The Midnight Hour Page 22

  He almost pissed in his pants.

  He dropped like a stone to the ground, hoping she wouldn’t be able to see him through the glass, through the darkness. A slice of light from the window cut across the grass just in front of his head. Then the slice turned into a sliver as she let the curtains fall together again.

  He took a deep, shaken breath. Getting caught playing Peeping Tom would be bad. It would be worse than bad, in fact. Everyone would think he was some kind of pervert. His parents would shit. . ..

  “Donny? Donny, is that you?”

  Unbelievably, she was outside, coming around the corner of the house, looking for him.

  Looking for Donny, jr.

  Scrambling on all fours along the side of the house away from her, he realized something: He was wearing Donny, jr.’s, Chicago Bulls baseball cap—the one made of black suede with a big red bull on the front—and Donny, jr.’s, jacket. She must have seen enough of him through the window to think he was his older brother.

  Thank God she didn’t know who he really was. If he could only get away . . .

  “Donny? What are you doing?”

  A prefabricated metal tool shed adjoined the house in back, and he crouched in its shadow, in the angle it made with the house. He huddled there with a coiled hose and a bunch of overturned flower pots and a hoe and shovel and a sack of fertilizer as big as he was, his heart pounding, the lower part of his jeans getting all wet from the grass. If he tried to run across the yard, she would see him. His only hope was to hide until she was gone. If he was lucky, she would just walk on by. . .. But when, in his whole life, had he ever been lucky?

  “Donny?”

  He dared to glance up, and he saw that she was coming right toward him. It was obvious that she saw him, saw Donny, jr., rather, because she was approaching without any kind of hesitation at all.

  “Donny?” Her voice was soft and sweet and mystified. She’d put her sweater back on, he saw, before she’d left the house.

  There was nothing to do but stand up. He did, and she came right up to him.

  “I thought you went home. Did you forget something? I . . .” Her words broke off at the same time as her hand touched his arm. Her eyes widened.

  “You’re not Donny,” she said accusingly.

  The story of his life.

  “I . . .” he began, but his throat closed and he couldn’t say another word.

  He didn’t have to. She was mad now that she knew who he was, jerking her hand away from his arm, her face screwed up as if she smelled an awful stink, her voice harsh and hateful.

  “You were spying on me, weren’t you? Peeping in my window, watching me undress! Weren’t you? Weren’t you? You’re sick, did you know that? Sick and gross and disgusting and. . .. Wait till I tell my parents. They’ll call the police. They’ll call your parents. Donny’ll beat the crap out of you, believe me, and that’s probably the best thing that will happen, you little worm.” She turned to head back into the house, tossing her hair, fury in every line of her slender body.

  “Caroline, wait. . ..” He caught her arm. He couldn’t let her go, couldn’t let her tell her parents and the police and everybody. He had to stop her, had to make her see reason, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Get your hand off me, you pervert!” She jerked her arm out of his hold and stomped off toward the front door.

  He couldn’t let her go, couldn’t let her do it, had to stop her somehow. . ..

  Panicking, casting his eyes wildly around for help, he spotted the shovel. Only if he had to . . .

  “Caroline . . .” He ran after her, caught her just as she got to the corner of the house, grabbed her arm again and spun her around. “Caroline, please, don’t tell anybody. . ..”

  She laughed contemptuously in his face, and that’s when he knew he’d have to do it, he had no choice or she was going to tell. . ..

  In the last seconds, as he swung the shovel up and brought it down right on top of her head, he could see in her eyes that she knew what he was going to do, knew that she was dead, that he was going to kill her. And she was afraid. . ..

  When the shovel hit she was just opening her mouth to scream. It hit so hard that it bounced back up off her skull of its own volition, like a rebounding ball. The thunk was solid, sick sounding, like a pumpkin splatting open on concrete. He was still listening to its echoes as she crumpled to the ground.

  Then, for good measure, he hit her in the head again.

