Chapter 21

The rest of the afternoon was drudgery. I had the list I'd made of dates and distinguishing characteristics, and now I could listen to the calls straight through, and read the transcripts. I did that, comparing what I heard and read with the list, adding a bit of detail here and there. When that was done, it began to be really tedious.

I was trying to find a pattern. I already knew the overall shape of it – this guy was capable of making horrific threats, horrific both in terms of bodily damage and in terms of the evident sexual perversion they contained. What he said he'd do to the women of the clinic was enough to make a maggot puke – but obviously it didn't make him puke. It was exciting to him. And I needed to see if there was any pattern in when he called, or in when he sent a letter, or in the escalation of the threats, or in the way he phrased things ... anything that would provide an identifying characteristic that I could hunt for.

It was really a job for the police, but Sergeant Sauceda hadn't seemed terribly interested. The reason the police would have been better was that they have more people. An exercise such as I was engaged in works best when several people are engaged in it, because that way what one person misses another can catch, and no one works himself to death trying to do it all. But I didn't have an army at my disposal – all I had was my own brain, and sometimes I wonder whether it's in as good working order as I like to believe it is.

At any rate, I spent the afternoon at it, and called Cecelia around 4 in the afternoon to let her know that I would be late getting home.

"How late, Darvin?" she asked.

"I ain't got nan clue," I said with a sigh. "I'm afraid to turn loose of what I'm doing for fear that what little progress I've made will slip out of my head when I relax."

"Then I'll bring you supper," she said.

"You ain't gotta do that," I told her.

"No, it is not a requirement – but yes, my concern for you obliges me to do so. Please don't try to talk me out of it, my husband, for it is a thing I delight in doing."

I rubbed my forehead. "Coolness. I'll be here when you get here." And I hung up and went back to the grind.

Cecelia walked into my office like she owned it – but then she walks everywhere like that. It's not arrogance, exactly, though she is capable of arrogance if you irritate her. It's more a supreme confidence that she is exactly who she ought to be, and need not seek anyone's approval for what she truly considers right and proper. She walks like an empress, straight and slim and regal, and she'd look like the queen of Egypt even if she were wearing a burlap bag and a week's worth of unwashed dirt.

I saw her this time because I saw the door open out of the corner of my eye, and looked up from the transcript I was reading for the fourth time. I hadn't heard the outer door close, but just then I probably wouldn't have heard a thermonuclear detonation, I was concentrating so hard. But Cecelia's entrance ruined my concentration. She had on a pair of black straight legged jeans that fit her thin legs closely, tucked into a pair of black cowboy boots with silver-colored ornaments on the toes and heels. Her blouse was also black, a cowboy shirt with silver piping around the yoke and down the front. She was wearing her black leather trench coat, open over everything else, and she looked like a female gunslinger from some modern spaghetti western, beautiful and dangerous.

She smiled when she saw me. "I find," she said, "that I am very good at missing you. Knowing you're here, and occupied, has made me lonesome."

"I miss you too," I said, tossing the paper onto the desk. "If I could find a good stopping place, I'd head home right away."

"Since you have been unable to find such a place, I have brought you sustenance, and my presence to comfort you."

"And you are a comfort," I told her. "Just seeing you makes the world look better, and hearing your voice does things to my innards..."

She grinned, and set a large bag on the desk, one of those reusable shopping bags with twine handles. "My own inward parts do silly little flips when I see your face and hear your voice. I may be a grown woman, with a child halfway to 20, and with years of married experience, but I feel sometimes like I'm still a girl experiencing her first crush."

I stood up and looked into the bag. I didn't immediately recognize anything, for it was all in plastic containers. "What you got here?" I asked.

"Sit down, and you'll learn," she said.

I sat down like a good husband. "Tell me about your first crush," I said, curious all of a sudden.

Cecelia glanced at me, and began speaking as she pulled containers out of the bag. "I believe I was 13 at the time. His name was Rodney Jervis Kinley, descended from a family that had been slaves on the same farm as my great-grandfather. Our families had both remained in the area, and kept more or less in touch, through all those years – you'll remember that I was born 100 years after the end of the Civil War. I'd known him slightly all my life, but suddenly on the first day of school that year I noticed him, truly noticed him, for the first time. He was two or three years older than I was, and I realized how handsome he was. For the next four or five weeks I would have kissed his feet, fed him lunch with my own hands, carried his books – anything, if I could only be his girlfriend.

"However, Matylin Howard was the only girl he could see at the time, and I got over it. After all, it was only a crush, not love nor even infatuation."

By now Cecelia had pulled everything from the bag, including two of her big bowls; evidently she was planning to eat with me. One of the plastic containers proved to contain her homemade chili and hominy, another held fruit salad, and another half a dozen of what we call heavy rolls because they are heavier than most rolls. I don't know how they come out that way, but they're crusty on top and chewy inside, and I love 'em.

She put the chili in the microwave to warm – the microwave that sat on top of the refrigerator, for I rarely use it – and leaned against the fridge looking at me. "It's time to reciprocate, Darvin. Who was your first crush?"