Velocity. Part 24

One of his published short stories had featured a character who was a thinly veiled portrait of John Palmer.

"Doing some research for your writing?" Palmer asked.

From where the sheriff sat, he had a direct view of the computer at which Billy had been working, although not of its screen.

Maybe Palmer had a way of finding out what Billy had been doing at the work station. A public computer might keep a record of a user's keystrokes.

No. Probably not. Besides, there were privacy laws.

"Yeah," Billy said. "Some research."

"Deputy of mine saw you parking in front of Harry Avarkian's office."

Billy said nothing.

"Three minutes after you left Harry's, the time on your parking meter ran out."

That might be true.

Palmer said, "I put two quarters in for you."

"Thanks."

"The window's busted out of your driver's door."

"A little accident," Billy said.

"It's not a code violation, but you ought to get it fixed."

"I've got an appointment on Friday," Billy lied.

"This doesn't bother you, does it?" the sheriff asked.

"What?"

"You and me talking like this." Palmer surveyed the library. No one was close to them. "Just the two of us."

"It doesn't bother me," Billy said.

He had every right and reason to walk away. Instead he stayed, determined not to give even the appearance of intimidation.

Twenty years ago, as a fourteen-year-old boy, Billy Wiles had endured interrogations conducted in such a way that they should have destroyed John Palmer's law-enforcement career.

Instead, Palmer had been promoted from lieutenant to captain, later to chief. Eventually he had campaigned for the office of sheriff and had been elected. Twice.

Harry Avarkian had a succinct explanation for Palmer's ascent and claimed that he had heard it from deputies in the department: s.h.i.+t floats.

"How's Miss Mandel these days?" Palmer asked.

"The same."

He wondered if Palmer knew about the 911 call. Napolitino and Sobieski had no reason to file a report on it, especially since it had been a false alarm.

Besides, the two sergeants worked out of the St. Helena substation. While Sheriff Palmer toured throughout his jurisdiction, his office was here in the county seat.

"What a sad thing that was," Palmer said.

Billy did not reply.

"At least for the rest of her life, she'll get the best care, with all that money."

"She's going to get well. She'll come out of it."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes."

"All that money-I hope you're right."

"I am."

"She ought to have a chance to enjoy all that money."

Stone-faced, Billy gave no slightest sign that he understood Palmer's pointed implication.

Yawning, stretching, so relaxed and casual in his chair, Palmer probably saw himself as a cat toying with a mouse. "Well, people are going to be happy to hear that you're not burnt out, that you're writing a little."

"What people?"

"People who like your writing, of course."

"Do you know any of them?"

Palmer shrugged. "I don't move in those circles. But I'm pretty sure about one thing..."

Because the sheriff wanted to be asked What?, Billy didn't ask.

Off Billy's silence, Palmer said, "I'm pretty sure your mom and dad would be so proud."

Billy walked away from him and out of the library.

After the air conditioning, the summer heat a.s.saulted him. He felt as though he were suffocating when he inhaled, as if strangling when he exhaled. Or maybe it wasn't the heat, but the past.

Chapter 38.

Speeding north on Route 29, out of sun and into sun, with the famous and fertile valley narrowing imperceptibly at first and then perceptibly, Billy worried about protecting Barbara.

The trust fund could hire around-the-clock security for the duration, until Billy found the freak or until the freak finished him. Money was no issue.

But this wasn't a big city. The phone book didn't contain page after page of ads for private-security firms.

Explaining to the guards why they were needed would be risky. The whole truth would tie Billy to three murders for which he was most likely being set up to take the fall.

If he withheld too much of the truth, the guards wouldn't know what they were up against. He would be jeopardizing their lives.

Besides, most security guards around these parts were former police officers or current cops who were moonlighting on their off hours. Many of them had worked-or still did work-for or with John Palmer.

Billy didn't want Palmer hearing about Barbara being watched over by hired bodyguards. The sheriff would wonder. He would have questions.

After a few years during which he had stayed under Palmer's radar, he was now on the scope again. He dared not draw more attention to himself.

He couldn't ask friends to help him stand watch over Barbara. They would be at great risk.

Anyway, he didn't have close friends whom he'd be comfortable approaching. The people in his life were largely acquaintances.

