It was with that heavy sense of guilt and exposure that he stepped into the Extraordinary Crimes squad room—and stopped just within the threshold, catching his breath. He stared across the long room and realized that his devilish luck had at last run out.
Goulart was propped on the edge of his gunmetal desk, one hand draped over one knee, his foot casually swinging, his other hand in motion. Even from where Zach was standing, he could see that his partner was flirting with the pretty girl who was seated in the desk chair, looking up at him.
Zach could see the girl’s face in profile.
Damn it, he thought.
It was Imogen Storm.
20
SUSPICION
Imogen stood up as Zach came toward her. He saw the flush of excitement on her elfin features. Her brown eyes were bright. He thought: She knows.
Goulart was standing off his desk. “I guess you two’ve already met.”
“Agent Adams,” said Imogen eagerly, offering him her delicate hand. Even with her clipped British accent, he could hear the thrill and tension in her voice. “I’m sorry to bother you here, but there’s been a killing in Westchester.”
“I got calls in to Mt. Kisco and the staties,” said Goulart, pointing a thumb at the desk phone. “I’ll try those rubes again.”
This last was directed toward Imogen with something like a gallant wink—at which she nodded in girlish gratitude. This close, Zach could actually smell the attraction between them.
“I don’t know much,” she said, turning back to Zach. “It was a woman. In her own home in a town called Bedford, apparently. The police are saying it might have been a bear. But I thought: given that there was a full moon last night, it might well be our friend Dankl.”
“I didn’t hear anything about this on the news,” Zach murmured, stalling for time to think as he set his bag down on his desk. He had packed a change of clothes. There would be another full moon tonight.
“I have a program on my phone that scans police reports,” Imogen told him. “I have it set to alert me to anything involving animal attacks on human beings.”
“Handy,” he said. He looked at her with as much cool irony as he could muster. His throat felt constricted. His mind felt thick. And his hands felt bloody. He did not know how he was going to get through this conversation, let alone the next two days, without giving himself away.
“It’s a powerful coincidence, at the very least,” said Imogen. “You have to grant me that. That’s why I hurried right over. I thought you might. . . .”
Zach did not hear the rest of the sentence. His eyes had gone past her to where Goulart stood with the phone lifted to his ear. Goulart’s lips had just parted. His eyes had widened. He was turning, as he listened, to gape at Zach. Zach understood: the Westchester boys had given him the name of the victim. He knew it was Margo.
Zach tore his gaze away from his partner and turned it back to Imogen. Goulart would guess the truth, or something like it, there was no help for that, but Zach didn’t want him to read it on his face. Not yet, anyway.
Imogen was waiting for his reply—to something. He had no idea what she’d just said.
“So you think it was Professor Dankl,” he said. And added drily: “In wolf mode.”
“I think it’s at least a possibility worth considering. Don’t you?”
Goulart had set the phone down now. He was stepping over to them. Still staring at Zach.
“Has Miss Storm told you about her magazine?” Zach asked him, again with as casual and droll a tone as he could manage. “What is it? Absurd?”
“Bizarre.”
“Bizarre, right. Has she explained her theory? The whole lycanthropy angle.”
“Yes,” said Goulart, speaking slowly, as if in a dream, distantly, as if from many miles within himself. “Yes. Some of it. Listen, I just spoke to the staties.”
“What’d you get?” said Zach. He was mentally preparing his reaction. Surprise. Restrained concern. Not grief; he hadn’t really known Margo all that well according to the lies he’d been telling. He’d never been much of an actor and he wasn’t sure how convincing he could be, but he had to try.
“The vic was a woman named Margo Heatherton,” said Goulart in that same slow, distant way. His eyes never left Zach’s face.
In the event, Zach’s performance was flawless. Mouth opening just enough. Head drawing back ever so slightly in surprise. “Margo . . . ?” He thought again that the devil must be working with him.
“You knew her?” asked Imogen breathlessly.
Zach and Goulart were now staring at each other. Zach was pretending to try to make sense of all this and Goulart was trying to make sense of Zach’s pretense. They exchanged small, secret gestures between them. Zach narrowed his eyes—What the hell? Goulart lifted his shoulder—Don’t ask me.
