Gray Ghost (18 page)

She took a long drag on her cigarette and blew a plume of smoke up at the ceiling, where it swirled around in the light. Then she took a sip of bourbon. “I quit nine years ago,” she said. “Right after Walter got his diagnosis. Him with that disease, it seemed fairly stupid for me to do something so unhealthy. So it’s not that I just took it up. I returned to it. I guess it’s my way of saying, ah, the hell with everything.”

Calhoun was at the counter putting Ralph’s supper together. He said, “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way. You want to talk about it? That why you came here tonight?”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know why I came here. I just needed to go someplace, and this was the only place I could think of.”

He put Ralph’s dish on the floor. Ralph was sitting there. “Okay,” said Calhoun.

Ralph stood up and began inhaling his supper.

Calhoun went to the refrigerator and found some sliced ham and Swiss cheese and a loaf of bread and a jar of mustard. He put them on the table. “You want a sandwich?” he said to Kate.

She shook her head.

He sat down, made himself a sandwich, took a bite. “Haven’t eaten since lunch,” he said.

“Walter thinks we should get divorced,” said Kate.

Calhoun looked at her. He didn’t say anything.

She dropped her cigarette butt into the mug of water. “He says if we stay married, pretty soon we’ll go bankrupt, on account of his health expenses. He says if he’s single, there are ways that he can manage it. Don’t ask me to explain, because I don’t understand. He’s been talking to an accountant.”

Calhoun took another bite of his sandwich.

“I told him no,” said Kate.

He nodded. “I understand.”

“I doubt it,” she said.

He shrugged. “You’re probably right. I ain’t you. How could I understand?”

“I think he’s just trying to set me free, giving me permission to be happy.”

“You think he’s lying about the accountant?”

“I don’t know,” said Kate. She took another sip of bourbon. “I just can’t sort it out. If it wasn’t for you …”

“What would you do if it wasn’t for me?”

“Well, I don’t know. The point is, there is you, and I can’t imagine there not being you. But, see, when I saw the way that damned redheaded woman was looking at you, and then you tell me you’re going to take her fishing …”

“Dr. Surry,” said Calhoun. “She’s a client.”

Kate grinned. “Of course she is.”

“You jealous or something?”

“It’s way more complicated than that, Stoney.”

“Because if you are, you don’t need to be.”

“She’s quite attractive. And sexy and smart and—”

“It’s you I love,” said Calhoun.

She looked at him over the rim of her bourbon glass. Then she blinked, took a sip, and put down the glass. “I know,” she said. “Doesn’t change how I felt when I saw how she obviously has this gigantic crush on you. I came here because I wanted to sleep with you tonight.”

“What would that prove?” said Calhoun.

“You turning me down?”

“It was just a question.”

Kate turned her head away. She was fumbling for another cigarette. When she got it lit, she looked at him. Her eyes were wet. “What’m I gonna do, Stoney ?”

“I’m the last person you should consult on that question.”

“No,” she said. “You’re the first person. The way I look at it, we’re in this together. This is about us, not just me.”

“Well,” he said, “I can tell you this. I’m not enjoying the idea of us never being together. I don’t like it when we try to be all businesslike and polite with each other. But I got plenty of patience. I can wait for you to figure out whatever it is you got to figure out and do what you’ve got to do.”

“I’m asking you to help me figure it out,” she said.

“What’s best and what I want might not be the same thing.”

She nodded quickly. “Hell, I know that. So tell me. What do you want?”

“That’s easy,” he said. “I want you here with me all the time. I want to sleep with you and wake up with you. I want to take showers with you and eat breakfast with you and go fishing and snow-shoeing and skinny-dipping with you.” He waved his hand in the air. “You know all that already.”

She smiled. “It’s clarifying to hear you say it.”

Ralph had finished his supper and was standing at the door. Calhoun got up from the table and let him out. When he turned back to the table, Kate had stood up.

“I think I better go now,” she said.

“Go where?”

“Home.”

“Honey,” he said, “it’s way past midnight, and it’s a miserable night out there. Stay here.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I’m ready to …”

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch. You take the bed with Ralph.”

She looked sideways at him. “Can we do that?”

“I can,” he said.

