33.

On the brink of being sick, Kirsten didn’t really want to go any closer to Truczik, but she swallowed hard and did it. Her fingertips were damp as she leaned forward and held them for a moment under his nostrils. When she backed away again she was grateful—for his sake—that he was dead.

Grossly obese, he sat with his head tilted back against the tree behind him, his mouth taped shut with duct tape. Except for his socks he was naked, and in the fading twilight she could see blood smeared and drying everywhere across his torso. His flabby arms at first seemed to hang limp at his sides, but actually were tied at the wrists with a rope that ran around the tree. Like the arms, his legs—spread out in a V on the ground in front of him—were strangely intact and untouched by the blade that had sliced the pale skin from his sagging chest and midsection in long, straight lines, leaving it hanging in strips.

She was careful not to disturb the clothes strewn on the ground, but she didn’t see any shorts, and maybe that’s what one of the coyotes had taken. It appeared she’d spooked them before they’d gotten to the body itself. She was careful also not to touch the umbrella Truczik had borrowed. With its nylon material wrapped tight around the spine, the umbrella had been thrust like a sword into his groin. It might have gone all the way through and into the soft ground, because there it stayed, sticking out and angling upward. Clearly intended as a long, stiff, blue-and-white-striped phallus.

*   *   *

She stumbled through the trees, and back at the shelter she allowed herself to be sick on the grass. When she finished choking and spitting and was able to talk she fumbled for the cell phone in her jacket pocket and called 911.

“Don’t worry,” she said, when the emergency operator cautioned her to remain on the scene, “I’ll be here.”

It had stopped raining and the sun was down, and with what little light remained she wanted to run back to the clubhouse bar for a shot of Jack Daniels, and the hell with what she’d told the operator. But she stayed. She was unarmed—her gun was in her purse, under the front seat of her locked car—but she guessed Truczik had been dead an hour or longer, and she had no fear that the killer was still hanging around. Anything was possible with a crazy person, but this one had so far been awfully careful not to get caught.

She was more concerned that the coyotes not come back and mess up the scene, but she was confident—pretty confident, anyway—that they’d keep their distance if she stayed there.

There were two wide fairways, and a rough that included a stand of trees, between her and the clubhouse. Even though it was getting very dark, as far as she could tell the lights there hadn’t gone back on. And it was suddenly cold—or maybe what had her shivering was a chill from inside her. She went back through the trees and stood by the body.

She waited, keeping her back to the mutilated body of the priest, straining to catch the glint of a coyote’s eyes. But all she could see now were different shades of black. Finally she heard one brief wail of a siren, then no more, but she went back to the shelter and soon saw headlights, and blue and red flashing Mars lights, off in the direction of the clubhouse. Several vehicles. Beyond the trees and coming her way, bouncing over the soft, wet turf.

The groundskeeper would be pissed as hell in the morning, especially since the cops, obviously deciding they couldn’t drive through the trees and the rough, turned and went all the way down one fairway to the end, and then around and back down the other toward her. That’s when she suddenly remembered she should call Cuffs, to make sure he was on the job and to ask whether Michael and the others were back yet.

The buttons on the phone lit up, but her fingers were stiff and cold—and maybe still shaking just a little—as she poked at the numbers. Meanwhile police vehicles, red and blue lights flashing, roared up and stopped in a semicircle in front of her, and the lights in her eyes made it impossible for her to see anything. Car doors opened and closed, and she started toward them, stupidly waving her arms as though they might not otherwise see her.

“Hold it right there!” It was a man who shouted, and an even brighter light snapped on and she held up her hands to shield her eyes. “Drop it!” the man screamed. “Now!”

Mystified at first, she finally got it … and let the cell phone fall from her hand. Pumped-up cops had shot down people wielding soup spoons, for God’s sake.

“On the ground,” he called. “I mean now, lady! On the ground!”

Fuck you, she thought, but she didn’t say it.

Instead, holding her arms out wide from her sides, she turned around very slowly and walked, head held high, back to the shelter. She sat down on the edge of the concrete, knees up, water-logged shoes sinking deep in the wet grass. She rested her forearms on her knees, then dropped her chin to her chest and made herself breathe deeply. In and out. In and out.

No, I will not cry. And she didn’t.