“But don’t you see?” Imogen went on. “This only confirms it. It must’ve been Dankl. It must’ve been. She’s followed you here.”
Zach ignored her. “What are they saying?” he asked Goulart.
It was a moment before Goulart could break out of his own thoughts. “They don’t know much. She was in her house. Definitely some kind of animal attack, they say. They’re figuring a bear or wild dogs. Nothing else up there that could do that. They say she might have heard a noise and opened the door. . . .”
“Really? And it just came into the house?”
Goulart nodded vaguely. Then, pointedly, he said: “They say someone else might’ve been with her at the time. At the time or just before. They’re not sure. They’re searching the woods in case he or she got dragged off or something. Right now, it’s all pretty much of a whodunnit.”
“But don’t you see . . . ?” Imogen began again.
Zach acted as if he’d just remembered she was there. This whole acting dodge was pretty easy, it turned out. Amazing that they actually paid people to do it. “Miss Storm,” he said. “I really doubt this has anything to do with your fiancé’s death.”
“But it does! Of course it does,” she said. All her British restraint was gone, and her urgency made her seem very young somehow. She appealed to Goulart. “What was this Margo Heatherton’s profession, did they say?”
Goulart shrugged. “She was a writer, or wanted to be. She didn’t have to work, apparently. She was the daughter of some muck-a-muck in White Plains.”
“Jack Heatherton,” said Zach. “He’s the chairman of a bank up there.”
“Well . . .” said Imogen, at a momentary loss. “I’m sure Dankl saw some connection between him and Abend or him and . . . I don’t know what exactly. But that’s just it: she’s utterly mad. Think of her victim in Poland. The connection might be tenuous, but. . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“The locals are pretty sure this was an animal,” said Goulart. He was starting to come out of his daze a little bit. “A real animal. Not a person pretending to be one. There’s claw scratches in the wood floor. Traces of fur. Forensics is looking at it, but they’re pretty sure that a human being, not even a crazy one in some kind of fit, could’ve—” He stopped himself with a glance at Zach. “I mean, it was a pretty ugly business.”
Imogen started to protest, but Zach cut her off.
“Miss Storm, I think we understand your theory. We’ll definitely keep it in mind. For now, there’s not much we can do but let the locals get on with their jobs. If there seems to be any connection between this and the death of your fiancé, we’ll be in touch.”
At that, Imogen Storm’s pixie face went stony with hurt and derision. Every expression shut down except the angry flash of her eyes. It actually pained Zach to see it. He did like her. He hated to shut her out. But what other choice did he have? It wasn’t as if he could tell her the truth.
“‘We’ll get in touch,’” she echoed him thickly. “I think I’ve heard that from every policeman in every country on two continents.”
Goulart stepped forward. Took her elbow in his hand. “But we mean it,” he sai
d, drawing her away toward the door. “I mean it, anyway. I’ll call you later today. I promise. With whatever we have. I think what you’re saying . . .” the rest of this was lost to Zach as the two moved out of earshot.
Zach had a few moments to prepare for what he knew was coming next. Goulart and Imogen had paused just beyond the cop-shop threshold. They were close together, face to face, girl-shape to guy-shape, Goulart’s hand moving between them as he reassured her, as he renewed his flirtation even in her distress.
What Zach was thinking meanwhile was: he had to get out of here. Had to get on the road. Had, most of all, to get away from Goulart.
Up until now, up until the horror of last night, Zach had been half-convinced that he was . . . he didn’t know what. Insane. Hallucinatory with fever. Something. Men see only what they believe. That’s what the dead executioner had told him. Up until now, Zach could not believe what was happening to him, so he couldn’t see it. And the fact that he doubted his own senses made him doubt everything else: his instincts, his observations, his deductions, everything.
But as it turned out, his instincts and observations and deductions had all been exactly accurate, exactly true. He was beginning to rely on them again.
And his instinct was that Goulart could not be trusted.
