dispatcher: Sir, if you’re tied to the bed, then how—
caller: She held the phone to my ear, the sick bitch. She dialed 911 and put the phone to my ear and now… ooohh-hhhhh… Stop!… Now she’s doing marshmallows. My hair’s on fire and she’s cooking… Stop, God, stop, I’m burning up, Cindy!… Marsh—oh Jesus!—mallows… Cindy, you crazy psycho bitch…
Mr. Gash turned down the volume and said, “See? That’s what love gets you. Man’s wife ties him to the bedposts, pretending like she’s gonna screw his brains out. Instead she puts a lighter to his hair and roasts marsh-mallows in the flames.”
Desie said, “That was real?”
“Oh yes, Virginia.” Mr. Gash popped the tape out of the console, and read from the stick-on label. “Tacoma, Washington. March tenth, 1994. Victim’s name was Appleman. Junior Appleman.”
“Did he die?”
“Eventually,” Mr. Gash reported. “Took about six weeks. According to the newspaper, the Applemans had been having serious domestic problems. The best part: He lied to the dispatcher. It wasn’t clothesline she tied him up with, it was panty hose. He was too embarrassed to say so. Even on fire! But my point is, romance is fucking deadly. Look at you two!”
Twilly and Desie traded glances.
“You wouldn’t be here right now, about to die,” Mr. Gash added, “if you guys hadn’t gotten romantically involved. I’d bet the farm on it.”
They were all in the station wagon, parked among the bulldozers in the woods. Desie recognized the place from Dr. Brinkman’s tour of the island. Night had fallen, and the rain had ebbed to a drizzle. The only light inside the car came from the dome lamp, which Mr. Gash had illuminated while playing the 911 cassette for his captives. He was next to Twilly Spree in the front seat. Desie sat behind them with McGuinn, who noisily had buried his snout in a sack of dry dog food and was therefore heedless of the semiautomatic pointed at his head.
Mr. Gash said to Desie, “What’s your name, babe?”
“Never mind.”
Mr. Gash held the gun in his right hand, propped against the headrest. With his other hand he pawed through Desie’s purse until he found her driver’s license. When he saw the name on it, he said, “Shit.”
Desie shrunk in her seat.
“Nobody told me. I wonder why,” Mr. Gash mused. “They told me about the dog but not the wife!”
Twilly said, “Her husband didn’t know.”
“Didn’t care is more like it.”
“You’re making a mistake,” said Twilly. Of course the man in the brown zippered shoes ignored him.
“Well, ‘Mrs. Stoat,’ I had big plans for tonight. I was going to drive you back to the mainland and hook up with a couple party girls. Introduce you to the wonderful world of multiple sex partners.” Mr. Gash was studying Desie’s photograph on the license. “I like the highlighting job on these bangs. It’s a good look for you.”
Desie resisted the impulse to comment upon the killer’s platinum-tinted eyebrows.
“How exactly do you pronounce your name?” Mr. Gash asked. “Dez-eye-rotta? Is that close?”
” ‘Desie’ is fine.”
“Like the Cuban guy on the old Lucy show.”
“Close enough.”
“Take off your earrings,” Mr. Gash told her. “I’ve got a friend in Miami, an Italian girl, she’ll look wicked hot in those. Almost as hot as you.”
Desie removed the pearl studs and handed them over.
Mr. Gash said, “You’re way too pretty for that crybaby porker of a husband. And since I haven’t been laid in six days, I say what the hell. I say go for it.”
Twilly tensed. “Don’t be an idiot. Clapley isn’t paying you to molest the wives of his friends.”
“Friend? According to Mr. Clapley, Stoat’s nothing—and I quote—but a ‘turd fondler.’ Besides,” said Mr. Gash, “my job is cleaning out the troublemakers. And, Mrs. Stoat, sleeping with a troublemaker makes you a troublemaker, too.”
Desie pretended to stare out the fogged-up windows. A tear crawled down one cheek.
“The way I see it,” Mr. Gash went on, “is a murder-suicide. The young hothead boyfriend. The married woman who refuses to leave her rich husband. The lovers argue. Boyfriend goes postal. Whacks the broad, whacks the puppy dog, and then finally he whacks himself. Of course, they find the weapon”—Mr. Gash, nodding at his own—”at the scene.”