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  "So? That doesn’t necessarily mean it was his. A lot of people smoke that brand. It’s my own, you know that."

  "Yes, I know, but there’s still a good chance it is the killer’s. Neither Gail nor Sandi smoked, and the landlady told me they rarely, if ever, had anyone in. Gail hated the smell of cigarette smoke. She used to nag me all the time to quit. And they found broken glass in the far corner of the closet. He put it there so she wouldn’t see it when she came into the room. That’s where he was hiding, Paul—in the closet. He was waiting for her in the closet when she got home."

  His sigh of impatience traveled over the line. "Jesus, Ellen, who do you think you are, Jessica Fletcher? Sweetheart, I’m worried about you. So is Myra."

  He didn’t give a damn about Myra. He was just using her to build his own case. He wanted to know when she was coming home. Ellen couldn’t say with any certainty. It depended. In a few days maybe, she said. She had no intention of telling him she was going to the Shelton Room tonight, or that, with any luck, he’d be watching her on tomorrow night’s news broadcast.

  Hopefully, the fact that she was a psychologist would carry a little weight.

  "I know how you feel," Paul was saying, "I know how terrible this is for you. But you must let the police do their job. It’s what they get paid for, what they’re trained to do. All you’ll do is get in the way, and end up making yourself sick."

  My God, did he think she wasn’t already sick? "I know they’re the professionals, Paul," she said, suddenly weary of the conversation. "But they have plenty of other cases to solve. Gail is just one more." With that, she said good-bye, told him she’d see him later, and hung up.

  He didn’t really want to hear anything she had to say, so why was she forcing it on him? Paul didn’t understand. He didn’t understand how it had been with her and Gail. No one did.

  Ed had. He would have been there for her. But Ed was gone.

  There was one other person. Feeling guilty for worrying Myra, she picked up the receiver and dialed her number. As she waited for her to answer the phone, she thought: We have to find him. We have to find him before the scratches fade.

  ~ * ~

  "I didn’t like the way she sounded, Carl," Myra said after hanging up the phone. She’d gotten little sleep last night, and after getting Joey off to kindergarten this morning, she’d gone back to bed. Which was a mistake. Now her mouth tasted wooly and she had a rotten headache. Ellen’s call didn’t help. Still in her robe, Myra plugged in the kettle for coffee.

  "Well, honey, she’s depressed," Carl Thompson said. "And she’s probably still in shock." A big, raw-boned man with a receding hairline, he was getting into his new brown leather jacket with the warm fleece lining, a Christmas gift from Myra—zipping it up carefully, as if fearing his clumsy fingers might damage it in some way. "You have to expect it’s going to take her a long time for—"

  "Carl, I know that," she snapped. "Do you think I don’t know that? And don’t you think ‘depressed’ is a bit of an understatement for what she’s feeling right now? Don’t patronize me, okay?"

  Hurt clouded his face. "I’m sorry. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing."

  After a pause, Myra said, "Oh, Carl, I’m the one who’s sorry." Her headache was beginning to pound with a vengeance. She raked a hand through her disheveled hair. "I didn’t mean to jump at you. I mean, I know she’s in terrible pain right now, but it’s not sadness I heard in her voice. She said she’s sure the police are keeping something from her, and that she’s going back tomorrow and make them tell her what it is. She was talking real fast, sort of hyper. Like she was on something. She didn’t sound like Ellen at all."

  Carl tilted his head at her, frowned. "You’re getting another one of your headaches, aren’t you?" he asked quietly.

  "What?" Her hands went automatically to her temples. "Getting" was hardly the word. "It’s nothing, just a... Joey, don’t eat so fast, you’ll get cramps."

  The small towhead turned in his chair, setting big, brown eyes on her. "No, I won’t. You always say that, and I don’t get cramps. Me and Jimmy’s going sliding. He’s waiting for me." With that he stuffed the last of his cheeseburger into his mouth and scrambled from his chair, nearly upending it in his rush to get to his jacket, hanging on a hook on the back door.

