"You're not doing that now," Alan says. "How'd you come to be here?"
"Time does one thing, Agent Washington. It keeps on going. The world moves on. You get changed by that, whether you want to or not. Doesn't matter how much pain, doesn't matter how much you hate yourself. Sooner or later, even if just in little ways, your soul moves on. I was happy to suffer for what I did to Jared. It was right. But one day I woke up and had the idea that maybe it was enough."
She shrugs. "I needed a place to turn. I was raised Catholic, so I found my way here. Father Yates did what he does, and I quit being a whore."
I realize this is about as abridged as it gets. The gap between whoring herself as penance for her dead son and who she is now is a big one, but this woman is only going to share what she wants to. She's not going to cry, or get touchy-feely, or look toward heaven with a beatific light in her eyes. She might have been a soft flower once--
who knows? That rose had long since turned to stone.
"How well did you know Rosemary?" Alan asks.
The smallest quiver in the cool facade.
"Well. Real well. We'd become best friends."
"Sorry."
"Life's a bummer sometimes."
"You met here?"
"Yeah. We both did volunteer work on Saturdays. Helping other down-and-outers, whatever. I wasn't very talkative. Rosemary drew me out. She had a way about her, a kind of helpless happiness that was hard to resist. Like, she knew everything was fucked up, but she couldn't help laughing anyway. That's what attracted me to her; she never stopped hoping for a reason to be happy."
Something about the way she's talking makes me ask the question.
"Were you lovers?"
Her eyes narrow, then she sighs.
"Briefly. It wasn't about sex for me, really. I just wanted to be with someone. And I liked Rosemary. We ended it in a good way. I'm not that into women, and neither was Rosemary. We dropped the sex and kept the love. It worked for us."
"I understand," Alan says. He moves in gently now, with the question we really want answered. "Andrea, is there anything you can tell us that you think might help us? Anyone you noticed taking an undue interest in Rosemary? Anyone new working around the church?
Anything at all."
She shakes her head in frustration.
"I've been racking my brains, believe me. When I heard Rosemary had been killed, I went a little crazy. I never cry anymore, but I destroyed some furniture. I haven't thought about too much else since then. The thing is, Rosemary kept herself on a tight, tight leash. She was addicted to fucking. I'm not saying she was addicted to sex, that's the wrong phraseology. She liked fucking. The more degrading the better. The way she kept things under control was to have a routine and to not change that routine. She'd get up, exercise, work, then come here. Other than spending time with me, that was it."
"And no breaks or changes in that routine prior to her death?"
Alan asks.
She spreads her hands, helpless. "No. Nothing."
"What about here?" he prods. "New male arrivals?"
"I considered that, believe me. But no, nothing. Sorry, I wish I could be more help, but the only thing I can say for sure is that it wasn't someone from her past."
"Why do you say that?" I ask.
"Rosemary told me everyone she ever knew was long dead and gone. Killed off by age, illness, or drugs."
*
*
*
ALAN AND I ARE DRIVING back to the Bureau. I'm feeling restless and discombobulated.
"This is fucked up, Alan," I say.
"How's that?"
"We're nowhere. Nowhere. We have three victims--and we only have those because he gave them to us--no reliable description, no fingerprints, no nada. I have an idea of what's driving him, but it's too incomplete. Nothing's vivid, nothing's standing out."
He gives me a look.
"What?" I ask.
"This is how it goes sometimes. We work the case until we find something that breaks it. You know that. Why are you getting so worked up about it just two days in?"
"Because it's personal."
"How?"
"We think this guy has been creeping around for years killing people, right? We think that the numbers on those crosses designate the number of victims. If that's true, he's going to turn out to be one of the most prolific killers ever. And he's been doing it right under our noses. The Lisas and Rosemarys of the world have been dropping like flies and he's been laughing about it the whole time."
He nods. "The victims got to you."
It's an incisive observation, a word-knife.
"I always care about the victims."
