“So what’s your advice now?” da Vinci asked, using the remote to switch off the TV just as a camera zoomed in on a demonstrator frantically waving a FREE ADELAIDE! sign.
“Sit tight,” Beam said.
“Where I’m sitting,” da Vinci said, “it’s getting tighter and tighter.” As if moved by his words, he stood up and opened the blinds. Light reclaimed the office, accompanied by harsh reality.
“The Adelaide fuss might blow over.”
“Yeah. Like a tornado.”
Beam took another tack. “We’re canvassing all the jewelry stores and custom manufacturers. The Justice Killer might have made a mistake with that ring.”
“I suspect it’s pretty much a waste of time,” da Vinci said, sitting back down behind his desk. “I think this business with the ring is just another diversion. Our killer’s too smart to have dropped such a big shiny clue into your lap unless he thought it might send you off in the wrong direction.”
“He did it because he hates me,” Beam said. “We’re getting close to him, and he knows it. It’s tight where he’s sitting, too.”
Da Vinci gave a humorless chuckle. “I talked to Helen the profiler about that. She doesn’t think he hates you. Says he hates himself, knows he’s sabotaging himself because subconsciously he yearns to be caught. It’s like a disease that grows in most serial killers, she says. The killing he’s done is beginning to haunt him.”
“What do you think?” Beam asked.
“I think she doesn’t know diddly.”
A uniformed assistant knocked, then entered the office with a tray on which was a glass coffeepot, two mugs, and a folded newspaper. A stolid, attractive woman devoid of makeup, she placed the tray near the motorcycle sculpture on the desk. Her unblinking eyes, the stiffness of her cheeks, suggested she wasn’t crazy about this part of her job.
Da Vinci absently thanked her as she left and closed the door behind her. The inner sanctum was sealed and inviolate again.
Da Vinci laid the folded Post on his desk where Beam could reach it, then began pouring coffee into the mugs. Both men were prepared to drink their coffee black, which was fortunate, because there was no cream or sugar on the tray. Was their absence an expression of disdain from the annoyed assistant? Another rebellious woman in da Vinci’s world?
“You seen the papers yet this morning?” da Vinci asked, as he poured.
Beam said he hadn’t, then reached for the folded paper, as he was sure da Vinci intended.
“Page five,” da Vinci said.
“I know,” Beam said. “I see the teaser on the front page.” He drew his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on.
On page five of the paper there was a transcript of an exclusive interview with Melanie Taylor.
As Beam scanned it, da Vinci said, “She’s changed her mind. Now she thinks Cold Cat killed his wife.”
“I can believe it,” Beam said, “but why was she dumb enough to say it?”
“You read between the lines, you can tell some asshole journalist conned her. She probably thought she was talking off the record, maybe not to a journalist at all.”
“Still, she said it. She must not have realized what it meant. Maybe she doesn’t yet. Though when she sees this she’s gonna be mad as hell.”
Da Vinci handed Beam his coffee. Beam accepted it with one hand, tossing the Post back on the desk with the other.
“Somebody else who’s gonna be mad is the Justice Killer,” da Vinci said. “He figures to go after her. Helen says its almost a cinch Melanie will be next. I have to concur.”
“We’ve got to give Melanie protection.”
“She’s already got it, even though she might not have read the paper yet and know she needs it.” Da Vinci sipped his coffee and made a face, as if he’d encountered something unexpectedly distasteful.
It made Beam hesitant to try his coffee.
“We’ve got Melanie’s apartment staked out and there’ll be a tail on her,” da Vinci continued. “We don’t have unlimited resources, so it takes some police presence away from Cold Cat. Seems the move to make, though, since Melanie all but painted a target on her ass. But I’ve gotta tell you, if the Justice Killer could get to Dudman, with all his high-priced professional security, I’ve gotta bet on him to nail this airhead Melanie.”
“Helen the profiler quote you any odds on that?” Beam asked, thinking da Vinci and Helen seemed to have been discussing things together a lot lately.
Da Vinci nodded. “She said it was about ninety percent he’d make the kill.”
“You, I, and the profiler agree,” Beam said. “What’s the world coming to?”
“You don’t want me to answer that,” da Vinci said.
Beam forgot and sampled his coffee. It was bitter.
Melanie wasn’t going in to work this morning. She simply couldn’t. It was as if the throngs of people on the streets, the commuters packed into the subway, and her colleagues at work would all know, would somehow be able to see it on her like a telltale external bruise. The callousness of Richard’s—Cold Cat’s—continued refusal even to speak to her was like a slap in the face that wouldn’t stop stinging.
Her bedroom smelled stale, and the sheet and pillow beneath her were damp with perspiration. Sleep had been impossible except in short stretches. She kept coming awake with her mind awhirl in a tempest of worries. Concerns that didn’t seem so important in the morning light, but in her dark bedroom had seemed of crisis proportions. It was her loneliness turning mean on her, as it sometimes did in unguarded moments. Or possibly the sugar in that milkshake last night before bedtime had given her an energy surge that prevented sleep. And of course there was caffeine in chocolate.
She raised her head, prompting a stab of pain behind her eyes—the sugar again. The red numerals on her bedside clock read 8:02.
After finally dozing off around 6 a.m., she’d overslept and would have been late for work even if she were planning on going in.
It wasn’t too late to call in sick, though.
She rolled onto her side and reached for the phone, then pecked out the familiar number of Regal Trucking. Waited while the phone rang on the other end of the connection.
A recording. Voice mail. Past eight o’clock and no one was in the office yet, readying the trucks for the day’s run. Melanie was annoyed, then she almost smiled. They could hardly criticize her for being sick.
She left a brief message, unconsciously making her voice husky, as if her throat were sore, then hung up.
She replaced the receiver, then lay back and closed her eyes.
Opened them.
Now she was wide awake. She reached over for the remote, then plumped up her pillow and switched on the TV near the foot of the bed.
She was astounded to see herself exiting the diner on First Avenue where she’d had dinner last night.
She sat straight up in bed. The volume was set on mute, and she was too stunned to change it.
Print began to scroll over the frozen image on the screen. Print within quotation marks. Familiar words.
Her words.
Her eye blurred with tears so she could no longer read them. Didn’t want to read them.
Who…? How…?
That bastard!
He must have been wired, recording our conversation I assumed was casual and private. A journalist! Goddamned sneaky, lying journalist, taking advantage of my distress. Another man deceiving me, using me.
Melanie hurled the remote at the TV and missed, but the impact when it bounced off the wall caused the volume to come on full blast. The bedroom vibrated under high-decibel assault.
Melanie placed her palms over her ears, as if to warm them, pressing hard enough that her head felt squeezed in a vise. She scrunched her eyes shut against the pain.
She felt like screaming.
She thought she might actually scream.