit tree, but don’t expect me to grow any apples on my ears,” she said. “Hampton’s a charlatan. Taking money from the gullible.”
“His religion may seem exotic—”
“It’s foolish. That shop he runs. Jesus. Selling herbs and bottles of goat’s blood, charms and spells, all that other nonsense—”
“It’s not nonsense to him.”
“Sure it is.”
“He believes in it.”
“Because he’s a nut.”
“Make up your mind, Rebecca. Is Carver Hampton a nut or a fraud? I don’t see how you can have it both ways.”
“Okay, okay. Maybe this Baba Lavelle did kill all four of the victims.”
“He’s our only suspect so far.”
“But he didn’t use voodoo. There’s no such thing as black magic. He stabbed them, Jack. He got blood on his hands, just like any other murderer.”
Her eyes were intensely, fiercely green, always a shade greener and clearer when she was angry or impatient.
“I never said he killed them with magic,” Jack told her. “I didn’t say I believe in voodoo. But you saw the bodies. You saw how strange—”
“Stabbed,” she said firmly. “Mutilated, yes. Savagely and horribly disfigured, yes. Stabbed a hundred times or more, yes. But stabbed. With a knife. A real knife. An ordinary knife.”
“The medical examiner says the weapon used in those first two murders would’ve had to’ve been no bigger than a penknife.”
“Okay. So it was a penknife.”
“Rebecca, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Murder never makes sense.”
“What kind of killer goes after his victims with a penknife, for God’s sake?”
“A lunatic.”
“Psychotic killers usually favor dramatic weapons-butcher knives, hatchets, shotguns ...”
“In the movies, maybe.”
“In reality, too.”
“This is just another psycho like all the psychos who’re crawling out of the walls these days,” she insisted. “There’s nothing special or strange about him.”
“But how does he overpower them? If he’s only wielding a penknife, why can’t his victims fight him off or escape?”
“There’s an explanation,” she said doggedly. “We’ll find it.”
The house was warm, getting warmer; Jack took off his overcoat.
Rebecca left her coat on. The heat didn’t seem to bother her any more than the cold.
“And in every case,” Jack said, “the victim has fought his assailant. There are always signs of a big struggle. Yet none of the victims seems to have managed to wound his attacker; there’s never any blood but the victim’s own. That’s damned strange. And what about Vastagliano—murdered in a locked bathroom?”
She stared at him suddenly but didn’t respond.
“Look, Rebecca, I’m not saying it’s voodoo or anything the least bit supernatural. I’m not a particularly superstitious man. My point is that these murders might be the work of someone who does believe in voodoo, that there might be something ritualistic about them. The condition of the corpses certainly points in that direction. I didn’t say voodoo works. I’m only suggesting that the killer might think it works, and his belief in voodoo might lead us to him and give us some of the evidence we need to convict him.”
She shook her head. “Jack, I know there’s a certain streak in you ...”
“What certain streak is that?”
“Call it an excessive degree of open-mindedness.”
“How is it possible to be excessively open-minded? That’s like being too honest.”
“When Darl Coleson said this Baba Lavelle was taking over the drug trade by using voodoo curses to kill his competition, you listened ... well ... you listened as if you were a child, enraptured.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. Then the next thing I know, we’re off to Harlem to a voodoo shop!”
“If this Baba Lavelle really is interested in voodoo, then it makes sense to assume that someone like Carver Hampton might know him or be able to find out something about him for us.”
“A nut like Hampton won’t be any help at all. You remember the Holderbeck case?”
“What’s that got to do with—” “The old lady who was murdered during the seance?”
“Emily Holderbeck. I remember.” “You were fascinated with that one,” she said. “I never claimed there was anything supernatural about it.”
“Absolutely fascinated.” “Well, it was an incredible murder. The killer was so bold. The room was dark, sure, but there were eight people present when the shot was fired.”
“But it wasn’t the facts of the case that fascinated you the most,” Rebecca said. “It was the medium that interested you. That Mrs. Donatella with her crystal ball. You couldn’t get enough of her ghost stories, her so-called psychic experiences.”
“So?” “Do you believe in ghosts, Jack?” “You mean, do I believe in an afterlife?” “Ghosts.” “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Who can say?” “I can say. I don’t believe in ghosts. But your equivocation proves my point.”