  For what seemed like an eternity he stood there, looking at her as she lay limply at his feet, blood trickling from her nose and mouth and ears and pouring from the open wounds in her head. Then he shook himself out of his stupor, took off Donny’s jacket, and wrapped it around her head. He couldn’t leave a trail of blood for the cops to follow.

  He’d have to hide the body until he figured out what to do.

  Sweat was pouring off him, rolling down his face like rain, dampening his shirt, but he didn’t feel hot, he felt cold. Picking Caroline up—limp, she weighed a ton, far more than he would have expected for such a slender girl—he carried her flaccid body away from the house, in case her parents should wake up and come looking for her.

  First things first.

  Setting her down beyond the hedge, he went back and dug up the bloody spot where her head had rested on the ground, then covered it with fresh sod unearthed from a remote corner of a neighbor’s yard.

  By the time that was done and he got back to Caroline, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

  He was smiling, not upset at all, because as black as things had looked in the beginning, they were going to work out for the best in the end.

  Little Brother had finally figured out a way to win.

  Chapter

  33

  USUALLY, ON SUNDAY MORNINGS, Grace got up early to enjoy the peace and quiet. Her modus operandi was to schlep downstairs barefoot in her nightgown, make coffee, retrieve the paper from the front porch, drink two cups, eat a bagel, and read the paper before going back upstairs to shower and dress. Today, however, mindful that Marino was somewhere in the house, she showered and dressed first, in pale khakis, a black turtleneck, and black flats, and if truth be told took extra care in putting on what little makeup she wore.

  Thus it was almost ten before she walked into the kitchen.

  He was sitting at the table with a half-eaten bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice in front of him, one section of the paper propped against his coffee cup, the others strewn haphazardly across the tabletop. His black hair was curling at the ends, wavy on top, and still damp, making it obvious that he’d taken a shower. He was frowning slightly as he concentrated on whatever article he was reading. A heavy growth of beard shadowed his lean jaw, and he still wore the same flannel shirt and jeans he’d had on the previous night.

  He hadn’t really come prepared for a sleep-over, of course. It occurred to Grace to wonder what he’d slept in, but she banished the thought almost at once.

  Dwelling on the tantalizing possibilities was not going to help her composure.

  “Good morning,” she said briskly, walking into the kitchen as if there were not the slightest awkwardness in the situation, and heading toward the coffee pot. As his cup attested, he’d already made coffee. The welcome aroma wafted through the air.

  “Morning.” He looked at her over the top of the paper, ate cereal, and tracked her movements as she poured herself a cup of coffee; then he smiled at her as—after taking a reviving sip of the hot, strong brew—she finally looked his way again. “I helped myself to breakfast. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, of course not.” She returned his smile with a quick, slightly impersonal one as she crossed to the refrigerator. Just because he had kissed her yesterday—no, correction, they had kissed each other, and so hotly that her heart pumped faster every time she allowed herself to recall the details—did not mean that they were in the throes of some deathless romance, she cautioned herself, as she had don
e about half a dozen times since awakening. Those kisses might mean a lot, or they might mean very little. She was not even sure how she felt about them herself, and for all she knew he might be the kind of man who made a pass at every halfway attractive woman he thought he had a chance with.

  It would be a mistake to read too much into something that might mean nothing at all.

  “I’m going to have a bagel. Would you like one?” she asked politely.

  “No, thanks. I’ve got cereal.” He was being polite, too, Grace reflected as she extracted a single frozen bagel from the bag in the freezer and popped it into the microwave for the required forty-five seconds. When the ping sounded, Grace hesitated only a moment before carrying her bagel, a jar of strawberry preserves, and her cup of coffee to the table. Instead of her usual place—that would mean sitting right beside him—she chose a chair on the opposite side of the table and sat down.

  “The women’s section is around here somewhere,” he said with an air of abstraction, glancing around over the pages scattered across the tabletop as though he would help her find it.