When Calhoun’s eyes popped open, his bare feet were hanging over the armrest of his sofa and the blanket had slipped off his shoulders. He was cold all over, and one of his arms had gone tingly.

The darkness inside his house was absolute. He figured he hadn’t been sleeping for more than an hour.

He tugged at the blanket, rolled onto his side, squirmed, adjusted his pillow, trying to get comfortable.

Then he remembered Kate. Smoking cigarettes, drinking bourbon. For what? Courage?

Okay,
she’d said finally.
You ‘re probably right I’ll sleep here. Just because it’s late and the driving is bad.

She gave him a quick hug—no kiss—and slipped into his bedroom. Ralph followed her, and then she shut the door.

Now he was on the sofa and she was sleeping in his bed. He thought about going in there, sliding under the covers beside her, snuggling up against her. He thought about how she’d groan and press herself against him, half asleep, reacting without thinking. He thought about burying his nose in her hair, tasting her skin, running his fingertips along the insides of her legs. He thought about kissing her neck and how she’d murmur, “Oh,” in the back of her throat, and how she’d tangle her fingers in his hair and arch her back to meet him …

He wouldn’t do it, of course. But he liked thinking about it.

He recalled that he never had gotten around to telling her that he’d been out with the sheriff tracking down another dead body. He still wasn’t clear on why she’d come to his house.

The next time he woke up, orange sunshine was angling in through the windows. He was lying on his side with his knees bent up so he’d fit between the arms of the sofa, and Ralph was curled in the nest against the back of his legs.

He sat up and yawned. Ralph lifted his head, looked around, stretched, and slithered off the sofa.

Calhoun pulled on his pants and went to the kitchen. He poured a mugful of coffee and took it out to the deck. Ralph followed along and then went padding down the steps.

When Calhoun looked over the railing, he saw that Kate’s truck was gone. In its place sat his own truck with his boat trailered behind it.

He imagined her slipping out of the house in the dark, driving up the driveway in her truck, finding Calhoun’s truck blocking the way, backing all the way down to the parking area, climbing the steps into the house, fishing in his pants pocket for his keys, walking out to the end of the driveway to his truck, driving it in, backing it around so the trailered boat would be where it belonged, returning his keys, and then getting into her own truck and leaving.

Calhoun figured she had to have been pretty eager to get away from him to go to all that trouble. Otherwise she would’ve just waited for him to wake up and help.

He sat at the table and sipped his coffee until Ralph came back.

When they went inside for breakfast, Calhoun saw Kate’s note on the kitchen table. It said: I
had to leave. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of the shop today.
Don’t
come in. You need a break. You got Thursday, okay? I’ll take Friday, xxoo K.

Not I love you. Just a couple of X’s and O’s. Didn’t even sign her name. Just
K.

Still, there were those X’s and O’s.

He figured she didn’t want him to go to the shop because she didn’t want to run into him.

He didn’t know how to feel. He was happy Kate had come to his house. Disappointed that they hadn’t slept in the same bed. Confused that she’d left early without saying good-bye. Just that note.

Don’t
come in. You need a break.
Meaning, Stay out of my sight. Meaning, It makes me feel uncomfortable to be around you.

He’d do it her way, of course. It was the only way he knew how to handle things with Kate.

He supposed it would work itself out one way or the other. She knew how he felt. Now all she had to do was figure out how she felt. That was progress.

He was splitting firewood out back when he heard Sheriff Dick-man’s Explorer come bouncing down the driveway and skid to a muddy stop in front of the house. He glanced at the sun and figured it was close to eleven o—clock.

By the time he climbed the steps onto the deck, the sheriff was sitting there having a conversation with Ralph.

He went inside, poured two mugfuls of coffee, took them out, and sat down. “What do you know about women, anyway?” he said.

“Me?” The sheriff smiled. “Less and less with every passing day.”

Calhoun nodded. “I guess that answers my question.”

The sheriff took a sip of coffee, then breathed out a sigh. “You get some sleep, Stoney?”

“A little.”

“Not me,” said the sheriff. “I been up all night with Albert Wolinski, which is our dead body’s actual name. Albie. I want you to know everything I know, because as far as I’m concerned, you and I are in this together.”

“I ain’t sure about that,” said Calhoun, “but go ahead.”

