Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

The call had almost made her stay home. But to what purpose? Amy had a date and refused to cancel it; it wouldn't have done either of them any good if she had. They weren't safe in the house. He'd already been in the house, for God's sake. Hadn't broken in, no, there wasn't the slightest sign anywhere of forced entry. Been invited in. Been given free run of the place, enough time alone to find out where she kept her bras, where Amy kept her panties, where the photograph album was tucked away in her bedroom closet. That ruled out delivery people or casual acquaintances. Amy swore she hadn't let Kimberley or any of her other friends wander around unsupervised. And that left only her own close male friends.

That left Owen and Jerry and Tom and George and Sid.

A betrayal by one of them, a man she had trusted completely, was almost impossible to credit. And yet, what other explanation was there? There had to be one … but she was sick with the thought that there wasn't.

Should she tell Dix now about the call? Or should she wait until after the party? Better wait. It would only make the evening more difficult for him.

Owen's voice droned in her ear. “I just don't think it's possible,” he was saying for the third or fourth time. Not to her, now, but to Laura and Margaret, who were standing next to her. “I mean, the whole concept is incredible.”

“Well, isn't it almost the same thing the Christian Scientists believe?” Laura asked. “An offshoot of the power of self-healing?”

“I don't see it that way. There's a certain amount of evidence to support self-healing. But the power of positive dreaming ? It's pure fantasy.”

“The article said it's a matter of training the mind. Positive thinking while you're awake, positive dreaming while you're asleep.”

“Yes, but bad dreams, nightmares, can be good for you. Freud proved that. You get rid of aggression, work out things that are troubling you. Even if you could program yourself to dream positively every night, there'd be no release for the negatives that pile up in your subconscious.”

“The combination of positive thinking and positive dreaming eliminates the negatives over a period of time. See?”

“No, I don't see. The subconscious is a cesspool; you can't clean it out completely, because you're not always aware of what's growing in there. Dream your way to perfect mental health? I tell you, it's a crock—”

Shut up, Owen, she thought. You, too, Laura. Just shut up, all right?

In her mind's eye she kept seeing the contents of that gift box. The burned bra, the burned panties, the burned photo. Burning … the way Katy had died. And the phone call this afternoon to confirm the connection, in case she'd missed it. To make his intent perfectly clear.

Soon, Francesca. But not too soon. The hottest fires burn slow. One fire burns out another's burning, one pain is lessen'd by another's anguish .

He'd murdered Katy; she no longer had any doubt of that. And he meant to kill her and Amy and probably Dix, too. By fire. Burn them all to a crisp.

Dix had tried to talk her out of the idea last night. An implied threat didn't mean an actual threat, he'd argued. And they still didn't know Katy had been murdered. The package could have been another move in the tormentor's sick, sly game. But he didn't believe that any more than she did. What was happening to them wasn't a game, had never been a game. It was something much more deadly.…

“… Cecca? Are you all right?”

Owen's voice, no longer droning. Concerned. He was standing close to her now and he put his hand on her arm; involuntarily she shrank away from his touch.

The rebuff made him wince. “Are you ill?”

“No, I'm not ill. What makes you think that?”

“You're flushed and sweaty all of a sudden.”

“He's right,” Margaret said, “you are. Want to sit down?”

“No. It's … I feel fine, really.”

“Don't tell me you're having hot flashes,” Laura said. “Menopause at your age?”

“Not hardly.”

Owen didn't want to hear that kind of talk; it made him uncomfortable. He said quickly, “Maybe you'd better sit down. I'll bring you some water—”

“I don't want any water.”

“She's okay now,” Laura said. “These things pass. Maybe it was the gin and tonic. You didn't make it too strong, did you, Owen?”

“No.”

“How much gin did you put in?”

“A jigger and a half, that's all. Cecca, are you sure you don't feel feverish? You look like you're burning up …”

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

The burning charcoal in the Webers had a mesquite aroma now. And another, subtler scent that Dix couldn't identify. It was alder, he found out when he joined Jerry and George, because they were arguing about it.

“Alder is the wrong flavor for beef,” George said. “It's for chicken or fish.”

“Have you ever tried it mixed with mesquite?”

“Once. I had a rib-eye cooked that way.”

“And you didn't care for the taste.”

“No. The alder doesn't blend right with mesquite.”

“Enhances it, if you ask me.”

“Well, I'm a purist. What do you think, Dix?”

“I don't know. I've never cooked with alder.”

“We'll take a vote after we eat,” Jerry said. He punched Dix lightly on the shoulder. “Glad you decided to come. I'd just about given up on you.”

“It was the threat of being handcuffed that did it.”

Jerry laughed. George said, “Handcuffed?”

“Jerry said he'd put me in cuffs and haul me here bodily if I didn't show on my own.”

“Oh.”

Jerry winked at Dix. To George he said, “Tell me, counselor. If I'd gone ahead and done it, put the cuffs on Dix and dragged him down off the Ridge, would it have been a misdemeanor or a felony?”

“Felony.”

“Kidnapping rap, if Dix pressed charges?”

“Not unless you tried to take him out of state.”

“What would the charge be?”

“False imprisonment.”

“Denned as?”

“The unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another,' ” George said seriously. “Punishable by a fine or imprisonment for one year or both. Sections two-thirty-six and two-thirty-seven of the California Penal Code.”

“Damn good thing for both of us, then,” Jerry said, “that Dix came down on his own.”

George nodded without smiling; he had no idea that Jerry was jerking his chain. He had been born without a sense of humor, not even trace elements of one. He took everything with utter seriousness, including the business of having fun. Not that he was a stick-in-the-mud; he liked to socialize, he was a good sport, and he fit in well with the group. Besides which, Laura had enough laughter in her for both of them. She needled him constantly about his sobersidedness with the same absence of malice as Jerry's kidding; theirs was probably the best marriage in the group. The joking didn't offend him. He'd learned tolerance along with patience and tenacity in the San Jose barrio where he'd grown up. Those qualities, along with hard work, had made his law practice a success. He had both Hispanic and Anglo clients, both Hispanic and Anglo respect.

George Flores? Harboring deep-seated resentments against a group of friends who were themselves ethnically diverse and who had never done him even a whisper of harm? Inconceivable.

A bray of laughter diverted Dix's attention to where Sid Garstein was overflowing a lawn chair under a kumquat tree, holding court for Tom and Beth. Madras shorts, a bright pink shirt, and floppy sandals gave him a clownish aspect. Typical Sid; even in his business dealings, as head of the largest electrical contracting firm in the county, he dressed garishly and in dubious taste. He didn't give a damn how he looked to others. “I'm not Joe Average, so why should I dress like him?” Sid, the frustrated stand-up comic: He knew more smutty stories than a convention of salesmen. Sid, the ass-patter and propositioner of his friends' wives. Occasionally one of them chewed him out, but mostly they tolerated it because it was meaningless byplay, not intended to be taken sincerely. Katy: “The truth is, he's afraid of women. If one of us ever said, ‘Sure, Sid, let's go to bed,’ he'd run like a scalded cat.” Sid, the happy-go-lucky, childish bullshitter. Except that he was on the board of directors of the Los Alegres Boys and Girls Club, active in two antidrug programs and the county chapter of B'nai B'rith, and donated thousands of dollars each year to a variety of charities.