  “What are you reading, sports?” Grace inquired with perfect affability, locating and retrieving the front, general news section that she always started with.

  He grinned, his attention suddenly all on her, his eyes twinkling. He looked handsome, charming, and very endearing smiling at her like that, she thought with a worrisome pang in the region of her heart—and with conscious effort she did not smile back.

  “I knew that would get you. It was a joke, Grace.”

  “Not funny, Detective.” Using her professional facade of cool detachment as a shield, she took a sip of coffee as she checked out the section he held. “And I see you are reading sports.”

  “I’m a Pacers fan, what can I say?” Still grinning, he returned his attention to his paper, then glanced at her again a moment later. “By the way, if you need an engraved invitation to call me Tony, consider you just got one.”

  Not calling him by his first name had been a deliberate choice on her part. She had tried to avoid even thinking of him that way. If she kissed him and called him Tony, she was well on her way to sliding down a very slippery slope. Their relationship was forever changed. Instead of being professional, it became personal, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

  So she avoided answering.

  “What did you do with my gun?” She hadn’t seen it since he’d taken it from her last night.

  He looked over at her speculatively. “You really want to know?”

  “It would be nice, yes.”

  “Then say, what did you do with my gun, Tony” Grace met his look with a frown. “Are we childish or what?”

  “Probably. Say it.”

  If she balked, she made a bigger deal out of her use of his first name than she wanted to. She hadn’t expected him to make an issue of it.

  “What did you do with my gun, Tony.” She gave him a little, ironic smile.

  “That was hard, wasn’t it?” He tsk-tsked sympathetically. “You said it real well, though.”

  “My gun?”

  “It’s on the top shelf of the closet in the dining room. Unloaded. The magazine with the bullets is on top of your china cabinet. While I’m here, do me a favor and leave it there, would you, please? The thought that you’re going to grab a gun and come running if trouble strikes gives me the willies.”

  Before Grace could reply to this, Jessica walked into the kitchen. Damp hair pulled back from her face and secured at the nape with a barrette, obviously fresh out of the shower, she was dressed, too, in jeans, and an oversized purple sweatshirt with the legend Where are you, Leo? scrawled across the front in pink. Glancing from her mother to Marino and back, she headed toward the refrigerator with a wan “Hi.”

  Both returned her greeting. Grace even managed to hold her tongue when Jessica sat down with a Diet Coke, a piece of cheese, and a quick, challenging look for her mother.

  Jessica had to learn to manage her own disease.

  “Did you sleep well, sweetie?” was all Grace said.

  Jessica nodded, then shook her head. “Kind of. I woke up a couple of times, thinking about Godzilla.” Her gaze went to Marino. “What . . . happened to him? His body, I mean. Did the cops take it?”

  Marino nodded. “Some tests need to be run on it. Why?”

  “I want to bury him. In the backyard, under the forsythia in the corner. I don’t want him to just be . . . thrown away.”

  Jessica had taken neither a bite of cheese nor a sip of her soft drink, Grace saw. Her daughter was obviously hurting, and her heart ached in sympathy. But she needed to eat.

  “I’ll make sure you get the body back for burial, if you like,” Marino said.

  Jessica nodded, and took a small sip of Diet Coke. Grace concentrated on eating her bagel and drinking her coffee. After a moment, Jessica ate her cheese, then went to the pantry for a box of cereal. When her daughter returned to the table with a bowl of healthy grains, Grace took care not to appear the slightest bit interested.

  “What homework do you have for tomorrow?” she asked instead.

  Jessica shrugged, spooning cereal into her mouth. “Not much. Spanish vocab. An algebra sheet. I’ll do it tonight.”

  Grace nodded, finishing her bagel. Tonight, too, they would have to talk, and by then she hoped she would have come up with some kind of effective punishment for her daughter’s transgressions. So far, she’d been too tired and too preoccupied to think about it.

  Obviously discipline was not one of her strong points.

