Quintic (69 page)

Hence,
she was actively waiting
alone and busily keeping herself occupied (or pretending to, at
least). She worked at Vitto’s, wrote, strolled about town taking
pictures and making sketches, wrote some more and went over the
diner murders. Something bothered her about those cases, but she
couldn’t put her finger on what. Her subconscious mind had figured
something out, but it had yet to communicate that
something
to her conscious self. The knowledge lingered at the rim of
her consciousness, bugging her. Enraging her.

T
he more she thought about it,
the more it escaped her. She dreamt about it. In her fitful sleep,
the girls had morphed into her twins, and the creep had killed them
both. She couldn’t make sense of it. She even went back alone to
both alleys, at daytime and nighttime both.

Going back
to the alleys wasn’t as much an exploit as it appeared. One didn’t
need a lot of bravery to visit the scene of a crime when one had a
cavalry. She had already spotted Lonzo and MacCarmick by
then.

To their
credit, she
did not make them out the
first two days. But, seeing how Christopher wasn’t having her
chauffeured and had never once enquired about her daily plans or
threatened to put her in a safe house until he found the creep, she
became suspicious. The big guy only felt she was safe when he knew
where she was at any given time. Thus, someone was watching over
her in case anything happened. Hence, Lonzo and
MacCarmick.

Christopher’s buddies w
ere
professionals; they went unnoticed unless one knew to look, and
sure enough, when she had watched intently for them, there they
were. Christopher had hired the pair in the past, so they knew her
well enough to keep their distances.

For
her
sole amusement, a research of a sort,
she studied their routine. From what she figured, they worked in
shifts. MacCarmick had the first half of the day, from seven in the
morning to two, while Lonzo worked the afternoons and beginning of
the evenings, two to three at night. At night, with MacCarmick
coming back on duty at ten, both were on duty. The pair was off
between three and seven. Christopher did
his
shift then, in her bed,
how flattering. No doubt the duo had based their schedule on
experience as she had run off on them in the middle of the night
before. The witching hour was the easiest time for her at which to
disappear. The hotel staff was down then, and what few employees
haunted the halls, she could easily avoid. The A-team had learned
well.

Perhaps when
the waiting came to an end, they might become a problem, but for
now, she liked having a shadow for company. She might even decide
to let one tag along as back-up when the time came. As long as her
bodyguard didn’t know where she was going, he couldn’t tell, could
he?

Her
keeping-
busy activities also included
meetings with the writer-wannabe waitress and the cook. Reviewing
her notes, she realised their opinions on staff members were
different if not opposite hence her going back to talk to
them.

The cook was
impatient, irritated
. The waitress spoke
more about herself and her book than about the murder, but they did
let her interview them over again.

Wannabe
commented on everyone.
“Cindy was so
sweet, and Bea, well, she’s nice enough, you know. The two seemed
friendly but not close.”

Patricia
showed the wannabe the
picture of the girls in their raincoats.

“
Oh
, I remember that. For a while
there, the two girls dressed alike. College girls often do, and
those raincoats were cute. Bea even dyed her hair blond, but I
don’t remember if it was before or after the killing. Bea’s not a
blond type of girl if you catch my drift.”

“
How about
the rest of the staff?” Patricia prodded yet again. Police work
sure was repetitive. Somehow, she doubted Christopher enjoyed
spending his days asking the same questions over and
over.

“
The
helper’s OK. The other waitresses were too.”

“
Any
customers that took a particular interest in the girls?” She asked,
rooting for her wrong-victim theory.

“
Nope. Just
the cook. The cook’s a jerk. He made suggestive remarks at the
girls. Not to me; you know jerks. I’m too old for him. Hell, I’m
the same age as his wife. Besides, he’s not my type.”

L
ewd remarks or scorned waitress?
Patricia wondered if that was the reason the police had suspected
the cook.

The cook
drew a different picture. “The helper’s fine; so’s the rest of
them. The old broad is one bitter bitch. She was always degrading
them two. Maybe she was jealous of the tips they got; I don’t know.
She made passes at me a couple of times, but I turned her down, not
my type. I’m married.”

“
I know.
Y
our wife makes delicious
pies.”

“
She fucking
does, doesn’t she? Anyway, the girls, they were likeable. Sweet and
young and fresh.” Had the cook given them too much attention and
made the old waitress jealous? “I teased them a lot, them dressing
like twins and all.”

“
Did you,
hum, you know…” She let her words
trail
off. How did one ask a married man if he had made a pass at a
twenty-year-old dead college girl?

Fortunately,
he caught the innuendo without her having to spell it out. “Hell
no. I’m married, you know.” If the guy kept repeating it, maybe at
some point, he might convince himself. “Besides, I always thought
the two had a thing.”

What?
Where had that come from?
The file did not mention a relationship. Granted both girls had
been single at the time of the murder, but both had dated, had had
relationships and gone steady. The ex certainly had not testified
to anything to that effect. Then again, ex-boyfriends tended not to
mention such a thing. Ego.

Hum.
She had met Beatrice, had even been to her
house, so could she tell? For sure?
Non
. No. She had caught no hints
of a female presence in Beatrice’s apartment. Then again, she had
not seen any signs of a male presence either. Unless she asked
Beatrice straight out, Patricia had no way to be sure. And if she
did ask the woman, why would Beatrice deny or confirm
it?

“
They were
lovers?”
Perhaps she could find the dead
waitress’s girlfriend or mistress.

