Rebecca replied, “I vote for ‘shrewd.’ God only knows how many other victims he could be responsible for before showing up in San Remo.”
Sergeant Powers was careful to keep his interest restrained and professional as he told her, “That was sharp the way you zoned in on his ‘trademarks.’ We could have tumbled to your man on that point alone.
The ‘Whorehouse Roulette,’ I mean. We called him the ‘Roulette Rapist,’ but that was just for public consumption so as not to offend our good Baptist ladies. But, yeah, we could have gone straight to Martin purely on the strength of your M.O.”
She told him, “That’s interesting.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too. Had you ever heard that phrase before?”
“Not until last week. I’m not even sure I know what it means.”
“Probably no reason why you should. Martin worked briefly some years ago on a Mississippi River Boat. Has to do with the gambling and prostitution that was so common in the old days. I won’t say anymore about that in mixed company.”
“You could say anything to me that you would say to anyone present,” Rebecca said quietly.
“I’ll pass anyway,” the Oklahoman replied with a smile. His gaze took in a general sweep of the conference room. “As you can all see from the reports we brought you, Martin has played the game many times. I hope we nail him here. Maybe we should be thinking about extradition, if it should come to that.”
Chief Walsh said quickly, “That’s a bit premature. Wouldn’t be in my control, at any rate.”
“Yes, I understand that.”
“As a practical matter, we are no closer to catching the suspect than we were last week. He could just disappear and never show up again in these parts. Let’s apprehend him first. Then we’ll work out the legal details.”
“Oh sure, I agree.”
Nothing startling or even hopeful had been developed at the conference table. No one had actually believed that it would. But it was a necessary routine and who could say that a chance word or thought would not place the killer directly into their hands. Not one of them actually expected that, of course.
In a larger sense, few present at that meeting felt that the killer was even still in the area. He was a cautious and knowledgeable opponent; he always seemed to know when it was safe to strike and when it was not. It seemed probable, in view of all the publicity, that the killer knew that the heat was on and that his “window of opportunity” was shrinking rapidly. He would no doubt simply vanish and bide his time until moving on to a safer environment.
It was a reasonable logic; the killer would not risk another assault at such a time.
Problem was, this killer did not respect the common logic.
In fact, he was already poised to strike again in San Remo.
Chapter Nineteen
Charlie Andrews was perched atop the fender of Rebecca’s car when she emerged from the police department. “Get off my car, Charlie,” she scolded with mock anger. “Break it and you’ve bought it.”
Andrews dropped lightly to the ground at her approach. “I wouldn’t break anything of yours—not on purpose.”
“Have you been waiting for me?” she asked.
He said, “Only for about the past hour. What’s to talk about?—what a boondoggle, always a new way to waste the taxpayers’ money.
Unless, of course, they brought your suspect tied in gold ribbon. But they didn’t do that, did they.”
“You should have been there,” she replied breezily. “We were entertaining some pals of yours.”
“Did they go back to Oklahoma?”
He was toying with her and she knew it, showing her that he was fully on top of the latest developments. So she toyed back. “No, they’re going to hang around and watch how the California cops bag their man.”
“I hope they’re prepared for a long vacation in sunny California. I have not seen one of your people do anything properly yet. Maybe you could get the Oklahoma boys to show you how it’s done.”
She laughed lightly and said, “You’re not going to get my goat, Charlie, so give it up. Why do you work so hard to be so nasty? And don’t give me any of that ‘watchdog of the press’ crap. I’ve unmasked you, my friend. You are nasty simply because you enjoy acting that way.”
He chuckled and told her, “You’re at least partly right. Who’s joining you for lunch?”
“Couple of your friends from Oklahoma,” she said. “Didn’t you tell me that you once worked the crime beats back there?”
He replied soberly, “Now and then, yeah. But Oklahoma covers a lot of territory. Who are these guys?”
She replied, still humorously, “Why don’t you tell me, if you know so much. I’ll bet these two knew you with about the same affection that we have for you here in San Remo. I’m sure that your slant on the news has not changed a bit since you left Oklahoma.”
He replied with a droll twist of the lips, “I’m loved wherever I go, Rebecca. You know why? Not because I’m such a sweet guy but because I shoot from the hip and expect others to do the same. So why don’t you try that, too. Who are these guys?—if that is not a state secret.”
“Nothing furtive about it; there is a Captain Myers from the Oklahoma State Prison and Sergeant Powers from the Tulsa police. Know them?”
He growled, “I’ve known all those people at one time or another but I might need a refresher to run through them all. Never mind, there is nothing I need to remember about Oklahoma. Just in case, though, how long will they be in town?”
She replied sprightly, “Just long enough to watch us nail a psychopath.”
“Who told you he’s a psychopath?”
“Who had to be told? This guy is a four-star loony and it does not “There are more things in heaven and earth, Rebecca, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. That’s Shakespeare, in case you didn’t catch it. I don’t believe you’re going to catch Robert Martin, either. Like I told you, I spent some time with that guy. He is brilliant and there was not a cop or a warden in Oklahoma who was his match.”
