“Special, yes. Not dead. Or so I think. But they’re marked, aren’t they? With a cross by each, which means what?”
“Marked to die? Next up?”
“Yes, no, I don’t know, except it scares me. Look.”
Her name, up front, had a red ink circle around it, plus the crucifix.
“Book of the Dead, plus a list of the soon possibly dead?”
“Holding it, how does that book feel to you?”
“Cold,” I said. “Awfully cold.”
The rain beat on the roof.
“Who would do a thing like this to you, Constance? Name a few.”
“Hell, ten thousand.” She paused to add sums. “Would you believe nine hundred? Give or take a dozen.”
“My God, that’s too many suspects.”
“Spread over thirty years? Sparse.”
“Sparse!” I cried.
“They stood in lines on the beach.”
“You didn’t have to ask them in!”
“When they all shouted Rattigan!?”
“You didn’t have to listen.”
“What is this, a Baptist revival?”
“Sorry.”
“Well.” She took the last swig in the bottle and winced. “Will you help find this son of a bitch, or two sons of bitches, if the Books of the Dead were sent by separate creeps?”
“I’m no detective, Constance.”
“How come I remember you half-drowned in the canal with that psycho Shrank?”
“Well …”
“How come I saw you up on Notre Dame at Fenix Studios with the Hunchback? Please help Mama.”
“Let me sleep on it.”
“No sleep tonight. Hug these old bones. Now …”
She stood up with the two Books of the Dead and walked across the room to open the door on black rain and the surf eating the shore, and aimed the books. “Wait!” I cried. “If I’m going to help, I’ll need those!”
“Atta boy.” She shut the door. “Bed and hugs? But no phys ed.”
“I wasn’t planning, Constance,” I said.
Chapter Three