Why was she still screaming? It was over. Didn’t she understand? She had to stop screaming now.
The knife stopped her. It took fifteen or twenty times, but finally she was quiet. The knife made little red roses all over her gauzy white blouse. They were almost pretty, strewn across her breast.
But then, when he slit her blouse open, her chest was a mess. There was no white space left at all.
He would have to turn her over and use her backside.
Carefully this time, so as not to spoil her, he slit her blouse and jeans down the back and peeled them open to her snowy-white flesh.
The Buck knife was very, very sharp. It did good work.
*
He pulled a comb out of his pants pocket and combed his hair, damp from his shower. Then he checked to make sure he had everything. The gloves. His knife. All of his clothes were back on.
He looked back into the kitchen before he opened the apartment door.
It was a nice job. You could read the letters from here, the letters he had carved so neatly across her back.
He smiled and closed the door behind him.
*
Fifteen minutes later Brad pushed the downstairs buzzer for the third time. Maybe she was still in the shower.
The possibility that she had stood him up crossed his mind, but he rejected it. He was crazy about her and he knew she liked him too. This was going to be the night.
He clutched the bouquet he had brought Paula tighter in his left hand as he rang the buzzer once more.
Maybe it was broken.
He walked to the corner grocery store to find a pay phone to call her.
The call rang and rang and rang through the silent apartment, where a duck overcooked and grew dry in an unwatched oven.
THIRTY-SIX
Sean called the next morning. “Annie, I just spoke to Samantha.” The words were clipped. Uh-oh. She knew he was angry. “Didn’t you both promise to stay out of this?”
Annie mumbled an affirmative.
“I don’t understand it. Sam should have better sense. And I don’t know what you think you’re doing.”
“We told you before. Lola was a friend.”
“I don’t care if she was your mother!” he exploded. “I just won’t have you butting into police business.”
Annie decided to ignore that. “Did she tell you we think Sharder’s harmless?”
“Harmless, huh?” His voice reeked of sarcasm. “I love your methodology, Annie. I really do. Very scientific police work. Is that how you think we solve crimes, with intuition, on hunches?”
“Maybe…sometimes.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Annie could hear him sucking on his pipe.
“Well,” he admitted, “there is some intuition involved. But it’s informed intuition, goddammit, on the part of professionals. Not amateurs muddying the waters, taking chances on getting themselves killed.”
“Sean…we just…”
“You just thought you’d help, right? We don’t need your help.” Then his voice softened. He sighed heavily. “Well, I hate to even tell you this. It’s just going to encourage you. But your seeing Sharder last night did accomplish one thing.”
“What?”
“It proved he’s not our man.”
“See…”
“But,” he hastened to interrupt her, “not in the way you think—unfortunately. While you were with him in Port Costa, the killer claimed his fifth victim here in the city.”
“Oh, God!” The news hit Annie like a slug in the stomach.
“Good news, bad news joke, isn’t it? Good news, Sharder couldn’t have done it. Bad news, we don’t know who the fuck did. And he’s still out there.” He heard himself. “Excuse my language, Annie. This is really eating at me.”
She knew that was a gross understatement of how he really felt about the murders he couldn’t stop. But what a gentlemanly homicide detective he was. She used much worse language than that herself on occasion.
Sean continued. This killing was definitely the handiwork of the same maniac. For what it was worth, they were able to pinpoint the time very closely. A neighbor had heard her come in from shopping and then had heard her let somebody in. She hadn’t heard him leave. Her boyfriend had arrived about an hour later and had called the police when she didn’t answer.
He wouldn’t tell her anymore. “You don’t want to know. This guy’s very sick, a vicious SOB. One of my men tossed his lunch when he saw the body. He really is a maniac. I want you to stay away from this, do you understand? You don’t want to find this man.”
Annie digested what he was saying. Then she asked, “Sean, did you find letters in her apartment? You know, letters from men from the ads, like at Lola’s?”
Sean whistled in exasperation. “You’re a terrier, aren’t you?”
“Well?”
“No, we haven’t, not yet. It certainly did occur to us. But we’re still examining the apartment. It’ll be days before the reports are all in.”
“But it won’t be that long before you know if there are letters or not. Will you tell me if there are?”
“No.”
“But, look, maybe there’s a connection. I still have all my letters, and you have Lola’s. What if you took all of them and crosschecked them? They all fall within the same period of time, I mean, since the murders have been happening. If Paula has letters, too, maybe he’s there. What about the other three? Did they do the personals?”
“Annie, I’m not discussing this with you.”
She was silent, waiting him out.
“Look, even if all of the victims and you got a letter from the same man, so what? Haven’t you answered more than one ad at a time? There’s no law against that. And he didn’t, thank God, come after you.”
“Yes, but that’s because I’m not black.” She knew as she spoke that it didn’t compute.
“What do you mean? Do you think Paula Eisenberg was black? Or Marcia Cohen or Sondra Weinberg?”
“Oh, my God.”
