Frye crossed the corridor in two steps and sat on the floor with his back against the wall.
In a few minutes, he began to hear rustling sounds in the dark, soft scurrying noises.
Imagination, he told himself. That familiar fear.
But then he felt something creeping up his leg, under his trousers.
It’s not really there, he told himself.
Something slithered under one sleeve and started up his arm, something awful but unidentifiable. And something ran across his shoulder and up his neck, onto his face, something small and deadly. It went for his mouth. He pressed his lips together. It went for his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut. It went for his nostrils, and he brushed frantically at his face, but he couldn’t find it, couldn’t knock it off. No!
He switched on the penlight. He was the only living creature in the hallway. There was nothing moving under his trousers. Nothing under his sleeves. Nothing on his face.
He shuddered.
He left the penlight on.
***
At nine o’clock Thursday morning, Hilary was awakened by the telephone. There was an extension in the guest room. The bell switch accidentally had been turned all the way up to maximum volume, probably by someone from the housecleaning service that she employed. The strident ringing broke into Hilary’s sleep and made her sit up with a start.
The caller was Wally Topelis. While having breakfast, he had seen the morning paper’s account of the assault and attempted rape. He was shocked and concerned.
Before she would tell him any more than the newspaper had done, she made him read the article to her. She was relieved to hear that it was short, just a small picture and a few column inches on the sixth page. It was based entirely on the meager information that she and Lieutenant Clemenza had given the reporters last night. There was no mention of Bruno Frye–or of Detective Frank Howard’s conviction that she was a liar. The press had come and gone with perfect timing, just missing the kind of juicy angle that would have put the story at least a few pages closer to page one.
She told Wally all of it, and he was outraged. “That stupid goddamned cop! If he’d made any effort at all to find out about you, what kind of person you are, he’d have known you couldn’t possibly make up a story like that. Look, kid, I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry. I’ll get some action for you.”
“How?”
“I’ll call some people.”
“Who?”
“How about the chief of police for starters?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Hey, he owes me,” Wally said. “For the past five years in a row, who was it that organized the annual police benefit show? Who was it that got some of the biggest Hollywood stars to appear for nothing? Who was it got singers and comedians and actors and magicians all free for the police fund?”
“You?”
“Damn right it was me.”
“But what can he do?”
“He can reopen the case.”
“When one of his detectives swears it was a hoax?”
“His detective is brain-damaged.”
“I have a hunch this Frank Howard might have a very good record,” she said.
“Then the way they rate their people is a disgrace. Their standards are either very low or all screwed up.”
“You might have a pretty hard time convincing the chief of that.”
“I can be very persuasive, my lamb.”
“But even if he owes you a favor, how can he reopen the case without new evidence? He may be the chief, but he has to follow the rules, too.”
“Look, he can at least talk to the sheriff up there in Napa County.”
“And Sheriff Laurenski will give the chief the same story he was putting out last night. He’ll say Frye was at home baking cookies or something.”
“Then the sheriff’s an incompetent fool who took the word of someone on Frye’s household staff. Or he’s a liar. Or maybe he’s even in on this with Frye somehow.”
“You go to the chief with that theory,” she said, “and he’ll have both of us tested for paranoid schizophrenia.”
“If I can’t squeeze some action out of the cops,” Wally said, “then I’ll hire a good PI team.”