He hadn’t had time to reason it out. He hadn’t been able to think clearly at all after last night’s catastrophe. But he was suspicious enough to feel that, if he really was on Abend’s trail, he had to go after the gangster alone. Not only was that his best option in terms of the investigation, but it was his safest too: he only had another nine hours or so before the full moon rose again. He couldn’t have Goulart around for that—he couldn’t have anyone around but Abend himself.
Goulart shook hands with Imogen, and only released her hand reluctantly. She headed for the elevators. He watched her go. Then she was gone and, a moment later, the New Yorker was marching back Zach’s way, grim, determined, twitching his head toward the small interview room in the back of the shop: In here.
Zach followed him.
“What the flaming fuck, Cowboy?”
Zach was still closing the interview room door. Goulart was ripping the plug of the video camera out of the wall. Done, he strutted back Zach’s way, throwing his hands wide in a belligerent gesture that said What the flaming fuck?
“What?” Zach asked.
“‘What!’” said Goulart. “We gonna talk about this or not?”
“About what?”
“‘About what!’ Margo Heatherton!”
“What about her?”
“What . . . ? She’s dead, that’s what! You were banging her. She was blackmailing you. Now she’s dead.”
“Blackmail? I wasn’t banging her! I told you!”
“Oh, for . . . Oh . . . co . . . for . . .” Goulart spluttered with disbelief.
Zach had to remind himself that, if he was right about his partner, then he, Zach, wasn’t the only one acting here. If Goulart was in with Abend somehow—and Abend was what Dankl said he was—Goulart might know more about even this than he let on. He might know all kinds of things. There was no way of telling.
“Were you the other person who was there last night?” Goulart asked him. “Was that you, or not?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Oh, yeah. Oh, right. Where were you last night, then? Huh?”
“I was home. Jesus, Goulart. What the hell?”
“And you’re gonna stand there with your face on display telling me you weren’t banging her? That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”
“I knew her. I told you. She asked for help researching a book.”
“Right. And then she texted you and called you and called me when she couldn’t reach you which, hey, is what anyone researching a book would do. If you were also banging her!”
“Keep your voice down. Christ.”
“I’m your partner, Cowboy. If you were there, if you’re in this, I’m all you’ve got. You gotta let me help you.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m some knucklehead in crossbar. I didn’t bang her.”
Goulart stuck his chin at him, hands on his hips. “And you know what?” he said: “I would believe that—if you weren’t so obviously lying.”
Zach tried to laugh this off. He did his best imitation of an oh-I-give-up head shake as he lowered his butt onto the room’s long table.
“What?” said Goulart. “You don’t trust me?”
“I trust you,” Zach lied. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“You don’t think I’d stand up for you? My partner? Listen, I don’t know how they do things down in Asswipe, Texas, but where I come from? Your partner: you find him standing over his dead girlfriend with a smoking gun, you come up with an alternative theory. Know what I’m saying?”
“I get that.”
“Yeah, you get that,” said Goulart bitterly. “You, who went after Abend on your own because bitch-twat upstairs told you I was on the take.”
Zach could see this was threatening to turn into one of those all-over-the-place arguments that business partners and married couples have: you did this; you always do that; oh, I’m not the one who twenty years ago said such and such. Everyone more sinned against than sinning and no way out of it until they’d yelled their voices raw. He didn’t have time for it. He had to get out of here. He had to get out to Long Island.
“All right,” he said. “I confess. I went up to Westchester with my pet bear in the trunk of the Ford and when Margo said ‘What’s knocking around back there, big boy?’ I popped the latch and sprang it on her.”
“Ha ha ha,” said Goulart, hot-eyed, pointing at him. “You were banging her. She was blackmailing you. You were there last night. Now she’s dead. They may be hicks up there in the woods, but how long before they come looking for you?”
Zach stood up. “Good point. I may not have much time, so I better get back to work.”
Suddenly, Goulart changed his tone. He stepped close. His voice went low and earnest and confidential. “Cowboy. I’m the one here who may not have much time. Remember? I mean, you know this.”