“I thought you would have gotten that before, smart lady. There’s a pattern here, all right, but you’ve just focused on Lola.” He didn’t tell her about the swastikas and the letter K repeated three times that he’d carved on his victims’ bodies. No one knew outside the department. And they hadn’t found letters in the other apartments. But then, they hadn’t especially been looking for them. You didn’t know what the hell to look for with a crazy.
“Listen, I would like to see your letters. Bring them down and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Does that mean…”
“It means nothing. But if we find some matches with yours and Lola’s, I’ll let you know. And then we can talk about them.”
“Are you sure you’ll want to? You won’t think I’m just butting in?”
“Will she never stop busting my chops?” he asked under his breath. “Why don’t you act like a schoolteacher?” he asked her. “Twist your hair up on your head, wear Dr. Scholl’s, and keep your nose out of my business.”
“Because I’m a writer,” she answered him crisply. “Besides, you don’t even know what a schoolteacher looks like. You think they all wear habits and are named Sister Rosalie.”
Writer. Some writer. She’d better get to it, she thought. The deadline for the outline and first three chapters of the book was growing uncomfortably near. And the stories increasingly crazier. The problem with truth was that it was indeed stranger than fiction and she wasn’t sure if her editor was going to buy some of these tales.
Who would believe Powell, for example, the bisexual painter who’d answered her query ad? Who’d had his honeymoon with his lesbian girl friend ruined by a red-tick hound named Harold who was afraid of linoleum.
Annie tossed Powell’s interview notes aside. She’d never get away with this one; her editor had never been to San Francisco.
*
Nothing was making her happy today. She was worried about the book. Sean was b
itching at her about minding her own business. And Lola’s murderer was still out there. It was that awful week between Christmas and New Year’s when nothing got done and everyone was tentative. And it was raining.
She felt antsy. She hadn’t talked with David in months, by choice, but sometimes she wondered if half a loaf wasn’t what her hunger needed. The thought of Harry still ached sometimes like a bad tooth. She’d called Tom Albano to say hello, and he’d told her about a nurse he’d met who’d invited him to a New Year’s Eve party. He sounded happy and excited. She didn’t want to hear it.
What was wrong with her? Just the holiday blahs? Then she tuned into the dull throb in her forehead that was growing sharper and the pain behind her knees. That was the giveaway. It was more than cranky; it was the flu. A reason to retreat.
She checked her cupboard for soup and tea. Ice cream in the freezer. Lemons, tissues. She’d call Sam to bring her a pile of fashion magazines and she’d be set. She could tuck in and take care of herself and let New Year’s Eve just slide on by.
*
A week later she and Sam were celebrating the return of her good health and appetite at the Little Italy with a dinner of spiedini, linguine with fresh clams, and veal and peppers.
“And I had Dungeness crab with Sean at lunch today. I should be ashamed,” Annie said.
Sam just stared at her. She had never known Annie to be regretful of a forkful in her entire life.
“So what did my darling have to say?”
“First, he reminded me to mind my own business, but he always does that. I don’t take it personally. He said there were no personals letters in Paula Eisenberg’s apartment.
“But they did find some correlations between mine and Lola’s. Remember the crazy therapist who went on and on about love and food?”
“Right! The hungry one.”
“He wrote to Lola too. But he’s safely tucked away in Napa State Hospital, where’s he’s been crazy for all these years.
“The other was Stan Levine, the man who looks like Gene Wilder.”
“The one who wanted to take you to the hot tubs?”
“Yes. He has alibis for the nights of all five murders.”
“Did Sean say they inquired about all of Lola’s letters?”
“Yes. All twelve. Four were from prisoners. That leaves eight. Levine and the Napa loony leave six. The rest all check out, except one who’s away on a cruise, which lets him out. And none of them was David. So I guess that’s that with our ad theory. No connection.”
“So we’re back at ground zero. Did Sean say anything else?”
“No fingerprints. He must wear gloves. A partial bloody shoeprint from Lola’s that matches one from Sondra Weinberg’s. They’re questioning all the neighbors over and over in hopes that someone will remember something.”
“Jesus H. Christ! I can’t believe you got all that out of him. What’d you ply him with, eight-year-old cognac at lunch?”
“Nope.” Annie grinned. “I promised I’d buy you a copy of the Kama Sutra.”
Sam laughed at Annie’s joke, but later she worried about it. She knew Annie well enough to know that she joked when things were bothering her, and the absence of a man in her life was giving those jokes a hard edge that made Sam feel a little uncomfortable and a little guilty about her happiness with Sean. Something had to break soon.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Annie watched Samantha hurrying away to meet Sean at his apartment.
Annie was going home alone.
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, she thought.
You’re feeling sorry for yourself, Annie. You were too a bride. And you will be again. Someday.
In the meantime, she had tomorrow night to look forward to with her friend Tom, who was always fun.
But maybe not this time. She wondered what was on his mind. They’d planned to try yet another new Chinese place out near Quan’s, but he had called and asked if she would mind cooking if he brought wine and dessert.
“I think I need a home-cooked chicken,” he’d said. That was about as close as he ever came to saying he needed some mothering, and she was happy to accommodate. She’d certainly cried on his shoulder before.