"Sure, of course. But sometimes you care more than others. This is one of those times, isn't it?"
I stop resisting.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"For the same reason that Atkins was upset about Rosemary. Most people let life carry them along. They accept what they get. Lisa Reid and Rosemary Sonnenfeld swam against the current. Even though they knew it might be hard, might even be futile, they swam anyway. Then, after they'd made it to shore, this guy came up behind them, slit their throats, and dumped their bodies back in the river."
He's silent for a little while, just driving. He clears his throat.
"Yeah. They got to me too. Made me think of you."
I look at him in surprise.
"Really?"
He smiles, gives me a sideways glance.
"When it comes to swimming against the current, Smoky, you're the hands-down gold medal winner."
19
"NO USABLE PRINTS," CALLIE BEGINS. "ALL THE BLOOD ON the cushions belonged to Lisa Reid. We found a black hair on trace that did not belong to Lisa, but there was no root. We're not going to be able to get DNA from it."
"Great," I say. "What about the cross?"
"It's not pure silver," James says. "That is, it's sterling silver. About ninety-three percent silver mixed with copper. Very common. He picked a good metal to work with if he wanted to make the crosses himself. Sterling silver melts at approximately sixteen hundred forty degrees Fahrenheit, it's harder than gold, and very malleable."
"What you're saying is that he could have grabbed up a bunch of spoons and melted them down to make his crosses?" Alan asks.
"Easily."
"What about the tools needed to do that? Anything unusual that we could track?"
" 'Fraid not," Callie says. "If you're not melting large amounts, the right kind of gas torch will do the trick."
"Lisa's apartment? We know he touched her diary, and I bet he spent a while roaming through the rooms."
Callie shakes her head. "Again, no prints. I even brushed the keys on her keyboard. He's a careful boy."
"As expected," I admit.
"Got a call from the local detective," Alan says. "Passengers on the plane describe our perp as a talkative white guy with a beard. He had roughly the same appearance as Ambrose. Unhelpful."
I walk to the dry-erase board in frustration. I begin to rattle off what we know, little as it is, searching for something cohesive or helpful.
"It's not about sex, it's about him seeing them as sinners--
repentant or not."
"Repentant," James says.
I turn to look at him. "Explain."
"The story the cop told you about herself tells us something about Rosemary. They were friends because these were people who had devoted themselves to walking the straight and narrow. They kept themselves under tight control. They took care to reduce any catalysts in their environments that might drive them back into addiction-seeking behavior. The point being, everything about these people says repentance."
"What about Lisa?" Alan asks.
"Lisa's own diary shows her repentance," James points out. I nod. "Good, James. Let's go with repentant. Back to methodology: the coup de grace is a poke in the side just like Christ got on the mount. He leaves crosses in the wounds, and inscribe
s them with numbers, which may or may not be a counting of his victims up to now. If it is a count, he's very prolific and thus very accomplished. VICAP doesn't come up with earlier similar crimes, which means he's only just decided to step into the limelight."
"Another contradiction," James murmurs.
"How do you mean?" I ask.
"The cross. It's his symbol, its placement is ritualistic. When ritual is involved, it's everything. If he has killed over a hundred people, how did he resist placement of the cross prior to this point? We would have heard about corpses turning up with crosses in their sides. We haven't."
It's a good point. Murder is always an act filled with significance for the organized serial killer. How it is done is specific, important, sacred. She must be blonde, she must never be more than a C cup, her toenails must be painted red when she dies--this is a signature and once developed, it is never deviated from. Our killer stabs them in the side and places silver crosses in the wounds. If he really has been killing for years, this should not be a new behavior.
"Only a few possibilities in that case," Alan notes. "He's changed his pattern, the numbers are a bluff, or he disposed of the bodies of his past victims so they'd remain undiscovered."
"I think it's the last," James intones.
"Wonderful thought," Callie says.
I stare at my own writing on the board, willing something else to jump out at me. Anything. Nothing does.
