“Then why doesn’t he burn them every time “Because that would be just as
much of a giveaway as bite marks. Sometimes he burns the bodies,
sometimes he doesn’t, and maybe sometimes he disposes of them so they
are never even found.” They were both silent for a moment. Then she
said, we’re dealing with a mass murderer, a serial killer, who’s a
raving psychotic.”
“Or a vampire,” Bobby said.
“Why’s he after Frank?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Frank once tried to drive a wooden stake through
his heart.”
“Not funny.”
“I agree,” Bobby said.
“Right now, nothing seems funny.”
FRom DYSON Manfred’s house full of insect specimens in Irvine, Clint
Karaghiosis drove through the chilly rain to his own house in Placentia.
It was a homey two-bedroom bungalow with a rolled-shingle roof, a deep
front porch in the California Craftsman style, and French windows full
of warm amber light. By the time he got there, the car heater had
pretty much dried his rain-soaked clothes.
Felina was in the kitchen when Clint entered by way of the connecting
door from the garage. She hugged him, kissed him, held fast to him for
a moment, as if surprised to see him alive again.
She believed that his job was fraught with danger every day, though he
had often explained that he did mostly boring legwork. He chased facts
instead of culprits, pursued a trail of paper rather than blood.
He understood his wife’s concern, however, because he worried
unreasonably about her too. For one thing, she was an attractive woman
with black hair, an olive complexion, and startlingly beautiful gray
eyes; in this age of lenient judges, with a surfeit of merciless
sociopaths on the streets, a good looking woman was regarded by some as
fair game. Furthermore, though the office where Felina worked as a data
processor was only three blocks from their house, an easy walk even in
bad weather, Clint nevertheless worried about the danger she faced at
the busiest of the intersections that she had to cross; in an emergency,
a warning cry or blaring horn would not alert her to onrushing death.
He could not let her know how much he worried, for she was justly proud
that she was so independent in spite of her deafness. He did not want
to diminish her self-respect by indicating in any way that he was not
entirely confident of her ability to deal with every rotten tomato that
fate threw at her.
he daily reminded himself that she had lived twenty-nine years without
coming to serious harm, and he resisted the urge to be overly
protective.
While Clint washed his hands at the sink, Felina set the kitchen table
for a late dinner. An enormous pot of homemade vegetable soup was
heating on the stove, and together they ladled out two large bowls of
it. He got a shaker of Parmesan cheese from the refrigerator, and she
unwrapped a loaf of crusty Italian bread.
He was hungry, and the soup was excellent-thick with vegetables and
chunks of lean beef-but by the time Felina finished her first bowlful,
Clint had eaten less than half of it because he repeatedly paused to
talk to her. She could not read his lips well when he tried to converse
and eat at the same time and for the moment his hunger was less
compelling than need to tell her about his day. She refilled her bowl
and freshed his.
Beyond the walls of his own small home, he was only slightly more
talkative than a stone, but in Felina’s company he was as loquacious as
a talk-show host. He didn’t just prattle, either but settled with
surprising ease into the role of a polished comedian. He had learned
how to deliver an anecdote in a way as to sharpen its impact and
maximize Felina’s response for he loved to elicit a laugh from her or
watch her eyes with surprise. In all of Clint’s life, she was the first
person whose opinion of him truly mattered, and he wanted her to think
of him as smart, clever, witty, and fun.
Early in their relationship he had wondered if her deafness had anything