“The murder of a boy named Justus Wilson. His friends called him ‘Pooky.’”
Katy Royal kept looking back at Caitlin as though she hadn’t spoken a word. Then, after an interminable silence, she blinked once, like a patient bird. “Who, dear?”
Caitlin leaned forward and gave Katy the full intensity of her gaze. She knew that her bright green eyes sometimes unnerved people, and she hoped they would have that effect now. “Pooky—Wilson,” she enunciated. “He was a young black man who worked for Albert Norris, the music store owner, back in 1964. He disappeared on July nineteenth, the day after his boss was murdered. He was never seen again.”
If anything, Katy’s eyes had grown glassier still.
Purely on instinct, Caitlin took the photo of Pooky and his band from her purse, then crossed to Katy’s chair and held the picture before her.
“That’s Pooky on the right,” she said, “playing the bass guitar. He was murdered in 1964, and I finally know why.”
“Why?” Katy asked, her eyes glued to the photograph, her voice as distant as the echo in a canyon.
“Because he loved a white girl. A beautiful eighteen-year-old girl.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Caitlin said softly. “A girl named Katy.”
“No.” Mrs. Regan shook her head. “He didn’t love her.”
This was the last thing Caitlin had expected to hear. “He didn’t?”
The stretched-taut face began to twist with emotion. “No, no, no. He just wanted to touch her. Use her. Do dirty things to her.”
Caitlin couldn’t quite read what lay behind the troubled face, but the voice sounded angry. “Who are you talking about, Katy?”
Mrs. Regan shook her head like someone trying to wake herself from a trance. Then she looked at Caitlin with unsettling directness. “You’re taping this, aren’t you?”
Caitlin swallowed. “No.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Katy chanted in a childlike voice. “I’m not blind, you know.”
Caitlin felt as though she’d awakened in a 1950s horror movie.
“If you want me to keep talking,” Katy said, “turn off your tape machine.”
Caitlin thought about it for a few seconds. Then she went back to her chair and replaced the photograph in her purse. Lifting the Sony so that Katy could see its red light, she switched off the recorder.
The woman smiled with childish satisfaction. “Now. Where were we?”
“Pooky Wilson.” Caitlin dropped the recorder back into her purse. “I was confused, because you were speaking in the third person. You said, ‘He didn’t love her. He just wanted to do dirty things to her.’ But I assume you were talking about yourself.”
“Yourself, myself, himself … no-self. What’s the difference?”
Caitlin took a stab in the dark. “Were you talking about Katy Royal?”
“Katy Ann Royal!” Mrs. Regan barked. “You get those shoes off and get ready for dinner!” Then she answered in a child’s plaintive voice, as though acting two roles in a play. “Yes, ma’am, I will.” Then a third voice, oddly detached, began to chant: “Katy Ann, tall and tan. She was a good girl, but she’s gone again. All gone. Nobody left now … nobody but me. Daddy and Dr. Borgen made sure of that.”
“Dr. Borgen?” Caitlin said, wishing the Sony were still on.
Katy gave her an eerie, knowing look. “Mm-hm. You’d know him if you saw him. His eyes sparkle, and his hair is made of blue fire.”
Caitlin jumped as her Treo vibrated in her purse, but she didn’t dare reach for it. Mrs. Regan’s eyes tracked the sound like the buzzing of a rattlesnake. “Are you still taping me, Miss Priss?”
“No! I promise. That was my cell phone. I’m going to set it to silent so we won’t be interrupted.”
Katy looked uncertain, then nodded her assent.
As Caitlin reached for the vibrating phone, an idea struck her. As casually as she could, she opened her Treo’s voice note program and hit the record button. Then she switched off the vibrate setting and laid the phone atop the pistol in her purse.
“Katy … you were talking about your time in the Borgen Institute?”
The woman raised up her hands and hugged herself as though she’d been airdropped into the middle of an ice storm. “Shhhh. That’s not its real name. That’s what they call it on the outside. But when you go there, when they lock you in, you learn its real name. The secret name.”
“What was its secret name?”
Katy Regan lifted her chin and spoke in an exaggerated whisper. “Hay-des. The main building was built over a humongous hole. Down under the basement there’s a hole that goes all the way to the center of the earth. It has an electric door that crackles and burns. Dr. Borgen has the switch that works the door.”
Caitlin wasn’t sure how to respond to this.
“They have a furnace, too. A furnace where they burn people they don’t want anymore.”
Caitlin shivered at the conviction in the woman’s voice. “Katy … are you all right? Can I get you something?”
Mrs. Regan giggled, then let her arms fall and said: “No drinky-poo for Katy-boo! She’s had too much already.”
Caitlin found herself at a loss. Obviously Katy Regan was mentally unbalanced, but was that sufficient reason to stop trying to find out what she knew about Pooky Wilson’s murder? Katy had already implied that Pooky had done things to her against her will. Was it possible that Henry had got the story wrong? Had Pooky’s “Huggy Bear” ever known the truth about Pooky and Katy? Had Justus “Pooky” Wilson forced himself on a rich white girl and then paid a medieval price for his transgression? No, Caitlin thought. That’s the classic stereotype. Why would a well-liked black boy risk being castrated or killed for a few minutes with a white girl who didn’t want him?
“Katy?” Caitlin said gently. “What can you tell me about the day Pooky disappeared? Were you happy or sad?”
Mrs. Regan scrunched up her face like a child, then shook her head.
“Did you love Pooky?”
“I don’t remember.”