"Well, that's all well and valid, but we're dead-ended," I admit.
"That's it then?" Alan asks.
"For now. I'll go brief AD Jones. Use the time to get your paperwork up-to-date and keep your fingers crossed that we'll get a break that doesn't involve another dead body."
"SO BACK OFF IT FOR now," AD Jones tells me. "Sometimes that's what you have to do, give yourself some distance."
"I know, sir, it's just . . ."
"I know, I know: he's not taking a break. That's tough, but that's how it goes sometimes." He examines me, speculative. "You've been spoiled the last few years."
Annoyance flares up at this observation. I can barely keep the edge off my voice.
"How do you figure that, sir?"
"Don't get your back up. What I'm saying is, you've had a good run breaking cases quick. A real good run. It's not like that all the time. Everyone has their Zodiac, Smoky. The one they never catch. I'm not saying that's what this is, I'm just saying that you won't win them all."
I stare at him and try to keep it from becoming a glare.
"Sir, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I don't want to hear that right now."
He shrugs, unsympathetic. "No one ever wants to hear it. The stakes are too high. But you better be ready for the day that you fail, because that day is going to come, guaranteed."
"Wow. Great pep talk, sir."
He barks a laugh. "Okay, okay. I'll keep running interference with Director Rathbun. Do what you have to."
"Thank you, sir."
I SURVEY THE OFFICE. CALLIE is chattering away on the phone with her daughter, Marilyn, about the wedding. The fact that Callie has a daughter, much less a grandson, is still a little disorienting. She was always the picture of a female bachelor, enjoying men like a gourmet meal. Her only permanent ties were here, with us, the job. She'd buried a moment in her past, along with the pain it had caused her, until a case and a killer brought her and her daughter together again. It irks me, now and again, that a mass murderer was responsible for giving Callie this gift.
Alan is out of the office and James has his nose buried in a file. I stare at the white board until my eyes burn.
"A whole lotta nothing," I mutter underneath my breath. "Oh well for now."
Putting a case aside is not like placing a file folder in the "to do"
pile. You open your arms and close your eyes and fling it as far away from you as possible. It sails away and you head into your normal life at a dead run and pretend it's not out there, circling like a bat. It is out there, though. Tethered to your wrist with sticky-string, tugging and chuckling and waiting for the wind to change. Sometimes I'll wake up in the night to find it there, perched on my chest, staring at me with those big black eyes and smiling at me with a mouth too wide for its face. It loves me. It's horrible that it loves me. I'm about to go see Bonnie, so I open my arms and fling. Force of will works, again, for now.
20
I CONSULT MY GROCERY LIST IN THE CAR TO MAKE SURE I GOT everything. Bonnie and I always choose the weekly recipe together. This week we're feeling ambitious and are trying a steak with a Madeira-balsamic vinegar sauce. The mere fact that it involves the unlikely mixing of wine, balsamic vinegar, and Dijon mustard is a little terrifying, but we had agreed to stray outside our comfort zone. I read the list back to myself in a mutter: "Delmonico steaks, cracked pepper, olive oil, yep, all there."
Satisfied, I head toward what is always the highlight of my day, week, month, and year: picking up my adopted daughter to bring her home with me.
"SMOKY!"
It's a cry of sheer delight, followed by a twelve-year-old crashing into me. I return the hug and marvel, with a mix of amazement and regret, at just how tall Bonnie has gotten. At twelve, she's five feet one, which might seem reasonable to an outside observer. It means she is taller than me. The fact that two years ago I could look down and see the top of her head emphasizes the changes she is going through. I never got to experience this with Alexa, watching her morph subtly from girl to young lady. Bonnie teeters on the cusp of becoming a teenager and she is definitely her mother's daughter. Annie was a beautiful, blonde early bloomer. Bonnie has that same blonde hair, the same striking blue eyes, the same slender frame. She is changing from awkward to coltish before my eyes. I note again, and always with the same mix of sadness, anxiety, and helplessness, that her chest is no longer boy-flat, that her walk has become less clumsy and more loping.