  Myra was across the room in two strides. "Oh, no you, don’t, young man," she said, snatching the jacket from his hand, ignoring the surprised hurt that leaped into his eyes. "You change your clothes first. You know you don’t wear your kindergarten clothes out to play. And it’s ‘Jimmy and I’."

  "Aw, Mom—"

  "And don’t ‘Aw, Mom’ me. You—"

  "Just do it, okay, Tiger?" Carl interceded, tousling Joey’s hair.

  Without another word of protest, he was bounding up the stairs to obey, his small feet thumping on each step, and inside Myra’s head, as he went.

  "Honey, why don’t you take a couple of Tylenol and lie down for a while this afternoon?" Carl said.

  Meekly, Myra answered, "I just got up."

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. Tenderly. "I’ll call you later, okay?" he smiled. A smile that could always melt her anger.

  Joey had Carl’s smile. Poor Joey, she thought guiltily. He’s got a harpy for a mother. "You deserve a medal for putting up with me lately, Carl." Maybe she’d make an appointment with Doctor Hoffman. It had been a while since her last checkup.

  Hearing the van’s motor idling out in the driveway, she said, kissing him lightly, nudging him toward the door, "You’d better get going. You don’t want to be running late with your calls."

  "Yeah, you’re right. I’ve got a couple of phones to install in one of the offices over at the McLeod building this afternoon. Naturally, they wanted it done yesterday."

  She listened to the van backing out of the drive, wheels crunching on the hard snow.

  Carl had been working for the phone company for the last twenty years, landing a job right out of high school. A couple of times, he’d been offered the supervisor’s job, but turned it down because he couldn’t stand the thought of being stuck in an office all day, handing out orders to others. While they weren’t rolling in dough, they were doing okay.

  She’d done the career thing. It was where she’d met Carl, in that little boutique where she worked as assistant manager. He’d come to repair a faulty phone. And returned a couple of times on the pretense of checking it out, sealing their fates. She could always go back to work, probably would eventually, but for now she liked being a mom, she liked making a home for her family, a place where they could feel loved and safe.

  Something Myra had never known.

  She didn’t have to close her eyes to see herself lying in the darkness in her little bed, listening with growing dread and heaviness for her father’s footsteps outside her door, to hear it open, to feel her bed sag with his weight. "Don’t tell anyone, Myra, honey. This is our little secret. No one will believe you, anyway."

  And he was right; they hadn’t.

  She’d been a basket case when she went to Ellen for counseling. Ellen had given her back her life. And now her friend was in trouble, and there was nothing she could do to help. She’d sounded so weird on the phone, talking about the blood and skin under Gail’s fingernails. It had made Myra’s own skin crawl, she hardly knew what to say. When she asked her how she could be so objective, Ellen had replied simply, "I have to be." Then she told her she was going to that place where Gail had worked, The Shelton Room, and asking questions. She wished she could fly to New York and be with her, but it was impossible.

  She looked around at her cozy yellow and white, if slightly messy, kitchen. It was Ellen who was directly responsible for them having this place. It was an old, fix-it-upper they’d snapped up at once. Myra had been pregnant with Joey at the time. The retired couple who’d owned it was spending their declining years in Florida.

  She began clearing the table. Taking the carton of milk to the f
ridge, she was met with Joey’s artwork papering the door. No sign here of the black-crayoned, disturbing works of her own childhood, but houses with smoke curling from chimneys, trees in full bloom, bright suns smiling down. Joey leaned toward reds and yellows. A couple of the pictures had stick figures standing in the yard—five in all. Joey’s family.

  She was putting milk in the fridge as Joey came bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen. He stopped when he saw her. The wary look he gave her made her heart clench with guilt.

  "I’m so sorry I was rough on you, sweetie," she said, helping him zip up his snowsuit, smoothing the red and blue knitted toque over his ears.

  "That’s okay, Mom," he said, standing still for her fussing, hugging her back when she hugged him. "Aunt Ellen is sad because the bad man kilt her sister, isn’t she, Mom?" Joey said quietly.

  Kneeling, Myra hugged him more closely to her, feeling his slight, little-boy frame snug inside the snowsuit. He smelled of soap and cheeseburger. "Yes, Joey, she is."

