Whispers

“So you think I let him in,” she said.

“I certainly must consider it.”

“Well, consider this. When I was up there in Napa County a few weeks ago, doing research for a screenplay, I lost my keys at his winery. House keys, car keys–”

“You drove all the way up there?”

“No. I flew. But all my keys were on the same ring. Even the keys for the rental car I picked up in Santa Rosa: they were on a flimsy chain, and I was afraid I’d lose them, so I slipped them on my own key ring. I never found them. The rental car people had to send out another set. And when I got back to L.A., I had to have a locksmith let me into my house and make new keys for me.”

“You didn’t have the locks changed?”

“It seemed like a needless expense,” she said. “The keys I lost didn’t have any identification on them. Whoever found them wouldn’t know where to use them.”

“And it didn’t occur to you they might have been stolen?” Lieutenant Howard asked.

“No.”

“But now you think Bruno Frye took the keys with the intention of coming here to rape and kill you.”

“Yes.”

“What does he have against you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there any reason he should be angry with you?”

“No.”

“Any reason he should hate you?”

“I hardly know him.”

“It’s an awfully long way for him to come.”

“I know.”

“Hundreds of miles.”

“Look, he’s crazy. And crazy people do crazy things.”

Lieutenant Howard stopped pacing, stood in front of her, glared down like one of the faces on a totempole of angry gods. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that a crazy man would be able to conceal his madness so well at home, that he would have the iron control needed to keep it all bottled up until he was off in a strange city?”

“Of course it seems odd to me,” she said. “It’s weird. But it’s true.”

“Did Bruno Frye have an opportunity to steal those keys?”

“Yes. One of the winery foremen took me on a special tour. We had to clamber up scaffolding, between fermentation vats, between storage barrels, through a lot of tight places. I couldn’t have easily taken my purse with me. It would have been in my way. So I left it in the main house.”

“Frye’s house.”

“Yes.”

He was crackling with energy, supercharged. He began to pace again, from the couch to the windows, from the windows to the bookshelves, then back to the couch again, his broad shoulders drawn up, head thrust forward.

Lieutenant Clemenza smiled at her, but she was not reassured.

“Will anyone at the winery remember you losing your keys?” Lieutenant Howard asked.

“I guess so. Sure. I spent at least half an hour looking for them. I asked around, hoping someone might have seen them.”

“But no one had.”

“That’s right.”

“Where did you think you might have left them?”

“I thought they were in my purse.”

“That was the last place you remembered putting them?”

“Yes. I drove the rental car to the winery, and I was sure I’d put the keys in my purse when I’d parked.”

“Yet when you couldn’t find them, you never thought they might have been stolen?”

“No. Why would someone steal my keys and not my money? I had a couple hundred dollars in my wallet.”

“Another thing that bothers me. After you drove Frye out of the house at gunpoint, why did you take so long to call us?”

“I didn’t take long.”

“Twenty minutes.”

“At most.”

“When you’ve just been attacked and nearly killed by a maniac with a knife, twenty minutes is a hell of a long time to wait. Most people want to get hold of the police right away. They want us on the scene in ten seconds, and they get furious if it takes us a few minutes to get there.”

She glanced at Clemenza, then at Howard, then at her fingers, which were tightly laced, white-knuckled. She sat up straight, squared her shoulders. “I … I guess I … broke down.” It was a difficult and shameful admission for her. She had always prided herself on her strength. “I went to that desk and sat down and began to dial the police number and … then … I just … I cried. I started to cry … and I couldn’t stop for a while.”