The cook
shrugged it off.
“Never caught them in
the act if you know what I mean, but I might be wrong.” Could it be
something he had imagined? Fantasised?

Patricia’s
mind kept going back to the idea
. Did it
change her story? Yes. It brought the love triangle in another
direction. Could she fit the second victim in that triangle? What
if the two victims knew each other? They didn’t, as verified by the
team, but, lucky her, she was not on the team. Hence, facts were
not as binding for her.

Hum. The
time range was wrong; year-apart murders were peculiar, to say the
least. Double hum. Could she change that too? Of course, she could,
she was the writer, the king of that world. But then, the story
would turn into a classic lover-killer tale. The years apart
brought an edge; she had to keep that.

Hence
, for the sake of the story,
the waitresses had known the same killer. The killer who was also a
lover? But be it male or female, it didn’t explain everything. For
example, why had the first victim gone back to the alley? Unless
the cook a liar and the girl had come back to meet him? Back to
square one, down the road the police had taken the first time. Dead
end.

New spin.
What if the first victim should have been the girl’s friend? The
lovers story worked then too, but the cook was still a problem. And
how could she explain why the killer had not tried to kill the
right waitress once he had realised his mistake? Unless he didn’t
know? Was that possible? He had killed her in a dark alley in the
middle of a rainy night but hadn’t taken a moment to look at the
body? Highly unlikely. Hum. Unless in his panic, he had not meant
to kill the girl? But then, why the second murder? Totally separate
cases with different killers? Also highly improbable.

What had she
read on serial killers during her excruciating week at the library?
Some liked the chase; others liked the kill itself. Nor the hunt
nor the kill were spectacular in the diner cases.

What else
had the books said?
Ah yes. Murderers
often had a trigger. The rainy night was common to both. Then
again, it had rained numerous times in the years between the two
murders and no other homicide had occurred (as verified by the
team. She was glad they were around to do some research for
her).

W
as the serial reliving a memory,
something from his or her past, perhaps a murder that had happened
a long, long time ago? A murder the killer had witnessed or that
had touched him, of a family member perhaps? She would have to ask
the team how far back in the records the police had searched for
the serial. Decades might pass by between the first event, the
memory, and the first memory-triggered murder, the diner girl. Or
maybe not.

What if the
first diner girl was the, hum,
disturbance
and the second the
first recollection-induced kill? Interesting. She now had something
for her PI to investigate. Fascinating indeed. That research would
keep her busy for a time. While she waited.

Her Walk in the
Park

T
he day she was to
rendez-vous
with Beatrice was the day
it
arrived. Monday already. As
Patricia returned from yet another walk, the hotel’s front desk
clerk handed her a packet. A plain white envelope. A label at the
top left corner stated their name, the hotel’s address. A standard
stamp decorated the upper-right corner. The sender had not
indicated a return address. Inside, she found a single key. She had
seen one or two of those in her life. The key opened a post office
security box. Here again, the sender had given no
indications.

Since the
city didn’t deliver nor picked up letters on Sundays, the key had
been posted on Friday, or Saturday at the latest. Hence, the king
had taken two days to get the gear. Should she be impressed? Hum.
Christopher probably would find the same supplies in half a day
top. The man was infuriating!
Moving on
.

Christopher
and his team hadn’t finished their stripper club bonanza yet. That
translated into a sexual dry spell for her (and thus Christopher).
No way was she going to strip for the impossible man when he was
spending his days checking out dancers. Yes, she was irrational,
even unfair, but she couldn’t help it. He did not make a move on
her either. Instead, he crawled into bed with her every night
and
slept
. Most infuriating.

Thanks to
her sprint with Charles to the bare land, female flesh, even her
own, somewhat repulsed her these days. She had taken to wearing
loose pants and oversized sweatshirts with a long-sleeve turtleneck
under it. Nonetheless, the Big guy could have made a pass at her.
Damn, the man was impossible!

He was doing
the damn cop thing, and getting impatient about it. He had asked
about the creep again, requesting for names and addresses and
contacts.

Their first
conversati
on had gone something like: “I
wrote his name in the damn report, what more can I tell you?” Lies
by omission weren’t real lies, were they?

“
Surely, at
some point, your fucking Joshua had mentioned a fake.”

“
You have
something in common with Joshua, Big guy; he too wasn’t into the
habit of discussing his job with me.”

“And you didn’t trick him into
giving you a fucking fake filing job? Lucky him.”

“You’re dangerously close to
acting like a jerk.”

“
Fucking
right, I am. Keeping you safe is hard work.”

“Fuck you.”

“
Apparently,
I can’t.”

The
following day, the
conversation
hadn’t gone much
smoother.

“
J, Super
Mario, the king, whatever. Those jerks had a nickname for everyone;
they even gave you one,
Cake
darling.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“
Fine,
Pussycat.” She rolled her eyes at him. For her, pussycat held the
same connotation as Cake.
Good enough to eat
. As
Christopher’s next words proved. “The first thing I’ll do,
Pattycake
,
once I’ve got this mess taken care of will be to eat
you.”

“
Stop
reading my mind!”

“
If I
were
a fucking telepath, I’d already know
the sicko’s aliases!”

“
Sicko
is a good one.”

“Patricia, stop fucking with
me. Or do it for real.”

“
Christopher
James MacLaren!” If they kept this up, the Big guy’s innuendo would
lead to a place she had no intention of going today, not when his
dirty mind had had its fill of professional naked flesh. “Joshua
called him Copper.” Not a lie since Joshua had never referred to
the creep by any of his aliases.