“Much as they appear normal, we’re not looking for a rational human being here. And just to make our job real interesting, they’re highly mobile. A question I’d like answered is whether our mon is a resident of this area or operating across the border. If he’s driving in and out of the area, then he’s going to be that much more difficult to track down. His penchant for mobility can be a definite hindrance to doing our job effectively. So, to see if we can’t counteract that somewhat…” He hesitated, then pointed a blunt forefinger at an extraordinarily handsome, muscle-bound blond in tight jeans and leather jacket, who sported a Hollywood-style punk-rocker haircut. “You, Edwards. Put a request in to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, New York, Tahoe—any place you can think of that employs dancers in a major way. Ask them if they’ve had similar crimes. If they have, get the particulars. At least we have better coordination and cooperation between police departments than was available when I first started doing this. Damned if at that time you couldn’t have a crime with the same MO being committed within the jurisdiction of two police departments no more than fifty miles apart, and still have one not know what the bloody hell was going on in the other. The FBI’s National Center for Analysis of Violent Crimes is still the best clearinghouse, but at least now individual departments have better access to information.”
“Gotcha,” Edwards said.
“Good. The rest of us will dig up as much background as we can. The more information we have at our disposal, the better this investigation is gonna proceed. How many men are available this morning?” Tristan asked, well aware that like any other police station the world over, Reno was understaffed. The size of his force could fluctuate from one day to the next, depending on the needs of the entire precinct. Other crimes didn’t grind to a halt just because they had a special case in the works.
“What you see is what you got, boss man,” said Lavander Mason, the black detective. “There’s eight of us today.”
Tristan assigned their duties. In the early days of the investigation he concentrated on pinpointing where the victims had lived, where they had worked and were last seen. He and his men talked to scores of people in the victims’ neighborhoods, the surrounding vicinities, and their places of employment. They searched the entire area where the bodies had been found, although that was rather unprofitable, since the trail had been cold before Tristan had been assigned to the department. He had to rely on the written reports of the officers who had been on call and on the slides that had been taken. But that didn’t stop him from going over the areas himself, if for no other reason than to try to get a feel for the killer. He directed his people to talk to anyone involved with the victims, no matter how remote the connection may have been. And if new information should arise, he expected them to go back and talk to everyone again.
The task force fed the information they gathered into a computer, which was then charted to avoid duplication of effort. Tristan met every day with his key investigators and task force supervisors to discuss the previous day’s work and evaluate tips from the public. Files were pulled on known offenders of every type, not just rapists and murderers. They were perused with an eye toward discerning suspects with an unnatural prejudice toward women. It was a long, tedious, and so far fruitless endeavor.
More frustrating still was the interference of the news media. Most police probes of this nature had a grace period between the first murder and the consecutive related cases before the media spotted the connection and turned the crimes into the sensation of the moment. More often than not, the police were lucky enough to have made some headway on the relationship between cases before this happened, for media attention often hampered, if not outright harmed, an ongoing investigation.
Unfortunately, Reno’s news network started a media blitz earlier than most task forces were forced to deal with. It was simply bad luck that on the day the second dancer’s body was found, there was no other real news. It was the kind of day that gave nightmares to newsroom and network editors alike. Not a natural disaster to be found; not a single politician caught committing the same crime for which he was currently prosecuting another; not one dope ring, large or small, headed by an Ivy Leaguer of sterling reputation to be exposed. And so, nearly before the police department itself had made the connection between the violent deaths of the two blond dancers, headlines were screaming Showgirl Slayer in boldface type, and anchors on the evening news were questioning how safe it was to be a dancer in Reno.
Much to his disgust, Tristan found himself a favorite media target. Much was made of the fact that an out-of-state officer had been brought in to head the task force. He would have been much happier without the publicity, for it wasn’t unheard of for a serial killer to gradually come to feel he is locked into a contest with the police. There had been more than one recorded case where a mass murderer had felt he was in competition with the law in a deadly game of wits, and consequently, his ego had turned it into something intensely personal. Too often, it had resulted in the killer using the lives of his victims as stakes. Tristan didn’t want to see that happen here.
But in the newsmongers’ eyes, Tristan was copy too good to be ignored. They loved his size and his accent; they wanted to know every detail of his life, be it professional or private. The only thing about Tristan MacLaughlin that they didn’t love was his hard-line attitude toward reporters, which he had established unmistakably in his first confrontation with the media.
It occurred the day following the identification of Maryanne Farrel’s body. When Tristan stepped out of the precinct he was immediately surrounded by reporters. Microphones were thrust in his face; strobe lights flashed in his eyes; and he had to squint against the glare of the hand-held spotlight that was used to facilitate the television cameraman’s job. A dozen voices spoke at once.
“Lieutenant MacLaughlin! Are we dealing with another Green River Killer?”
“No. The mon accused of that has been in custody for some time now.”
“But isn’t it true that someone is out to kill Reno’s dancers in a very brutal manner?”
“It’s true there have been three deaths that share similar characteristics.”
“And all of the victims were dancers?”
“Aye.”
