Bad Girl and Loverboy

by Michele Jaffe

  She really hated profiles. “Lex, I really think—”

  “I am not interested in what you think. I’m interested in what you know. Proof.”

  “How can I get proof if you won’t let me look into it?”

  “Listen to yourself. You are getting so desperate that you’re picking the first guy you see. And you sound like shit. If this is the best you can do for a suspect, perhaps I should be sending someone else in. Perhaps I should come myself.”

  “I thought this was my investigation.”

  “It is. Yours to lose. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I’ll stop looking at J.D.”

  “Good.”

  So now she was trying to make herself think of something else. Asking herself all the unanswered questions from the investigation.

  Why did Loverboy hold his victims for two weeks? What went in two-week cycles? That was half a moon cycle, half a tidal cycle, but she doubted Loverboy’s timing had anything to do with the natural world. Judging from his collages, he was fascinated with manufactured things, things with labels.

  That thought touched off a burst of peanut in the back corner of Imogen’s tongue, but it disappeared as fast as it had come.

  Two weeks.

  A joke her mother told her once slid into her mind—

  What’s the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut?

  Two weeks.

  —but she was pretty sure this was not about a haircut. Love affairs and engagements could last two weeks. Or less, where she was concerned. She’d managed to scare off Benton in less than two days.

  Now wondering how you would get a piece of fabric caught in the clasp of a glove compartment. The best she could think of was if you had a sleeve pulled all the way down. The way you would if you were trying to avoid leaving any fingerprints. Which you would only want to do if you were hiding the fact that you’d been in the car.

  Have you lost your mind, Imogen? She heard Lex’s voice in her head and made herself stop. What if he had a point? What if she was focusing too much energy on a bunch of hazy suspicions, wasting more precious time? The thread was probably a fluke. And if it wasn’t, if it meant—

  Whatever it meant, she didn’t want to alert anyone. Anyone who could take retaliatory action against Rosalind if she made a mistake.

  A voice behind her said, “Hi, Imogen,” and her heart began to pound.

  She turned around. “Hi, Benton.”

  “Bugsy told me I’d find you down here. Are you watching the fountain?”

  “I’m waiting for it to come on.” More waiting. She turned back toward the water and he leaned on the railing next to her, facing her. “Where have you been all day?” she asked. She meant it to sound casual. It came out like a rebuke.

  “Last night I got the feeling you wanted me to stay out of your way, so I did.”

  She nodded and stared out over the water, searching for the right thing to say. She couldn’t find it. She said, “The copy of your bridge newsletter came.”

  “Oh, great.” Benton did not even seem to be paying attention. He was looking behind her.

  “You can come by the suite and get it.”

  “Ok. I’ll come by tomorrow. Unless you need me to get it out of your hair now?”

  “No,” Imogen said. She shrugged. “Whenever you want is fine.”

  A series of metal circles began to rise from the surface of the lake in preparation for the fountain show.

  Benton glanced over his shoulder and saw them. “It looks like the music is going to start. I’ll leave you to watch. I just wanted to see—see how you were doing. Good night.” He straightened up and moved toward the lobby.

  “Good night.” It was on the tip of her tongue. Say it, dammit, just do it, she told herself. What the hell are you so afraid of? Take a chance. She turned around and began, “Benton, do you want to have breakfas—”

  But he was gone.

  It was better that way anyway. Better gone now than after they’d found Rosalind.

  Or didn’t find Rosalind.

  Remember that, she warned herself. Remember what could happen. What probably will happen. And stop thinking about him.

  Behind Imogen, the fountains in the lake exploded with a thunderclap, and the first strains of “Hey Big Spender” drifted from the speakers. People strayed from the walkways to the balustrade, crowding near her to see better. Right next to her a couple in their late teens twined their arms around one another and kissed, oblivious to the water show. On the other side a French couple in their seventies held hands and bobbed their heads in time to the music. Imogen slid out from between them and walked, head down, back into the hotel. It was 10:45 and she felt tired. Tired of everything.

