Quirk looked at one of the EMTs that had come with the ambulance. "He'll need help," Quirk said.
"We'll take him down to City," the EMT said, "let one of the doctors talk with him."
Quirk nodded. He looked at me.
"You got any thoughts?" he said.
"No."
"Belson?"
"No."
"Me either," Quirk said. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
We went to my office. I sat at my desk. Quirk sat across, and Belson stood, as he almost always did, leaning against the wall. The office had a closed-up smell. I opened the window and the sparse weekend traffic noise drifted up.
"Could be a copycat," Belson said. "Guy wants to do his wife in, covers it up by making it look like Red Rose, except there's no semen."
"Scene looked authentic," Quirk said, "otherwise."
"It's all been in the papers," Belson said.
"Takes a special guy," I said. "To murder his wife and then deposit semen stains on the rug."
Belson shrugged.
"He was grief-stricken," Quirk said, "but that doesn't mean he didn't do it."
"Got the name of the counselor?" I said.
"Yeah, woman in the South End," Belson said, "Rebecca Stimpson, MSW."
"I'll ask Susan to call her," I said.
"Frank," Quirk said, "go over the crime scene, everything, compare it with the other killings."
Belson nodded.
"And we should get a report on the media coverage. See exactly what it's possible to know about Red Rose from the papers. If this isn't a copycat, there will be one later."
Belson nodded.
"Newspapers, TV, radio, everything."
"Take some time, Lieutenant."
Belson said.
"We got nothing else to do," Quirk said.
"Other people get killed in this city," Belson said.
"They wait their turn," Quirk said. "I am going to catch this motherfucker."
From the intersection below my office window a horn brayed.
"Spenser," Quirk said, "I want you to backtrack each case. Start with the first murder. Go through it just like it was brand-new. Talk to everyone involved, read the evidence file and the forensic stuff, treat it like no one ever looked at it before."
"We need a pattern," I said.
"Black women, over forty, living in racially mixed or fringe neighborhoods. One hooker, one cocktail waitress, one dancer, one singer, one teacher," Belson said.
"Up the social scale?" Quirk said.
"If you think singers rank higher than dancers," I said.
"Or he thinks so."
"Over forty," I said.
"Yes," Belson said. "Royette Chambers, the hooker, was forty-one.
Chantelle was forty-six. The other three were in between."
"That's a fairly tight age-cluster," I said.
"Especially the hooker," Quirk said. "Forty-one's old for a hooker."
"So why does he only kill women in their forties?" I said. "Five times, it can't be an accident."
"Zee muzzer," Quirk said. "We usually look to zee muzzer."
CHAPTER 9
Routine is routine, repetitious details endlessly pursued. I talked with the relatives of the victims, all of whom were bitter and saddened and outraged. All of whom felt that racism had caused their daughter, sister, mother, wife, to die; all of whom had talked before with policemen; and all of whom resented talking with another honkie who was pretending to care while he covered up for the white establishment, which harbored the killer. The bereaved are not necessarily smarter than anyone else.
In three days of this I learned absolutely nothing that the cops didn't already know.
"My daughter was a good girl, mister. She didn't do nothin so someone should kill her."
"Nobody wanted to kill my sister, man. She was a nice lady. She was working regular. She was helping out at home. You got no business trying to say it's her fault."
The hooker had no bereaved kin that we could find. I talked with her pimp. He was taller than I was and twenty pounds slimmer, with close-cropped hair and a one-inch part scribed in the middle. He had on a white tank top and maroon sweats and black high-top Reeboks. There were five or six small gold earrings in the lobe and up the outer curve of his left ear.
"I catch the motherfucker, I'll cut his ass in two," the pimp said.
"You'll have to take a number," I said. "Any thoughts who it might be?"
"Some kinky white John," the pimp said, staring at me.
"We were sort of guessing that too," I said. "You have any special kinky white John in mind?"
The pimp shrugged. "Most of them kinky, man, they down here cruising for hookers."
"Any that complained about bondage, stuff like that?"
"Complain, man? Shit. Hookers don't complain, get slapped upside the fucking head they start complaining. They do what the John wants and afterwards they gimme the money."
"Works out swell for them, doesn't it."
"Whores is whores, man. Ain't my doing."
"You hear any talk," I said, "any stories about guys into bondage,'s and m, whatever?"
"Shit, man, I said all this already. Sure there's Johns everybody knows about. Like handcuffs, gags."
"Ropes?" I said.
"Ropes, man, inner tubes, fucking anchor chains. Guys that like being spanked. Guys that like spanking. Guys that like rubber underwear.
What you want, I know Johns do all that shit."
"And you told the cops about them?"
"I give them every name I know, man. I don't like my whores getting clipped, you know. Makes me look bad. Costs me money. I want the motherfucker caught."
"Everybody wants the motherfucker caught," I said.
"Yeah, sure. Everybody killing themselves to catch some guy shot a black hooker."
"And four others."
"I hoping he does some white broad in shopping from Wellesley Hills, man," the pimp said. "Then we see some action."
"What do you call this?" I said.
"This? You here talking with me? Asking me about kinky Johns? That ain't action, man, that's blowing fucking smoke, man. That say, "Hey, we down here looking for who killing you jigaboos, boy. We trying."
Shit."
"You got any suggestions for action?"
"Not to you, man. We gonna catch the motherfucker one day and we gonna kill the motherfucker."
"We?"
"That's right, man, motherfucking we. People of fucking color, man, all right? That's who's gonna give you some action."
"I hope so." I handed him my card. "If it starts," I said, "I'd like to come watch."
He watched me get back in my car and pull away. In the rearview mirror I saw him put the card in his pocket.
CHAPTER 10
Susan had her home and office in a big old house on Linnaean Street with a slate mansard roof and a wide front porch. She lived on the second floor, her office and waiting room occupying the half of the first floor to the left of the center entrance hall. I was drinking a bottle of Sam Adams in her living room while she got supper ready.
Getting supper ready in Susan's case meant getting gourmet take-out from Rudi's in Charles Square and reheating as required. She sipped a Diet Coke while she put two chicken breasts with apricot and pistachio stuffing into a red casserole dish to heat in the oven.
She had just finished running two seven-minute miles on the treadmill at her health club and she still wore her black sweat pants and pale blue sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and the neckline lowered. Her running shoes were Nikes with a purple swoosh.