"Oh Christ," Tommy said, hanging his head.

Chapter 22

A Nod to the Queen of the Damned

It only took five minutes to convince the police that Tommy had been at work all night and had seen nothing. Simon had done most of the talking. Tommy was so shocked to see his book in the cop's hand that he couldn't find the answers to even the simplest questions. He was, however, able to convince the cop that his shocked state came from a body having been found outside his apartment. Sometimes it paid to play on the "I just fell off the turnip truck from Indiana" image.

They hauled the turtles up the steps and set the crates on the floor in the kitchen area.

"Where's the little woman?" Simon asked, eyeing the huge chest freezer.

"Probably still sleeping," Tommy said. "Grab yourself a beer out of the fridge. I'll check on her."

Tommy palmed open the bedroom door, then slipped through and closed it behind him. He thought, I've got to keep Simon out of here. He's going to want Jody to get up and…

The bed was empty.

Tommy ran to the bathroom and looked in the tub, thinking that Jody might have been caught there at sunrise, but except for a rust ring, the tub was empty. He looked under the bed, found nothing but an old sock, then tore open the closet door and pushed the hanging clothes aside. Panic rose in his throat and came out in a scream of "No!"

"You okay in there?" Simon said from the kitchen.

"She's not here!"

Simon opened the door. "You got a nice crib here, Flood. You inherit some money or something?" Simon said. Then he spotted the panic on Tommy's face. "What's the matter?"

"She's not here."

"So, she probably went out early to get a doughnut or something."

"She can't go out during the day," Tommy said before he realized what he was saying. "I mean, she never goes out early."

"Don't sweat it. I thought you were going to teach me to read. Let's drink some beers and read some fucking books, okay?"

"No, I have to go look for her. She could be out in the sun…"

"Chill, Flood. She's fine. The worst that could happen is she's out with another guy. You might be a free man." Simon picked up a book from the stack by the bed. "Let's read this one. What's this one?"

Tommy wasn't listening. He was seeing Jody's burned body lying in a gutter somewhere. How could she let it happen? Didn't she check the almanac? He had to look for her. But where? You can't search a city the size of San Francisco.

Simon threw the book back on the stack and headed out of the bedroom, "Okay then, Slick, I'm out of here. Thanks for the beer."

"Okay," Tommy said. Then the idea of spending the day alone, waiting, threw him into another wave of panic. "No, Simon! Wait. We'll read."

"That one on the top of the stack," Simon said. "What's that one?"

Tommy picked it up. "The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice. I hear it's good."

"Then grab a beer and let's get literate."

Rivera, bleary-eyed and looking as if he had slept in his suit, sat at his desk looking over his notes. No matter how he shuffled them, they didn't make sense, didn't show a pattern. The only link between the victims was the way they had died: no motive. They wouldn't get the autopsy report for another twelve hours, but there was no doubt that the same person had done the killings.

Nick Cavuto came through the squad room door carrying a box of doughnuts and a copy of the San Francisco Examiner. "They fucking named him. The Examiner is calling him the Whiplash Killer. Once they name the killer, our problems double. You got anything?"

Rivera waved to the notes spread over his desk and shrugged. "I'm out of it, Nick. I can't even read my own writing. You take a look."

Cavuto took a maple stick from the box and sat down across from Rivera. He grabbed a handful of papers and began leafing through them, then stopped and flipped back. He looked up. "You talked to this Flood kid this morning, right?"

Rivera was looking at the doughnuts. His stomach lurched at the thought of eating one. "Yeah, he lives across the street from where we found the body. He works at the Marina Safeway — was working at the time of the murder."

Cavuto raised an eyebrow. "The kid was staying at the motel where we found the old lady."

"You're kidding."

Cavuto held out the notes for Rivera to read. "List of guests. A uniform talked to the kid, said he was at work, but no one confirmed it."

Rivera looked up apologetically. "I can't believe I missed that. The kid was a little squirrelly when I talked to him. His friend did most of the talking."

Cavuto gathered up the papers. "Go home. Shower and sleep. I'll call the manager of the Safeway and make sure the kid was working at the time of the murders. We'll go there tonight and talk to the kid."

"Okay, then let's ask him how he's getting the blood out of the bodies."

Tommy had spent two hours trying to explain the difference between vowels and consonants to Simon before he gave up and sent the cowboy home to wax his truck and watch "Sesame Street." Maybe Simon wasn't meant to read. Maybe he was meant to be all instinct and no intelligence. In a way, Tommy admired him. Simon didn't worry, he took things at face value as they happened. Simon was like the strong, free and easy Cassady to Tommy's introspective, overanalytical Kerouac. Maybe he would put Simon in his story of the little girl growing up in the South. The story he would be working on if he weren't worrying about Jody.

He sat all day on the couch, reading The Vampire Lestat until he couldn't concentrate anymore, then he paced the apartment, checking his watch and railing to Peary, who listened patiently from the freezer.

"You know, Peary, it's inconsiderate of her not to leave me a note. I don't have any idea what she does while I'm at work. She could be having a dozen affairs and I wouldn't even know."

He checked the almanac eight times for the time the sun would set.

"I know, I know, until I met Jody, nothing really ever happened to me. That's why I came here, right? Okay, I'm being unfair, but maybe I'd be better off with a normal woman. Jody just doesn't understand that I'm not like other guys. That I'm special. I'm a writer. I can't handle stress as well as other guys — I take it personal."

Tommy heated up a frozen dinner and left the freezer lid open so Peary could hear him better.

"I have to look to the future, you know. When I'm a famous writer I'm going to have to go on book tours. She can't go with me. What can I say, 'No, I'm sorry, but I can't go. If I go away my wife will starve to death'?"

He paced around the turtles, who were struggling in their crates. One of them raised his spiny head and considered Tommy.

"I know how you guys feel. Just waiting for someone to eat you. You think I don't know how that feels?"

When he could no longer look them in the eye, he carried the turtles into the bathroom, then returned to the living room and tried to get through a few more chapters of The Vampire Lestat.

"This is wrong," he said to Peary. "It says that vampires don't have sex after they are turned. Of course it only talks about male vampires. What if she's been faking? You know, she could be frigid except for when she drinks my blood."

He was working himself into a frenzy of sexual insecurity — something that felt familiar and almost comfortable — when the phone rang. He yanked it off the cradle.

"Hello."

A woman's voice, surprised but trying to not to show it, said, "Hello. I'd like to speak to Jody, please."

"She's not here," Tommy said. "She's at work," he added quickly.

"I called her at work and they said she left her job over a month ago."

"Uh, she has a new job. I don't know the number."