  She retraced her steps through the lobby and across the casino. A crowd gathered around the craps table burst into cheers and a woman in a silver-sequined tank top raised her arms with double Vs of victory. “Pay up!” she called to the dealer as he counted her money.

  SOMEONE MUST PAY, Imogen saw again.

  Who? she wanted to know. When?

  “Imogen, come have a drink with us!” Julia said, swerving toward Imogen and grabbing her by the arm. Lancelot, wearing green angora with ruffles around the legs, growled mildly under Julia’s other arm, and more forcefully as Sadie and her young husband Eros strolled up and joined them.

  “I can’t,” Imogen said, barely resisting the urge to shake Julia’s hand off. God, she wanted to get to bed.

  “Please come have a drink,” Julia pleaded. She leaned close to Imogen. “Don’t leave me alone with them. Benton and Cal are deep in car talk, so if you don’t come I won’t have anyone to chat with. Sadie and Eros will be making out at the table before we’ve even ordered.”

  “I’m sorry, Julia, I’m exhausted.”

  Julia pouted and asked a few more times before she finally let it go. Imogen was heading straight for the elevators when Wrightly Waring grabbed her from behind a potted plant. This was getting worse every minute. He said, “I’ve got to talk to you, Ms. Page.”

  “Here?”

  “I don’t know when I’ll get another chance. There’s something you should know. Something about—” He broke off abruptly, his eyes looking over her shoulder.

  Imogen turned around and spotted J. D. Eastly coming across the casino toward them. When she turned back to Wrightly, his face had lost all its color. She said, “Are you all right?”

  He nodded stiffly, said, “Fine. Never mind, I’ve got to go,” and took off just as J.D. came up to her.

  “I was on my way to your room to see you,” he said. “Rachel tells me you wanted to talk to me.”

  “I did. Why haven’t you been returning my calls?”

  “My phone’s been acting up. I told Rachel to give you anything you needed. Was there some problem?”

  “No, she did that, it’s just—”

  “Oh, and I’m already on the Dumpster schedule. Excellent idea, by the way. Was there something else you wanted to ask me about?”

  Yes, she wanted to say. Did you tamper with the evidence in the taxi? Are you Loverboy? Am I wrong about you? She said, “No, nothing else.”

  “You sure?” Was he taunting her? Or was she really getting delusional?

  “Positive.” She thought she saw Benton moving toward them across the casino and her heart began to beat faster again. Then she realized it was just Julia’s husband Cal coming to corral Wrightly Waring into the bar. That was bad—now she was seeing Benton everywhere. She needed to get to sleep.

  She said, “Good night, Detective Eastly,” slid past him into the elevator and punched the DOOR CLOSE button furiously before anyone else could get in with her.

  Loverboy watched her stalk to the elevators and really felt for her. She had looked so tense when the Bitch tried to make her have drinks, and now she looked sad. Poor Imogen, having such a hard day. Maybe he should help her.

  Maybe he should get her a present! Oh yes, a reminder that he cared about her. T
hat he was thinking about her as much as she was thinking about him. It was an excellent idea.

  “I really need to talk to you,” someone near him said. “This is important.”

  That’s what you think, sucker, Loverboy thought. Buzz, buzz, buzz. He had REALLY important stuff to think about. Like whether Imogen’s present should be alive or dead.

  Or something in between.

  CHAPTER 61

  Only 5 days left!

  Imogen opened her eyes when she heard the knocking on her door. She glanced at the clock, saw that it was exactly seven in the morning, early for Benton, slid a robe on over Sam’s flying-toaster pajamas, and went to answer it.

  Cal Harwood, Julia’s husband, stood blinking in the corridor.

  “Come in,” Imogen invited, closing the door behind him. “What can I do for you?” She heard the brusqueness in her voice and pretended it was not because she had thought it might be someone else.

  “I woke you up, didn’t I?” Cal said, embarrassed. With his perfectly pressed clothes and hair just barely wet from his shower, he was like a walking indictment of Imogen for sleeping in too long.