*   *   *

She kept telling them where the body was, and they kept yelling at her for identification. She told them who she was and that her ID was in her purse, back in the car. They were obviously from several nearby jurisdictions, along with some seminary security officers, and they all did a lot of tramping through the brush and talking and milling around for what seemed like forever. They seemed mainly to be trying to figure out what to do while they waited for someone to come and order them around. After one look, most of them didn’t want to go near Truczik’s body. She didn’t blame them.

Finally one of them had enough sense to wrap a coat around her, get her up on her feet, and walk her to a squad car to wait. On the way she picked up her phone from where she’d dropped it. As the cop opened the rear door of the squad car both of them noticed another pair of headlights bouncing toward them across the first fairway, beyond the trees.

When this new vehicle got to the trees it paused very briefly, but didn’t turn aside. The engine raced and the vehicle twisted and turned, making its way through the trees and the taller grass of the rough. Its lights tipped down the incline and disappeared, and then came up again. When it finally broke out and accelerated toward them across the fairway someone put a spotlight on it and Kirsten saw that it was a Jeep—open, without a cab. She knew then who it must be, but wondered how the hell he’d known she was here.

The Jeep roared up, much too fast, and skidded on the wet grass before it finally stopped. Cuffs Radovich stepped out. He walked straight toward the spotlight and waved his huge hands up high and wide in the air—with Kirsten’s purse hanging from one of them. “Hey, Harvey!” he bellowed. “Harvey Wilson! Are you out here, dammit?”

“Over here,” a man called back. “Jesus, Cuffs, take it easy, for chrissake.” The spotlight was lowered and a man in uniform went over and talked to Cuffs. By then there were two more pairs of headlights ripping up the grass on fairway number one, and then she heard more vehicles arriving by way of the road beyond the fence.

She got in the backseat of the squad car, sat and closed her eyes, and waited.

*   *   *

An hour later Kirsten was in Cuffs’s jeep, headed back to pick up her own car from the parking lot. She’d given her statement three or four times and promised to be available when needed. Cuffs took a roundabout way, driving slowly and sticking to the golf cart path. She was thankful the vehicle was open to the cool night air, because she still felt nauseated.

“This Harvey Wilson,” she said, “he’s the person you know from the seminary police?”

“Yeah. Figured he’d be there, or at least I should show that I knew him.”

“But how did you know I was—”

“Christ, I do check my messages sometimes, whatever you think. Anyway, what happened is I get your message that you’re on your way to the golf course. You don’t say to call you back, so I don’t. I just go about my protect-the-pervert-priests thing. Later I hear just the touch of a siren—which you don’t hear much out here in the fucking suburbs—and then a lot of cars out on the road in a big hurry. But I figure it’s not my business. Then my fucking phone rings.”

“Their headlights blinded me,” she said, “and I didn’t even know if I’d gotten through.”

“Yeah? Well, so I answer but nobody says anything, for chrissake. Then I hear all this bullshit about ‘Drop it,’ and ‘Down on the ground, lady,’ and I figure it’s gotta be you and maybe you could use some help.”

“So you came here.”

“I kept the phone line open, though, and it sounded like you lost your ID or something. I seen your car in the lot and I figured maybe you forgot your purse, left it in the goddamn car.”

“I’m sure I locked it, though. I hope you didn’t break my—”

“Are you kidding?” He sounded genuinely offended. “Anyway, so I slip the lock and grab the purse, and go about my save-the-lady-in-distress thing.”

“What about my gun?” she asked, holding up her purse.

“Why the hell would you be needing that? It’s under the seat.”

By then they’d reached the clubhouse parking lot. The power was still out, obviously, and the restaurant was dark. There were two police cars parked up close to the building, and a few other cars and vans—probably employees—farther down; and otherwise just Kirsten’s Celica, alone in the middle of the wet, deserted lot. Cuffs pulled up beside it.

“I’ll follow you back to Villa St. George,” she said. “I’m glad you wanted to help, but … well … I just hope they’re all safe back there.”

“Jesus! You think I just fucking walked away? Your uncle was just coming in and I told him to get all their asses into one room and stay put until I got back. If there’s booze, they’ll be there.” He shook his head. “The fat guy, Truczik. That was him … with the umbrella, right?”

“Yes. I … I should have gotten here sooner. I could have—”

“That ‘shoulda, coulda’ bullshit’ll drive you nuts,” Cuffs said. “Besides, look on the bright side. One less creep to watch over.”