“Where are we going?” she asked the major, who had insisted they ride with him, not follow in Carl’s car, as Carl had suggested. “I know you said Saint Mary’s City, but where exactly?”

“Just outside of town.”

“And this woman-what does she know?”

“She may have seen our guy. That’s a pretty significant break.”

“Recently?”

“No. Been almost two years ago. But she’s pretty sure she saw him.”

“You forget.” She leaned forward, so her head was even with Major Shields, who sat in the passenger seat while Sergeant Craig drove. “Carl has seen him too. He interviewed him. So what’s the big deal?”

“Oh, I think this could be a very big deal,” Major Shields said. “Don’t you, Carl?”

Why did he keep addressing Carl, who was slumped in the backseat, arms folded across his chest? The major had never struck her as sexist before, but he was suddenly acting as if Tess didn’t even exist.

“Why?” she persisted. “Why would it be significant?”

The major took so long to respond that she wondered if he had heard her at all. Men, in her experience, often retreated so far into their own worlds that some voices-women’s voices in particular, it occurred to her now-reached them as if on a delay. Even Crow, whom Whitney had once dubbed the perfect postmodern boyfriend, could become absentminded and dreamy, until she had to tug on his sleeve and bring him back to earth.

For some reason, this made her think about Dr. Armistead. As much as he irritated her, he always listened. He wasn’t always good on the nuances, but he at least heard every word. Maybe that’s what it took to get a man to listen to every word you said: $150 an hour.

Even as Tess reached a hand toward Major Shields’s shoulder to jolt him into response, she was thinking again about the man they sought. He listened. Oh, how he listened. From the moment he arrived in a woman’s life, he was the most attentive and solicitous of men. He listened because he was gathering information, preparing for the day he would betray the trust of these young, naive women. Because he was the perfect man, the perfect boyfriend. He listened because he was less likely to betray his own complicated history if he didn’t talk about himself.

“It’s up ahead and down to the left,” the major said. He turned his head to face them, seemingly unfazed by the fact that Tess was so close to him, hovering near his ear.

“Let’s go,” he said as Sergeant Craig rolled to a stop and put the patrol car in park.

“What, are you a Wild Bunch fan, too?”

“Never saw it.”

“You should,” Carl said. Tess realized it was the first time he had spoken since they had merged onto the Baltimore beltway two hours earlier. “It’s only one of the best movies ever made.”

“But it’s all the usual outlaw shit, right?” Major Shields’s easygoing drawl had taken on a new hard edge. “I don’t get those movies where the good guys are obsessed with the bad guys, as if they’re locked in some sort of immortal relationship. When you’re an officer of the law, you lock up the bad guys and move on. It’s not personal. It’s not about individual glory or vendettas. It’s a job, and you conduct yourself like a professional.”

His eyes flicked at Carl, quick as the blue-yellow flame from a cigarette lighter, and moved away.

“In fact, let me show you how it’s done.”

CHAPTER 25

The apartment complex was newish, a place with mild aspirations to class that began with the name-Dove’s Landing-and ended at the front door. Once inside, the common areas were extremely common. Tess noticed that the carpet was dingy and a smell of ammonia lingered in the air.

“She’s in 301,” Major Shields said, beginning the climb to the top floor. Carl fell back. Tess glanced over her shoulder to see if his knee was troubling him, but he was simply moving with extraordinary care, as if he had no desire to reach the top.

The woman who answered the door to 301 wore an orange smock with a name tag, MARY ANN. Petite, with a face at once fine and coarse, foxlike. Much of it was hidden, however, by an extraordinary mane of dark curly hair styled in the feathery blown-dry wings of the late 1970s. The girl could not have been alive when this haircut was first popular, Tess thought. Tess herself had been barely alive, a grade-schooler who had yearned for such big hair, if only because her mother kept hers barbershop short.

“Miss Melcher?” Major Shields asked.

“Uh-huh,” she said, showing them in. The apartment was neat but not quite clean. The carpet crunched beneath their feet. The framed posters, which ran to large-eyed kitty cats, were dusty and streaked. A cat was clearly on the premises as well, for Tess picked up the telltale odor of a litter pan that needed to be emptied.

Their hostess settled in a small rocker, while Major Shields and Sergeant Craig took the sofa, an overstuffed monstrosity of white cotton, its side shredded by the phantom cat. Tess took the only other chair in the room, while Carl was left standing.

“The cheese stands alone, huh?” said Major Shields, sliding over and patting a spot next to him on the sofa. “Have a sit, buddy.”

“That’s okay,” Carl said, pulling a chair in from the dining alcove and setting it up at the edge of their circle, as close to the door as possible.

Mary Ann looked nervous. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap, her head seemed to wobble a bit on her neck. Maybe it was the weight of all that hair, Tess thought. Then she did a mental double take.

That hair. That smock. Mary Ann Melcher was the living prototype of the killer’s victims. Were they going to save someone’s life? Had they actually arrived in the nick of time, like the cavalry in some old Western?

Major Shields said, “Mary Ann, I’d like you to tell these folks what you told me yesterday, when you called our tip line.”

She glanced nervously at Carl, then back at the major, who nodded his encouragement.

“I work at the Wawa? Going on three years?” She kept looking over at the major, as if he knew her life story better than she did. “About two years ago, a gentleman started stopping by there regular. He would buy a fountain soda and he would mix the Cherry Coke with the Diet Coke. He said it was the best combination-sweet, but not as many calories, and it tasted like the sodas you got at a real fountain? The other girls figured out he liked me before I did.”

“What was his name, Miss Melcher?”

“Charlie. Charlie Chisholm. Like the trail, he’d say, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. Later, he explained. Something about the West and cows. I don’t know.”

“Did you and Charlie”-the major had a delicacy, almost a tenderness, in the way he addressed the young woman-“did you have a relationship?”

“Not at first. He took a real interest in me. I was having problems with my roommate-”

“What kind of problems?” This was Carl, and his voice was as sharp as the major’s had been soft. Something sullen crept into Mary Ann’s face, as if she had heard this tone too many times in her life, had known a few too many bossy bosses.

“She was a little wild. Ran around with jerks. Which was her private business, but I had to put up with ‘em too, and they weren’t my boyfriends. Although some wanted to be. If she only knew-”

“Miss Melcher.” The major’s prodding tone continued soft. “About Charlie Chisholm.”

She tossed her head. Tess wanted to tell her the effect wasn’t as coquettish as she thought.

“He helped me get this place. Lent me money so I would have enough for the deposit, showed me how to get credit. All you have to do is get a little gas card and pay on it regular, he says, and bit by bit you can get everything you need. He also told me I should enroll at the community college, start taking courses so I could do something other than retail.” She smiled at the memory. “He called my job retail. Or the service industry. I liked that.”