Laura Lippman - In A Strange City

“You’re not burying anyone, alive or otherwise, Daniel. You’re going to go to your phone, call nine-one-one, and say you want to turn yourself in.”

He looked up, his boyish features as mild and bemused as ever. “Too late.”

“It’s not too late, it’s your only choice. People know I’m here, Daniel. I wouldn’t have come here without telling someone what I suspected.”

“No, I mean it’s too late because I’ve already buried her. I had to take the day off-I called in sick, because I knew you were on to me, or going to be-and put her someplace where she should keep for a few hours. She’s my insurance policy.”

“Who?” Tess had visions of a small child, snatched from the streets in some urban neighborhood where such a disappearance wouldn’t merit the attention it might receive in more suburban climes.

“Cecilia. I would have preferred Crow, or even Whitney, because I think you care more for them. But I needed someone I could overpower. Besides, I liked Cecilia the least. I don’t much like noisy people, people who call attention to themselves. Never have.”

Tess continued to hold her gun on him, wishing her experience at bluffing was based on more than card games with her family. “There’s nothing to be gained by harming someone else, Daniel. You’re flirting with the death penalty now. I told Rainer and Tull that I think you killed Yeager and Bobby. You attacked Shawn Hayes, too, didn’t you? Like the purloined letter, you left everything in plain sight. The books you stole-not Bobby, you -even the weapon used to beat Hayes. It’s over there, in the corner, and I bet anything Shawn Hayes’s blood is still on it. I thought it was a walking stick the first time I was here.”

They both looked to the corner, where the six-foot pike leaned against the wall, as innocent as any object could be-considering it had almost killed a man.

“A six-foot walking stick with a point on one end? I thought you were smarter than that, Tess.”

“But that was your intention, wasn’t it? Put a Winans pike next to your cross-country skis and your bicycle, and it takes on the cover of its companions. Put your stolen goods on display, and everyone assumes they must be yours. A lawyer once told me that drunks work in bars, child abusers work in day-care centers, and elephant fetishists join the circus. I guess book thieves inevitably are drawn to libraries. Then again, you said as much, the first time I met you.”

Daniel clasped his hands and leaned forward. Tess reflexively took a few steps back.

“I’m not silly enough to wrestle you for your gun,” he said. “As I said, I have my insurance policy. I went over to the Medical Arts building, where Cecilia keeps an office. I told her I wanted to talk about some discrimination issues at the Pratt and asked her to come outside with me so I could show her the documentation I had in the trunk. It was so easy to push her in and then to take her-well, to take her to the place I had prepared for her. I wonder if her girlfriend has started to miss her yet.”

There was something in the way he said “girlfriend”-a tone of sneering distaste-that hit Tess’s ear hard.

“You don’t much like gay people, do you?”

“I don’t mind them, as long as they leave other people alone. But they don’t, do they? They’re always trying to… recruit.”

He seemed to be speaking from personal experience, or his twisted version of personal experience.

“Bobby?”

“No, Bobby was okay.” Daniel’s face was tight with some memory, and color rose to his face.

“Shawn Hayes.” Not a question this time.

“Look, you don’t have much time,” Daniel said impatiently. “Don’t waste it talking. This is what I need from you. First of all, I need money, a lot of it. I’m guessing your bitchy friend Whitney can put her hands on quite a bit of cash, even at this time of night. And I need that damn dog, Miata.”

“Miata?”

“Well, not the dog, just her collar.” He laughed, and the sound was startling precisely because it was so hearty, so natural sounding. “Talk about things in plain sight. I have to give Bobby his props; he managed to pull one more double-cross before he died. He hung the locket on Miata’s collar, then passed the chain and the bug to the Visitor. It’s white gold and he turned it backwards, so it looks like just another ID tag. Why do you think I was so buddy-buddy with Crow? I kept looking for a chance to get that locket off the collar, but Miata would never sit still long enough. I don’t think she likes me much.”

“You tried to kill her master,” Tess pointed out.

“The dog doesn’t know that. Bobby had taken her for a walk. Remember, I offered you that scenario just the other day? I couldn’t bear to hear you nattering on about the whole thing anymore, when it should have been obvious what happened. Jesus! I don’t know how you make a living, doing what you do.”

“What did happen, Daniel?”

He pointed to an old-fashioned mantel clock. “You don’t have time for this. Or, I guess I should say, Cecilia doesn’t have time for this. You need to get me money, and you need to bring me the locket. I’m resigned to never having the gold bug, and I understand I have to leave most of my things behind, but I’m not going without the locket. I’ll have something to show for all I’ve been through.”

“All you’ve been through? You killed two men and left another near death, all for a couple of pieces of jewelry that may or may not have belonged to Edgar Allan Poe.”

Daniel stretched his long arms over his head, lacing his fingers and then cracking his knuckles with a hideous sound.

“I gave Cecilia a mild sedative before I buried her. She’s sleeping now, her breathing slow and regular, her heartbeat slower than usual. But she’ll be coming awake soon. Waking up in a small cramped space where she can’t see, can’t move. Imagine how terrified she’ll be. It’s a nightmare come true. Her heart will start to race and she’ll begin breathing in deep, frightened gasps, wasting so much energy and air.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tess said. “The ground is too hard to bury anyone this time of year.”

He produced a wallet, flipped it open to show Cecilia’s driver’s license.

“It’s possible to steal someone’s wallet without her even knowing it,” Tess said.

“Yes, but it’s much harder to remove all her jewelry.” He put two small turquoise studs on the table and the silver ring that Cecilia wore on her ring finger, a sign of her commitment to Charlotte.

“I can’t leave here until I know she’s alive and where she is.”

“But I’m not telling,” Daniel said. “So go ahead, shoot me. I don’t know how you’ll justify it to the cops, but I won’t be here to worry about it. But if I die, she’ll die too. Wouldn’t it just be easier to give me what I want?”

Tess still didn’t put her gun down.

“What do you want, an explanation, a confession? It’s not like I’m going to be here to face charges, but- fine, I confess. I stipulate to everything. I beat Shawn Hayes. I killed Bobby because he double-crossed me- claiming to have given the jewelry away when he had it on him all along. I went to the grave that night because I planned to follow the Visitor home and rob him. But when I saw the second figure, and realized how Bobby had deceived me, I couldn’t help myself.”

“And Yeager? Did you fall for Yeager ‘s claim that he had Bobby’s black book? Because he didn’t. It was just a stupid prop.”

“Yeager?” Daniel repeated, as if he couldn’t quite recall the man. “Yeager. I killed Yeager-I killed Yeager because I could. Like a special at one of those cheap men’s clothing stores-buy one suit, get a second pair of pants for free. Yeager was a freebie, and he helped me frame the Visitor.”