The list of people who might be seeking revenge for having been caught by her over the years was long. Then again, it could be a burglar or even the building superintendent, who had been told not to enter her apartment without her permission.
Her paintings, paintings she loved and had picked up over the years in Europe, seemed to be in place. They were not without value, but they probably were not worth more than a few thousand each. She had never had them appraised. They were not an investment.
She moved cautiously to her kitchen, everything in place, cabinet doors closed. Nothing in the refrigerator- not that there was much there- seemed to have been touched. The clothes in her bedroom closet and her drawers did not seem to have been moved and her bed was well and tightly made as she had learned to do in the orphanage. Then she moved to the bathroom. She thought there was a trace of a scuff mark on the tile floor but she couldn't be sure. She got her kit and carefully took a sample of the material from the scuff mark.
Paranoia, she decided when she was sure she was the only one in the apartment. I'm tired, paranoid and allergic to much that exists in the world. She sneezed and moved to the medicine cabinet in the small bathroom. She definitely needed some antihistamine. Stella opened the cabinet door, saw what she was looking for and reached for the bottle.
Flack stood in front of the counter of the electronics store and listened patiently to the man who was speaking with a heavy Indian accent. The man was short, dark, thick head of hair, bad skin and about forty. He was also perspiring. His name was Al Chandrasekhar.
"I'm a second cousin of the famous physicist," Chandrasekhar said proudly.
Flack nodded.
The small shop was crowded with glassed-in cell phones, walkie-talkies, tiny radios, tape recorders that could fit in a side pocket or purse, electronic toys, compact computers and printers, cameras and clocks. There were two potential customers at the rear of the shop, a boy and girl in their twenties, casually dressed.
Flack counted five video cameras around the shop. None were hidden. Chandrasekhar wanted potential thieves to know they were being watched.
"You have some information about who killed those two men?" asked Flack.
"I'm sorry I called 911," the man said. "I know it wasn't an emergency, or perhaps it was. It is really for you to decide."
Flack waited.
"I have two video cameras mounted outside my store," the man said, looking toward the open front door through which warm air flowed, was spun by two ceiling fans, and was replaced by another stealthy wave of heat. "One is mounted so that it picks up the front of that store where the Jewish Jesus man was murdered."
"Let's take a look," said Flack.
Chandrasekhar reached under the counter and pulled out a videotape. He put the tape in a compact player on a shelf behind the counter. He pressed a button and the image appeared.
"You see there?" the man said with excitement, pointing to a figure on the screen.
It was Stella and Flack. They came out of the storefront talking, heading up the street to their left. Flack could see steam rising from the sidewalk. The crowd was gone. When the body went, so did the gathering.
"Now," said Chandrasekhar, "there."
He pointed to someone who came out of a doorway, turned to his left and walked slowly about thirty yards behind Flack and Stella.
"Here," said Chandrasekhar. "You turn your head and the man pauses to look in a store window. In that store is sold Jewish books. I'm saying to myself, this man does not look Jewish. This man is following you."
For an instant, as he paused by the bookstore window, the man looked back, facing the camera. From the poor quality of the tape, Flack wasn't sure how much they would be able to blow up the image, but there were two things Flack could make out. The first was that the man had salt-and-pepper gray hair. The second was that a baseball cap was protruding from the man's left rear pocket. It wouldn't be hard to confirm that this was the same man who had appeared in the crowd at both murder sites.
But, thought Flack, why is he following us?
"That's almost an hour after the murder," said Flack, concentrating again on the tape, which showed the date and time in the lower left-hand corner.
"Killer returns to scene," said Chandrasekhar with a slow nod of his head meant to show wisdom.
"Let's go back on the tape," said Flack.
The two customers in the back were heading toward the front door. They glanced at Flack. He knew they had pegged him as a cop, which was fine with him.
The man behind the counter rewound and Flack watched at fast speed. People passed on the street and entered and left the storefront synagogue. Everyone who entered and left was a member of the congregation. No one entered or left from the moment the congregants went off for lunch and meditation till they returned an hour later.
No surprise there. Stella had agreed that the killer came through the back door. Something tugged at Flack's memory.
"Go back to the time just before they went to lunch," he said.
"Roger that," said the man, hitting the rewind button.
Flack watched people move slowly down the street in both directions. Then he saw the image that had tugged his memory. From the angle of the camera, Flack could only see the back of the big man carrying a briefcase, but what he saw was familiar. The man didn't stop at the synagogue but walked on and entered a doorway at his right.
"What's in that shop?" asked Flack, pointing to the image.
Chandrasekhar took a pair of rimless glasses from a case in his pocket and looked at the frozen image on the screen.
"The newspaper and sundries shop of Mr. Pyon," he said. "He's from Korea. Don't know him well."
"Does he have video cameras?" asked Flack.
"It would be unwise not to," said the man knowingly.
"Can I take the tape?" Flack asked.
Chandrasekhar removed the tape from the machine and handed it to Flack, who pocketed it and headed for the door.
8
THE PHONE RANG.
Stella, who had fallen asleep in her living room while looking up at her paintings, answered, "Detective Bonasera."
"George Harbaugh, FBI," the man said. "Just got your crime scene photographs and preliminary report on the death of the two Jewish men. Good work."
"Thanks," said Stella, trying to wake up.
"I think you may be looking for a serial killer we've been after for three years," Harbaugh said. "I've been authorized to give you a copy of our report. Our profilers think he's going to kill again soon."
Harbaugh was bypassing the chain of command by going to Stella. This was not the first time it had happened.
She said, "Give me a little time and I'll meet you at- "
"I'd prefer to keep the FBI out of this for now," Harbaugh said. "I can be at your apartment later tonight."
She did not ask him how he knew where she lived. An FBI agent would have no trouble finding her.
"I hand you the report and you can ask some questions," he said. "No guarantee I'll answer them."
"You drink tea?" she asked.
"Hate the stuff," he said.
"Coffee?"
"Coke, if you've got it," he said.
"Fine," she said.
He hung up. So did Stella. She got up and moved toward the bedroom, phone in hand. She had a lot to do in the next hour.
In the darkness, Jacob Vorhees uncrossed his aching legs and looked at the green glow of the battery-operated clock on the floor in front of him. He had a pillow and two blankets, one to lie on and one to cover himself with. In addition to the clock, there was a small blue-and-white plastic box inside of which were an ice pack, eight peanut-butter-and-black-currant-jelly sandwiches and ten plastic twelve-ounce bottles of Coke. There was also a white plastic bucket which, in an emergency, he could use as a toilet. A nearly full roll of toilet paper sat next to it. Finally, there was his MP3 player, which he listened to for long, blackened hours.