SURVIVAL INSTINCT

CHAPTER: 3

The rest of the second floor looked pretty much like the first room, with shredded wallpaper and cracking plaster, scraped and disfigured wooden floors, and chunks missing from the ceilings where water had seeped in. As Ryan walked from room to room taking it all in, his face was quite impassive, Sarah stole a glance at him, wondering what he was doing here.

It was all right, she knew very well that just because a guy was a bit of a rowdy in high school, that does not mean that he could not have straightened himself out by 30 yrs or so. People do it all the time. He might have a good job and a stock portfolio and be able to qualify for a quarter-million-dollar loan without any problem. Anything was possible. Unlikely, but surely possible.

"You know," Sarah said casually, "I did not ask, what you do?"

Ryan glanced at her, while he was in the act of opening another door. "Do?" he asked.

"I mean, for a living?" Sarah repeated.

"Oh." He shrugged. "This and that."

He turned back to the door. Sarah nodded gravely. This and that? What did that mean, she wondered?

Eventually, they landed up to the third-floor ballroom, where she stood at the top of the stairs admiring the dust speck dancing in the streaks of sunlight while Ryan prowled and peered into closets and dark corners.

"Are you looking for something in particular," Sarah asked him finally. 

He shot her a look over his shoulder. "Why?"

"I thought maybe I could help. If you are checking for dry-rot or something," Sarah said.

"Oh. No. I am not looking for anything special," he replied.

He turned away, to contemplate a picture of a black Baby Jesus forgotten on the wall behind the door. Sarah left him to it. If he was looking for something in particular, he obviously was not going to tell her what it was, and whatever he had been searching, he did not find it, because he was still empty-handed and silent when they went back down the stairs.

"Just the first floor left," Sarah said brightly when they stood in the downstairs hall again. "Parlors, sitting rooms, dining rooms, and other formal rooms. Ready?" she asked.

Ryan nodded, unmoved. She headed off down the hallway with him right behind.

The first room they entered was empty. It was a formal parlor or sitting room, with faded, peeling wallpaper sporting big, red roses and a rather nice fireplace on one wall. The moth-eaten drapes were closed, leaving the room in semi-darkness, and while Sarah walked over to the window to pull them aside, Ryan went directly to the adjoining door and into the next room. And stopped in the doorway, as quickly and completely as if he had walked into an invisible wall. Sarah took one look at him, at the tense muscles and somehow poor posture, and moved to join him.

Sarah thought she knew before she got there what she would see. Although if she had known how bad it was going to be, she would have stayed where she was.)  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she must have recognized that metallic scent of blood; plus it just was not like Diana Walter not to show up for an appointment. Diana prided herself on her punctuality, and always made sure she was early, so she could sit with one plump leg crossed over the other, and one plump foot swinging when her client or colleague came wandering in on time.

This time she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was lying on her back in front of the fireplace, in a pool of blood. Her plump little hands were stretched on her sides, and her black skirt was twisted around her heavy hips, exposing fat, dimpled thighs. Her eyes were open, staring right up at the ceiling, a surprised look on her face, and across her throat was a gaping wound. And that was all Sarah could see, because the room started spinning very fast, and everything went dark, while small glowing specks danced in front of her eyes. From very far away, she could hear a voice saying, "Sarah...Sarah! Oh, s**t!" She felt an arm curling around her waist, pulling her close to a hard, masculine body, and then she completely fainted.

She regained consciousness as she was unceremoniously dumped on the front porch. A strong hand pushed her head down between her knees and that same voice said, in a disapproving manner, "Keep your head down. I will be back."

His steps retreated into the house. Sarah concentrated on breathing slowly in and out, while she was clenching her stomach against nausea rising in her chest. She felt as if she was sitting there forever, while the world spun and Diana's dead body floated before her eyes, but she thought that it could not have been more than a couple of minutes before Ryan sat down next to her, with a dripping wad of paper tissues and a searching glance. "Are you all right?" he asked Sarah.

She nodded shakily, wiping her face with the cool and wet tissues. "I think so, thanks. What...?"

