Ed Gorman - Voodoo Moon

"It's all right."

"And I'm sorry we didn't get to go bowling."

"Me, too." I liked her again. Just like that. She looked oddly lonely just then, and I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder.

She walked over to the door and looked out. "They're out there."

"Who?"

"Tandy and her sister and the big hunk."

"Chandler?"

She looked back at me. "I remember his cop show on the tube. It was terrible and so was he. There's something about him I don't trust."

"Me, either."

Then she was gone.

I went outside. Scent of burning leaves and diesel fuel from passing trucks. An orange half moon and ranks of cars in the motel lot. Giggles and gawking from the little kids; somber adult eyes peering out from beneath the bills of John Deere caps, men and women alike. Teenage boys found this a fine brave time to put protective and possessive arms around the shoulders of their girls, keeping them safe from the savage randomness of death, while being every bit as dry-mouthed and shaken and baffled as the girls themselves.

Tandy and Laura and Chandler stood off to the right, leaning against the front of a van, watching it all.

I walked over to them. The crowd was six or seven yards to my left. Cars kept pulling into the lot, radios blasting. Rap music sounded strange out here in the boonies, especially on the radios of white farm boys. They wore green John Deere caps just like their fathers, except they wore them backwards in the style of city kids.

"So much for the myth of the small town," Chandler said. He sounded drunk. His words weren't quite enunciated. "I thought it was supposed to be safe out here."

"They said a man was murdered," Laura said.

"Yeah. And they found him in my room."

"What?" Tandy said.

"I was the one who found him. He was pushed back in the closet. I didn't even see him at first."

"Who was it?" said Laura.

"A Chicago PI named Kibbe."

"A private detective?" Tandy said.

Laura said, "And he was from Chicago. I wonder what that's all about?"

"What's the big deal about Chicago?" Tandy said.

" We're from Chicago," Chandler said.

"I still don't get it."

"Think about it," Laura said. "The coincidence. What's the likelihood of a Chicago private investigator being here while we're here?"

"You mean he's here because of us?" Tandy said.

" Was here," Chandler said, not sounding as drunk as he had at first.

Tandy looked at me and said, "Do you think he was here because of us, Robert?"

"Too soon to tell. We need to know a lot more."

"I think it's damned strange," Laura said.

"Me, too," Chandler agreed.

"He could have been here because of me," I said.

"Why you?" Chandler said. He sounded almost disappointed that he might have to give up the spotlight. Kibbe's presence here would be ever so much more interesting if it had to do with Chandler .

I told them about my path crossing with Kibbe's today.

"But why would he be following you ?" Tandy said.

"I have no idea."

"Is there any way we can check on this guy?" Chandler said.

"I have his home phone number. Hopefully, he had a wife and she'll be able to help me. But I need to wait till she's been officially notified by the authorities. That'll be an hour or so yet." I paused. "He could have been following the girl, too."

"What girl?" Chandler said.

"Emily Cunningham. I had the feeling he ran across me by accident when he pulled up at the lawyer's office. I think he might have been following the girl."

"Maybe he was a rapist." Chandler said. "We did this plot on the show once about this small-town guy who went to the city to commit his rapes. Why not the other way around?"

"Wouldn't it be a lot riskier in a small town?" Tandy said. "Easier to get caught?"

"I need to pee," Laura said.

"As a matter of fact," Noah Chandler said, "so do I."

"You think we can get into our rooms?" Tandy said.

The cops had cut off a wide area with yellow crime scene tape. The area included the rooms of the sisters and Chandler. "I'm sure they'll let you in," I said.

"They'd better," Laura said. "Or I'm going to tinkle behind that car over there."

"She'd actually do that, too," Tandy said.

"See you later." Noah Chandler said. Then he paused and said, "You should find out if he had a rifle with him. He may have been the one who shot at you folks this morning."

"The first thing I'll check," I said, pointing down to the shoes that had left the clear impressions in the woods this morning, "are his shoes."

Idrifted over to the crowd. The ranks had increased with the arrival of media from Cedar Rapids. There were two trucks with satellite dishes on them and at least two station wagons with reporters.

"Mr. Payne?"

She was a tall, elegant black woman in a starched pink blouse that looked even pinker against her dark skin. Short hair that fit like a helmet. Her jeans were loose and sloppy, the style of late. She had the graceful, enigmatic features of ancient African womanhood I'd seen on a TV show about African art down the centuries, a kind of stoical, maternal eroticism.

She gave me a long, slender hand, dry and strong to the touch. "I'm Iris Rutledge. Emily Cunningham said you were looking for me this afternoon."

"Oh, right. I wanted to talk to you about Rick Hennessy." She laughed softly. "You and everybody else."

"I'd invite you into my room but the cops have it closed off."

"Well, if you're up for an adventure," she said, "I can give you a ride down to Wendy's, which is about two blocks away."

She had an old-fashioned ten-speed Schwinn. It had a light and a horn and a big red alien-eye reflector on the back of the seat. I'd had a bike just like it in college.

I hadn't been on a bike in a long time. I'd forgotten how bumpy the ride was. But it was enjoyable. A few dozen childhood memories came back, the scents, sights, and sounds available only to bike riders. I sat on the handlebars. She didn't seem to have much trouble steering with me aboard.

Wendy's was empty. Everybody was up at the crime scene. We had coffee and tuna pitas.

"It's a good thing I have the right kind of metabolism," she said.

"This isn't too bad, the tuna. Not much fat or calories."

"No, but when I get home tonight and turn on Letterman, I'll have popcorn and part of a candy bar or something like that."

"You look good to me."

"Thanks. It's pure luck, believe me." Then, "He's innocent." This around a delicate bite of her pita.

"You and Dr. Williams."

"Aaron's a good man."

"Seems to be."

"And he knows what he's doing. You don't get to run a hospital like his without having the right credentials. When he says that the drugs Rick was doing induced a psychotic state, I believe him. I just hope I can convince the jury of that."

"A psychotic state in which he couldn't tell reality from fantasy, right?"

"Exactly. He truly believes that he killed Sandy. But he didn't."

"How do you know?"

Another delicate bite. The face, even in the light of Wendy's, more and more exotically commanding. "You have much faith in hypnotism?"

"Depends on who's doing it."

"Aaron has worked with Rick under deep-hypnosis conditions several times. He's also given him whatever the latest spin on Pentothal is. Rick didn't do it."

"Maybe he's repressed it to the point that he's convinced himself that he didn't do it."

"Pentothal is pretty potent stuff."

"So he didn't do it?"

"He didn't do it."

"Then who did?"

"I've got suspicions, nothing else."

"Is that why Emily Cunningham wanted to see you this afternoon?" She looked irritated that I'd know something like that. "She asked me to give you a message. Said she was willing to talk to you now. About Sandy."