Chosen Prey

this—”
    Gibson interrupted. “Here he comes.”
     
    Q ATAR WALKED BACK toward the camera, much diminished now. He was carrying a blanket from the bedroom, and when he dropped beside her, put it over his shoulders and around hers. “Did you ever talk to that woman again? The lesbian thing?”
    “Not yet. There’s no point, if you don’t want to go along.”
    “All right.” He was satisfied—clear on the lesbian front. He could hear the rope in his pants pocket, calling to them. “You know, I can see why somebody like you might be interested. But I . . .” He sighed and stopped.
    “Tough day?” she asked.
    “Oh . . . with Mom gone . . . I mean, with the medical examiner and everybody looking at her. They’re saying that the cause of death is undetermined, which I don’t know—it means they might think it’s not natural.”
    “James,” she said, “when we left the medical examiner’s the other day . . . we went shopping and that kind of freaked me out. I mean, it seemed almost like you’d forgotten her somehow.”
    “What?” His forehead wrinkled. “Ellen, that’s just what I do when I’m upset. You know I like to shop, and I was just very upset and I . . .”
    His words were coming faster and faster, and finally she held up her hand and said, “Okay, I’m sorry.” She wrapped her arms around her knees. “I just, I don’t know. I’ve been reading about this gravedigger guy, and he seems so . . . cruel. I thought you seemed a little cruel.”
    He heard the false note again. He was a historian and a critic, and he could pick up a false note as quickly as anyone. He said, “You’re comparing me to this gravedigger person?”
    “No, no. I just want people not to be cruel.” Then she smiled at him and her hand wandered to his groin. “Well, maybe a little cruel sometimes,” she said. “Have you been thinking about my call?”
    His mind was clicking over now: She was interrogating him. But was she doing it on her own, or was there somebody with her? Could somebody hear them? For Christ’s sakes, could somebody see them? He didn’t dare look. He said, “I thought this afternoon, because of my mother . . . something gentle. Something that takes a long time.”
    She seemed disappointed, and that was, in his mind, confirmation. Something was going on, and he didn’t know what it was. “Why don’t we do something excessively oral?” He slipped his fingers between her legs. “I haven’t been in here yet.”
     
    “H E SORTA WALKED away from that question,” Del said.
    “Doesn’t look like she’ll be asking any more for a while,” said Gibson.
    “Goddamnit,” Marshall said to Gibson. “Somebody ought to kick your ass for you.”
    “Take it easy, pal,” Gibson said. “When we get finished with this, you wanna take it outside, I’ll go with you.”
    “Nobody’s taking it outside,” Lucas said. To Gibson he said, “Another comment about Barstad and you’ll be directing traffic at a construction site.” And to Marshall: “You keep your problems to yourself or I’ll ship your ass back to Dunn County.” And to both of them: “Everybody know where I’m coming from?”
     
    L ATER, WHEN THEY finished with a second round, Barstad asked, “What do you think of the gravedigger?”
    “Well, I guess I think what everybody thinks,” he said. “He’s a crazy man. He needs care.”
    “I think they just ought to take him out and dump him in a hole somewhere, and cover it up and not tell anybody where he is,” she declared. “That would teach him.”
    “That would,” he said. “You’re right.” Qatar stood up and gathered his clothes. “Everything’s getting wrinkled,” he said fussily. “Let me go hang them up.”
    “The rack in the bedroom,” she said lazily. “Hurry back.”
    “You are far too young for me, m’dear,” he said.
    Qatar was in a panic. She’d mentioned asphyxiation sex twice; she’d mentioned the gravedigger three times—she was interrogating him, he thought, but then . . .
    Was it possible that it was all a symptom of her craziness, with her whole sexual experimentation regime? Was it possible that the gravedigger turned her on? That all of this was innocent?
    Then why the false notes? And they were false, clanging like a leaden bell. And now some of her smiles seemed false, and her sexual commentary too dramatic.
    The biggest problem, he thought, was that he’d stupidly brought his rope. If there were