  “Okay, ladies, how about we talk about today’s agenda for a minute,” Marino said, glancing from Grace to Jessica and back as he folded the sports section and laid it on the table. “I have to go to my house, feed the dog, pick up some clothes and other necessities, and that kind of thing. Since I can’t leave you two, I suggest you come with me. Any objections?”

  “You have a dog?” Jessica looked interested. “What kind? A police dog?”

  “No, Kramer’s a mutt.”

  “Kramer?” Grace looked at him, fascinated. She realized that she was curious to see his home, and his dog, and anything else that might tell her something about his character. Eager, in fact.

  “Remember Seinfeld? I named her that because her life is one perpetual bad-hair day.” He looked faintly sheepish. Grace grinned.

  “We’d love to come meet Kramer,” she said.

  “Yeah, we would,” Jessica echoed.

  “Anytime you’re ready, then.” He rose, picking up his dishes and carrying them over to the sink, where he rinsed them and put them into the dishwasher. Grace and Jessica followed suit.

  “Where’s your car?” Jessica asked curiously when they were backing out of the driveway some fifteen minutes later. It was a beautiful October day, sunny and crisp, with a cloudless blue sky. The only reminder of the last several days’ rain was the occasional puddle that dotted the pavement. Grace felt her spirits lift as the trio left the house behind, and only then did she realize just how worried and upset she had been. In the car, Jessica was in the backseat. Grace drove. Marino was in the front passenger seat. He had volunteered to drive, but Grace, with a superior lift of her brows and a negative shake of her head, had turned him down.

  “Did anybody ever mention to you the possibility that you might be kind of a control freak?” he had murmured in Grace’s ear then, while Jessica climbed into the back and just before he’d walked around to the passenger side. Grace hadn’t had a chance to reply.

  “I parked it around the corner,” Marino said in answer to Jessica’s question, craning his neck both ways as Grace pulled into traffic, just as if he were the one doing the driving. Noting that, Grace made a face at him. Talk about control freaks, she mouthed silently, because of Jessica in the back. That he understood was clear by the sudden quirking of his mouth into a smile. “We’ll pick it up later, maybe on the way back.”

  The house Marino directed them to was in Victor
ian Village near the university. Undergoing a revival, it was a thriving community of hundred-year-old houses. The area was an interesting mix of residents and housing values, with everyone from corporate vice presidents with families—in huge, completely restored brick homes that sold in the mid-six figures—to small, shotgun-style frame houses favored by singles and students who could most politely be described as fixer-uppers. Marino’s house was one of the latter. It was a one-story, gray-frame house, with a covered concrete stoop and a single, large, many-paned window looking out onto the street. Similar houses were close on either side. An elderly woman swept the stoop of the porch next door. As Grace pulled up to the curb and parked—there were no driveways—the woman turned, paused with her sweeping, and watched the three of them get out of the car.

  “Out all night again, huh, Tony?” she called with a wave and a cackle as he followed Grace and Jessica up the short, cracked concrete walk that led to his stoop.

  “Working, Mrs. Crutcher, always working,” he yelled back with a good-humored grin.

  “That’s what you always say,” Mrs. Crutcher retorted with an answering grin and a dismissive gesture; she returned to her sweeping as Marino unlocked the door and they entered the house.

  Grace’s first impression was that it was shabby but neat, with the faintly musty smell of a place in need of a good airing. The walls were plain white and largely unadorned. The furniture—a brown tweed-upholstered couch and a tan Naugahyde recliner in the living room—was worn but serviceable. A braided rug covered the floor, a TV stood on a stand in one corner, and a nonfunctioning fireplace was fronted by a brass and wire screen. Paperback books filled the shelves built into alcoves on either side of the fireplace. A mirror had been hung over the mantel, which except for a single small, framed photograph, was devoid of decorative bibelots.

  “Where’s your dog?” Unlike Grace, Jessica evinced no interest at all in the house or its contents.

  “In the backyard,” Marino said with a glinting smile. “Go out through the kitchen.”