The newsman held up a plastic vial like the one that had contained a rolled slip of paper with the Justice Killer’s signature red J on it that was tossed from the shooter’s car.

Dudman had dropped instantly. The bodyguard said he at first thought his boss had simply tripped. He’d hurried to help him up, but Dudman didn’t respond. By the time the bodyguard noticed the blood on his hand, and on Dudman, the traffic had moved on. The bodyguard pushed the unconscious Dudman into the limo and instructed the driver to speed to the nearest hospital. Dudman was dead on arrival. None of the stunned witnesses could offer any description of any particular vehicle that was passing at the time of the shot.

The building’s uniformed doorman was being interviewed now by another newscaster, a blond woman who seemed overly concerned with what the breeze was doing with her hair.

Gina continued her route to the kitchen and stood in the doorway until her mother, salting something in a large skillet, noticed her.

“Mom…”

In the living room, both of them stood staring at the TV, crying silently as the story continued to unfold on the screen.

Gina wasn’t sure what exactly was going on in her mother’s mind, but she knew what she was thinking. She was glad Dudman was dead—satisfied, actually—but it was Bradley Aimes who’d killed Genelle. Bradley Aimes who, even more than Dudman, deserved death.

As these thoughts took form in her mind, Gina was somewhat disturbed by the fact that Dudman’s death seemed to have whetted her appetite. For death? For vengeance?

For justice!

That the notion had come unbidden made it seem all the more natural, all the more logical. Yes, Aimes deserved to die for what he did to Genelle. His death would be justice. It would be right.

What didn’t seem right was that someone else, not Gina, had killed Dudman and at least partially avenged Genelle’s death. Executing Dudman had been Gina’s responsibility, but she’d let Genelle down. Failed her. What didn’t seem right was that her gun was in her bedroom, in her purse, in a bureau drawer, unfired except for target practice. It lay unused, cold, heavy, forged for a destiny not yet fulfilled. Her gun.

“Gina,” her mother said beside her, “I’m going to phone your father.”

Her gun…

46

“Dudman was a major player in this town,” da Vinci said to Beam. They were in da Vinci’s office. The blinds were closed and a couple of lamps were on. The atmosphere was almost cozy. Da Vinci had carefully returned the chair the commissioner had sat in to its original location, matching its legs with the depressions in the carpet. Beam sat in the chair now, and in his own way he was as intimidating as the commissioner. Those damned, flat blue eyes. Da Vinci was increasingly fighting the feeling that he was losing control of the investigation. “That’s why I gave you all those uniforms to canvass the neighborhood where Dudman was shot.”

“They’re hard at work,” Beam said. “Nell and Looper are correlating the information.”

“They in charge?”

“In the case of Dudman, right now, yes.”

“You should be in charge and up front,” da Vinci said. “Instead you come here and want to talk. It better be important, because Carl Dudman sure was.”

“It’s because Dudman was important that I’m here. We both know his murder was pretty much a simple and clean operation done by a pro.”

“We thought before that the Justice Killer might be a pro,” da Vinci said. But he seemed interested now. Beam had something in mind.

“And a pro would find it easy to obtain all the information he needed on a rich and semi-famous target like Dudman,” Beam said. “Once he’d done that, all the security in the world wouldn’t have made much difference.”

“You’re saying our killer is a real pro—a hit man, or maybe ex-Special Forces or Delta Force.”

“Maybe. But it’s the victims I think we should be concentrating on now, and not the ones like Dudman. More like Manfred Byrd.”

“The decorator? There are thousands of them in this town. It’s not as if he had his own TV show or wrote a book on how to decorate on a dime. He was a nobody except for the Draco case.”

“Which occurred almost ten years ago. Even Byrd had pretty much put it out of his mind. His friends and acquaintances said he never mentioned it. He wasn’t like Dudman. To find out about Byrd, the killer had to dig deeper. Unlike with Dudman, for instance, he’d have to find Byrd. Simply locating him wouldn’t be all that simple. Then what? Is he married?”

“Hardly,” da Vinci said.

“The killer wouldn’t have known. And he wouldn’t have known what Byrd did for a living, where he did his shopping, drank, dated. Did he go to movies? What kind? Was he an early riser? Maybe a jogger? How old was he? When was his birthday? What was his credit rating? Did he have a car? Did he take cabs or subways or both? Did he drink to excess? Do drugs? Have a steady lover? Own a gun? Use the library? The Internet? Have a safety deposit box? All the kinds of things a pro would want to know in order to have a full picture.”

“All or most of it, easy enough to find out,” da Vinci said.

“Much easier with Dudman than with Byrd, because Byrd required more digging into public records. Court records, deeds, newspaper items, credit records.”

“We talked about this,” da Vinci reminded Beam. “We start digging to find out who’s seen people’s personal records, medical, the kinds of books they read, their Internet habits, employment history, what have you, and the civil libertarians are all over our asses.”

“That isn’t going to change,” Beam said. “What is legal is to set up surveillance cameras in or outside libraries, newspaper morgues, courthouses, wherever public records are stored. We might just capture an image, then be able to capture the real thing.”

Da Vinci sat back in his desk chair, thinking about it. He rubbed his chin as he’d seen the commissioner do. “It’d sure as hell save department hours. Manpower. Womanpower.”

“It’d be legal, too,” Beam said. “People can’t claim the expectation of privacy in public places. I don’t think the ACLU would object.”

“Some of those places already have taping systems. Part of Homeland Security.”

“True,” Beam said, “but I’m talking about even more cameras, more angles, more coverage. I’d rather have cops poring over those kinds of tapes, trying to spot something to grab onto, than using their time covering ground we know from experience with this killer probably isn’t going to give us anything.”

Da Vinci was quiet, pondering, then he sat forward and grinned widely. “Okay. Makes sense. I’ll see that more cameras are installed wherever pubic records are kept. We got people who can sit and view security tapes, maybe spot somebody doing nothing suspicious, but doing it where the records of more than one victim were stored. That kinda thing.” In the still, warm office, he rubbed his hands together as if he were cold and trying to warm up. “This is the sorta suggestion I expected you to come up with, Beam. I’ll notify the chief what we have in mind; I’m sure he’ll approve it.”

“Tell him it’s your idea, if you want,” Beam said. “I’m retired anyway, or will be again soon, I hope.”

Da Vinci flashed his Tony Curtis grin. “That’s awful generous of you, Beam.”

“I don’t mind seeing you get ahead.”

Da Vinci understood. “We’re the same kind of cop. That’s why I brought you back for this investigation.”

“That’s why I came back,” Beam said. “That, and I was having trouble being someone I wasn’t.”

Da Vinci stood up behind his desk. Busy man. Lots to do. “Anything else, Beam?”