“I’ve got someone tracking down the auction company’s records. We should have the names and addresses of the buyers of the other paintings by tomorrow morning. Oh-and Fritz will be there for you at eight-be ready. How soon can you get here?”
“One stop.” said Hawk, squinting through smoke. “Probably Greenville. Got to drop Mrs. Carlysle where she can catch a shuttle or something to Raleigh-Durham. Then I’ll be on my way.” Something he’d detected in the bureau chief’s tone made him ask with quickening pulse, “Why, what’s up? You got something?”
“We’ve heard from Lyons-just about an hour ago, right after you called, as a matter of fact. It seems Loizeau’s body has yielded some interesting bits, in spite of your mucking about. Quite a number of fibers. Most of them appear to be from those little blankets airlines provide.”
“Which only tells us our shooter might have recently taken a flight, probably of long duration,” Hawk observed. “Which doesn’t narrow it down much.”
“True. But a few of the others might be a bit more significant, I think. Merino wool, which I believe is a component of better-quality outer garments.”
“Sweaters,” muttered Hawk. “Topcoat, maybe?”
“I doubt it,” said Devore dryly. “These happen to be pink.”
“pink?”
“That is what I said.”
“Pink.”
“Yes. Pink.”
“Are you telling me,” said Hawk slowly, while his belly tied itself in knots, “that we could be looking at a woman?”
“It is a possibility that must be considered,” said Devore, with enough diffidence in his voice to make Hawk very uneasy.
“There’s something else,” he growled. “Let’s have it.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then, “Yes, there is something else. Hawk, I must ask you to get for me a set of Mrs. Carlysle’s fingerprints.”
“Why?” He exhaled sharply and reached to stub out his cigarette, breaking it in half.
“I know you have told me you believe she is not involved, but we must be certain. You know that. We must at least eliminate-”
“Eliminate? From what? Are you telling me you have a print?”
“We do have a print, yes. Several, actually. Most are smudged, but there is one very good one-a thumbprint.”
“My God. Where was it?”
“On some papers in one of Loizeau’s pockets. He had some small things-a grocery list from his wife among them. The pocket was buttoned. Possibly the shooter had difficulty opening the button with gloves on, took them off, rifled through the papers, then was in a rush, perhaps-you said you arrived only moments after he-or she-had left. And made a mistake.” There was a pause. “A fatal one, let us hope.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Hawk on an exhalation of disbelief. Rarely in his experience were forensics scientists, particularly fingerprints experts, blessed with such luck. “You have a match?”
“We do.” Another pause, longer this time. “You will not like this, Hawk.”
Impatient, he said through clenched teeth, “Tell me.”
Devore made a sound that was almost a sigh. “The print lifted from the shopping list in Loizeau’s pocket matches perfectly one found on bomb fragments recovered from the wreckage of Flight 310-the plane that went down off Sicily five years ago. If you recall-”
“I remember,” said Hawk in a tone as leaden as his heart. He remembered it as he remembered his own name, his own signature, because the bomb that had brought Flight 310 to a premature end, along with the lives of all hundred eighty-three people on board, had born the same signature as the one left on a merry-go-round in Marseilles.
“So,” Devore was saying, “you will do this-get us something with Mrs. Carlysle’s prints on it? Just to be sure.”
“Yeah,” said Hawk. “Sure.” His thoughts were spinning crazily. He was trying to imagine Jane wearing pink. Problem was, he thought she’d look terrific in it.
The knock on her door came as Jane was raking off the skimpy motel shower cap, shaking her head and combing through her hair with her fingers. Her heart skidded and began to pound.
“Oh, God,” she whimpered to herself as her naked body froze in a posture of panic and indecision. Her clothes were hanging within reach, but her underwear was dripping on the towel bar in the bathroom. The motel towels were typically skimpy. Impossibly skimpy.
“Who is it?” her voice quavered. Stupid, she thought, who would it be?
The answer came muffled. “It’s Tom. Sorry to bother you…”
“Just a minute…” Breathing like a cornered fugitive, she quickly wrapped the extra towel around her waist and rolled the top edge down to secure it, then grabbed the damp one from the floor and covered her top half in the same fashion. Finally, hoping her pounding heart wouldn’t shake the towels loose, she gave her sweat-damp hair a futile pat and opened the door a crack.
“Hi,” she gasped through the gap. “Sorry-I was just…”
Tom was standing there with his hands in his pockets. “Maybe I’d better come back,” he said. “When you’re, uh…” His forehead creased in a scowl of Godzillian proportions. But he looked as if he wanted to say something and was making no move to go.
She shrugged her bare shoulders, keeping a death grip on the top of the towel that covered her breasts as she stuttered, “It’s okay-if there’s-did you want…can I help you?”
She opened the door wider and he slipped into the room, moving stiffly, without his usual grace. “I, uh, just wanted to say I’m sorry.” He was looking around her stock motel room as if he’d never seen one like it before. Looking anywhere but at her.
“Sorry?” As she closed the door, a trickle of sweat emerged from her hair and began a journey across her forehead toward one eyebrow. She mopped it self-consciously with the back of her hand as she turned back to him. “What for?”
He waved a hand in a vaguely self-disgusted sort of way. “For saying what I did-earlier. I shouldn’t have thrown it at you like that. I’d been trying to think how to tell you.”
“It’s okay,” Jane murmured. “Really. I’m just…so terribly sorry.”
He nodded, finally looking at her. Cloaked in terry cloth from her armpits to her knees, she’d never felt so utterly naked. “It’s not something I normally tell people,” he said.
Another sweat trickle traced its way between her eyebrows, and his glance flicked at it, his eyes alert while his body remained still, like a lazy cat following the dartings of a fly.
She lost track of time and space; it might have been an hour or a second before he said, in a voice like a rock slide, “I was wondering…you don’t happen to have any toothpaste, do you? That tote bag of yours…” His smile tilted. Her heart did, too.
“Oh, sure. As a matter of fact, I do.” A laugh jerked her body like a hiccup. “I’ll just…” Amazed that her legs still functioned, she padded to the bathroom on bare feet, her knees all but creaking with self-awareness. “It’s…in here. You’re welcome to it. I’m, uh, finished…” Returning, she thrust the tube of toothpaste at him. “So you might as well keep it. Sorry I don’t have a spare toothbrush.” Her smile and shrug were nervous and apologetic.
“That’s okay-I’ll make do.” He grinned as he held up a finger and made brushing motions across his teeth with it. The smile slipped back into its customary place as he added, “This’ll help a lot-thanks, I ’preciate it.”
Smiling brilliantly, Jane murmured, “Oh, no problem. Glad I could help. Any time.” I hate this, she thought. Hate it. Why did this have to happen?
Again he nodded, saying nothing. And then his eyes dropped unexpectedly to her chest, to the spot where her fingers were knotted in the join of her towel. Her pulse throbbed so loudly in her ears that when he spoke she heard the words as if she were underwater.