He’d listened to her on the subjects of Bert and Mario. He’d disapproved of David. Had wanted to punch out Harry.
He was one of the strongest supporters of her writing, had encouraged her in the move from teaching. Of course, she hadn’t bothered to tell him of her latest sideline, amateur sleuthing. He knew that Lola had been her friend, and had been shocked and sympathetic at the news of her death. But he knew nothing of Sharder, Port Costa, their nudging Sean for news. If he did, he would have locked her in her apartment and thrown away the key.
Tom arrived right on time, beeping a quick shave-and-a-haircut-six-bits on the downstairs buzzer. As she opened the apartment door, she could hear him pounding up the last flight of stairs. He never used the elevator. It was part of his schizophrenic fitness routine, which consisted of major athleticism tempered by cartons of cigarettes.
His curly head poked around her kitchen door and he wheezed hello as he leaned down to kiss her.
She frowned at him.
“Unless you’ve stopped smoking I don’t want to hear a word about my wheezing,” he said. “Besides, is a frown any way to greet a man with a bottle of champagne?”
Annie turned from the sink and really looked at him for the first time.
She was stunned. It was a totally new Tom Albano.
“Holy Thomas Aquinas! You’re absolutely gorgeous. Is the champagne to celebrate the union between you and Elizabeth Arden?”
He gave her a bear hug to cover his embarrassment.
“Shut up, Annie.”
“No, really.” She pulled away to look at him. “What happened?”
Tom turned to rummage in her cabinet for wineglasses, pretending to ignore her.
“Hold still.” She stepped back and appraised him. “The beard is gone. The mustache and sideburns are shorter. New glasses! They must have given you a wonderful trade-in for your old ones, especially for the Scotch tape.”
Tom pressed a glass of champagne upon her.
“Go ahead, let’s hear it all.”
“Well, I don’t know where to begin. New loafers. Oh, wait, turn around.”
He did. She could almost see the grin through the back of his head.
“Your pants fit! And congratulations, you do, indeed, have a perfectly lovely fanny.”
They drank to it. Tom continued to grin at her.
“So,” she said, “what brought all this on? The nurse’s handiwork?”
He nodded. She was surprised. No one else had ever been able to effect any changes in Tom’s appearance. A man with a beautiful eye for design who never seemed to look at himself in the mirror. Must be some woman.
“I finally gave in, and Sandy and I spent two weeks on this,” he gestured. “The new me. I’ve got suits, too, ties, shirts, sweaters, the whole works.”
“Well, Sandy should be very proud of herself. She has excellent taste in more than men.”
“She does,” he agreed. “In clothes, I mean, but…well…I’m not seeing her anymore.”
Why did that secretly please her?
“I just wasn’t the right man. Or she wasn’t the right woman. Actually, I think we bored one another once we got through shopping. But,” he leaned past her and opened a pot on the stove, “I didn’t come over here to bore you too. I came to eat dinner.”
“I think I can take a hint.”
As she finished in the kitchen, he set the table. The roast chicken, his favorite, was done to perfection. While doing the dishes, they talked about his latest project.
“They really don’t care how much money it costs, these electronics people. They’ve got it to burn.” In the plant’s recreation area he was doing an Olympic-size pool, four tennis courts, a weight room. “They’re all workaholics, never go home. So the company’s more than willing to provid
e a total environment for them. And I’m proud to carry their money to the bank.”
She turned with soapy gloves to look at him. It was amazing, the difference. Not that he hadn’t always been an attractive man. But those little things. They really did change him.
They settled in the living room with cognac. He lit cigarettes for them both.
“You ever miss teaching, Annie? Ever want to go back?”
She shook her head. “Not that way. I like the classes at State, but when I’m asked I don’t say I’m a teacher anymore. Nope, I’m a writer. I get in much more interesting conversations that way, instead of the same old dreary one.”
“What do you mean?”
“At parties if you tell people you teach they always want to tell you how horrible the system is, how their kids can’t read and write. When they haven’t seen or spoken to them in the last six months except to yell at them to turn down the television.”
“I guess that could get pretty old.”
Annie warmed to the subject. “Or they think all teachers are like Kotter—or Diane Keaton.”
“Pardon?”
“Diane Keaton. Remember in The Godfather when Corleone comes looking for her after she’s gone back to teaching? She’s in a park with all these little kindergarten kids and Corleone drives up and crooks his finger, and she jumps in his limo and drives off—just leaves those little boogers in the park.”
He laughed. “I’d forgotten that.”
“The woman has single-handedly ruined the rep of teachers in this country. Let us not forget Mr. Goodbar. Not only is she a slut, but an irresponsible slut. She teaches these special kids, and one day she can’t make it to school because she spent the whole night screwing her brains out. So when they flash to her classroom the next day, the little kids are running all around the room, throwing things. There’s no substitute teacher, no one.”
“And the lesson is?”
“Good teachers have no sex life. Didn’t you know that?”
“Well, do you want to spend the rest of the evening writing a letter of protest to Diane Keaton, or would you rather play gin rummy?”
Impersonal Attractions Page 17