Part 4 (1/2)

”She doesn't care what I do, as long as I hang on to my job. In my work I get calls from all types.”

”Very well.” She tucked herself together, getting ready to return to her own car. ”One other thing. When I talked to Jade Brown earlier today, I could tell that she was concealing something. She was shaken. I think the monster has struck again, perhaps closer. I have no pretext to go there again; do you?”

”I can make one. I can go there tomorrow. You think another racc.o.o.n?”

”Larger, I think. She had buried something in her flower garden. Why would she call the sheriffs office the first time, and conceal the evidence the second time?”

”Good question. I'll see what I can do.”

”My interest, of course, is in protecting the privacy of my employer. But until I know exactly what is threatening it, I am not free to depart. I must also make a full report to Mid. I don't believe that violates the spirit of our understanding.”

Frank laughed, a bit hollowly. ”Tell him if this gets me fired, I'll need a job.”

”I will do that,” she replied seriously.

Taken aback, he did not answer. She climbed out and went to her car. He waited while she started it, turned it around, and drove back down toward the house. Then he turned his own around and headed toward the gate.

This had been some session! No, he wasn't going to report any of this, yet. He'd follow up with the Brown woman, whom he remembered as a mousy type, then with the search at the end of Turner Camp Road. It would be better if someone else actually found the body. He should be able to arrange that.

But that would have to wait until tomorrow. He had routine business today. Already his radio had a Signal 46, which meant a sick or injured person, and it was in his territory. ”Ten twenty-six,” he acknowledged, and headed for the address. He didn't care what kind of minor junk they put him on now; he was on to something that could be truly significant, and that gave his dull life meaning.

Next morning he drove to the home of Jade Brown. She came out to stand by her door as he parked. She was every bit as nondescript as he recalled. Her hair was lank and drab; it might once have been auburn, but now was closer to mop color, and not a new mop either. Her eyes were the washed-out green of the polluted sea on a cloudy day. If she had a figure, she concealed it under a baggy, pocketed work dress. Yet there was an odd intensity to her, as if some live-wire spirit were prisoned within the dull housing.

He eased out of the car and approached her. ”Hi there. Remember me? That racc.o.o.n two, three days ago.”

”Yes, officer,” she said nervously. ”Do you know what made it die?”

”Lab report not back yet; takes forever when it's not a hot case. But there've been other recent reports, with larger victims.” He stared her in the face and put it to her directly: ”Do you have anything more to tell me?”

She squirmed like a truant child, and that trapped spirit fought to burst out, but could not.

”What did you bury there?” He pointed to the disturbed site in her garden. ”That wasn't there last time.”

She was caught, unable to evade so direct a challenge. ”My dog, Donjon. He died.”

”I wouldn't figure him to be alive under there,” he said cruelly. ”Like the racc.o.o.n?”

Again it paid off. ”Yes,” she said, flinching. Now host and spirit were one: afraid.

”And you figured no sense in bothering me again?” He was giving her an out, knowing that he would get the story now.

”Yes.”

”He was outside?”

”No, inside. I-found him there in the morning. Just skin and bones. It was awful!”

”Inside?” That startled him. ”Where were you?”

”In the bedroom. The door was closed. I-it doesn't go after people, does it?”

How much should he tell her? ”You never can tell with something like this. Best not to gamble. How'd it get in?”

Her mouth opened in retrospective horror. ”I don't know! The windows and doors were closed. I didn't think of that before!”

”Closed? You sure?” Now Frank himself was getting nervous. He knew, as she did not, that the thing had sucked out a man, but that had been outside, in the forest. Was it now coming inside? ”Ma'am, if you don't mind, I think I should take a look at your house, find out just how it got in, and close it up.”

”Yes!” she agreed, frightened.

They checked the house, outside and in. The house was in good repair; he remembered now that her husband was a carpenter. But it was a mess inside; she was no housekeeper. Yet it was tight; there was no obvious entry other than the doors or windows.

Frank scratched his head. ”Lady, I can't figure it. How big was your dog?”

”About thirty pounds, maybe forty. He was fair-sized.'

So it would take a predator of perhaps twice that ma.s.s to make a good meal of him, maybe more. A man didn't eat half or even a quarter of his weight at one sitting, and neither did a tiger. Call it a hundred pounds. How could something that size get into a closed house without doing damage?

”You don't have a chimney?” he asked.

”No.”

”Were the doors locked?”

”No, I was expecting my husband to return.”

”How alert was your dog?”

”Not very. But he would bark at strangers.”

”So if a strange man opened that door, the dog wouldn't just lie there?”

”That's right. Only if my husband-”

”How did he get along with that dog?”

She shook her head as if shaking off something unpleasant. ”My husband has his failings, but he liked that dog. He wouldn't do-that. And if he did, how could he have left just the skin and bones? And why would he go away and leave the dog like that?”

”Ms. Brown, I don't like this much better than you do, but I think I'd better ask. Do you get along with your husband okay?”

”He's not here much,” she said tightly. That spirit was back, twitching at minor muscles of her face, wanting to say a whole lot more. She had a marriage problem, sure enough.

”I mean, would he do something like this to spite you?”

”Oh. No, never. He'd-take another woman.”

So that was it the man was two-timing her, and she knew it. ”So it must have been someone else-or something else.” He decided that in fairness he should tell her something. ”Look, ma'am, there's a suggestion in the other cases that s.e.x appeal may be involved. I mean, if your dog was male, something with the scent of a female dog in heat-so he wouldn't bark. But it wasn't a dog, but something else.”