He had managed things that way. There is no life that is not in community. He knew this. He knew. Yet he had done no proper sowing and now had no harvest.

The wind at the broken window spoke chaos to him.

In the hours of Barbara's greatest danger, he alone would have to protect her. If he could.

She deserved better than him. With his history, no one in need of a guardian would turn to him first, or second, or at all. My last killing: midnight Thursday.

If Billy read the freak correctly-and he was all but certain that he did-Barbara's murder would be the climax on which the curtain of this cruel "performance" would be rung. Your suicide: soon thereafter.

Tomorrow evening, long before midnight, he would station himself at her bedside.

This evening, he could not be with her. The urgent tasks on his agenda would probably keep him busy until dawn.

If he was wrong, if her murder was to be a second-act surprise, this sunny valley, for him, would become henceforth as dark as the vacant interstellar s.p.a.ces.

Driving faster, borne forward by a longing for redemption, with sunlight slanting from his left and with the valley's great monument, Mount St. Helena, ahead and seeming never to grow nearer, Billy used his cell phone to call Whispering Pines, pressing 1 and holding to speed dial.

Because Barbara had a private room with an attached half-bath, the usual visiting-hour rules did not apply. With advance approval, a family member might even stay overnight.

He hoped to stop at Whispering Pines on his way home and arrange to stay with Barbara from Thursday evening at least through Friday morning. He had conceived a cover story that might be accepted without suspicion.

The receptionist who answered his call informed him that Mrs. Norlee, the manager, would be in meetings until five-thirty but would be able to see him then. He took the appointment.

Shortly before four o'clock, he arrived home, half expecting to see patrol cars, a coroner's van, county deputies in number, and Sergeant Napolitino on the front porch, standing over a rocking chair in which Ralph Cottle's corpse sat, unwrapped. But all was quiet.

Instead of using the garage, Billy parked in the driveway, toward the back of the house.

He went inside and searched every room. He found no indications of an intruder having been here during his absence.

The corpse still lay coc.o.o.ned behind the sofa.

Chapter 39.

Above the microwave oven, behind a pair of cabinet doors, a deep s.p.a.ce contained baking sheets, two perforated pizza pans, and other narrow items stored vertically. Billy took the pans out-and the removable rack in which they stood-and put them in the pantry.

At the back of the now empty s.p.a.ce was an electric outlet with two receptacles. A plug filled the bottom receptacle, and the cord disappeared through a cut-out in the rear wall of the cabinet.

The plug powered the microwave. Billy pulled it.

Standing on a stepladder, using a power drill, he bored a hole in the floor of the upper cabinet, through the ceiling of the oven. This ruined the microwave. He didn't care.

He used the drill bit as if it were a power file, simultaneously drawing it around the perimeter of the bore and pumping it up and down, widening the hole. The noise was horrendous.

A faint smell of scorched insulation arose, but he completed the job before the frictional heat grew to be a problem.

He cleaned the debris out of the microwave. He put the video-cam inside.

After inserting the output jack of a video-transmission cable into the camera, he shoved the other end through the hole that he had drilled in the ceiling of the oven. He did the same with a p.r.o.nged-at-both-ends power cord.

In the cabinet that previously held baking pans, Billy placed the video-disk recorder. Following printed instructions, he jacked the free end of the transmission cable into the recorder.

He plugged the camera power cord into the upper receptacle in the outlet at the back of the cabinet. The recorder took the lower receptacle into which the microwave had been plugged.

He loaded a seven-day disk. He set the system per instructions and switched it on.

When he closed the door of the microwave oven, the inner surface of the view window pressed against the rubber rim of the camera's lens hood. The videocam was aimed across the kitchen at the back door.

With the oven light off, Billy could see the camera inside only if he put his face very close to the view window. The freak would not discover it unless he decided to make microwave popcorn.

Because the window contained a fine screen laminated between layers of gla.s.s, Billy didn't know if the camera would have a clear view. He needed to test it.

The pleated shades were drawn over all the kitchen windows. He raised them, and he turned on the overhead lights.

He stood just inside the back door for a moment. Then he crossed the room at an unhurried pace.

The recorder featured a mini screen for quick review. When Billy climbed the stepladder and replayed the time-lapse recording, he saw a darkish figure. As it crossed the room, resolution improved, and he could recognize himself.