“You don’t think he’ll talk?” I said.
“You never know,” Trent said. “You never know.”
The profiler picked up the bag of weed and some rolling papers. In less than a minute he had tapped out a professional-looking joint.
“Sorry, Detective, but you know. Glaucoma.”
Trent fired up and smoked. Just a toke or two. Then he pinched off the joint, closed his eyes, and sat back. After a few seconds’ repose, he continued.
“I will offer one more item for your consideration. Nothing more than a guess, but I believe Mr. Grime wants very much to help you identify his accomplice. If nothing else, it raises the stakes, pushes the rush.”
“Helps his God complex,” Rodriguez said.
“Exactly,” Trent replied. “He decides when the fun is over, who gets caught, and when. As for the accomplice himself…”
“Yes?” I said.
“Impossible to say how he would react to Grime’s betrayal. I will, however, say this. It seems more likely than not that he will continue to hunt and continue to attack women.”
“Until he is caught,” I said.
“No, Mr. Kelly. Until he is killed.”
CHAPTER 39
As I drove home, I thought about what Trent had told us. Rodriguez stared out the window and didn’t blink very much. I had put Nicole aside. At least for the moment. Rodriguez wasn’t entirely there yet.
“Where am I dropping you?” I said.
“I parked on Addison, around the corner from your place.”
I pulled up to his car and stopped. The wind was picking up off the lake. A plastic bag scurried across the street, then straight up, into the tangled branches of a tree. A few drops of rain spattered across my windshield, found their rhythm, and began to fall in a light, steady patter.
“I’m going in after Grime,” I said and flicked on my wipers. “A letter and a request to visit.”
“It’s a long shot.”
“But worth it. Besides, he’ll never sit down with a cop.”
Rodriguez climbed out of the car and stuck his head back in through the open door. A cold, wet draft blew his voice across the front seat.
“Just remember, Kelly. This is a private gig. So go low-key. Don’t use any names. Don’t give up a lot of detail. Inside or outside Menard. And be careful. Trent is right. Grime is good at what he does. And Grime is all about Grime.”
I nodded.
“You all right, Rodriguez?”
“Not really. Not yet. But I will be.”
“I know,” I said. “Just going to take some time.”
The detective slammed my car door shut. I rolled around the corner and down the block. I found a space in front and walked to my building, composing a love letter to a serial killer in my head. A gust of wind pushed me the final few feet toward my front door. She was sitting on the stoop. I almost stepped on her before she said a word.
“Michael.”
I hadn’t heard her voice in a year. It brought back feelings I thought were gone, or at least reduced to memory.
“Annie,” I said.
Now she was up and close, arms around my neck, cheek touching mine. For a moment, everything was as it once was. Then it wasn’t.
“I’m sorry about Nicole,” she murmured.
It had only been a day, but already Nicole seemed dead a lifetime. I held Annie lightly, felt her let loose inside. She had known Nicole. Not as I did, but enough to make it real.
“It’s all right,” I said.
My words hung in the air, glorious in their artlessness, mocking their creator. I fumbled for my keys and opened the door.
“Let’s go inside.”
Five minutes later, we were sitting in two armchairs, looking out my windows, watching the weather. Patches of fog drifted in from the lake, squeezing down side streets and alleys, filling doorways, and curling around the gutters tucked under my roof.
Above the mist sat the heavy artillery. Layers of clouds, veined in purple and full of wind. They blew shop signs against their moorings and pedestrians across intersections. Then the sky split and the clouds emptied themselves in earnest. The October storm was as complete as it was sudden, spending itself against my window, streaming into a crack along the frame, and forming a pool near a cup of tea my old flame had laid on the sill.
“Never got that drip fixed, did you, Michael?”
Annie sniffed a bit, wiped up the forming pool of water with a napkin, and took a sip of tea.
“How are you?” she said.
“I’m okay.”
“Sorry about outside. I read about Nicole in the papers, but it wasn’t until I said her name. I don’t know. Just lost it.”
Then Annie lost it again, gentler this time. I moved beside her, spoke without thinking.
“She loved you, Annie. I know you guys hadn’t talked much in the past year or so, but she loved you a lot. You should know that.”
I felt her lean into me in acknowledgment.
“Something else, Annie. I was there when Nicole died.”
She stiffened and looked up.
“That wasn’t in the paper.”
“I know, and it’s not something we can really talk about. Just understand it was a mean death, Annie. And Nicole was brave. Very fucking brave.”
The sadness I expected to feel inside wasn’t there yet. Well, it was there, just not right up front. Instead there was a coldness, fierce pride for Nicole, and anger. I hadn’t known about the anger until I spoke, but that’s often the way it is. Annie didn’t push it. Maybe she knew better.
“When is the funeral?” she said.
“Tuesday. At Graceland, one o’clock.”
She nodded and wiped her nose. I stood up and moved to the windows. Gave both of us some space. After a minute or so, she spoke again.
“You look good.”
“Yeah, right. I look like hell and you know it.”
I turned around. Annie was curled in now, blond hair still damp from the rain, blue eyes perched over a cup of tea, searching mine for answers to questions she’d never asked.
“Fine, you look like hell,” she said. “I look great.”
The humor was quiet, soothing, easy to fall into. I sat back down in my chair and waited. The hard part was over. I had a feeling the impossible was only about to begin.
“I’m sorry about how it ended,” she said.
“I know.”
“It was the best way.”
“I know.”
“I’m not a coward.”