Rebecca replied huffily, “So why did he spend most of his life in prison?—because of an evil justice system?”
She had pushed one of his buttons. He was angry and almost vile as he told her, “This screwed up world would twist a saint! Poor Martin was no saint, I’m not saying that, but the guy had a beef—an entirely legitimate and hopeless beef! Yeah, I spent quite a bit of time with him and he will haunt me the rest of my life! What does a silver-spoon white girl like you know about such things?”
Rebecca spluttered, “There were never any silver spoons for me, mister philosopher. I worked and worked hard for everything I ever got, which still is not a hell of a lot—so where do you get off unloading on me that way?”
“No silver, huh?—but you did have a spoon, didn’t you. Did you ever have to suck it up from your greasy hands?”
“I suppose you did!”
“Damn right I did, and I’m still doing it.”
“Poor guy,” she spat back. “That’s the difference between you and me. I don’t visit my afflictions on others.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you’ve had plenty of those, poor little rich girl.”
“You’re an asshole, Charlie. You see the world in such simple terms. I grew up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family and two of my brothers have gone the same way. I did not. God dammit, I would not. And I will not take this abuse from you any longer, either. Get screwed, Charlie. Go back to Oklahoma and cast your lot with the rest of the good old boys.”
It was obvious that the reporter was making a supreme effort to cool down. He succeeded, too, and his voice was soft as silk a moment later when he said, with almost a smile, “Are we fighting, Rebecca? Does that mean that we are in love or something?”
It disturbed her all the more that she could not seem to stay mad at this guy. Her voice was frosty smooth as she told him, “God forbid. How many different ways do I have to tell you that I dislike you intensely?”
Andrews was again fully in charge. “That will change. Don’t give up on me, Rebecca.”
She said icily, “There is nothing to give up. Get out of my way, please. I have to go.”
With no hint now of his earlier anger, he asked, “Where are they having lunch?”
“They, who?”
“Your brass and the boys from Oklahoma.”
“I wouldn’t tell you if I knew. Get the message, Charlie. You are not wanted or needed there.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said in that infuriating manner. “Don’t bother, I’ll find the way myself.”
Rebecca was sure that he would do that. Fine, good for him. Maybe someone would toss his arrogant butt out the door. That would be fine, too. All she wanted was to be rid of the guy.
Wasn’t it?
Sergeant Storme had felt that the entire morning had been a total waste of time. He had very little patience for the endless grandstanding and fruitless discussions which always seemed to start nowhere and end nowhere. In his view, this was the sort of thing cops do when they are running scared and have no sensing of how best to proceed. They are just banging heads together and hoping that something will fall out of the collision.
Peter Storme did not work that way. He was a visceral cop, not an intellectual. This had been the strongest source of conflict between himself and his wife; she was totally hung-up on the idea that intellectual approaches far outweighed the gut feeling approach to police work.
Trouble was, Rebecca herself seemed to be holding her husband to an ideal which not even she respected wholeheartedly. She was one of the best “seat of the pants” cops he had ever known, and that was because she had always trusted her own intuitions above any slavish conformity to book techniques. Yet, she banged on him constantly to honor an educational process which he considered to be of little importance or value.
The whole thing was a scam, in his view. As someone once had observed, “Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach.” Storme’s “school books” were the streets, where all true cops learned the best lessons of all. He had always resented the idea that a formal classroom would make him a better cop.
Which was not to say that Storme had no respect for “training.” Every cop had to be trained properly and continually—but not in a damned college. Sure, the college classes might make a better administrator but they would not build a better cop.
In Storme’s mind, so called educational institutions were designed more for the benefit of those who worked in them, than for those who supposedly were being schooled for practical goals. Not that Storme disrespected the educational process; he disliked the educational establishment itself.
Hell, he had read just about every book that Rebecca had read—and he felt that he understood them as well as she did. He had known a lot of “educated idiots” who felt that the textbook supplied all the answers to every situation. He knew that “reality” came not from the printed page but from reality itself.
A cop’s life on the streets is its own best textbook, and the problems there are never as predictable as any college text. In his final analysis, the textbooks would prepare him only for an administrative position—and he simply had no interest in that. He loved the street life. Why in God’s name should he yearn to become something that he hated?
But of course he understood Rebecca’s point of view and he even sympathized with it. She was taking the long view, he knew that, while—well, okay, he could say it—he was just stubbornly determined to make life on his own terms. They were on a collision course, and he knew it. He would end up losing Rebecca. He was already resigned to that fact. It had become more and more difficult for them to ever find a common ground on which to base their marriage.
So apparently the Chief had been right all along. A cop should not marry a cop, not unless one of them is willing to opt for a totally different lifestyle.
Peter could not visualize a time when Rebecca would want to hang up the police career in favor of kids, PTA meetings and all the other important things that parenthood entails. Moreover, he knew that he could never ask her to do so. So why don’t people think about things like that before the fact instead of after? He had always assumed, he guessed, that all that stuff would somehow magically slip into the picture at some point. They had never even discussed it, not in any serious way.
So why did they get married?
Was it love or was it lust? How could you ever separate the two with Hell, he did not know the answer to that and it was not even a question he had ever felt any reason to deal with. He just knew that life without her would be difficult to even contemplate.
Did that mean, then, that he was truly in love with her—and, if so, why had he not worked harder at making it work for them?
He had been an ass, a total ass. He had fought her tooth and nail all the way, almost straight out of the wedding ceremony. Why?
What did she want?
What did any woman want?
God! He had never really bothered to find out!
Chapter Twenty
Lunch at The Boots and Bugle was a relaxed, almost frivolous event for the twenty-odd officers who had congregated following the first round of meetings. The restaurant, a popular high-scaled place at the edge of town, had provided private seating in a banquet room which was also routinely used by various civic organizations. Since this was a working lunch, someone had called ahead and set up a buffet table which could quickly cater to most any taste.
The place had a reputation for fine food but Sergeant Storme had eaten perfunctorily, almost mechanically as though disinterested in the meal. He was thinking that they should not even be there, should not have been resting for a moment anywhere while a lunatic was preying on his city. Actually, such formalities were not Chief Walsh’s preference, either, but with so many out of town visitors present, there was probably no way to avoid it.
Didn’t seem right, though, considering the continued state of emergency. Christ, the latest victims were not yet cold and here they were eating and wisecracking like it was just another routine business luncheon.
He knew damn well that it was not.
Of course, that was the way cops had of handling the constant exposure to tragedy in their work. What else could a guy do?—walk around in a “hair shirt” all the time? Even Rebecca had jumped his frame at the latest crime scene because she felt that he was being insensitive. Hell, he was never insensitive—not down inside. At least she had given him something to think about, though, and it was weighing on him at Boots and Bugle.
Speaking of which, where was Rebecca now? They had become separated as they left the meeting at the P.D. and he had assumed that she had come in one of the other cars. He had half expected her to be with Jack Morgan but the lieutenant arrived without her. So where the hell was Rebecca?
He had just vacated his table intending to find out what had become of her when she hurried into the room and went quickly to the buffet. He strolled over and said, “The roast beef is good.”
Rebecca spoke quietly without looking at him. “It’s always good.”
He wondered why she was giving him the cold treatment—surely not because he had acted a little jealous of the Oklahoma cop. She never seemed comfortable with him, anymore, and that had become a pattern. He had moved out to give her some space, he had thought, hoping that maybe “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” But he’d had enough of it and instead of telling her that, he gruffly asked her, “Where the hell have you been?”—then immediately knew it was not what he had meant to say—or how.
Her voice was even colder and more remote as she replied, “I got hung up with Charlie Andrews just outside the P.D. Then I discovered that I was nearly out of gas, had to stop and get some. Was that okay, Sergeant?”
He growled, “Cut the shit, Rebecca.”
“Okay.” Her gaze was neither warm nor hostile. “Have I missed anything here?”
He helped her balance her plate as she spooned in
a generous helping of mashed potatoes. “Not a thing. We shouldn’t even be here.”
“Well, we had to eat somewhere,” she replied without enthusiasm.
“Incidentally, you need to talk to Charlie.”
“Why?”
“Apparently he did a jail house interview with Robert Martin several years ago in Oklahoma. Did Jack mention that?”
“It’s news to me. When did Jack hear that?”
“I told him last night, at the Coffee Bean. That was just before you came in. Then with the latest round of fireworks, I guess we never got around to discussing it.”
“Charlie actually knew the killer in Oklahoma?”
“Yes, I told you that. And Charlie seemed very smug about his inside track. I believe he knows something he has not told us about the guy. It could be worth a look.”
“Okay, I’ll check it out.”
Apparently she had become aware that something else was bothering him. She asked, “What’s really on your mind, Peter?”
He leaned closer to shield his words. “We are on my mind, Rebecca. I can’t stand this. The separation, I mean.”
She said, “I didn’t kick you out of the house, Peter. That was your idea.”
“I want to come home, but only if that is what you want, too.”
“I don’t believe that would solve anything if it’s going to be the same old status quo. So let’s not rush this. Make sure you know what you want.”
Why was it always so difficult to simply be honest and open with her? Peter Storme knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew it now.
But he told his wife, “Okay, sure, I’ll think about it.”
After that, what could a man say? He was not going to beg. He wanted her, yes, but not that way. As he watched her walk away, he knew that he would not be going “home” to her this night. He wondered if he ever would.
It had been an exhausting day, not so much because of the activity but the lack of it. A common public misconception, especially to those who watch crime shows on television, is that police work is filled with excitement and never ending drama. What it is most of the time is tedious routine with very little excitement. That had never bothered Rebecca because she had always created her own sense of excitement from even the most humdrum assignment. That could be difficult to achieve, however, when one is captive to a situation or activity which is not responsive to the independent mind. Rebecca especially found it difficult to endure long periods during which a gathering of men felt compelled to entertain one another with off-color innuendo and tall tales. This had been such a day and she was feeling downright “bitchy” by the time she got home.
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