'Good ballplayer,' Iriarte commented about Liberty. 'What say you, Mike?'
Mike chewed on the ends of his mustache. 'It doesn't look to me like one person made the two hits here. That's what's bugging me. There might have been two killers. If they'd been thirsty crackheads, they would have taken the time to grab the purse and Petersen's wallet. Nothing would have stopped them from getting the money. No one took their money. It wasn't robbery.'
'Maybe someone's after a lot more than pocket money.'
lriarte stared at Skye and Creaker. 'Garbage time,' he said. 'Start with five blocks all around. What are we looking for, April?'
'For the lady, the ME said possibly an ice pick. Maybe a double-edged knife, thinner than a switchblade.' Maybe some specialty item.' April shrugged. 'Possibly a switchblade. We don't have a COD on the male yet. The ME said he may have seen the woman being attacked and had a heart attack.'
'Jesus. Okay, go over the scene again, see if daylight turns something up.' The lieutenant glanced over at Mike. 'Hey, big shot, you got a plan?'
Mike moved away from the door so Creaker and Skye could get out. 'I've always got a plan.'
'Well, put it up on the board. I like my cases up on the board, every step of the way. I like to see what we know and what we don't know. I like to see the holes plugged, you know what I mean? April will tell you, Mike, I'm a detail man all the way.'
Mike coughed. 'That's great, but not in this case.'
'Oh, yeah, why not?'
'Because the press is all over this one.'
'The press is all over all of them.'
'Yeah, but we're going to look really dumb if we're the last ones to know how our investigation is going.'
'Yeah, that's exactly what I think. Hagedorn, show the sergeant here where his desk is, and make sure he has everything he needs. Out.' Iriarte turned his attention to April. 'Anything else?'
April shut her notebook. 'That's all we have at the moment.'
'All right. Go find the driver.' Iriarte contemplated her silently for a moment before adding his final thought. 'That's your puppy out there, Woo. You'd better keep him on a leash.'
'Excuse me, sir?'
'You heard me. If your boyfriend fucks up the case, your ass is out of here.'
'Yes, sir.' Was this childish or what? April turned on her heel to hide the flush, spreading over her body like a fatal disease. She didn't bother to insist that Mike wasn't her boyfriend. Iriarte didn't care and wouldn't have believed her anyway.
8
The office where Jason saw his patients was next door to his apartment on the fifth floor of an old-world building on Riverside Drive. At three minutes to four in the afternoon he came out of his office and walked five feet down the hall to his apartment. The day had a surreal quality to it, and he felt almost dizzy from changing dimensions so many times. He'd gotten up early, missed breakfast, spent much of the morning with Liberty, was in too much of a hurry to have lunch. After seeing four patients back-to-back, he was exhausted and desperately hungry. Outside it looked like the 'middle of the night again. And he had only twenty minutes until his next patient would be sitting in his waiting room counting the seconds until he returned. He needed a break, needed to check on Emma.
He turned the key in his front door lock, opening the door as quietly as he could in case she was asleep. Inside the apartment the lights were on and some of the nine clocks in the living room and hall had already started to chime the hour. They were mechanical, pendulum clocks, all old, less than precise, and it would take a full seven minutes for them to finish their racket. So much for quiet.
'Emma?'
'In here,' she called over the noise.
Jason passed the untouched stack of mail on the hall table and turned right. Now he could see Emma in the living room, on the phone with her address book open in front of her. A tray with a teapot and milk jug sat on the coffee table. The cup near her hand was half full of milky tea. She waved at him, her face registering surprise at seeing him so soon.
'Yes, it's a terrible loss. Look, I have to go now. I'll call you later.' She hung up and put out her hand to him, tears welling in her eyes.
He took her hand. 'How are you doing?'
'Jason, thank you for staying with Rick and me. It meant so much to both of us.'
'What's going on?'
'Rick's apartment is filled with people now. I had to leave. Oh, Jason, I love you so much.' She kissed his hand, dragging him closer.
'What's this for?' he asked, the darkness in his heart easing a little at the unexpected sign of affection.
'It's so terrible to lose someone you love. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you.' She pulled on his hand until he was sitting beside her on the couch. Then she folded herself into his arms.
'You tried to lose me once and couldn't, remember? I don't lose easily.' He hugged her tight. In his embrace she felt fragile, smaller than usual, as if she'd lost some of herself since yesterday. Underneath the scent of her floral perfume, he could smell panic.
'How's Rick doing?' he asked.
'Not well. But neither would I in the situation.' She mashed her face into his shoulder, wetting his shirt with her tears. 'Jason, thanks for being there for us.'
'What?' Jason was shocked to hear her thank him for so little. 'God, Emma. You make me feel like a shit.'
'No, no. I don't mean it like that. I mean—well, I know you never really liked Liberty.'
He pushed her away so he could look at her. 'Hey, that's not fair.'
'Well, you didn't like him.' She blew her nose.
'That's not true and not fair. I just didn't know either of them very well. You were the one who spent time with them.' 'You were always too busy working,' she reminded him.
He didn't want to hear how alone she used to feel, how he didn't like her friends. He shook his head, didn't want to go there at all. She changed the subject.
'Jason, was this how it was for you?'
His stomach growled. He stared at the teapot, needing food. When she was kidnapped? 'It was worse. I didn't know whether you were alive or dead. And if you were alive, whether I could save you. I was crazed.'
'Did you love me that much?' she asked. 'As much as Rick loved Merril?'
'Oh, Emma,' he said softly. 'I still do.'
First her shoulders shook, and then her whole body. 'Jason, I've been so selfish. I'm so sorry.' She huddled against him, sobbing again.
'Hey. Let's say we've both been a little single-minded.'
'I don't know what I'd do without you. I can see that now.'
'Um . . . Emma?'
'Hmmm?”
'You're getting my shirt al wet, baby, and I have to eat something.'
She detached herself and reached for the tea tray. 'I'll make you a sandwich. Listen, Jason, what do the police think?'
'Here, I'll take the tray.' He led the way to the kitchen. 'Have you talked with April Woo yet?'
'She called and asked if she could come over later. But I didn't know what time you'd be free.'
Emma started pulling plastic bags and containers from the refrigerator. Jason watched, thinking the detective would want to talk to Emma, not him. She was the one who'd been with the victims just before they died. 'What did you tell her?'
'I told her to call you. Do the police have any leads?'
A sandwich took shape under Emma's trembling fingers. She thoughtfully filled a baguette with all the
