neese are pretty nice guys.”
Shelly screwed up her face and shook her head.
“Neese? Not for me. They're all little guys, aren't they?”
“Well,” Rebecca said sarcastically, “so far you've ruled out blacks, wops, and neese of all descriptions. You're a very choosy girl.”
Jack watched the sarcasm sail right over Shelly's head.
She smiled tentatively at Rebecca, misapprehending, imagining that she saw a spark of sisterhood. She said, “Oh, yeah. Hey, look, even if I say so myself, I'm not exactly your average girl. I've got a lot of fine points. I can afford to be choosy.”
Rebecca said, “Better watch out for spies, too.”
“Yeah?” Shelly said. “I never had a spic for a boyfriend. Bad?”
“Sherpas are worst,” Rebecca said.
Jack coughed into his hand to stifle his laughter.
Picking up her coat, Shelly frowned. “Sherpas? Who're they?”
“From Nepal,” Rebecca said.
“Where's that?”
“The Himalayas.”
Shelly paused halfway into her coat. “Those mountains?”
“Those mountains,” Rebecca confirmed.
“That's the other side of the world, isn't it?”
“The other side of the world.”
Shelly's eyes were wide. She finished putting on her coat. She said, “Have you traveled a lot?”
Jack was afraid he'd draw blood if he bit his tongue any harder.
“I've been around a little,” Rebecca said.
Shelly sighed, working on her buttons. “I haven't traveled much myself. Haven't been anywhere but Miami and Vegas, once. I've never even seen a Sherpa let alone slept with one.”
“Well,” Rebecca said, “if you happen to meet up with one, better walk away from him fast. No one'll break your heart faster or into more pieces than a Sherpa will. And by the way, I guess you know not to leave the city without checking with us first.”
“I'm not going anywhere,” Shelly assured them.
She took a long, white, knit scarf from a coat pocket and wrapped it around her neck as she started out of the room. At the doorway, she looked back at Rebecca.
“Hey… uh… Lieutenant Chandler, I'm sorry if maybe I was a little snappy with you.”
“Don't worry about it.”
“And thanks for the advice.”
“Us girls gotta stick together,” Rebecca said.
“Isn't that the truth!” Shelly said.
She left the room.
They listened to her footsteps along the hallway.
Rebecca said, “Jesus, what a dumb, egotistical, racist bitch!”
Jack burst out laughing and plopped down on the Queen Anne chair again. “You sound like Nevetski.”
Imitating Shelly Parker's voice, Rebecca said, “Even if I say so myself, I'm not exactly your average girl. I've got a lot of fine points.”
Jack fell back in the chair, laughing harder.
Rebecca stood over him, looking down, grinning. “I saw the way you were drooling over her.”
“Not me,” he managed between gales of laughter.
“Yes, you. Positively drooling. But you might as well forget about her, Jack. She wouldn't have you.”
“Oh?”
“Well, you've got a bit of Irish blood in you. Isn't that right? Your grandmother was Irish, right?” Imitating Shelly Parker's voice again, she said, “Oh, there's nothing worse than those damned, Pope-kissing, potato-sucking Irish.”
Jack howled.
Rebecca sat on the sofa. She was laughing, too. “And you've got some British blood, too, if I remember right.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, gasping. “I'm a tea-swilling limey, too.”
“Not as bad as a Sherpa,” she said.
They were convulsed with laughter when one of the uniformed cops looked in from the hallway. “What's going on?” he asked.
Neither of them were able to stop laughing and tell him.
“Well, show some respect, huh?” he said. “We have two dead men here.”
Perversely, that admonition made everything seem even funnier.
The patrolman scowled at them, shook his head, and went away.
Jack knew it was precisely because of the presence of death that Shelly Parker's conversations with Rebecca had seemed so uproariously funny. After having encountered four hideously mutilated bodies in as many days, they were desperately in need of a good laugh.
Gradually, they regained their composure and wiped the tears from their eyes. Rebecca got up and went to the windows and stared out at the snow flurries. For a couple of minutes, they shared a most companionable silence, enjoying the temporary but nonetheless welcome release from tension that the laughter had provided.
This moment was the sort of thing Jack couldn't have explained to the guys at the poker game last week, when they'd been putting Rebecca down. At times like this, when the other Rebecca revealed herself — the Rebecca who had a sly sense of humor and a gimlet eye for life's absurdities — Jack felt a special kinship with her. