More intriguing was that way Philippe kept slapping his palm over the mouthpiece to confer with whoever guided him through our conversation. I mean, there’s three kinds of folks with that kind of squeamishness-the military, spy agencies, and crooks.
I went to the kitchen, yanked two steaks out of the refrigerator, found two potatoes in the cupboard, and started preparing lunch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Anne Carrol hadn’t yet hit the news. Yet he was sure that within an hour her name would be the topic du jour in country stores, old ladies’ knitting groups, and police stations nationwide. Unbelievable what that monster did to her, folks would say, wagging their fingers and looking plainly horrified.
If Fiorio garnered attention because of her fame and popularity, the pain inflicted on Anne Carrol’s fiercely punished body would cause an entire nation to clench its teeth and cry for the murderous bastard to be caught.
Distasteful, but she had to be done in just that way. He sprayed another dose of Windex on the mirror and rubbed with enough vigor to purge every last trace of toothpaste or spit that might’ve splattered the surface. It was the sixth cleaning. But after all, he had spent a lot of time at the mirror, and there was no sense making a mistake at this stage. Modern techniques being what they were, DNA could be collected off a pinhead these days. The living room was done, every last surface scrubbed and rescrubbed with the best solvents money could buy. The closet-spotless. The kitchen sparkled. He had even rented a vacuum, for four hours running it back and forth and sucking up every particle and dustball. He had dumped the bags in a garbage receptacle at a mall three miles away. The clothes he’d worn over the past three weeks, the sheets he slept on, the pillows, everything had been hauled off and incinerated. The bicycle was buried in a seven-foot hole in some thick woods.
A spanking new briefcase rested on the spotless table in the living room, and the final two profiles were inside. His next kill wouldn’t be done in this city, however. He had planned all along to ratchet up the heat here, and do her elsewhere. Her death would be different and no connection to the awful killer in D. C. would be imagined or construed. This wasn’t her hometown anyway, was it? That she’d come here wasn’t in his plans and he regarded it as a terrible inconvenience. Well, he’d just have to find a way to draw her out.
He’d heard on the morning news that the corpse of a twenty-year-old GW student named John Negroponte had been discovered twelve miles outside D. C. on the canal towpath. From the damage to his bike and the catastrophic dent in his head, the police were assuming he’d been biking too fast, lost control, and slammed into a tree. A tragic accident; he probably hit a rut and somehow his helmet slipped off. A memorial service was scheduled at the GW University chapel, and the public was invited to attend.
Two of the three rental cars were parked in the lot that bordered the hotel, freshly scrubbed and detailed, doors unlocked, keys tucked under the driver’s mats. In three hours, two associates would appear to drive the cars back to Philadelphia and their rental agencies. He’d be long gone, on the far side of Baltimore, driving the last rental car north to Boston for the next kill.
The city of Washington would hold its breath for two or three days, and wonder where he’d strike next. After a week, the FBI and cops would be scratching their heads. On the corpses’ palms he had contracted for ten victims. The L. A. Killer promised five and delivered five. Their profilers had told them that he treated this as a wicked game of wits and would stake everything on winning.
They conditioned themselves with their own procedures and techniques, and were always astonished when the killer didn’t play by the very rules they’d assumed he’d set.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Janet arrived at noon. she stepped inside, dropped her coat by the door, and immediately began wandering and snooping. Why do women do that? We go to their apartments and maybe wonder what brand of beer they stock. Usually, that’s something called “Lite” beer, which is really bubbly tap water, which is why I always bring my own. They’ll claw through our underwear drawers if they think they won’t be caught. And when they get caught, they say something silly, like, “Nope, no napkins here. Where do you keep them?”
Anyway, my apartment is very compact, having a tiny living room, efficiency kitchen, and bedroom with a cramped bath. I am fairly neat and tidy, though it has been suggested that an interior decorator might make a few minor alterations. I’m no expert, but I believe the style of decor is labeled “This Pit Needs F-ing Work,” because some of my lady guests have mumbled words to the effect. It suits me and my needs, however.
I know, for example, that the guiding rule of interior decoration is the need for every living room to have a dominating piece.
Mine happens to be a sixty-inch big-screen TV, intravenously fed by a cable box. A few beaten-up bookshelves and a pair of reclining chairs strategically positioned six feet from the sixty-inch screen complete the decor. I have an obsession for bare white walls, and a thing against clutter, rugs, plants, side tables, lamps, and so forth. It took two men forty-five minutes to move me in, and will take probably less time to haul me out. Traveling light is practical when you’re in the Army, and obligatory when you have trouble finding bosses that like you.
Janet was shaking her head. “You actually live here?” She swiftly said, “Oh… I’m sorry-you probably just moved in.”
“Very funny.”
She laughed. She said, “This pit needs work.” Right.
Anyway, I wandered toward the tiny porch off my living room, where two steaks were grilling. She studied the mammoth TV a moment, then took the remote off the top, flipped it on, and asked, “Have you been watching?”
“Should I have been?”
“It’s a bad one, Sean.”
Well, the channel was preset on ESPN, so she had to surf around a bit for Fox News. A stunning female reporter stood with a mike pressed to her lips, a tall gray office building and banged-up green Dumpster as backdrops, saying, “… when the call came into our Washington studio, the building you see behind me, claiming that a body was inside the Dumpster outside. Leslie Jackson, our studio manager, and a security guard went to check, and then notified the police. Though local authorities aren’t offering any details, we know from Leslie’s description that the newest victim was horribly mutilated. Her corpse was naked, her limbs were shattered from repeated blows by a heavy blunt object. In a disturbingly gruesome step, her nose had been cut off her face.”
She took a question from the anchorperson, and replied, “No, Mark, the body has not yet been identified, though the FBI expect to know her identity later today. They also confirmed that her neck was broken, just like the other vic-”
Janet abruptly hit the off button, then informed me, “Earlier they confirmed that four slash ten was written on her palm.”
I flipped the steaks, and she joined me. She stood and stared off into the distance. The day was chilly and brisk. Dark clouds were sprinting and spiraling across the sky; a driving rainstorm appeared to be moving in, a typical mid-December day for Washington, and another woman would not live to see it.
I threw the steaks on a plate and Janet followed as I carried them into the kitchen. I withdrew the potatoes from the oven. A bottle of red wine was open, breathing, as they say, though exactly how dead grapes breathe is an enigma I’m sure I don’t want answered. I filled a glass of wine for her and popped a beer for me. My kitchen was equipped with an eating counter and we both got comfortable.