He interrupted her by saying, " Think maybe you ought to call them?"

"What?" Oh, the police, you mean! God, yes!" She fumbled in her handbag for her cell phone. Ryan watched her hands shake, but he did not offer to help. After a few seconds, she managed to pull the phone out and turn it on, but she could not keep her fingers steady enough to punch in the numbers. "Here. You do it," she asked Ryan.

She handed him the phone and listened while he dialed 911 and gave a short, brusque account of what had happened. "They are on their way," he informed Sarah while returning her phone. 

She dropped it into her purse without looking. Her voice shook. "You know, when you called and told me she was not here, I thought she had not managed her appointment well. I thought she had probably forgotten about you, and that I could take advantage of it to pull one over on her. I had also imagined the look on her face, and I reveled in my success. While all the time she was lying here...!"

Sarah buried her face in her hands. She would not have turned her nose up at a comforting pat on the back or a few kind words, or even a polite hug, but Ryan did not comply. She sniffed a few times and looked over at him. His face was remote, like a statue, and his eyes were fixed in the distance. "You are remarkably cold about the whole thing, I must say," Sarah added spitefully. "From the way you are behaving, one might think you saw dead bodies very often."

He glanced at her but did not answer.

"Didn't it bother you?" Sarah persisted. "Seeing her like that?"

"I did not know her," Ryan answered.

"She was a human being!" Granted Sarah had not always remembered that herself, in her dislike of her, but it did not seem right that he should be so unemotional or detached about her death, her murder, to put it correctly. "And nobody deserves to die like that. Alone and scared..."

Ryan turned towards her, and she recoiled. His eyes were black as pitch and about as friendly. She had to work to keep her voice steady. "I will just...um...sit here quietly while we wait. Okay?" she said.

She turned away and contemplated the as-yet empty driveway. After a few seconds, Ryan stood up and walked off in the other direction. A moment later, she heard a creak when he sat down in the porch swing.

They were still in the same position ten minutes later, when the ambulance came roaring up  Massachusetts Avenue, with sirens screaming and lights flashing. It entered the circular driveway with a spurt of dust. Hard on its heels was a police car, also flashing lights and sirens. She got up, a little shakily, to greet the incoming horde, while Ryan continued to lounge in the swing.

"Miss Miller?" the first of the cop said. He was around forty-five or fifty, with graying hair. I am Officer Shawn. This is my partner, Officer Turner."

Turner was younger, no more than twenty-two, and in deference to the occasion, had taken off his uniform cap. "Maam," he said politely as if Sarah were seventy years old instead of twenty-seven.

One of the paramedics, a girl with a nose ring and bubblegum in her mouth, came up to stand next to him. "Where is the diseased?"

Sarah opened her mouth to explain the difference between the diseased, and deceased, but Ryan intercepted her. "I will show you." He led the way into the house with the girl and her colleague, a young boy, right behind. Officer Turner joined them while she turned back to Officer Shawn.

"They are just kids!" Sarah said

"It is their job," Officer Shawn said, interpreting her remark, and the feelings behind it, correctly. "They have seen more of it than you." He waited for a second before adding, a little maliciously, "And they may not look as fresh when they come back out. Bad, is it?"

Sarah nodded. "Her throat is cut. There is blood everywhere."

Officer Shawn said, "I should better go make sure those keen and enthusiastic people don't go messing around with anything. You don't go anywhere." He walked into the house.

Sarah stayed where she was. After a few minutes, Officer Turner returned outside, looking pale and clammy, and took a walk in the garden. He might have been looking for evidence. 

At about the same time, Ryan came back and sat down on the porch swing without a word. It was apparent that he had no queasy feelings, there. Time passed. A few plain-clothes police officers showed up, and finally, Officer Shawn came back. "I have been told to bring you downtown," he said. "We are going to take your fingerprints, and you will need to make a formal statement. Let's go."

"My car..." Sarah began.

"It will be safe here till we get back. This place will be crawling with cops before long." He called out for Officer Turner. 

Ryan, whose bike was worth at least as much as her orange Ford-Mustang, didn't say a word.