And Patric’s eyes were so beautiful and alluring, and his voice so scrumptiously foreign, Australian perhaps, but more likely British, with a little cockney turn to it…
God, Tammy, she thought as she twirled about the pier to the sounds of Bob Marley’s inept imitators, you’re so freaking lucky, girl…
“ She actually saw the guy?” asked Quincey, amazed. “She and her friend both saw him and the boat he used?”
“ And spoke to him!” said Santiva.
Jessica was just reentering the room when Mark Samernow griped, “Why didn’t the dumb bitch report this information when it happened?”
“ She did,” said Jessica.
“ What? When?”
“ Why haven’t we heard about it sooner?”
The two detectives were clearly upset.
“ She filed a missing persons report,” Santiva informed them. “In Miami?”
“ Precinct 15 took her report over two weeks ago, but it somehow, through human error, did not get into the computer.” Jessica paced the room, adding, “She came back to check on progress about Tammy Sue’s disappearance. When Missing Persons realized what they had, they sent her over to us.”
Eriq exasperatedly added, “So even our attempt to compile and network with all existing information on the Night Crawler hasn’t been a hundred percent, gentlemen. Can we get some corroboration, on what Judy Templar says, out of this Cynthia? And how do we find her? And who’s this other eyewitness you spoke of?”
“ I’ve got all the notes on her, an Aeriel Monroe. I’m still putting a lot of my notes on-line myself,” confessed Samernow. “Siie may also go under the name of Lov- ette.”
“ Goddamn you, Mark!” shouted Quincey, losing control, kicking over his chair and smashing both his massive fists onto the table, causing the remote to hop twice. “You’ve fucked up once too often on this case.”
“ I’ll get the information to you, Agent Santiva. You’ll have it within the hour, on-line,” Samernow promised.
“ Meanwhile, see what you can do to relocate the girl who gave it to you.”
Quincey assured him that they would find her, then left the room ahead of his partner, the steam of rage still rising from his head. Before the door closed on the partners, Jessica heard Quincey say to Samernow, “You drop the ball on this one more time and we’re through, Mark. I find myself a new partner.”
Santiva heaved a sigh and frowned. “Let’s go down to see how Judy Templar’s doing with the sketch artist. What about this Cynthia, the girlfriend of the girlfriend? You think LeMonte might shake something additional from her?”
“ From what Judy tells me, no. Cynthia’s in worse shape over this thing than Judy, and she’s been unable even to speak to Judy about it.”
“ Sounds like her level of intoxication that night may’ve been way over the limit. Just the same…”
“ If Quince and Samernow can come up with the other witness-and near victim as he tells it-she could be a much more reliable source. If their stories match, then they’re both credible. Let’s give it time.”
Santiva nodded and made for the door while Jessica retrieved the taped session which had come to mean so much to them all. On the way downstairs in the elevator, Eriq asked Jessica, “How much store do you think we can put in Templar’s testimony?”
“ My gut reaction?”
He nodded.
“ A great deal. I think she’s sincere and very observant.”
“ What she said about the ropes hanging over the bow…” he mused, letting the words linger in the air between them. “If those damned reporters had been kept back, no- body’d have learned about the black nylon rope we took off the bodies today. As it is… well, she told me that what got her to return to us-to authorities-in the first place was the report of the black nylon ropes used in the murders. It’s not as if she’s trying to put one over. I think the news about the ropes triggered a lot of pent-up guilt in her.”
“ And Dr. LeMonte? She believes the girl is telling the truth?”
“ She says she hasn’t a doubt.”
They stepped off the elevator and located the Police Sketch Artist sector of the MPD, where Judy Templar sat before a man who kept asking her question after question about noses, eyes, ears, chins, cheeks, temples, foreheads, facial hair, hairlines and hair in general. Donna LeMonte stood nearby, offering encouragement.
Jessica took Donna’s hand in hers; they’d become the closest of friends over the years, Jessica respecting the hard- edged, tough-talking Dr. LeMonte not only for her professional acumen but for her personal triumphs. She had herself weathered many horrid hardships to overcome problems in life, the most awful being the loss of her child to leukemia and the subsequent divorce from her husband, stemming from the dissolution of her family due to the dreadful disease. She started over late in life, returned to college, finished and went on to graduate study in medicine and psychiatry to become the best head doctor Jessica had ever known.
They exchanged warm regards now, Santiva noticing the warmth and closeness in the firm hand-holding they shared. Jessica next introduced Eriq to Dr. LeMonte, whom he had heard of but whom he had never met. Dr. LeMonte didn’t work for the FBI, but she had counseled many of its agents over the years. She appeared ten, maybe twelve years Jessica’s senior, but she was a strikingly handsome woman.
“ You may’ve worked a minor miracle here, Doctor,” Eriq confided. “It may be the first break we’ve had in this case.”
“ And hopefully, it will lead us to this demon,” agreed Jessica.
“ I’m happy that it has worked out so well, happy to’ve done what I can,” she whispered back, “but I don’t think I’m finished just yet. Judy here”-she intentionally raised her voice so that Judy could hear-”she’s not doing so well on the specifics, but I think she’s agreed to another round of hypnosis, with an eye to details, facial and otherwise, of our mysterious Patric without the K. Haven’t you, dear?”
Judy bit her lip and reached out to take Jessica’s hand now, saying, “I’m trying my best, but it’s just no good.”
“ Do you feel up to another hypnosis session with Dr. LeMonte, Judy?”
“ I’m tired, but… okay, I guess.”
“ Good… then we’ll set it up.”
“ We’ll do it right here, right now,” countered Donna LeMonte, “while we’ve got this young man here to draw from your words, Judy.” Judy and the young officer with the sketch pad exchanged a long, meaningful look that ended in smiles. Jessica realized that a flirtation was in full swing. Maybe something good could come of this nightmare Judy was reliving time and again.
Donna had Judy under in a matter of seconds. She asked her to revisit the night of Tammy’s disappearance, to go back to the wharf where she stood beside Todd Simon (who had already been interrogated, found lacking in information and released) and to stare out across the water at the boat and the man holding Tammy in his arms. She next asked her to return to her table when Patric was sitting across from her and whispering in Tammy’s ear.
“ Tell me now, Judy,” began Donna. “What does his hair look like?”
“ Raven-black, near blue; he may’ve used a gel. It was slicked back, wavy.”
The artist began sketching on a new pad, listening intently now.
“ His forehead, it was like… like…,” Donna encouraged.
‘ ‘ Covered with a shock of hair on the right, but large on the left.”
“ Clear-skinned or blemished?”
“ Blemished a bit, like a large freckle or maybe a birthmark where the hair lay over the forehead. It was the only imperfect thing about him.”
“ Anything special about his eyes?”
“ Oh, was there! They were so blue, I wondered if they were real or contacts.”
“ Eyebrows?”
“ Thick but not bushy, perfectly arched.”
“ Anything else?”
“ Set deep in, below the brow.”
“ And his ears?”
“ His hair lay over them, but what I could see of them… well, they were well-proportioned, not too large, but not small either.”