“I told you. I hurt his boyfriend,” I said, which sounded very weak, even to me.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Coulter said. “The guy that disappeared. You still don’t know where he went, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“You don’t,” he said, cocking his head. “Because that wasn’t him in the bathtub. And it wasn’t you standing over him with a saw.”
“No, of course not.”
“But this guy maybe thinks it was, ’cuz it looks like you,” he said, “so he took your wife. Kind of a trade thing, right?”
“Detective, I don’t know where the boyfriend is, really,” I said. And it was true, considering tide, current, and the habits of marine scavengers.
“Huh,” he said, and he put an expression on his face that I assumed was meant to look thoughtful. “So he just decides to, what…? Make your wife into some kind of art, right? Because …?”
“Because he’s crazy?” I said hopefully. And that was true, too, but that didn’t mean that Coulter would be impressed.
Apparently he wasn’t. “Uh-huh,” he said, looking a little dubious.
“He’
s crazy. That would make sense, right.” He nodded, like he was trying to convince himself. “Okay, so we got a crazy guy, and he’s got your wife. And so what now?” He raised his eyebrows at me with a look that said he hoped I might come up with something really helpful.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I should report this.”
“Report it,” he said, nodding his head. “Like to the police. Because last time when you didn’t do that, I spoke harshly to you on the subject.”
Intelligence is generally praised as a good thing, but I really have to admit that I had liked Coulter a lot more when I thought he was a harmless idiot. Now that I knew he was not, I was caught between the urge to be very careful what I said to him and an equally powerful desire to break my chair over his head. But good chairs are expensive; caution won.
“Detective,” I said. “This guy has my wife. Maybe you’ve never been married—”
“Twice,” he said. “It didn’t work.”
“Well, it works for me,” I said. “I’d like to get her back in one piece.”
He stared at me for a very long moment before he finally said, “Who is this guy? I mean, you know.”
“Brandon Weiss,” I said, not sure where this was going.
“That’s just his name,” he said. “Who the fuck IS he?”
I shook my head, not truly sure what he meant, and even less sure that I wanted to tell him.
“But this is the guy that, you know. Did all those fancy dead-body displays that the governor was pissed off about?”
“I’m pretty sure he did,” I said.
He nodded and looked at his hand, and it occurred to me that there was no Mountain Dew bottle hanging from it. The poor man must have run out.
“Be a good thing to nail this guy,” he said.
“Yes, it would,” I said.
“Make all kinds of people happy,” he said. “Good for the career.”
“I suppose so,” I said, wondering if perhaps I should have hit him with the chair, after all.
Coulter clapped his hands. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go get him.”