After Death(97)
Royce isn’t interested in either science fiction or science. He’s not interested in much of anything other than his girlfriends and housekeeping; he doesn’t care what’s cool in movies or music or art or fashion, and he has no politics. People say there will be robots everywhere one day, but he’s sure that is at least a decade from now. So, aliens. A lot of people seem to be fascinated with UFOs, but Royce isn’t. He couldn’t care less about aliens. Whatever extraterrestrial females are like, they won’t be hot in any way that’s likely to get his sap rising. Earth girls are enough for him.
He wishes the robots hadn’t so unnerved him. He can’t go back and fill the grave now. That’s like asking to be caught.
Although he panicked and although Lenore will now be found sooner than later, he is confident that no one can connect her to him. One of the benefits of his style of romance is that no one ever sees him in public with any of his ladies. He abandoned the shovel and pick, but he bought them for cash at a yard sale years earlier. The tools can’t be traced to him, and he always wears gloves when handling them. As for Lenore, subsequent to breaking up with her, he submerged her lovely body in a special chemical bath and took other steps to ensure that no trace of his DNA can be found on or in her. Proper handling of an ex-girlfriend is a housekeeping chore more crucial than any other. After fleeing the robots—how crazy that sounds!—he drove several miles to another lonely place, where he used a powerful handheld vacuum to go over the interior of his Lexus SUV. He purchased the vehicle months after he’d abducted Lenore, and she’d been in it only once, after her body was sealed in plastic sheeting; however, just in case one hair of hers somehow found its way into the vehicle, an hour of vacuuming was the right thing to do. He stopped at a public park to throw the hand vac in a trash can. He drove the SUV through an automatic car wash that was open around the clock—and then drove it through again.
The Prozac, the tea, the cookies, and his singular housekeeping habits give him confidence that all will be well. After a few days of rest, he will start scouting for his next girlfriend. He needs between two and four months, on average, to find a new companion, research her routines, plan the acquisition of her, bring her home unseen, and teach her how to be happy and fulfilled by making him happy. It is an arduous process—but fun!—and rewarding when she’s at last in place and trained.
Dawn paints reefs of gold and coral pink across the sky as Royce finishes washing and drying the teapot. No longer shaken by the surreal events of the night, pleased to be moving into a new phase of his life, with the robots merely a curiosity to be wondered about in years to come, he makes his way along the downstairs hall to the foyer, exhausted and ready to go upstairs to bed, when the chimes announce a visitor.
At one of the sidelights flanking the front door, a man in a uniform peers into the foyer. A policeman. For a moment, Royce can’t draw a breath. The policeman smiles and nods and raises one hand as if to say, Hi, there. Because it is impossible that a link exists between Royce and Lenore in the open grave, the policeman’s warm smile is surely genuine, his purpose benign. Royce opens the door.
Two officers, not just one, step inside, and the second isn’t smiling. He says, “Royce Kinnel?” Royce moves to quell any suspicion they have by being respectful, polite, relaxed, and puzzled rather than either fearful or angry. Nevertheless, the smiling policeman presents him with a search warrant, announces that they will be impounding the Lexus, and informs Royce that he is under arrest.
Royce cheated his way through private schools and college, and not one teacher ever tumbled to his scams and plagiarisms because he manipulated them into seeing him as an earnest and dedicated—though not exceptional—student. In much the same way, he has manipulated his girls to believe that he is a deeply troubled but not violent man who will eventually free them if they do all that he desires, even if some of it is disgusting or even painful. He is tall and handsome, has a firm handshake and always makes eye contact and has white teeth and is well-mannered, and he comes from a family of some prominence. That is all he has needed to skate in the past, and he believes it is all he needs now, if he just remains calm.
The unsmiling officer produces an unusual eight-by-ten photo. Everything captured by the camera is in eerie shades of green and gradations of black. The perspective is from a low angle. A spade stands with its point buried in the earth. A man looms. Cradled in his arms is a woman. The night was too dark for anyone to have seen his face. But in this green version of events, Royce Kinnel has no difficulty recognizing himself.
As the smiling officer says something about an attorney and a right to remain silent, Royce hears footsteps behind him and turns to see that two more policemen have entered the hallway from the back of the house.
The insistently glum officer returns the photograph to a manila envelope and refers to an anonymous informant in the company that provides navigation service to the Lexus. Royce has long enjoyed the convenience of GPS navigation, but he hasn’t realized that a record exists of everywhere he has gone. He’s not into all this tech stuff. It’s boring. He doesn’t have time for it, what with his domestic chores and his uniquely vigorous love life. Even if he’d known about such a record, he’d have done nothing different. He’s been careful, so very careful, to make sure no one ever sees him with one of his girlfriends, because if no one sees them with him, it doesn’t matter where he goes in his vehicle; there’s nothing to connect him to the poor dears. Until the alien robots. And how surreal is that? Now Officer Always Scowling informs him that GPS records of his previous vehicles are archived and will be subpoenaed.