  “No, no, I was up,” Imogen lied. She tried a smile. “I was just in bed, thinking.”

  “I would not have come so early but I’ve got to get to the Garden. I came by the other day to talk to you but you weren’t here.”

  Imogen batted his apology away. “I’m sorry. Can I offer you some coffee?”

  “No, I don’t drink coffee.”

  Imogen laughed at herself. “That’s good, actually, because I don’t have any. I’m sorry to be so unprepared. Sit down. Was there something specific you wanted to talk about?”

  “I only came because Julia said I should tell you. It’s probably not important. I can come back—”

  “No, please. What is it?”

  Cal gave her a shy smile. “It’s a little embarrassing, really, that I know this. It’s what Julia calls my geeky side.”

  “I’m all geeky sides.”

  Cal laughed. “Thanks, that makes me feel better. Anyway, the thing is, there’s something wrong with the Emergency! poster.”

  “With the Emergency! poster,” Imogen repeated.

  “Yes. The one in the collage the killer sent.” He pointed at the wall where the collage was hanging. “Because the show went off the air in 1977. September third, actually. But the fire engine in the Emergency! poster is registered 1980. April. See, that can’t be right.”

  Imogen looked from him to the collage and back again. Her first, ungenerous thought was that he had come to her room at seven A.M. to tell her about the cancellation date of a TV cop show. But it could mean something. Anything could mean something. God, she was tired of this case. “Thank you. That is very helpful.”

  Cal looked bemused. “I knew I should not have come. I just thought that maybe, if the mistake was intentional, it could be a clue or something, like the killer’s birthday. Probably the picture of the poster he used was just a counterfeit, though. I’m really sorry I bothered you. I told Julia—”

  “No, really.” Imogen tried to sound convincing. “It probably is important. Thank you.”

  Cal stood up. “You’re being nice, but I feel horrible.”

  “Don’t. Every detail matters,” Imogen said. She repeated versions of this three times before she was finally able to close the door behind him.

  She was still wearing her pajama top and only had time to get one leg of her pants on before there was another knock at the door. She reknotted the cord of her robe and pasted on another bright smile and opened it.

  “Hi.” Benton held out a cup of coffee and a waxed paper bag. “I brought breakfast.”

  Imogen’s heart began to beat hard but her smile disappeared. She took the coffee and walked back into the room.

  “Boy, I’ve never felt so welcome in my life,” Benton said.

  She put her fake smile back on and he pretended to wince. “Okay, forget it.”

  “I thought you were Cal,” Imogen explained.

  “No wonder he was running away with his tail between his legs. You look scary when you do that.”

  “Don’t any of you ever sleep?” she demanded.

  “Not when we could be helping you. Nice pj’s, by the way,” Benton added.

  Imogen ignored him. She opened the pastry bag he handed her. Remembering why he had probably come, she pushed a Xeroxed pile of papers toward him. “Here is your bridge newsletter.”

  Benton’s eyes lit up. “Thanks.” He sat down and was immediately lost in it.

  Imogen took a bite of the croissant he’d brought her and went into her bedroom to get dressed. When she came out, Benton was still working on his bridge problem. She envied his concentration. Unrolling the croissant from the middle, she moved to stand in front of the collage and stared at it. Say something! she demanded, but it stared back silently. Her eyes slid from the collage to the list of objects in it she had written up the previous day while waiting for the phone to ring. The assortment was—

  She saw something she hadn’t seen before.

  Loverboy was extremely brand-conscious. Some of the objects were generic, but many of them had large, obvious labels. Imogen moved to his list of characteristics and wrote: Poor family in rich neighborhood.

  Benton looked up to see what she had done. “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “Look at the collage. Only someone who grew up coveting the things he saw on TV, the things that other kids had, would be this brand-savvy. Look how many of the items in the collage are labeled. There’s the Intellivision with its Night Crawlers game, the Great Houdini Magic Set, and the Original Ouija board,” she pointed out, putting her hand on each item in turn. “Even his book has a label, from the Ford County Library. And on the desk he’s got not generic correctional fluid but Liquid Paper, not a nothing notepad but one from Audrie Lumber, and a Mead notebook, its brand clearly visible. To top it all off there’s the Emergency! poster. Which, Cal informed me this morning, is a phony.”

