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"Miss Mulrooney," he drawled, his speech generously colored with what she as a
transplanted Northerner labelled a southern accent, his voice deep and
resonant enough to belong to an FM announcer for Public Radio.
"You must be Chief Hanks." Mulrooney said, making herself smile. She extended
her right hand toward his. He took it in the way many men take a woman's hand,
palm inward, her fingers bending downward, as though her hand were about to be
kissed.
"I must say, y'all look more beautiful in real life, Miss Mulrooney. Those
pictures on the dust jackets of y'all's books well, not as pretty as the real
thing."
"Thank you," Mulrooney told him, feeling genuinely flattered. "And it was so
nice of you to offer to come all the way into town "
"It's not often I get to have lunch with a celebrity, ma'am, and a pretty one
at that."
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She was being buttered up, she knew; and, she had to confess to herself, he
was doing a remarkably good job of it. She wondered almost absently what this
man had been like with women when he was twenty years younger, nearer her own
age?
"I know a place for lunch that no one who comes to Charleston should miss.
It's better for dinner of course, with the tides and all."
"You mean the Atlantic yes, I've been there for dinner."
"Would y'all like to have some lunch someplace else, then?"
"No. I like the food there," she said honestly. Atmosphere could be murder for
a woman counting her calories.
But she had never needed to do that. And she liked to eat. "But I insist we go
dutch." Mulrooney added as he finally let go of her hand.
"Well, ma'am, if y'all will forgive me, well I'm from a generation where a
man goes to lunch with a woman, the man pays the tab."
Mulrooney considered that; Culhane always paid, of course, but that was
different. She mentally shrugged. "If you insist, then."
"I hope y'all won't be upset riding in a police car."
"No no. It should be fun." she lied. Police cars gave her the creeps.
They walked, side-by-side, past the checkout desk. Had the sun been behind
Chief Hanks, she would have been lost in his shadow. Mulrooney had already
left a message in case Josh Culhane returned from his business trip and should
call. Just because Chief Hanks wore a badge, there was no reason that she
should automatically trust him.
Through the double doors, then out the side door, the St. Peter's Island
police car parked right at the curb. He got the front passenger door for her,
Mulrooney seating herself, arranging her dress as he crossed behind the car.
She watched Hanks in the right side view mirror as he opened the driver's side
door. On the seat between them was the nightstick which would fill the baton
ring on his gunbelt. The nightstick had a handle perhaps a quarter of the way
up from the butt, the handle at a right angle to the body of the club. It was
shiny and black. She recognized the style; Culhane had one too. She had no
idea why Culhane had one, except that he collected weird violent toys, seemed
to attract bizarre guns and knives and holsters and things in the same way
that nick-knacks attracted dust when her mother would come to visit. But she
couldn't remember: Was the nightstick called an Adirondack or a Monadnock? A
Monadnock yes&
* * *
Lunch was good, the atmosphere exquisite. Conversation revolved around her
books and the occult and unexplained in general more than it did Momma Cinda,
eventually drifting over to writing in general. It continued that way for the
ride out to St. Peter's Island.
Late summer or early autumn, depending on perspective, the foliage along the
roadside would largely remain the same regardless of the season. It was
tropically verdant here all year long. In the dead of winter not much of a
winter at all by the standards of someone who grew up in the North the
deciduous trees would lose their leaves and the omnipresent vines would
wither, but the overall green would remain. Not as much as Culhane, who
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detested summer weather with what almost amounted to a mania, the sameness of
the moderate seasonal variations along the coast would have been too much even
for her to bear.
Chief Hanks seemed remarkably well-read. Yet, his eclectic literary references
were more like encyclopedia entries than intellectual observations. He was
intimate with the writings of a vast array of modern writers, from the fantasy
of Tom Deitz to the science fiction of Brad Strickland to the historical
romance of Susan Kyle to the timeless philosophical musings of Ayn Rand (whom
he didn't like).
Mulrooney was retying her sash as Hanks changed subject abruptly. "Momma
Cinda's house isn't far across this little bridge up ahead."
"Over Gunwater Creek, I was out here, but that was quite a few years ago."
Mulrooney told him. Hanks was one of those effortless drivers, like Josh
Culhane was. barely touching the wheel. "From what you said. Chief Hanks
well why didn't Momma Cinda call the police?"
"Apparently the phone line we found it cut had been tampered with before the
fire. I didn't mention this earlier," he began, his right hand cutting the
wheel a quarter turn right, the police car slowing, stopping a hundred yards
or so from the house. She stared at its gutted hulk as he picked up his train
of thought. "But I spoke with an eyewitness to the fire. She claimed Momma
Cinda had been followed by several men. All the men were apparently blacks.
And the woman seemed to think they were Zombies."
M.F. Mulrooney shifted her gaze from the partially burned house; she
remembered the interior of the house as having been neat as a pin. That was
Momma Cinda's way. She looked into Hanks' blue eyes. Only half consciously,
she ran the fingers of her right hand back through her hair; the police car's
window had been open as they drove. "Zombies."
"Yeah if y'all believe in that sort of thing. More than likely, just hopped
up on drugs, Miss Mulrooney." Several times over lunch and the drive. she'd [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]