“That Dr. Surry’s pretty sharp,” said the sheriff. “She’s got some balls, so to speak, too. The only woman in the bunch, and she’s bossing Gilsum and the Coast Guard guys around, and they’re all going, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and, ‘No, ma’am.’ So anyway, she observed that poor old Albie died from having his throat cut, which, of course, didn’t take any advanced degree in detecting to figure out, but which accounted for a good portion of that blood all over the front of him. There was a fillet knife lying there, which might be the murder weapon. We are not optimistic that there are any fingerprints on it, but Gilsum sent it up to the lab in Augusta.”

“Wait a minute,” said Calhoun. “Did you say good portion? You saying that some of the blood we saw was not from his throat? Don’t tell me .. .”

The sheriff was shaking his head. “His penis was intact. But there were about a dozen puncture wounds on his chest and belly.”

“Puncture wounds,” said Calhoun.

“Dr. Surry thought the shape of the punctures matched the tip of the fillet knife. She hypothesizes that they were inflicted slowly. They went quite deep, some of them. Imagine it, Stoney. Pricking the man’s skin with the tip of that knife, slowly pushing it in. Very painful. She thinks they were intended to torture the man.”

“If he was tortured …”

The sheriff nodded. “You torture somebody to get information out of him.”

“And after you get it, you cut his throat.”

“You might also cut his throat,” said the sheriff, “when you figure out he doesn’t know anything.”

“Or when You ‘realize he’s so damned tough he’ll never tell you,” said Calhoun.

The sheriff nodded.

“Why torture Albert Wolinski?”

“You think he knows something you want to know,” said the sheriff.

“Was Errol Watson tortured?”

The sheriff frowned for a moment, then shook his head. “No. There was nothing about torture in the ME’s report.”

“But they tortured Albie.”

“Yep.”

“What kind of information could he have had that would be worth torturing him for?”

“That’s a good question,” said the sheriff. “Point is, somebody tortured and murdered this Albert Wolinski, for whatever reason, sometime after he met with your friend Paul Vecchio, who himself got murdered right here on your deck shortly after—”

“After he found the body of Errol Watson out on Quarantine Island,” said Calhoun.

“Right.”

“Throat cut,” said Calhoun. “Wrists and ankles bound with duct tape.”

The sheriff nodded. “Yup. Like Errol Watson. So maybe the lab in Augusta can see if the duct tape matches, and maybe they can compare the knife wounds.” He sipped his coffee and gazed out at some crows that were cawing in the top of a big oak tree. “Here’s something to think about, Stoney. Albie Wolinski met with Paul Vecchio at the Keelhaul Cafe a week ago Saturday night. The following Tuesday is when you took Vecchio fishing. Two days later, Thursday, you found his body here on your deck. Okay so far?”

Calhoun nodded. “Okay.”

“Last night,” said the sheriff, “Dr. Surry estimated that Albie had been dead a week, give or take twenty-four hours on either side. Last night being Tuesday. You see what I’m getting at?”

“Old Albie got tortured and killed after he met with Paul Vecchio and before Vecchio himself got killed,” said Calhoun.

The sheriff nodded.

“Wait a minute,” said Calhoun. “You think Vecchio killed Albie?”

“The timing is right, is all I’m thinking. They had their meeting, it wasn’t satisfactory, so Vecchio went to Albie’s boat, and’”

“Then who killed Vecchio?”

The sheriff spread his hands. “I don’t know.”

“What about Errol Watson ?”

“I don’t know that, either. Vecchio could’ve done him and Albie. I guess Franklin Dunbar could’ve done ‘em all, though I haven’t come up with a scenario to account for it.”

“That’s what Gilsum thinks, right?” said Calhoun.

The sheriff nodded. He took a sip of coffee, then pushed himself to his feet, went to the railing, and leaned on it with his elbows. He gazed down the hill to where Bitch Creek gurgled around the old bridge abutments.

Calhoun went over and leaned on the railing beside him. It was a cloudless morning. The air felt sharp and brittle when he breathed it into his lungs. For the first time in almost a year, he smelled autumn in the air.

“That was our line storm last night,” said the sheriff after a minute.

“Ayuh,” said Calhoun quietly. “Yesterday was summer. Today it’s fall.”