Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [83]
'She says she hasn't touched anything. Look around, will you?'
Reynolds did, checking the arms of the wing chair, the head-rest, the handles of a Zimmer which was on standby for take-off a few feet away.
'Can you hold your hand up for me, Betty?'
She nodded and he let go of her wrist.
Everyone in the room was watching them now. Behind him Marvel could hear a hum of low mutterings: 'What's going on?' ... 'What's he doing to Betty?' ... 'Where are the biscuits?'
Betty shifted in her seat, careful not to move her hand much, and Marvel saw her walking stick hooked over the arm of her chair, right near the back where it would be out of the way.
He looked around for something to pick it up with and started to lift the rug off Betty's knees. Her smudged hand clapped down to her lap to keep her rug and her modesty in place, so instead he yanked his own tie off and used it carefully to pick up the stick.
'Reynolds.'
Reynolds came over and Marvel held the walking stick up to the light. It was made of stout wood, the handle of tooled brass - stained brownish-red.
And near the end was a small but unmistakable clump of white hair.
He had his murder weapon.
He had his suspect.
Marvel thought of the line from 'Amazing Grace'.
I once was lost, but now I'm found.
That was him. Lost, then found. Dark, then light. Drunk, then sober. The moment he saw those strands of white stuck to the end of the cane, Marvel knew he didn't have to drink any more. He would, but he didn't have to. Not on this case, at least.
It had been getting out of hand anyway. Last night he and Joy had had a barney because she'd got all maudlin about Something with an R and, instead of sympathizing, he'd asked if she had any ice. She'd thrown a glass at him and he'd said something mean about Dubonnet ...
What the hell was he doing getting into an argument with some lonely old drunk over ice and Dubonnet? He should have his head examined.
Lost and found.
As long as things progressed in that order, Marvel felt he was doing a reasonable job with his life.
All day long, while he clambered over debris and peered through shed windows on the off-chance of finding Gary Liss, Jonas worried about the notes.
The first had been oblique: Call yourself a policeman?
The second had been personal: Do your job, crybaby.
The third - in the wake of a triple murder - could no longer be seen as anything but a warning: If you won't do your job, then I'll do it for you.
But he was doing his job! This time the killer was wrong! He'd started his night patrols, and now he was properly part of the investigation by day, too. They even had a suspect lined up. How could the killer - or anyone - accuse him of no longer doing his job?
But the threatening tone of this note was unmistakable, and Jonas knew he could no longer hide behind previous ambiguity.
The time had come to speak to Marvel.
*
The killer couldn't keep hiding for ever. Things were closing in. Things were catching up with him. Memories pressed against the ceiling of his subconscious like desperate sailors in the hold of a doomed ship.
He was no longer sure he could hold it all together. Some part of him had once imagined some connection with the policeman/protector; there had been times when he had wondered if they might one day be on the same team. Work side by side.
But Jonas was still stubbornly ineffective where it really mattered.
The bodies were piling up.
The wrong people were dying and it just wasn't fair. It just wasn't right.
Something had to give.
*
Elizabeth Rice called Marvel - ostensibly to say she hadn't yet had an opportunity to compare the Polaroid of the shoe-print with all the shoes in the Marshes' house, but really to find out what was going on at Sunset Lodge.
Marvel told her not to bother. They had a suspect.
'Does that mean I can join you up there?'
'No,' said Marvel. 'Stay put for a bit. Might need you to break the news of an arrest to the Marshes.'
'OK. Good,'