Behind the wheel of the sedan, parked across the street from the Laputa house, trying to get a grip on himself, Hazard thought of his Granny Rose, his dad?s mother, who believed in mojo though she didn?t practice it, believed in poltergeists though none had ever dared to trash her well-kept home, believed in ghosts though she?d never seen one, who could recite the details of a thousand famous hauntings that had involved spirits benign, malign, and Elvis. Now eighty years old, Granny Rose-Hoodoo Rose, as Hazard?s mom called her [472] with affection-was respected and much loved, but she remained a figure of amusement in the family because of her conviction that the world was not merely what science and the five senses said it was.
In spite of what he had just seen in the street, Hazard couldn?t get his mind entirely around the idea that Granny Rose might have a better grasp of reality than anyone he knew.
He had never been a man who harbored much doubt about what to do next, either in daily life or in a moment of high peril, but sitting in the car, in the rain, in the dark, shivering, he needed time just to realize that he should turn on the engine, the heater. Whether or not he should ring the bell at the Laputa house, however, seemed to be the most difficult decision of his life.
If you die, I can?t bring you back, Dunny had said, with the emphasis on you.
A cop couldn?t back off just because he feared dying. Might as well turn in the badge, get a job in phone sales, learn a craft to fill up the empty hours.
I?m not your guardian, Dunny had said, with the emphasis on your, which was a warning, of course, but which also had implications that made Hazard dizzy.
He wanted to pay a visit to Granny Rose and lie with his head on her lap, let her soothe his brow with cool compresses. Maybe she had homemade lemondrop cookies. She could brew hot chocolate for him.
Across the street, through the screen of rain, the Laputa house didn?t look the same as it had when he?d first seen it. Then it had been a handsome Victorian on a large lot, warm and welcoming, the kind of home that protected families in which all the kids became doctors and lawyers and astronauts, and everyone loved one another forever. Now he looked at it and figured that in one of the bedrooms there had to be a young girl strapped to a levitating bed, vomiting violently, cursing Jesus, and speaking in the voices of demons.
As a cop, he must never allow fear to inhibit him, but also as a [473] friend, he couldn?t walk away from this and leave Ethan with no one to guard his back.
Information. In Hazard?s experience, doubt came from having too little information to make an intelligent decision. He needed someone to chase down the answers to a couple questions.
The problem was that officially he had no reason to be pursuing these leads. If this cheese-eater were related to any active case, it was Mina Reynerd?s murder, which was on Kesselman?s desk, not on Hazard?s. He couldn?t seek information through the usual department channels.
He phoned Laura Moonves in the Detective Support Division. She had dated Ethan, she still cared for him, and she had helped him track down Rolf Reynerd from the plates on the Honda that had been filmed by one of the estate?s video cameras.
Hazard worried that she would have left for the day, but she took his call, and with relief he said, ?You?re still there.?
?Am I? I thought I?d left. I thought I was halfway home, already stopped for a bucket of takeout fried chicken, double slaw. No, son of a bitch, here I still am, but what does it matter, since I don?t have a social life.?
?I tell him he?s an idiot for letting you slip away.?
?I tell him he?s an idiot, too,? she said.
?Everyone tells him he?s an idiot.?
?Yeah? So maybe we all ought to get together and come up with a new strategy, because this telling-him-he?s-an-idiot thing isn?t working. I like him so much, Hazard.?
?He?s still getting over Hannah.?
?Five years, man.?
?When he lost her, he lost more than her. He lost his sense of purpose. He couldn?t anymore see a bigger meaning to things. He needs to see it again, ?cause that?s him.?
?The world?s full of sexy, smart, successful guys who wouldn?t [474] recognize a bigger meaning to life if God punched them in the face wearing a ring that left His initials in their foreheads.?
?That would be your pissed-off Old Testament version of God.?
?Why do I have to fall for a guy who needs meaning??
?Maybe because you need it, too.? That thought silenced Laura, and into the silence, Hazard said, ?Remember that guy you helped him track down yesterday morning-Rolf Reynerd??
