Code 61 - Donald Harstad [126]
“He said, 'Well, it was a mistake.' That's what he said.”
“Want to explain that a little more?” asked Hester.
“Look, lady,” he said, “all I know is this. About three-thirty that morning, Toby came into my room and woke me up and said that Edie was having a little problem. He wanted me to help get her to her room.”
“And?”
“And I told him to fuck off, it was a workday and I had another hour to sleep. So he went away.”
“Did he say what was wrong with her?” I asked.
“No. He just said, 'There's been an accident. Dan really fucked up this time.' That's what I remember. I was asleep, like I said.”
“Did he say where she was?”
“No, he didn't say where she was. Like I said, he was in a hurry and I was pissed off. We didn't discuss the thing, he just woke me up.”
“What did he look like when he came into your room?” asked Hester. “Was there anything unusual about him?”
“How would I know? It was dark, and all he had was a flashlight.”
“So,” she asked, “he just went away?”
“Look, I remember he was all whiny, like a dorky little kid. But he left, and I went back to sleep.”
“When did you find out she was dead?” I asked.
“When they called me and Huck at work,” he said.
“So,” asked Hester, “when did Toby tell you about the 'mistake' that was made?”
“When we got back,” he said.
“Not on the phone?” I asked.
“He just talked to me,” interrupted Huck. “I told Kevin she was dead.” She looked squarely at him. “You never told me anything about Toby coming to you that night.”
“That's because you don't matter,” he said simply.
Huck flinched.
“Who does matter, in this?” asked Hester, quickly. This was no time for an argument between Huck and Kevin.
Kevin smiled, enigmatically. “Depends.”
“Well right now,” I said evenly, “it better be us.” I was getting really irritated with his attitude. “So tell me what Toby told you.”
It worked. Better than I'd hoped.
“All he said was that Dan and him and Edie were together, and Dan wanted to do that 'secondhand' experience thing he kept talking about, and he had Toby and Edie get it on, and then Edie got all wild on them, and things just went all ugly from there.”
Well, at least it was fairly succinct.
“And, where did he say they were when this was going on?”
He sighed, all exasperated and put out. “I told you, Toby didn't tell me.”
He was, of course, lying. He was an easy tell, too.
After that, it was pretty much a communal effort to inform us about what Dan Peale considered a good time.
Because Dan Peale apparently believed that he would be able to experience emotions “secondhand” if he ingested the blood of another, at a time when that other person was experiencing a strong emotion, he had tried his theory out first with pleasure being the target. He said it worked, and was able to “experience the afterglow” of a woman's orgasm with Edie. Given the fact that he was probably doing some meth or ecstasy at the time, and so was she, go figure.
Anyway, things progressed, as they always seem to, toward more and more extreme events. It dawned on him at some point that blood coming directly from the brain would contain the most undiluted pheromones or endorphins, or something. He obtained some needles, and as far as they knew, did his first jugular stick in June 2000.
“That was me,” said Hanna. “I was pretty high, and it still hurt like hell, and it was the scariest thing I ever did. I never let him do that again. Ever.”
“Why did you let him do it in the first place?” asked Hester.
Hanna gave it about one second's worth of thought. “Because he scares me to death,” she answered. I think the irony escaped her.
As it turned out, it wasn't just the pleasures life offered that Dan Peale wanted to experience.
“The next step,” murmured Melissa, “was fear. Well, he called it 'terror,' and I suppose it was.” She looked up. “That was me. Back in August.” She shook her head. “Terror isn't the word. You really can't move, you know. I mean, with that thing stuck in your neck. Hell, he tied my hands, but he really didn't need to. 'If you move, you could kill yourself,' he said. No