A dark thought comes to me: the boys. They'll start noticing you soon. They won't know why, not exactly, but you'll be more interesting. You'll catch the eyes of the normal ones, but you'll also catch the eyes of the hungry ones, because they'll smell you like a dog smells meat.
I shove this thought away down deep. Worry later. Love now.
"Hey, babe," I say, grinning. "How was school?"
She pulls away and rolls her eyes. "Boring but okay."
"She did fine," Elaina says. "A little distracted maybe, but she's ahead of her grade level."
Bonnie smiles at Elaina, basking in the praise. I can't blame her. Praise from Elaina is like sugar cookies or a patch of warm sun. Elaina is one of those genuine people, who always mean what they say, say what they mean, and err in the direction of kindness. She's been another mother to Bonnie and to me. Our love for her is fierce.
"Goddammit," Alan mutters.
He's sitting on the couch in front of the TV, and appears to be having troubles with the remote.
"Language," Bonnie scolds.
"Sorry," he says. "We just got TiVo and I'm having some problems figuring it out."
Bonnie gives Elaina and me another eye roll and walks over to Alan. She grabs the remote from him.
"You're such a Luddite, Alan," she says. "Here's how you do it."
She walks him through the steps of picking programs to record and how to watch them when they have, answers his questions with patience. Elaina and I look on, bemused.
"And that's all there is to it," she finishes.
"Thanks, kiddo," Alan says. "Now beat it so I can watch my programs."
"No hug?" Bonnie admonishes.
He smiles at her. "Just testing you," he says, and reaches out to engulf her in those massive arms. The affection between the two is a constant. If Elaina is another mother, Alan is a second father.
"Okay, now beat it," he says.
"Come on," I tell her. "We've got a steak to ruin."
She grabs her backpack, gives Elaina a final hug, and we head out the door.
"Luddite, huh?" I say as we reach the car.
"Vocabulary. See? I listen," she says, and sticks her tongue out at me.
"MAN'S GUIDE TO STEAK," I complain. "Why did we choose this cookbook? Hello--two women here."
"Because it's made for cooking retards like us," Bonnie replies.
"Now come on, we can do this. What does he say?"
I sigh and read aloud from the cookbook.
" 'Rub the surface of the steaks with salt and pepper.' "
"Check."
"We're supposed to use a half tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet."
"Check."
"Uh . . . then we heat the olive oil to high heat. Whatever that means."
Bonnie shrugs and turns the knob to high. "I guess we just wait till we think it's hot."
"I'm going to cut the slit in the middle of the meat."
This is our cheat. The first few times we tried to cook steaks, we followed the various dictates of a cookbook. "Three to four minutes on each side," or whatever, and ended up with meat that was either too cooked or too rare. It had been Bonnie who suggested slicing the meat all the way through in one place so we could actually watch the color of the center change. It wasn't pretty, but it had worked for us so far.
"I think it's ready," Bonnie says.
I grab the two steaks and look at her. "Here goes nothing." I throw them on the pan and we are rewarded with the sound of sizzling. Bonnie works the spatula as I look on, pressing the meat to the pan. "Smells good so far," she offers.
"I have microwave mac and cheese in the freezer if we really screw it up," I say.
She grins at me and I grin back. We really have no idea what we're doing, but we're doing it together.
"How does that look to you?" she asks me.
I bend forward and see that the center is brown, but not too brown. We have managed to do this without turning the outside surface of the steaks into charcoal. Miraculous.
"They're done," I decide.
She uses the spatula to remove them from the skillet and onto the waiting plates.
"Okay," I say, "now comes the scary part. The sauce."
"We can do it."
"We can try."
She holds up a stick of butter. "How much?"
I consult the cookbook. "A tablespoon. But first it says to reduce to medium heat. Maybe we should give it a second to cool down. I think butter can burn."
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