DU PRÉ BANGED AWAY ON Bart’s house for three days, putting down thick pine flooring with long, tempered screws in deep countersunk holes. Later he would tap birch dowels in and cut them off flush. The pine was pitchy and yellow. Bart had had it custom-milled down in Georgia. Du Pré looked at the bill and smiled. The flooring cost more than Du Pré had paid—was still paying—on his house and land.
But it would be pretty.
The thick scent of pine in the house was almost cloying. Du Pré unpinned the windows and propped them open. Add a lot of cedar and you wouldn’t need a refrigerator; nothing would ever rot.
From time to time, Du Pré wondered about Michelle and Bart and the big, quiet detective Rollie and the murders and when the next one would be. Where it would be. Who it would be. There would be one, for sure. He had called and warned Michelle, who agreed, frustration rasping the edges of her speech.
“These guys, these serial killers,” she said, “it tears you up because they are crafty, and until he makes a mistake, we haven’t got much of a chance of connecting. So I wait here or at home for a call telling me another woman has been murdered. And I wonder how many calls like that I am going to get before I find anything. He’s right here, in this city, and someone’s going to die, and I can’t do one fucking thing.”
The best they could do was keep a close watch on Paul Chase. But they couldn’t get an agent on Chase’s turf. The staff had been there a long time. Once Chase went into the building, their only hope was to watch all the exits, but they couldn’t. There were too many and some were tunnels underground.
They didn’t even have enough on the man to demand a look at his medical records. A call to his shrink was received frostily.
“I don’t think that it is Chase,” Du Pré had said. “I don’t think he got the balls for it.”
“It doesn’t take balls,” said Michelle, “and it’s always someone so damned unlikely, no one can believe it when they’re caught.”
So Du Pré pounded nails and felt like an idiot. He was almost used to it, but sometimes it bothered him, like now.
If I was any dumber, all I’d need would be regular watering and a little shit once in a while, Du Pré thought.
He spent a full day leveling and sanding the high spots on the floor. He vacuumed up the sawdust, covered a dust mop with tack cloths, and made a final pass. He stapled plastic over all the windows and vent holes and went home.
The next morning, he mopped off the last of the dust and rollered the whole floor with expensive epoxy resin. The ventilation was bad and by the time he was through, he was light-headed. He knocked off for the day. At home, he drank one beer, staggered to the kitchen sink, and threw up. He drank as much water as he could stand and spent the rest of the day either guzzling or pissing. By early evening, he felt better.
Oh my God, Du Pré thought, if Bart had done that …it might have set him off. I got to talk to him about that.
Bart had gone a long time without going on a tear and he was trying his damnedest. If he does go on one, I will watch over him and not nag, either, Du Pré thought. But I hope that he don’t.
He took a long shower, but his skin still reeked of epoxy. So it was in his system. He took Madelaine to the Toussaint bar for her pink wine and some dancing to the jukebox, but he stuck to water. He felt better with each passing moment.
The bar had a lot of people in it; the full moon was up and that seemed to bring people out, brighten them. There were dances and time to time a fight out front in the dusty street, drunks throwing haymakers and falling over.
They went home under the moon in a clear sky. Far from the cities, the air was clear and the sky a velvet blue-black. Some stars burned in bright colors, looked very, very close. They sat on the front porch at Madelaine’s for a moment. Suddenly all the coyotes began to sing, arching warbling howls, a language that Du Pré was sure Benetsee spoke as well as he spoke any other.
The howls fell off.
The telephone rang.
Madelaine got up.
Du Pré grabbed her hand.
“That is for me,” he said.
“You expecting a call this late?” said Madelaine, smiling.
“Yes,” said Du Pré, his stomach clenching, “I guess I am.”
“Du Pré,” he said as soon as he had the telephone up to his mouth.
“Another,” said Michelle. “This time, a secretary who had been working late. She talked a moment with the security guard in the parking structure. He went to the John. He came back. Her car didn’t come out, so he went to look. She was lying beside it, with her keys in her hand.”
Christ, thought Du Pré. If it was here, I would just shoot this Paul Chase and see if the murders stopped. Even if the murders kept on, we can spare Paul Chase.
“Massive skull fracture, literally popped her eyes out of her head. Left the weapon—a war club, I guess you’d call it.”
“You see it?”
“Yeah. ME’s got it. It was a round rock like you’d find in a riverbed. Had a handle of something wrapped in rawhide, with a loop at the butt for your wrist. Not your wrist, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” said Du Pré. “I think that’s called a watunk.”
“You know what I’m talking about?”
“Yes,” said Du Pré.
“We still have a full tail on Chase, but not only can he slip out of his office, he lives over in Virginia on an estate, complete with wrought-iron fence and rottweilers and electronic security. So I think that’s a waste of time and a lot of manpower.”
“This secretary wasn’t Indian?”
“No,” said Michelle. There was a pause. “Right,” she said, “I don’t know.”
“Listen,” said Du Pré, “I think maybe I will go and look for Benetsee and talk with him. Last murder, he was here and made me drive him to a medicine place,” and he was waving a bullroarer just before the last woman was killed.”
“What’s a bullroarer?” said Michelle.
“A piece of wood shaped like a narrow shingle, on a thong. You whirl it around and it makes a big noise.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Maybe Benetsee saw something in his dreams,” said Du Pré.
“I wish he would just tell us,” said Michelle. “People are getting killed here, you know.”
“I don’t think he can,” said Du Pré. “I think maybe he sees the riddle but not the answer. The answer’s always there when you look back. But I don’t think he is not telling us. I think he is telling us all he knows.”
“I’m sorry,” said Michelle, “I’m just frustrated.”
“Me, too,” said Du Pré. “How is Bart?”
“Fine,” said Bart.
He’s with Michelle, he’s fine, Du Pré thought.
“I will go try to find Benetsee,” said Du Pré.
“Bring him here,” said Michelle.
“He wouldn’t go,” said Du Pré.
“I thought not,” said Michelle.
Du Pré hung up. Madelaine had come in. She was yawning and looking at Du Pré with her eyes half-closed.
“I got to go find Benetsee,” he said.
“You got to find me right now,” she said, taking his hand. “You can go look for that old goat later.”