Charlaine Harris - Crimes by Moonlight

“But surely not the only one.”

“Hardly. They were both war veterans, down on their luck.”

“No shortage of those.”

“And they were both handicapped.”

She nodded, apparently considering these facts, scientist that she was. “Are you staying in Hopeful tonight?”

“No. I got a court appearance in the city tomorrow. I’ll be back on the weekend. Poke around some more.”

She put a hand on my thigh. “If I think of anything, how can I find you?”

I patted the hand, removed it, stood. “Keep your gate open,” I said, putting on my porkpie, “and I’ll find you.”

She licked her lips; they glistened. “I’ll make sure I leave my gate wide open on Saturday.”

I’D gone back into Hopeful to talk to the night shift at the diner, got nowhere, and headed home in the downpour, pissed off at how little I’d learned. Now, with my car in the ditch and rain lashing down relentlessly, I found myself back at the Riddle mansion well before Saturday. The gate was still open, though-she must not have received that delivery she’d talked about, yet.

Splashing through puddles on the winding drive, I kept my trench coat collar snugged around me as I headed toward the towering brick house. In the daytime, the mansion had seemed striking, a bit unusual; on this black night, illuminated momentarily in occasional flashes of lightning, its gothic angles were eerily abstract, the planes of the building a stark, ghostly white.

This time I used the knocker, hammering with it. It wasn’t all that late-maybe nine o’clock or a little after. But it felt like midnight, and instinctively I felt the need to wake the dead.

Bolo answered the door. The lights in the entryway were out, and he was just a big black blot, distinguishable only by that upended Buick shape of his; then the world turned white, him along with it, and when the thunder caught up with the lightning, I damn near jumped.

“Tell your mistress Mr. Hammer’s back,” I said. “My car’s in a ditch and I need-”

That’s when the SOB slammed the door in my face. Second time today. A red heat of anger started to rise up around my collar, but it wasn’t drying me off, even if the shelter of the awning over the slab of porch was keeping me from getting wetter. Only I wasn’t sure a human being could be any wetter than this.

When the door opened again, it was Victoria. She wore a red silk robe, belted tight around her tiny waist. The sheen of the robe and the folds of the silk conspired with her curves to create a dizzying display of pulchritude.

“Mr. Hammer… Mike! Come in, come in.”

I did. The light in the entryway was on now, and Bolo was there again, taking my drenched hat and coat. I quickly explained to her what had happened.

“With this storm,” she said, “and the bridge out, you’ll need to stay the night.”

“Love to,” I said. Mother Hammer didn’t raise any fools.

“But you’ll have to get out of those wet things,” she said. “I think I have an old nightshirt of my father’s…”

She took me back to that modern sitting room, and I was soon in her pop’s nightshirt, swathed in blankets as I sat before the fireplace’s glow, its magical flickering soothingly restful, and making her portrait above the fire seem alive, smiling seductively, the bosom in the low-cut gown heaving with passion. Shaking my head, wondering if I’d completely lost my sanity, I tucked my.45 in its speed rig behind a pillow-hardware like that can be distressing to the gentle sensibilities of some females.

When she cracked the door to ask if I was decent, I said, “That’s one thing I’ve never been accused of, but come on in.”

Then she was sitting next to me, the red silk gown playing delightful reflective games with the firelight.

“Can I tell you something terrible?” she asked, like a child with an awful secret.

“I hope you will.”

“I’m glad your car went in the ditch.”

“And here I thought you liked me.”

“I do,” she said, and she edged closer. “That’s why I’m glad.”

She seemed to want me to kiss her, so I did, and it was a long, deep kiss, hotter than the fire, wetter than the night, and then my hands were on top of the smoothness of the silk gown. And then they were on the smoothness underneath it…

LATER, when she offered me a guest bedroom upstairs, I declined.

“This is fine,” I said, as she made herself a drink behind the bar, and got me another German beer. “I’ll just couch it. Anyway, I like the fire.”

She handed me the bottle of beer, its cold wetness in my palm contrasting with the warmth of the room and the moment. Sitting next to me, close to me, she sipped her drink.

“First thing tomorrow,” she said, “we’ll call in to town for a tow truck and get your car pulled out of that ditch.”

“No hurry.”

“Don’t you have a court appearance tomorrow?”

“Acts of God are a good excuse,” I said and rested the beer on an amoeba-shaped coffee table nearby, then leaned in and kissed her again. Just a friendly peck.

“Aren’t you thirsty?” she asked, nodding toward the beer.

Why was she so eager for me to drink that brew?

I said, “Dry as a bone,” and reached for the bottle, lifted it to my lips, and seemed to take a drink.

Seemed to.

Now she gave me a friendly kiss, said, “See you at breakfast,” and rose, sashaying out as she cinched the silk robe back up. If you could bottle that walk, you’d really have something worth researching.

Alone, I sniffed the beer. My unscientific brain couldn’t detect anything, but I knew damn well it contained a mickey. She wanted me to sleep through this night. I didn’t know why, but something was going to happen here that a houseguest like me-even one who’d been lulled into a false sense of security by a very giving hostess-shouldn’t see.

So I poured the beer down the drain and quickly went to the couch, got myself under the blankets, and pretended to be asleep.

But I couldn’t have been more alert if I’d been in a foxhole on the front line. My eyes only seemed shut; they were slitted open and saw her when she peeked in to see if I was sleeping. I even saw her mouth and eyes tighten in smug satisfaction before the door closed, followed by the click of me being locked in…

The rain was still sheeting down when, wearing only her daddy’s nightshirt, I went out a window and,.45 in hand, found my way to the back of the building where a new section had been added, institutional-looking brick with no windows at all. The thin cotton cloth of the nightshirt was a transparent second skin by the time I found my way around the building and discovered an open double garage, also back behind, following an extension of the original driveway. The garage doors stood open and a single vehicle-a panel truck bearing the Hopeful Police Department insignia-was within, dripping with water, as if it were sweating.

Cautiously, I slipped inside, grateful to be out of the rain. Along the walls of the garage were various boxes and crates with medical-supply-house markings. I heard approaching footsteps and ducked behind a stack of crates.

Peeking out, I could see Chief Dolbert in a rain slicker and matching hat, leading the way for Bolo, still in his chauffeur-type uniform. Dolbert opened up the side of the van, and Bolo leaned in.

And when Bolo leaned back out, he had his arms filled with a person, a woman in fact, a naked one; then Bolo walked away from the panel truck, toward the door back into the building, held open for him by the thoughtful police chief. It was as if Bolo were carrying a bride across the threshold.

Only this bride was dead.

For ten minutes I watched as Bolo made trips from the building to the panel truck where, with the chief’s assistance, he conveyed naked dead bodies into the house. My mind was reeling with the unadorned horror of it. I was shivering, and not just from my water-soaked nightshirt. Somehow, being in that nightshirt, naked under it, made me feel a kinship to those poor dead bastards, many of them desiccated-looking souls, with unkempt hair and bony, ill-fed bodies, and finally it came to me.