“What kind of person picks up a dancer, kills her, then goes out and repeats himself?”
Tristan leveled cool, noncommittal gray eyes on the speaker. “You haven’t been a reporter for long, I assume?”
The young woman bristled. “I’ve been with the paper three years.”
“Then you should be familiar with policy by now. We don’t deal in speculation or opinion.”
“Then how about some cold, hard facts,” another demanded. “All three women were blondes, weren’t they?”
“Aye.”
“What does the coroner say was the ultimate cause of death for those three dancers?”
“No comment.”
“Who made the identification of the latest victim?”
“No comment.”
“Come on, Lieutenant! Give us a name.”
“Not bloody likely, mon. The verra last thing the identifier needs is to be hounded by the likes of you.”
“The public has a right to know!”
Tristan narrowed his eyes on the speaker. “The public has a right to know that their police department is working day and night to locate hard evidence that will help find the killer and eventually stand up in a court of law. Period. They haven’t got the right to invade the privacy of a person they’ve decided belongs in the limelight, simply because he or she was unfortunate enough to have known the victim well enough to establish an identification for us.”
It was too much to hope that the media wouldn’t get around to interviewing Amanda Charles eventually, but Tristan had done his best to keep her out of it. The fact that she had been Farrel’s landlady, however, and a dancer herself, not to mention her looks and bearing, soon had them nipping at her heels. Tristan saw her on the late news
one evening shortly after his own initial brush with the press. The mention of her name made him look up from cleaning his gun as he sat on the bed in his overheated motel room.
One of the more persistent news hounds, a woman with dark-brown hair and an overbite, apparently had run Amanda to earth in the dancers’ dressing room at the Cabaret. Amanda was seated on a stool with her back to a well-lighted mirror, an array of makeup pots and brushes cluttering the counter behind her. A sequined costume draped over the corner of the mirror kept appearing and disappearing at the periphery of the television screen as the cameraperson made subtle adjustments with his equipment. Amanda was dressed in street clothes, her stage makeup scrubbed off and her pale hair brushed away from her face in loose waves. Tristan gave her his undivided, critical attention.
He couldn’t help but admire the poise with which she handled the interview. And it made him smile with grim pleasure to see that she was nearly as reticent with information as he himself had been, a fact which seemed to irritate the interviewer. Perhaps in retaliation, the reporter began to slant her line of questioning in a manner designed to make Amanda appear the stereotypical dumb blonde showgirl. As a tactic, it turned out to be less than successful.
Amanda didn’t attempt to defend her intelligence. Her violet-blue eyes, which on television came across as a rather ordinary dark blue, did it for her. They were level as she stared solemnly out of the screen, and she sat quietly without fidgeting. The reporter’s voice, coming from off screen, rushed to fill in the silences that Amanda allowed to stretch out between them, stammering slightly over her words. Amanda answered each question concisely and intelligently, but she refused to be drawn into speculation.
“Well, isn’t it a fact that should be considered in the police department’s search for the killer that all three victims led rather…active…sex lives?” asked the reporter at one point.
“I’m hardly qualified to answer that,” replied Amanda coolly. “I know nothing about police work. I don’t even know that it is a fact, since the only victim I knew personally was Maryanne.”
“And her private life was…?”
“Exactly that. Private.”
“You didn’t consider her promiscuous?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it true she dated quite a few men?”
“What do you consider quite a few?” For the first time, Amanda’s irritation surfaced. “Twenty? Ten? How many men have you dated in the past year? Perhaps you can supply me with a frame of reference by which to judge.”
The interview terminated shortly after that, and Tristan got up and snapped off the television. He removed a squat motel glass from its sanitary bag, poured himself a shot of whiskey, and went to stand at the window. Pulling the curtain aside, he sipped his drink and watched the neon lights outside his window blink on and off, creating wavery, intermittent reflections in the rain-dappled puddles that dotted the parking lot.
It was a long time that evening before he finally returned to the bed, sat down on its edge, and picked up his gun once again.
“Charlie’s auditioning some guy!”
Surprise rippled through the dancers making their way down the drafty back hall to the dressing rooms, and their footsteps faltered and came to a full stop, thoughts of hot showers, medicinal rubs for sore, overworked muscles, and the donning of dry, warm clothes temporarily forgotten. An audition? Most of those present turned around and drifted back to the wings to watch. It was unusual for Charlie to hold an open audition, let alone a private one, unless he had a position to fill. More than one of the dancers crowding the wings wondered if someone had given their notice. The males who were present hoped so, because the alternative was that Charlie was so dissatisfied that he was planning to replace one of them.
Charlie finished giving the auditioning dancer the combination of steps he wanted to see, then stepped back and nodded to Lennie, the piano player. Amanda studied the dancer. He was average height and on the lean side, with soft ash-blond hair and an intense air of confidence about him. As music filled the lounge, Charlie counted out the meter. With loose-limbed grace, the dancer launched into the prescribed routine.
“Oh, hell, wouldn’t you know it? He’s good.”
