“A dog run. It was named after an explosives dog that died on 9/11. The dog’s a local hero.”
“Explosives dog? You mean a bomb-sniffer?”
“Exactly.”
We got out of the car. The rain had dropped away to a chilly mist. Waltz pulled me by my sleeve to a metal plaque on the gate of the run. I couldn’t read the words. He got out his flashlight, snapped it on. The plaque showed the outline of a retriever followed by a dedication date and a few lines of type. Above the dog and inscription were three simple words …
SIRIUS DOG RUN
“My God,” I whispered. “The bomb-sniffing dog’s name was Sirius.”
Vangie had grown up in NYC. The first years of her career had been here. She visited often, subscribing to the New York Times, the Post, and the New Yorker to keep a foot in the old neighborhood. Surely she’d seen news stories on the incident, the park dedication.
If so, “I need you to be my Sirius, Jeremy,” equated to “I need you to sniff out a bomb, Jeremy.”
But Jeremy wasn’t tuned to explosives, he was calibrated for mental dysfunctions. His life among the violently insane, his intellect, his supranormally tuned senses, his self-awareness, all combined in the ability to detect pathological mental conditions in others, to know how those people would act in a range of conditions.
Question: Why would Vangie want my brother to find a madman?
Answer: Because something unspeakable would happen if the madman went undetected.
Waltz had arrived at the same conclusion. He touched my arm.
“Do you understand what may be happening, Detective Ryder?”
“I think so, Shelly.”
“Where do we go from here?”
The tape snapped from Alice Folger’s face. Jeremy Ridgecliff plucked the washcloth from her mouth. She gagged, then accepted the water he dribbled across her lips. She was in a bed, canopied with red velvet. She was tied tight, but with a pillow beneath her head. Ridgecliff had lifted her from the wooden box; it must have taken tremendous strength. Where did he store it in that lanky body?
She heard another rumble of thunder outside. It would rain until the leading edge of the incoming high-pressure ridge pushed the low out to sea. The rain would dissipate tomorrow afternoon. She’d at least like to die on a sunny day.
Ridgecliff said, “Do you need to drain?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Food?”
She shook her head. Her last meal had been bits of leftover duck scented with cognac. He’d allowed bathroom visits in both locations, all carefully controlled. So far he hadn’t hurt her.
He started to replace the tape. She shook her head. “Wait … I can help you in this unfortunate situation, Mr Ridgecliff, We have a friend in common, a Mobile detective named Carson Ryder. You used to speak to him when you were at the Institute. He speaks highly of you, says you’re exceptionally intelligent. In fact, he thinks –”
“Are you fucking him?”
“What?”
“Are you fucking Ryder? You’d be attractive to him and he’d love to swim the ol’ weenie around in you. Are you fucking him? It’s a charitable thing to do.”
“I don’t think we should discuss my personal life, Mr Ridgecliff, not when there’s so much to talk about –”
Ridgecliff began chanting like a schoolboy. “Heard it, heard it, heard it in your voi-eece. You’ve been fucking Ry-der.”
“Mr Ridgecliff …”
“I hear these days women will fuck anything without a second thought: other women, Dalmatians, pumpkins, Carson Ryder …”
“I won’t lie to you Mr Ridgecliff. You’re in trouble. There’s a chance you could get hurt –”
“Do tell.”
“I’d like for you to consider me a friend. Someone who can help you get to safety and –”
“STOP TRYING TO HUMANIZE YOURSELF! I’VE FORGOTTEN MORE OF THAT FRESHMAN-LEVEL PSYCHOBABBLE THAN YOU’LL EVER KNOW.”
It was the most terrifying voice she’d ever heard. That it was coming from a plump man in eye liner and shag wig made it more frightening, like a kitten opening its mouth and having a cobra’s fangs.
“I’m … sorry Mr Ridgecliff. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“DON’T GET ON MY UNHAPPY SIDE.”
“It was a mistake. I learned from it. I’m sorry.”
“Your contrition is accepted, Miss Alice. Unless you misbehave, I have no plans to hurt you.”
It took several seconds for his words to register. “Wait, what? You don’t plan to … kill me?”
“It’s messy and I wouldn’t get my deposit back on the house.”
“Then why did you abduct me, Mr Ridgecliff?”
“To protect you.”
“Protect me?” Folger asked. “From what?”
He pushed the tape over her mouth. Started away, but turned. He put his lips beside Folger’s ear, his breath warm and wet.
“My past.”
In the morning I met Waltz for breakfast in a coffee joint three blocks from the cop shop. The last of the storm was blowing through and all the vendors on the street had magically produced boxes of umbrellas in two color choices: black and blacker. I closed my new black umbrella and went inside, saw Waltz at a lone table by the window, staring blankly into rain plummeting over a multihued sea of traffic.
I bought coffee and a bialy and we huddled close across the small table. We had both walked out on to a tightrope no wider than a thread. We didn’t know where it went. All we knew was that any fall would be long and irreparably damaging.
“What are we going to do?” he asked. “We didn’t discuss much of that last night.”
“We have to operate on the assumption that Vangie brought Jeremy here to find a madman. That finding the madman would avert a disaster. If the investigation starts closing in on Jeremy, we, we …”
“We fuck it up, temporarily,” Waltz growled. “If that’s going to keep Folger safe, that’s what we do.”
“I’ve got to redirect my investigation toward Vangie. Try and figure out what she fell into.”
“How will you start?”
“By changing my entire mind-set, Shelly. Inverting my prime assumption: that Jeremy is decompensating.”
“He is. You said it a dozen times.”
“Maybe. But the new assumption has to be that Jeremy is as bizarrely rational as always. Though he may not be making sense to us, he’s making perfect sense in his world.”
“I wonder how much sense he made to Evangeline?”
I shrugged. It hit me that now might be the time to ask something that had been on my mind since last night.
“Shelly, the Evangeline Prowse I knew never wanted anyone to call her anything but Vangie, was almost strident about it. She didn’t care for Evangeline. Yet that’s what you call her.”