“Come on in.” The sudden dark made her temporarily blind. He’d been conked out, he said. This overtime had him all banged up. “Siddown, siddown.”
She took in the room as her eyes adjusted to the light. Here was a rollicking carnival of kitsch. Rubber carnations, enshrined in glass, were shamelessly exhibited upon the dusty coffee table, which was made up of artificial marble itself. Psychedelic flower decals from the sixties peppered the wall. And a touch of glamor: plastic logs blazed in the grate with their own make-believe orange flames. Aesthetically, it couldn’t have been worse. And yet, the whole thing broke her heart. He didn’t know about those things. How could he? Where had he traveled in his life? To Atlantic City? She couldn’t not love him for his lack of opportunity. And she admired the way he didn’t seem to mind her catching him in a mess. Unless of course he didn’t realize it was a mess.
“You got that vest on,” he popped open a Coke and passed it to her.
“Yes.”
“I mean, you had that on the first time I saw you.”
“Yes.” He must know that she was after him. She wished she could float away. This looks, thought the Mayor, like it’s going to be a long one. He made himself comfortable in the shadow of a plastic tree. “Back then,” Claire nodded. “Before the murder.”
“Same day.”
“Right. Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”
“You like Frank?”
“Sorry?”
“Frank. Frank Sinatra.” He waved a battered album.
“Oh. No, I uh … prefer Billie.”
“Billie?”
“Holiday.”
“Yeah? What’s he, new?”
“No.”
“So. You wanna get in the air conditioner with me?”
Claire laughed politely. She straightened her spine. “Actually, I came here to discuss the murders. I had the feeling I ought to tell you what I thought.”
“Oh yeah? Is that why you came here? All right. So discuss.”
She cleared her throat. “Well. Both murders took place in a circle. A circle. Nobody seems to have made anything of the idea of the circle itself. And I just thought … I don’t know … maybe somebody could look into that aspect of it. You see, nowadays, cultists seem to go in more for the pentagram, but traditionally it was the circle used in all diabolical ceremonies … in occult ceremonies.” As she spoke she realized that what she had said would certainly implicate Iris von Lillienfeld. Everyone in Richmond Hill knew that Iris was known as a witch. All Claire could see was Iris’s poor white face. Oh, she didn’t want it to be Iris. Still, it was her duty to tell. “You see,” she continued, “babies have always been used in black magic ceremonies as sacrifice … often eaten … or … or parts of their bodies made into unguents or soups … to be drunk or used later to cast spells. Please don’t look at me so disbelievingly, it’s quite true. The principles of evil have always fed on innocence … literally. It’s recorded word for word in the Malleus Maleficarum, in the report to Peter the Judge in Boltington concerning thirteen children devoured in the state of Berne. You can read it for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Sounds like the third shelf at the video rental.”
“Yes, doesn’t it? Because there are still so many people who are fascinated with that sort of horror. And always will be, I suppose. All that I’m trying to say is this: instead of a murderer working impulsively, chaotically, perhaps what we have here is a thought-out plan of treachery. A person consumed with power … satanic power. I mean, if there is a sort of system here, one could conceivably figure out what might happen next.”
“I think you oughta have your head examined.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! I came here to share my feelings with you, to be helpful if I could, and all you can do is try to make me feel strange. I’ll be perfectly frank with you, after you left this morning I felt bad. I started smoking one cigarette after the next and then I thought, great, this is just what I’m trying not to do. It seems everything I try not to do, I do just that. To which you will surely reply, stop trying. Which is, by the way, the essence of Buddhistic thought. Anyway, I stopped smoking only to find myself eating everything in sight. I caught myself and so I naturally thought of you—”
“Naturally.”
“And I … I felt really close to you and I thought I had to come over here and tell you how sorry I was. For the way I behaved. After you went out and got me the camera. So I came and here I am and I don’t feel close you at all. I feel as though you’re this perfectly horrible person with whom I want nothing to do—”
“‘With whom’? Did I hear you say ‘with whom’?”
“Please don’t make fun of me.”