Amanda glanced up at the speaker. It was David, and his face was rather strained as he watched the audition in progress. She reached over and squeezed his arm, but her eyes were drawn back to the dancer on the stage.
He was good—very good. But so were the four men in their troupe, and she couldn’t imagine Charlie just arbitrarily releasing one of them without a warning. Despite his less than lovable personality, Charlie was fair about that sort of thing. The few times he had fired a member of the troupe, it had always been preceded by several warnings, so by the time he had gotten around to the actual firing it had come as no big surprise to anyone.
The music came to an end, and the auditioning dancer stood panting lightly, head tossed back in the sure knowledge of a superior performance. The troupe looked from him to Charlie and held its collective breath.
“Well, as I told you before, I’m not hiring at the moment,” Charlie called out from his table out front. “But give Lennie your name and a number where you can be reached just in case an opening comes up. I’d like to be able to use you. You’re a damn fine dancer.”
“Well, son of a bitch. I’d guess we’ve been put on notice,” David muttered, and Amanda grinned. The guy who auditioned must have been one hell of a fast talker to get Charlie to agree to the audition in the first place. But once he had acquiesced, Charlie had probably looked upon it as a golden opportunity to let the male members of his troupe see that they were not irreplaceable. You could bet the men were going to be giving all future rehearsals and performances their best effort from this point on. “I wonder if he has a woman waiting in the wings to get the rest of us to shake the lead out,” she whispered, and David returned her grin.
Amanda and Rhonda talked about the mystery dancer again on their way home, after the conclusion of the midnight show. They tried to imagine what the man could possibly have said to Charlie to convince him to grant the audition at all. As the hour was late and they both were giddy with fatigue, their suggestions began to border on the absurd.
“Maybe it was a threat,” Amanda said and dropped her voice, trying to sound like a tough guy. “We’ve got your wife,” she growled. “If you don’t audition me this minute, my accomplice will put her to death.”
Rhonda giggled, but then said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Mandy. Charlie’d just say, ‘Barbara? That useless bitch? Why, just last night I told her I’d be home at five, and do you know that when I arrived at seven-thirty, with only minutes to spare before I had to be back to work, the silly broad had let my dinner dry out? She never was reliable. But make it painless for her, won’t you?’” Hands relaxed on the wheel, she glanced over at Amanda. “Nah, it was more likely something that appealed to his greed.”
“Okay, then, how about this?” Amanda pulled her heels up on the seat and hugged her knees to her chest. “He told Charlie he was a personal friend of the angels backing the show, and if Charlie auditioned him today, he would see to it that Charlie got a bigger budget for costumes and backdrops.”
“Yeah, I like that one,” Rhonda decided as she pulled up to the curb outside their yard. “That, I can definitely picture.” She looked at Amanda over the car’s roof as they climbed out and locked the doors. “He was good, though, wasn’t he? Did you catch his name?”
“No. I mean, no, I didn’t hear his name. He was good.”
“And he looked straight, too.” Rhonda sighed. “Ah, well. He was probably married, anyway, with three kids.”
Amanda laughed. “Rhonda, I adore you. You never change. But it makes me cringe to visualize Charlie’s reaction if he had hired the guy and then caught you coming on to him.”
Rhonda smiled unrepentantly. She had an unabashed sexuality and charm that attracted men by the droves, but she was easily bored once the
ir attention was captured. And after two consecutive if brief affairs with co-workers, both of which had resulted in sulks and diminished performances on the part of the men when she had said good-bye, Charlie had taken her aside and told her in no uncertain terms that the next time he saw her dallying with one of his dancers he would personally bounce her down the figurative front steps of the Cabaret on her pretty little tail. In addition, he had declared furiously, he would see to it that she never worked another club in Reno.
And Charlie had enough clout to follow through on his threats.
“Well, you’re sure a mood buster,” Rhonda replied cheerfully. “I mean, a girl can still dream, can’t she?”
“Oh, absolutely. But where does that leave the love of your life?” Amanda asked. “What about Chad?” She fluttered her eyes up to heaven. Chad was the man who’d wanted to meet Rhonda the night of Pete’s party. The two of them had been conducting a hot and heavy affair ever since.
Rhonda inhaled slowly and deeply and her eyes drifted closed. She licked her lips and smiled. Even when her eyes opened again, they were only at half mast. “Um…yes, Chad. Perhaps you’re right, Amanda. I should probably concentrate on him.” She turned at the stairs that led up to her apartment. “Well, g’night, kiddo. See you tomorrow.”
If there was one thing you could count on, Amanda decided humorously, it was that Rhonda would never, ever change. Amanda was still smiling when she let herself into her apartment, and reflectively, she touched her fingers to her lips, feeling the upward curve as though it were something rare and precious. How long had it been since she had last felt so carefree? Thinking about it as she pushed away from the door she had closed behind her and leaned against, she realized that this was the first time since she had identified Maryanne’s body that an entire twenty-four hours had passed without her harboring one single thought of murder, blunt-spoken, unyielding cops with unreadable eyes, the potential for personal danger, or bitchy newswomen full of questions heavily laced with nasty innuendo.
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