?Famous wolf,? she said. ?Rolf means ?famous wolf.? ?
?Rolf means dead. Don?t you watch the news??
?I?m not a masochist, am I??
?So check the homicide overnights. But not now. Right now I need you to do something for me, for Ethan, but off the record.?
?What do you need??
Hazard glanced at the house. The place still radiated that dual atmosphere: as if the Brady Bunch had built their home over the gate to Hell.
?Vladimir Laputa,? Hazard said. He spelled it for Laura. ?Let me know as quick as you can, does anyone with that name have a rap sheet, even just a DUI, failure to pay parking tickets, anything.?
Instead of pulling the trigger, Corky withdrew the barrel from Dalton?s mouth, bearing down to scrape the steel across the teeth, which were loose from malnutrition.
?One shot would be too easy for you,? Corky said. ?When I?m ready to finish you, it?ll be slow and memorable.?
He put the pistol aside, told Dalton some delicious lies about disposing of the bodies of Rachel and Emily, and eventually selected a fresh infusion bag from the nearby refrigerator.
?I?ll be bringing someone back with me this evening,? Corky said as he worked. ?An audience for your final suffering.?
In the wasted face, surrounded by a raccoon mask of livid skin, glistening in sunken sockets, the eyes rolled to follow Corky during [475] his caregiving, no longer radiant jellies spiced with hatred, but once more flavored with fear, the haunted eyes of a man who at last believed in the power of chaos and understood its majesty.
?He?s a ten-year-old boy, my new project. You?ll be surprised at his identity when I introduce you.?
After replacing the infusion bag, he went to the drug cabinet, from which he withdrew a packaged hypodermic syringe and two small bottles of drugs.
?I?ll strap him in a chair next to your bed. And if he can?t watch what I?ve got planned for you, I?ll tape his eyes open.?
Laura Moonves could find no rap sheet for Vladimir Laputa, not even a history of unpaid parking tickets. But when, after less than fifteen minutes, she called Hazard back, she had interesting news.
Robbery/Homicide had an open case under the name Laputa. The investigation wasn?t currently active, due to a lack of evidence and leads.
Four years ago, a woman named Justine Laputa, age sixty-eight, had been murdered in her home. The crime-scene address proved to be the residence that Hazard now had under surveillance.
Watching the house as he spoke with Laura, Hazard said, ?How did she die??
?The entire file isn?t on computer-network access, just the open-case extract. According to that, she was bludgeoned to death with a fireplace poker.?
Mina Reynerd had been shot in the foot, but the actual cause of her death had been bludgeoning with a marble-and-bronze lamp.
A fireplace poker. A heavy lamp. In both cases, the killer had resorted to a blunt instrument near at hand. This might not be proof enough of one modus operandi, one killer, but it was a start.
?Justine?s murder was savage, unusually violent,? Laura said. ?The medical examiner estimates the killer delivered between forty and fifty blows with the poker.?
[476] Mina Reynerd?s death, by lamp, had been likewise brutal.
?Who were the detectives on the case?? Hazard asked.
?Walt Sunderland, for one.?
?I know him.?
?I got lucky,? Laura said, ?caught him on his cell phone five minutes ago. Told him I couldn?t right now explain why I needed to know, then asked if he?d had a suspect in that case. Didn?t hesitate. Said Justine?s son inherited everything. Walt says he was a smug creep.?
?The son?s name is Vladimir,? Hazard guessed.
?Vladimir Ilyich Laputa. Teaches at the same university that his mother retired from.?
?So why isn?t he in some hard-time joint, trading romance for cigarettes??
?Walt says Vladimir had an alibi so six-ways airtight that an astronaut could go to the moon and back in it.?
Nothing in this world was perfect. A designer alibi with triple-stitched seams always cocked the trigger of a cop?s suspicion because it looked made, not found.
The house waited in the rain, as though alive, alert, its few lighted windows like irregularly positioned eyes.