Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

“Sick, so sick …”

“He had it all planned like that, in detail. To him it must all make perfect sense, fit some kind of pattern of retribution. His mind has to be deteriorating though. The things he's done since Katy have been progressively more bizarre and disconnected.”

Cecca watched the rain slant against the side window. After a time she said, “He must have loved his own children. How could he justify harming Bobby, Kevin, Amy? Innocent young lives.”

“They're not innocent young lives to him. None of us is even human to him anymore, if we ever were. This is a grim analogy, but I'll bet it's reasonably accurate: In his mind we're like germs, the source of all his torment. You don't look at germs as individuals. Don't think twice about killing germs that have infected you.”

“Germs,” she said.

“Prevalent psychology today. Gang wars, freeway shootings, mass murders … the ones who commit those atrocities are exterminators of objects, bugs, germs, not people. Get in their way, hurt them somehow, and they feel they have every right to destroy you.”

Again Cecca watched the rain form its teardrop patterns on the window glass. “It makes me feel so damned helpless,” she said. “The idea of a man none of us ever met or saw, a man we barely knew existed, plotting our deaths from hundreds of miles away—and then moving to our town, making friends with us and a whole new life for himself just so he could destroy us from within. If that kind of thing can happen …”

“I know,” Dix said.

An uneasy silence built between them. Hiss of tires, clacking of the wipers, rush of wind and water as trucks and cars passed—all external sounds. Then Cecca realized they were approaching a town. A roadside sign materialized through the misty rain: Neskowin.

She sat up. “Where are we going?”

“Back to Portland. We ought to be able to make the five o'clock flight to SFO.”

“We should've stopped in Pelican Bay,” she said. “We'd better stop here.”

“What for?”

“To call St. John.”

“You think he'd listen? Act without proof? All we have to give him are sketchy facts and supposition. We can't even prove to him quickly that Jerry Whittington and Gordon Cotter are the same man, and even if we could, there's no evidence to link Jerry with Katy's death, the explosion—any of it.”

“There has to be something at his house.”

“Yes, but St. John can't get at it without a search warrant. And he can't get a search warrant without probable cause.”

“He could talk to Jerry, couldn't he? Let him know we're on to him. And least that might stop him from doing anything else.”

“Would it? I don't think so,” Dix said. “I think it would have the opposite effect. He doesn't care what happens to him, Cecca. His whole focus is revenge—finishing what he started.”

“… You want to go after him yourself, don't you?”

“I don't want to, no. I don't see any other choice.”

“Use that gun you bought? Shoot him down like a dog?”

“No. My God, I'm not a murderer.”

“Do what, then?”

“Force him to admit the truth, get it down on tape. It won't be admissible in court, but it'll damned well get St. John's attention. Then search his house for evidence and make a citizen's arrest. There'll be legal repercussions, but I don't care about that now. All I care about is saving our lives.”

“If you're right about his mental state, he won't let you search his house or arrest him. He'll make you use the gun, he'll make you kill him.”

“I won't let that happen.”

“You may not have a choice.” She was thinking about yesterday afternoon, Elliot Messner, the pitchfork. How close she'd come to an act of deadly violence herself—a sudden step, a menacing gesture, was all it would have taken. And how she'd felt afterward.

“Cecca? You know there's no other way.”

“If you use that gun,” she said, “no matter what the reason, you and I will suffer for it—and I don't just mean legally. We'll suffer and Gordon Cotter will have his revenge on both of us, too. He'll have won.”

“How can you say that? We'll be alive, won't we? Safe?”

“He'll have won,” she said.

“ Rape you? Lord, Amy, is that what you think?”

“Well? You want to fuck me, don't you.”

He winced. “No. Not like this.”

“But you said we should get to know each other better …”

“I didn't mean that way.”

“I don't … what did you mean?”

“For us to talk. About you, things that matter to you.”

“You never wanted to have sex with me?”

“Yes, I did. Very much. But that was before, when it was part of the equation. It would have been right then. It isn't right now. It's too late. It wouldn't have any meaning.”

“I don't understand …”

“I know you don't. It's all right. Button up your blouse and we'll talk. Go on, button your blouse.”

She buttoned it. She was confused, relieved, frustrated, all at the same time. Confused because she didn't know where he was coming from, he was so crazy and weird; relieved because he didn't want her body after all; frustrated because as much as she would have hated having him inside her, she could have hurt him—oh, could she have hurt him!—and then gotten away.

“Let's go out on the balcony,” he said.

“Why?”

“I like to look at the ocean, smell the sea air. Don't you?”

“I guess.”

“It should be warm enough. There's still plenty of sun.”

It wasn't warm out there; it was almost cold. He didn't seem to notice. He made her sit on one of the canvas deck chairs and then leaned on the railing and took several deep breaths. At first he was smiling that little smile, but it went away and all of a sudden, when he turned toward her again, he looked sad—sad and lonely and kind of lost.

“I miss it,” he said, but he wasn't really talking to her. Or even to himself. It was as if there were somebody else on the balcony with them. “I miss home. I miss you.”

“Who?”

He didn't hear her or just ignored her. Gulls, a whole flock of them, came swooping in over the dunes, screeching and scolding each other; he turned his head to watch them. After a couple of minutes they scattered and quit making so much racket, and he sighed and sat down on one of the other chairs.

“Fascinating birds,” he said. “I used to watch them for hours. Grebes and ternes and pelicans, too.”

She said, “I hate them.”

“Do you? Why, Amy?”

“Scavengers. Always screaming and fighting and pecking at dead things. Not like the swans.”

“Swans?”

“They come in the winter sometimes, drifts of them. Whistling swans. They nest or something down at the mouth of the Garcia River.”

“I didn't know that,” he said. Now he looked sad again. “I'd like to see them sometime. But I never will.”

“Why not?”

“There isn't enough time. I won't be here next winter.”

“Where will you be?”

“With my family.”

“I didn't know you had a family.”

“I don't anymore,” he said.

For a few seconds it looked like he was going to cry. Then his face smoothed and the mouth smile came back. Creepy … God, had he always been this creepy and she somehow hadn't noticed? No. Underneath, probably, but not out where you could see it. He just wasn't bothering to hide it anymore.

“Tell me some more about yourself, Amy.”

“… Like what?”

“Things that I don't know about you.”

“Personal things?”

“Personal, private, special.”

“Like whether or not I'm still a virgin?”

“Well. Are you?”

She thought about lying but she didn't. “No.”