  "I would be sad if Todd or Kevin got kilt," he said, his voice muffled against her shoulder. "I would cry."

  "So would I, baby," she said, feeling a cold panic at the thought of anything happening to any of them. "So would I." That’s how it is with Ellen, she thought. Gail had been every bit as much Ellen’s child as Joey was hers. Giving birth had little to do with it.

  "I gotta go now, Mom," Joey said, squirming out of her too-tight embrace.

  ~ * ~

  Within twenty minutes of backing out of his drive, Carl Thompson arrived at the McLeod building, a six-story, faded brick on King Street. Glancing at the name on the order form, he took the ancient elevator up to the fourth floor. Turning left, he strode down the corridor to the office of Anderson Insurance.

  A young blond girl teetering on spiked heels, wearing a short, black leather skirt and dangling horseshoe earrings damn near big enough to pitch, distractedly showed him where they wanted the phones. There were two new people starting on Monday, she said and left him to join the small group already gathered around the man in the fishnet sweater who was down on one knee beside a stack of canvases.

  "We’ve got a real good buy on this one," he said, referring to a seascape, assuring them that this was one of his most "popular" works. When he got no takers he moved on to the next, turning back the canvases, one by one, like he was selling wallpaper. Most of the interest seemed to be coming from the women in the office while the men were standing around with their hands in their pockets, looking "cool", but not entirely unimpressed, Carl noted.

  "Got anything with a barn in it?" the girl with the earrings piped up, and Carl had to suppress a grin. He set his tool kit on the gray carpet beside him, and settled down to work, now and then glancing up with mild interest at the proceedings.

  He knew a guy once who did this for a living. He said the broker had a studio where he employed young, talented and starving artists who had a knack for copying the work of the masters, who could work fast, and to order. A little change here and there, a cloud added, an extra rooftop, just to keep things on the up and up. They were original oils, just the same, and sold like hotcakes all across the country.

  "I do have a lovely farm scene," the salesman said, and the girl with the earrings crouched low in her bottom-hugging skirt, and the earrings swung, making Carl think amusedly of a poor old horse out there somewhere walking around barefoot.

  "I can tell you have a real eye for art, Miss..."

  "Cindy," she said. "Cindy Miller." She smiled, clearly pleased at his astute observation of her good taste.

  The guy was good. He knew how to play his audience. Carl went back to work, work he’d been at so long he could do it with his eyes shut, and thought about Myra. She’d cried out in her sleep again last night. And the headaches were getting worse. He was worried about her. He wasn’t at all convinced, even though she and Ellen were close, that it was all to do with Gail’s murder.

  Maybe a little vacation was in order, just the two of them. He had some time coming. The boys could stay with his mother. She’d grab at the chance to spoil them rotten, and they loved being with her.

  "That’s some dandy scratch you got there, fella," one of the older men commented, causing Carl to look up. "Get in a scrap with your girlfriend, did you?"

  This was met with a few snickers.

  Carl’s attention was drawn to the puffy gouge that started just under the man’s left eye and traveled down to the corner of his mouth. The dark makeup didn’t begin to hide it.

  Looking momentarily bewildered, the salesman touched a hand to his face then let out a low chuckle. "A favorite aunt—at least, she used to be—gave me a Siamese cat for my birthday. I don’t think it’s going to work out," he joked.

  ~ * ~

  There’d been a cancellation, and the receptionist had called Myra back in the afternoon to tell her if she could get there in the next half hour, the doctor would see her. Now, sitting in a room with others who also waited, she picked up a dated Reader’s Digest and began thumbing through the pages, trying unsuccessfully to ignore her pounding head. She stopped at an article titled "Helping Friends Who Grieve." She began to read, and it was then that she had her first blackout.

  She didn’t know that’s what it was, of course, couldn’t know that her body had jerked spasmodically in the chair, causing heads to turn in her direction, or that the magazine had slipped from her grasp and fallen to the floor.

  The episode lasted mere seconds.

