Diane popped in a tape. Donovan’s deep baritone rolled over footage of the house on Hutchinson and then the only shot anyone ever got of Grime, twenty seconds of footage as police led the serial killer into the station for booking. He looked pudgy, sort of dazed.
“What do you think?” I said.
Diane tilted her head to one side.
“Looks like a million other guys. Guess that’s the trick, huh?”
“Serial Killer 101,” I said. “Gotta look like the guy next door.”
“In Grime’s case, the loser next door.”
I paused the tape on a photo of Grime, his face turned away from the lens and half-hidden in his hands.
“Did you know he performed a mime for every one of his victims?”
Diane shook her head. I continued.
“He’d cover his face and body in white pancake and do his mime. You’d be handcuffed in his tub. Screaming until you couldn’t breathe. Promising anything for another moment to live. And meaning every word. He’d finish his show, scrape the makeup off, and look at you. Not evil. Not mad. Just look. Then he’d slip your shoulders and head under the water. Slow. You’d hold your breath for a minute or so. Then you’d release, go down easy. To the bottom of the tub and into your grave. Meanwhile, he’d just watch. That’s the Grime way.”
Diane got up, switched off the TV, and pulled her chair close.
“I got it. Bad guy. Good thing he’s on death row. Now why are we talking about him?”
She was leaning forward, mouth slightly open, hard white teeth smeared with delicate bits of red lipstick. For the first time I noticed an overbite. Delicate, but an overbite nevertheless. Made her look like a very pretty wolf.
“I tracked down a piece of evidence from the rape Gibbons was looking at.”
“Elaine Remington’s?”
“Don’t ask me how. Just chalk it up to luck.”
“What do you have?”
“The victim’s shirt.”
“Lost bit of evidence?”
“Something like that. We ran some tests, found some semen, and got a profile. No ID yet.”
“Have you told Elaine?”
“No.”
Diane leaned back and considered. Then she picked up her beer and took a sip.
“She might appreciate the progress report.”
“I’m going to give it a couple of days,” I said. “See if I can come up with a name.”
“And where does our friend the serial killer come in?”
“Getting there.”
I pulled out Nicole’s report.
“Nicole was running the profile through the state’s DNA databank on the morning she was killed.”
Diane put down her beer and picked up the report.
“Nicole worked on this?”
“Yeah. This is where it gets tricky.”
Diane flipped through the pages, searching for a clue, finding nothing but science.
“You’d have a better shot with Plato,” I said.
“Funny guy. Where’s the tricky?”
“I’ll tell you, but it’s got some news value.”
“How much news value?”
“That’s for you to decide. What I need is for you to hold the story. Not forever. Just until I tell you.”
“You changing our deal?”
“No. This is part of the deal. You just need to trust me.”
Diane put the report down and offered up a measured sigh.
“And you need to trust me. Fill me in and I’ll hold up my end.”
I took a final look around and jumped.
“Last year the state’s crime lab found a second source of semen in the Grime murders.”
Diane pulled out a notebook and started writing. That made me nervous, but I continued.
“They decided it was a coincidence,” I said.
“ ‘They’ being the DA?”
I nodded.
“It makes sense,” I said. “A lot of Grime’s victims were prostitutes, so you might expect to find other sources of semen. Problem is, the same DNA profile was found on two different victims.”
“Big coincidence.”
“That’s not the end of it. That profile is also a match to the one pulled off my client’s shirt.”
“Elaine’s shirt?”
“Yeah.”
“So whoever raped your client is tied in to the Grime murders.”
“You should be writing headlines,” I said.
“Wow.”
I wasn’t ready to tell Diane about Grime’s own semen showing up at a crime scene while the killer himself sat on death row. The reporter had more than enough to chew on.
“You know Gerald O’Leary made headlines with Grime,” Diane said.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Have you talked to Bennett Davis about this?”
“No,” I said. “A little too close to home. For right now, we do Bennett a favor and leave him out.”
“Fine.”
“There’s another thing,” I said. “When they checked Nicole’s lab, everything she was working on was gone. The shirt, her reports, everything. I got the match off a set of backup files she kept.”
“So you think her murder was tied in to this, too?”
“I do.”
Diane’s eyes touched mine and steadied.
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
“How do you figure?”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“That’s right. I couldn’t have known, didn’t know a goddamn thing, which is why I should have left her out.”
“She was a big girl, Kelly. She knew what she wanted to do in life. At that moment in time, she wanted to help you.”
I didn’t buy any of that and told Diane as much. Instead of backing off, she drew us in deeper.
“I know a little bit about Nicole. Maybe a little bit more than you think.”
I felt a pulse beat at my temple.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean she told me about her rape.”
“Let me ask you something. Did you get it on tape?”
“She was twelve years old, Kelly. She needed to talk about it to someone.”
“Did you get it on tape?”
“Yes.”
“Fucking great. Play it back at one of your luncheons. Make for a fun afternoon.”
I broke away and reached for my bottle of beer. Diane brushed her fingers against the back of my hand and lingered.
“She also told me about you, Michael. Off camera.”
I pulled away again, tried to shrug off the topic. A woman once told me that was my way with the big things. Move around it. Pretend it doesn’t exist, and it will go away. Some topics, however, just don’t seem to