In spite of everything, Zach was concerned for the guy. “You’ve heard something from the docs? Something new?”
“I will. Today. Maybe tomorrow. But we both know what’s coming.”
“No. . . .”
“Come on. These doctors. They lead you on. They have all these comfort phrases. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’ ‘We’ll know more when the tests come back.’ ‘We still have some treatment options.’ Stuff to help you sleep at night. Which is a laugh. I don’t sleep at all anymore. You know what I do? I stare into the darkness and think ‘Soon it’ll all be like this—dark like this—and never changing.’ Not that I’m scared exactly, it’s just. . . .”
Zach couldn’t help it; he felt for his partner. “I understand,” he said.
“It’s crazy, right?” said Goulart. “’Cause if I’m not here, I won’t even know how dark it is, so why worry? But that’s my point, that’s the point I’m trying to make. Last week, you asked me what I believe. And I been thinking about that. And I realized: I do believe in something. I believe in the bad stuff. You know? I mean, look around you, Cowboy. We got proof of the bad stuff coming out of our ears. Guys strangling their wives ’cause they brought home the wrong breakfast cereal. Women selling their two-year-old daughters for a high that lasts thirty seconds. I don’t have to tell you.”
“No.”
“But what’s good? Where’s any good anywhere? You tell me. Guys like us? Are we good? No, we just take out the human garbage, that’s all. Doctors, nurses, charity workers, firemen—the same thing. They’re just reacting to the bad stuff—cancer and poverty and fires—all of them.” Goulart moved even closer. Zach thought he could smell the man’s disease on his breath, but that may’ve been a fantasy. He could definitely smell his cologne and his desperation. “But name me one good thing. One good thing that’
s not a reaction to something awful. It’s the bad stuff that always comes first. The bad stuff is the only thing that’s real. So since you asked, that’s what I believe in from now on. The bad stuff. It’s not about God and the devil. God is the devil. The devil is God.”
Zach didn’t have the slightest idea how to answer any of this—hell, this argument had now gone way more global than he’d even bargained for. He could only look down at his partner—who was also, in spite of all his doubts, his friend, maybe his best friend—and ask him: “So, like . . . what are you saying here, Broadway?”
Goulart gave one of his silent laughs. “I know, I know, I’m rambling, but . . . I’m trying to tell you: if it is like that, if this is all just one big sliding pond into hell, then what is there, you know? What’ve you got to live for? You got your dick. Right? You got your dick going in and out of a snatch like velvet. A glass of whiskey maybe. A ball game. A friend. Life—that’s all you got. A minute, an hour, a day, as much as you can get before the Big Terrible begins.” He rapped the back of his hand against Zach’s chest. “Right? Am I right? What’s the point of anything else? That’s what I’m saying. Friends. Partners. You and me. We should be watching out for each other, Cowboy. You for me, me for you. What else is there? I’m not perfect. I never said I was. And you with Margo? Hey, who am I to judge? That’s just the point. It doesn’t matter. You’re my partner. I never knew her. Like you with what’s-her-name. Bitch Goddess Hartwell upstairs, whatever. What is she to you? I’m your partner. I’m your partner. Right? Am I making sense here? Am I making any sense?”
“You are,” said Zach slowly. And he was. After the events of last night, Zach understood him perfectly. If we’re all just damned or dead men, why not drink the wine of life and live? Goulart could cover for him. He could cover for Goulart. They might just get away with it. Who could say? He wished it could be like that for him. He wished he couldn’t feel her—Margo—inside him. Watching him. Staring, hollow-eyed, at his soul. He wished he could let Goulart take Abend’s dirty dollar and turn a blind eye. Then maybe he could play this little game of life with his partner. But no, there Margo was. And there was Abend, who needed killing. And in truth, he couldn’t imagine it any other way, Goulart’s way. He had known men, seen men, plenty of men, without a conscience. You would think they would do nothing but laugh, but no. Maybe on the outside they laughed; but inside? They twisted like snakes in a vise, all of them. The vise of the moral world, Zach thought. The rules of good and evil are everlasting. He could not make himself forget that.