CHAPTER 79
AROUND TEN the night we returned from California, I drove to the Hope Valley residential area of Durham. I went alone to see Casanova. Doctor Detective Cross was back in the saddle again.
There were three clues that I considered essential to solving the case. I reviewed them again as I drove. There was the simple fact that they both committed “perfect crimes.” There was the aspect of twinning, the codependence of Casanova and the Gentleman. There was the mystery of the disappearing house.
Something had to come from one, or all, of those bits of information. Maybe something was about to happen in the Hope Valley suburb of Durham. I hoped so.
I drove slowly along Old Chapel Hill Road until I reached a formal, white-brick, portal-type entrance into the upscale Hope Valley estates. I got the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to intrude beyond the gate, that just maybe I was the first black man not in workingman’s overalls to pass through here.
I knew I was taking a chance, but I had to see where Dr. Wick Sachs lived. I needed to feel things about him, needed to know him better, and in a big hurry.
The streets of Hope Valley didn’t run in straight lines. The road I was on didn’t have curbs or gutters, and there were not many streetlamps. The neighborhood was unpleasantly hilly, and as I drove I began to have the sense of being lost, of moving in a great looping circle. The houses were mostly upscale Southern Gothic, old and expensive. The notion of the killer next door had never been more powerful.
Dr. Wick Sachs lived in a stately red-brick house set back on one of the highest hills.
The shutters were painted white, matching the gutters. The house looked too expensive for a university professor, even one at Duke, the “Harvard of the South.”
The windows were all dark and looked as shiny as slate. The only lights came from a single brass carriage lamp dangling over the front door.
I already knew that Wick Sachs had a wife and two small children. His wife was a registered nurse at Duke University Hospital. The FBI had checked her credentials. She had an excellent reputation, and everyone spoke very highly of her. The Sachses’ daughter, Faye Anne, was seven; and their son, Nathan, was ten.
I figured that the FBI was probably watching me as I drove up to the Sachses’ house, but I didn’t much care. I wondered if Kyle Craig was with them… he was deeply involved in the grisly case, almost as much as I was. Kyle had also gone to Duke. Was this case personal for him, too? How personal?
My eyes very slowly ran up and down the front of the house, then along the well-tended grounds. Everything was extremely orderly, actually quite beautiful, perfect as could be.
I had already learned that human monsters can live anywhere; that some of the clever ones chose ordinary all-American-looking houses. Just like the house I was examining now. The monsters are literally everywhere. There is an epidemic running out of control in America, and the statistics are frightening. We have nearly seventy-five percent of the human hunters. Europe has almost all the rest, led by England, Germany, and Franc
e. Mass murderers are changing the face of modern homicide investigations in every American city, village, and town.
I studied everything I could about the house’s exterior. The southeast side had what was known as a “Florida room.” There was a patio, which was living-room size. The lawn was fescue, and it was extremely well kept. There was no moss, no crabgrass, no weeds.
The cobbled-brick walkway from the driveway was carefully edged, and not a single stray blade of grass peeked through the stones. The bricks of the walk perfectly matched the bricks of the house.
Perfect.
Meticulous.
As I sat in the car, my head was pounding from too much tension and stress. I kept the motor running, in case the family Sachs suddenly came home.
I knew what I wanted to do, what I had to do, what I’d been planning to do for the last few hours. I needed to break into his house. I wondered if the FBI would try to stop me, but I didn’t think they would. I believed that maybe they actually wanted me to break inside and look around. We knew very little about Dr. Wick Sachs. I still wasn’t officially involved in the Casanova manhunt, and I could try things that the others couldn’t. I was supposed to be the “loose cannon.” That was my deal with Kyle Craig.
Scootchie was out there someplace, at least I prayed that she was still alive. I hoped that all the missing women were alive. His harem. His odalisques. His collection of beautiful special women.
I shut off the motor and took a deep breath before I climbed out of the car.
I walked quickly across the springy lawn in a crouch. I remembered something that Satchel Paige used to say: “Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.” I was jangling.
Shaped boxwoods and azaleas ran along the front of the house. A child’s red bike with silver streamers on the handlebars lay on its side near the porch.
Nice, I was thinking as I hurried along. Too nice.
Casanova’s child’s bike.
Casanova’s respectable house in the suburbs.
Casanova’s fake, perfect life. His perfect disguise. His big, ugly joke on all of us. Right in the city of Durham. His middle finger extended to the world.
I carefully made my way around to the patio, which was built with white tile. It was bordered with the same brick as the house and the front walk. I noticed that creeping tendrils had invaded the red-brick walls. Maybe he wasn’t so perfect, after all.