  "Are you all right, dear?" the elderly woman sitting in the chair next to her said, leaning toward her, laying a blue-veined hand on Myra’s. Her thready voice was filled with concern and not a little nervousness.

  "What?"

  "You looked like—something frightened you very badly just now."

  "Oh. No, I-I’m fine, thank you." Seeing the Reader’s Digest at her feet, Myra bent to pick it up. As she straightened, the room went out of focus, beige walls hanging with framed degrees, diplomas and medical illustrations tilting crazily. Spots danced before her eyes.

  After a moment, the awful sensation left her. Her hands were clammy and trembling as she gripped the magazine.

  What’s happening to me?

  She was afraid to look up, afraid to see everyone staring at her. Dropping her eyes, she began again turning the pages in the magazine, pretending to read.

  She was grateful when her name was called.

  Fourteen

  "Angela, honey, don’t you think that sweater’s just a tad too small for you?" Lieutenant Mike Oldfield said, sitting at the Formica kitchen table, drinking his second cup of coffee of the morning. He watched his sleepy-eyed daughter scurrying about the room, taking a quick gulp of milk in lieu of breakfast, gathering up her books and stuffing them into her book bag.

  Though she was only eleven, she was already starting to develop breasts, little buds that pushed at the yellow fabric of her sweater, hinting at the lovely young woman, that, as far as Mike was concerned, she was too-fast becoming. It scared the hell out of him.

  The vision exploded when she wiped the milk mustache from her upper lip with the back of her hand.

  "Oh, Daddy, I like this sweater, it’s warm." Giving a swish of her caramel-colored, slightly scraggly hair, she awkwardly shoved her arms into the orange sleeves of her neon green jacket. "I gotta go," she said. She planted a kiss on his cheek, simultaneously plucking a half-slice of toast from the plate. "I’ll miss my bus." She gave him a dimpled grin. "You need a shave, Daddy. Your face feels scratchy."

  He heard the door slam. It was all Mike could do not to go after her and make her go back upstairs and change into something baggy and unattractive.

  Outside, the voices of children rang out like happy geese. A moment later he heard the rumble of the school bus arriving, the hiss of airbrakes, and moments after that, silence.

  Why couldn’t she just remain his little girl, always? He understood her as a child. He could deal with that. He could protect her. Som
etimes he felt so damned inadequate. A girl needed a mother. But Karen had abandoned them when Angela was only two; she barely remembered her mother, though she kept the picture Mike had given her on her nightstand, and tried to understand.

  He wondered if Karen had ever become the actress she’d wanted to be. He’d never seen her in anything.

  He was thinking about this, putting the video he’d made at the cemetery in its plastic case, when the phone rang.

  He took the call in the living room. It was long distance, from a Detective Shannon at N.Y.P.D. He was sorry to call him at home, he said, but he was having a little problem that maybe Mike could help him out with.

  Mike picked up the blue mixing bowl from the sofa and set it on the floor. A few uncooked kernels of corn rolled around on the bottom of the bowl. He settled himself on the sofa. "Whatever I can do, Sergeant," he said.

  Before getting to the crux of the call, the detective tossed Mike a few crumbs, related to him the grotesque fact that Gail Morgan’s killer had painted her face up to look like a clown’s as a parting gesture. It was the one piece of evidence they were keeping under wraps, the detective said. The one detail that might help them nail the bastard. The sister was in New York, he said, had dug herself in at the victim’s apartment, was going around asking questions.

  So there was a problem, Mike thought.

  "I’m expecting her any minute now," Shannon said. "I can set my watch. The woman is obsessed."

  "The landlady found the victim, didn’t she?"

  "We’ve sworn her to secrecy."

  "And you think it’ll take."

  "Who knows? Let’s hope so." Not that he wasn’t sympathetic, of course he was, but there was nothing more they could tell her. What the hell did she think she could do that they weren’t already doing? Never mind that they were already up to their eyeballs in unsolved killings. "She doesn’t even know her way around the city, for Christ’s sake," the detective barked. "She’ll only end up getting herself hurt. Or worse, ending up another statistic, like her sister."