Drawn Into Darkness(71)

That was a mistake, my letting him know what I wanted. Deep in his scrawny chest he chuckled. Then he ordered, “Clean up this mess.”

Sure, whatever. I didn’t want blood drying on my bedroom floor. But I didn’t want to treat my bathroom towels like cleaning rags either. “I’ll go get paper towels from the kitchen.”

“No. Use these towels right here.”

Something in his voice warned me that I’d pushed him far enough. So I did as he said. But the irony was, as I scrubbed on hands and knees to clean his blood off the floor, my own blood ran down from my lacerated scalp to drip on all the same places.

• • •

Because State Trooper Willet had ordered him and his brother to vacate what he now knew to be the Stoat premises, Quinn tried calling the Maypop Borough Police instead, and lucked out. The officer assigned to the Clymer/Leppo case had shown up for work. “I was just about to return your call, Mr. Leppo.”

Sure you were, Quinn thought, but he kept acid out of his voice as he briefed the officer, telling him only that they had found their mother’s purse at a neighbor’s house and the man’s name was Steven Stoat; was he known to the police?

“Steven Stoat, huh? Doesn’t ring any bells, but let me bring him up on the computer. Hold on just a minute.”

“He’s running Stoat for us,” Quinn whispered to Forrest. Some people liked to say yes and some people liked to say no; this cop seemed to be one of the former, happy to help.

Back on the line a moment later, the man sounded disappointed to report, “He’s clean.”

“No criminal history at all?” Quinn’s voice shot up.

“Two speeding tickets and one DUI years ago. Nothing to flag him as a violent offender. Perhaps he and your mother simply went somewhere together.”

“Leaving a dead dog on her living room carpet?”

“Well, that could be an unconnected incident.”

What were the chances? With clenched teeth Quinn said, “It looks as if my mother might have been held here against her will.”

“What makes you think that?”

“A bed with bloody handcuffs.”

“I see.” The police officer’s voice rippled with innuendo.

“No, you don’t see! It’s a bare bed and the handcuffs are neither pink nor fuzzy! If you—”

“There’s no need to shout, Mr. Leppo. I will be glad to put out a BOLO on Stoat as a person of interest in your mother’s case.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

Concluding the call, Quinn looked at Forrest silently standing by in the messed-up bedroom. “Now what?”

“More of the same, I guess. Try the Sheriff’s Office.”

Quinn did so, to find that the deputy assigned to his mother’s case was still unavailable. But on impulse he asked whether he could speak with Deputy Morales. A few moments later, Morales came on the phone sounding like an old family friend. “Quinn! How are you and Forrest? Did you sleep?”

“Some. Listen, Deputy, I know this isn’t your case, but—”

“Please, call me Bernie. I am glad to hear from you. What is going on?”

So Quinn told him about the barricaded bathroom window and the weird bare bed with shackles and the sex toys and finding the key to the gun cabinet in a dildo. At this point, much to his own embarrassment Quinn suffered a jag of the giggles. He had already realized his need to talk was emotionally driven, but he hadn’t realized he was cracking up. The only way to stop giggling was to cry. Damn everything. With tears burning at his eyes, he put the cell phone on speaker and passed it to Forrest. Then he folded to a seat on the bedroom’s clothing-strewn floor, putting his arms around his legs and his head on his knees.

He could hear Bernie Morales saying, “It sounds like not very nice sex kinks. You found out who is this man?”

Forrest told him, “Steven Stoat.”

“Stoat! I know Stoat. Pineapple face, cave chest, goat beard, big mouth like he eats the hot dog sideways, ugly like someone hit him in the face with a sack of nickels . . . no wonder he never got married.”

Forrest asked, “How come you know him if he has no criminal history?”

“Oh, Stoat, everybody knows him. Kind of creepy, compulsive. At the Stoat family reunion   he lines up the folding chairs with a ruler, all straight and the same distance apart. I pity the nephew who lives with him.”

Quinn suddenly recovered. Forget the nephew; his thoughts were all for his mother. He raised his head and, loud enough for Bernie to hear him, he exclaimed, “It sounds like he must be the one who rearranged Mom’s stuff!” Furniture lined up, crockery marching single file down the middle of the table.