  “Your idea is that someone who had all those things would never be attracted to them or think to use them.”

  Imogen nodded. She stopped abruptly and said to herself, “Members Only.”

  “What?”

  “His jacket. When he drove me in the cab, he was wearing a Members Only jacket. Maybe that’s the key,” she said, talking fast and unfurling what was left of her croissant. “It is more than just wanting possessions. It’s like they buy membership in society. They define you. Let you fit in. If you have real stuff, you are real. Normal.” She paused and her forehead scrunched. “And maybe it’s not just about appearance. Maybe the names themselves mean something. Intellivision is like ‘intelligent.’ Night Crawler—he certainly does live in the dark shadows. He’s like a Great Houdini the way he can make his victims disappear, and he knows their futures like the Ouija board. He’s—”

  “As hard to hold on to as Liquid Paper?” Benton asked, not critically, just curious.

  For a fleeting instant she had the same hint of peanuts she had tasted in the cab the day before; then it was gone, along with her enthusiasm. What Benton had delicately implied was right. Her conclusion was specious at best—especially if what Cal said was true, and the killer hadn’t even bothered to get a real Emergency! poster. And, really, what good did it do to know that Loverboy had probably worn hand-me-downs? Where did that get them?

  Her eyes kept returning to the word Emergency!

  Emergency!

  That was where. Right back at the beginning. She was so frustrated, frustrated with herself and frustrated with Benton for poking holes in her idea, that she shredded what remained of her croissant into tiny pieces and dropped them into the trash.

  Knock, knock sounded at the door.

  “Who is it?” Imogen growled. She was not in the mood for any more visitors.

  “Julia.”

  Unexpected punch lines surged into Imogen’s mind. Julia know the way to San Jose? Julia wa
nna go out with me? Julia—

  Imogen swung open the door. “Yes?”

  Julia smiled at her cordially. “Good morning. Hi, Benton. Have either of you two seen Wrightly Waring?”

  “No,” Imogen said flatly.

  Benton shook his head and added, “I thought he was meeting Cal at the Garden.”

  “He was supposed to but he did not show up,” Julia explained. “I wanted him to do a piece on the night-vision feature of the X75.”

  “Oh,” Benton said, clearly itching to get back to his bridge problem.

  “Oh,” Imogen said, not knowing or caring what the X75 was.

  Julia nodded. “All right, well, I’ll just go throw myself off a building or something,”

  “Okay,” Imogen and Benton replied in unison.

  Julia had been gone only three minutes when the next knock came. “Who is it?” Imogen asked.

  “Dannie.”

  Imogen opened the door and motioned her in but Dannie shook her head. “I’m going over to Metro’s forensics lab. One of the techs there said he would show me how to access their local computer systems to look for unsolved female murders around the times of Loverboy’s other kills,” she explained. “But I wanted to stop in before I left to apologize for being so distracted yesterday.”

  “That’s okay. This case is taking its toll on everyone,” Imogen said. She had to work hard to keep impatience from her voice.

  Dannie nodded. “Anyway, I just got the report on the fingerprint from the taxi receipt.”

  Imogen’s impatience vanished. “And? Was there a match?” Behind her she heard Benton put his pencil down.

  Dannie nodded, but did not look pleased. “There is a match. The print is Rosalind Carnow’s. And the way it appears, right in the center, makes it look like he must have made her touch the paper especially to give it to you. Covering his tracks from the beginning.”

  “Or wanting to make sure we found the taxi. Wanting to make sure we were doing our job.”

  Imogen was so furious after that, after she realized the killer was just leading them around, that she could not speak. When the next person rapped hesitantly on the door five minutes later, she threw it open and demanded, “What?”