“Rebecca, there are millions of perfectly sane, respectable, intelligent, level-headed people who believe in life after death.”
“A detective’s a lot like a scientist,” she said. “He’s got to be logical.”
“He doesn’t have to be an atheist, for God’s sake!” Ignoring him, she said, “Logic is the best tool we have.”
“All I’m saying is that we’re on to something strange. And since the brother of one of the victims thinks voodoo is involved—”
“A good detective has to be reasonable, methodical.”
“—we should follow it up even if it seems ridiculous.”
“A good detective has to be tough-minded, realistic.”
“A good detective also has to be imaginative, flexible,” he countered. Then, abruptly changing the subject, he said, “Rebecca, what about last night?”
Her face reddened. She said, “Let’s go have a talk with the Parker woman,” and she started to turn away from him.
He took hold of her arm, stopped her. “I thought something very special happened last night.”
She said nothing.
“Did I just imagine it?” he asked.
“Let’s not talk about it now.”
“Was it really awful for you?”
“Later,” she said.
“Why’re you treating me like this?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes; that was unusual for her. “It’s complicated, Jack.”
“I think we’ve got to talk about it.”
“Later,” she said. “Please.”
“When?”
“When we have the time.”
“When will that be?” he persisted.
“If we have time for lunch, we can talk about it then.”
“We’ll make time.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yes, we will.”
“Now, we’ve got work to do,” she said, pulling away from him.
He let her go this time.
She headed toward the living room, where Shelly Parker waited.
He followed her, wondering what he’d gotten himself into when he’d become intimately involved with this exasperating woman. Maybe she was a nut case herself. Maybe she wasn’t worth all the aggravation she caused him. Maybe she would bring him nothing but pain, and maybe he would come to regret the day he’d met her. At times, she certainly seemed neurotic. Better to stay away from her. The smartest thing he could do was call it quits righ
t now. He could ask for a new partner, perhaps even transfer out of the Homicide Division; he was tired of dealing with death all the time, anyway. He and Rebecca should split, go their separate ways both personally and professionally, before they got too tangled up with each other. Yes, that was for the best. That was what he should do.
But as Nevetski would say: Like hell.
He wasn’t going to put in a request for a new partner.
He wasn’t a quitter.
Besides, he thought maybe he was in love.
7
At fifty-eight, Nayva Rooney looked like a grandmother but moved like a dockworker. She kept her gray hair in tight curls. Her round, pink, friendly face had bold rather than delicate features, and her merry blue eyes were never evasive, always warm. She was a stocky woman but not fat. Her hands weren’t smooth, soft, grandmotherly hands; they were strong, quick, efficient, with no trace of either the pampered life or arthritis, but with a few callouses. When Nayva walked, she looked as if nothing could stand in her way, not other people and not even brick walls; there was nothing dainty or graceful or even particularly feminine about her walk; she strode from place to place in the manner of a no-nonsense army sergeant.
Nayva had been cleaning the apartment for Jack Dawson since shortly after Linda Dawson’s death. She came in once a week, every Wednesday. She also did some babysitting for him; in fact, she’d been here last evening, watching over Penny and Davey, while Jack had been out on a date.
This morning, she let herself in with the key that Jack had given her, and she went straight to the kitchen. She brewed a pot of coffee and poured a cup for herself and drank half of it before she took off her coat. It was a bitter day, indeed, and even though the apartment was warm, she found it difficult to rid herself of the chill that had seeped deep into her bones during the six-block walk from her own apartment.
She started cleaning in the kitchen. Nothing was actually dirty. Jack and his two young ones were clean and reasonably orderly, not at all like some for whom Nayva worked. Nonetheless, she labored diligently, scrubbing and polishing with the same vigor and determination that she brought to really grimy jobs, for she prided herself on the fact that a place positively gleamed when she was finished with it. Her father—dead these many years and God rest his soul—had been a uniformed policeman, a foot patrolman, who took no graft whatsoever, and who strived to make his beat a safe one for all who lived or toiled within its boundaries. He had taken considerable pride in his job, and he’d taught Nayva (among other things) two valuable lessons about work: first, there is always satisfaction and esteem in a piece of work well done, regardless of how menial it might be; second, if you cannot do a job well, then there’s not much use in doing it at all.