The Good Guy. Dean Koontz

you meet?”

      “Over coffee.”

      “Like at Starbucks?”

      “No, not there,” she said.

      “Paquette. That’s an unusual name.”

      “Not in my family.”

      “It’s lovely. P-a-c-k-e-t-t-e?”

      She didn’t confirm the spelling.

      “So you’re the strong silent type.”

      She smiled. “And you’re always a detective.”

      Shy Zoey stayed close to Linda all the way to the front door.

      From various points in the night yard, a hidden choir of toads harmonized.

      Linda rubbed the dog gently behind the ears, kissed it on the head, and walked across the lawn to the Explorer in the driveway.

      “She doesn’t like me,” Pete said.

      “She likes you. She just doesn’t like cops.”

      “If you marry her, do I have to change jobs?”

      “I’m not going to marry her.”

      “I think she’s the kind, you don’t get a thing without a ring.”

      “I don’t want a thing. There’s nothing between us.”

      “There will be,” Pete predicted. “She’s got something.”

      “Something what?”

      “I don’t know. But it sure is something.”

      Tim watched Linda get into the Explorer. As she pulled the door shut behind her, he said, “She makes good coffee.”

      “I’ll bet she does.”

      Although the secreted toads had continued singing when Linda had walked among them, they fell silent when Tim set foot on the grass.

      “Class,” Pete said. “That’s part of the something.” And when Tim had taken two further steps, Pete added, “Sangfroid.”

      Tim stopped, looked back at the detective. “Sang what?”

      “Sangfroid. It’s French. Self-possession, poise, steadiness.”

      “Since when do you know French?”

      “This college professor, taught French literature, killed a girl with a chisel. Dismembered her with a stone-cutter.”

      “Stone-cutter?”

      “He was also a sculptor. He almost got away with it ’cause he had such sangfroid. But I nailed him.”

      “I’m pretty sure Linda hasn’t dismembered anyone.”

      “I’m just saying she’s self-possessed. But if she ever wants to dismember me, I’m okay with that.”

      “Compadre, you disappoint me.”

      Pete grinned. “I knew there was something between you.”

      “There’s nothing,” Tim assured him, and went to the Explorer in a silence of toads.

       Nine

      As Tim reversed out of the driveway, Linda said, “He seems all right for a cop. He has a sweet pooch.”

      “He’s also got a dead fish named for his ex-wife.”

      “Well, maybe she was a cold fish.”

      “He says he won’t mind if you want to dismember him.”

      “What does that mean?”

      Shifting into drive, Tim said, “It’s sand-dog humor.”

      “Sand dog?”

      Surprised that he had opened this door, he at once closed it. “Never mind.”

      “What’s a sand dog?”

      His cell phone rang, sparing him the need to respond to her. Thinking this might be Rooney with some additional news, Tim had it on the third ring. The screen didn’t reveal the caller’s ID.

      “Hello?”

      “Tim?”

      “Yeah?”

      “Is she there with you?”

      Tim said nothing.

      “Tell her she makes an excellent egg-custard pie.”

      Conjured by the voice, into memory rose those impossibly dilated eyes, greedy for light.

      “Her coffee isn’t bad, either,” said Richard Lee Kravet. “And I liked the mug with the parrot handle so much that I took it with me.”

      This residential neighborhood had little traffic; at the moment, none. Tim came to a stop in the middle of the street, half a block from Pete Santo’s house.

      The killer had gotten Tim’s name from someone other than Rooney. How he had obtained the unlisted cell-phone number was a mystery.

      Although she couldn’t hear the killer, Linda clearly knew who had called.

      “I’m back on track, Tim, no thanks to you. I’ve been given another picture of her, to replace the one you kept.”

      Linda picked up the printout of Kravet’s driver’s license and held it to the window, studying his face in the glow of a nearby streetlamp.

      “Before the coup de grâce,” said Kravet, “I’m supposed to rape her. She looks sweet. Is that why you sent me away with half my money? Did you see this skank’s picture, want to rape her yourself?”

      “This is over,” Tim said. “You can’t put it together again.”

      “What—you’ll never go home, she’ll never go home, you’ll both run forever?”

      “We’re going to the police.”

      “I have no problem with that, Tim. You should go to the police at once. It’s the responsible thing to do.”

      Tim considered saying I know you’re a cop, I saw you drive away from the tavern, now I know your name, but revealing this knowledge to Kravet would diminish its value.

      “Why are you doing this, Tim? What is she to you?”

      “I admire her sangfroid.”

      “Don’t be silly now.”

      “It’s a French word.”

      “Spend the night with her if you want. Do her a couple of times. Enjoy yourself. Then drop her off at her place in the morning. I’ll take it from there, and I’ll forget you ever interfered.”

      “I’ll consider your suggestion.”

      “You better do more than that, Tim. You better make a deal with me, and convince me you mean it. Because I’m still coming, you know.”

      “Have fun combing through the haystack.”

      “The haystack isn’t as large as you think, Tim. And you’re a lot bigger than a needle. I’ll find you soon. Sooner than you can imagine—and then no deal is possible.”

      Kravet terminated the call.

      At once, Tim pressed *69, but Kravet’s cell was shielded against a call-back.

      Ahead, a car ran the stop sign, roared through the intersection. As it bounced through a drainage swale, its headlights swept up across the Explorer’s windshield, then down.

      Tim shifted his foot from brake to accelerator, and swung away from the