swooped and buzzed. Johnny’s head pumped and throbbed in counterpoint. He wished she would shut up. It was a hallucination, he knew, just the tiredness and stress of this awful night catching up, but it began to seem more and more to him that this was his mother standing here, that at any moment she would turn from Bannerman to him and begin to huckster him about the wonderful talent God had given him.
“Mrs. Dodd ... Henrietta ...” Bannerman began patiently.
Then she did turn to Johnny, and regarded him with her smart-stupid little pig’s eyes.
“Who’s this?”
“Special deputy,” Bannerman said promptly. “Henrietta, I’ll take the responsibility for waking Frank up.”
“Oooh, the responsibility!” she cooed with monstrous, buzzing sarcasm, and Johnny finally realized she was afraid. The fear was coming off her in pulsing, noisome waves—that was what was making his headache worse. Couldn’t Bannerman feel it? “The ree-spon-si-bil-i-tee! Isn’t that biiig of you, my God yes! Well, I won’t have my boy waked up in the middle of the night, George Bannerman, so you and your special deputy can just go peddle your goddam papers!”
She tried to shut the door again and this time Bannerman shoved it all the way open. His voice showed tight anger and beneath that terrible tension. “Open up, Henrietta, I mean it, now.”
“You can’t do this!” she cried. “This isn’t no police state! I’ll have your job! Let’s see your warrant!”
“No, that’s right, but I’m going to talk to Frank,” Bannerman said, and pushed past her.
Johnny, barely aware of what he was doing, followed. Henrietta Dodd made a grab for him. Johnny caught her wrist—and a terrible pain flared in his head, dwarfing the sullen thud of the headache. And the woman felt it, too. The two of them stared at each other for a moment that seemed to last forever, an awful, perfect understanding. For that moment they seemed welded together. Then she fell back, clutching at her ogre’s bosom.
“My heart ... my heart ...” She scrabbled at her robe pocket and pulled out a phial of pills. Her face had gone to the color of raw dough. She got the cap off the phial and spilled tiny pills all over the floor getting one into her palm. She slipped it under her tongue. Johnny stood staring at her in mute horror. His head felt like a swelling bladder full of hot blood.
“You knew?” he whispered.
Her fat, wrinkled mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. No sound came out. It was the mouth of a beached fish.
“All of this time you knew?”
“You’re a devil!” she screamed at him. “You’re a monster ... devil ... oh my heart ... oh, I’m dying ... think I’m dying ... call the doctor ... George Bannerman don’t you go up there and wake my baby!”
Johnny let go of her, and unconsciously rubbing his hand back and forth on his coat as if to free it of a stain, he stumbled up the stairs after Bannerman. The wind outside sobbed around the eaves like a lost child. Halfway up he glanced back. Henrietta Dodd sat in a wicker chair, a sprawled mountain of meat, gasping and holding a huge breast in each hand. His head still felt as if it were swelling and he thought dreamily: Pretty soon it’ll just pop and that’ll be the end. Thank God.
An old and threadbare runner covered the narrow hall floor. The wallpaper was watermarked. Bannerman was pounding on a closed door. It was at least ten degrees colder up here.
“Frank? Frank! It’s George Bannerman! Wake up, Frank!”
There was no response. Bannerman turned the knob and shoved the door open. His hand had fallen to the butt of his gun, but he had not drawn it. It could have been a fatal mistake, but Frank Dodd’s room was empty.
The two of them stood in the doorway for a moment, looking in. It was a child’s room. The wallpaper—also watermarked—was covered with dancing clowns and rocking horses. There was a child-sized chair with a Raggedy Andy sitting in it, looking back at them with its shiny blank eyes. In one corner was a toybox. In the other was a narrow maple bed with the covers thrown back. Hooked over one of the bedposts and looking out of place was Frank Dodd’s holstered gun.
“My God,” Bannerman said softly. “What is this?”
“Help,” Mrs. Dodd’s voice floated up. “Help me ...”
“She knew,” Johnny said. “She knew from the beginning, from the Frechette woman. He told her. And she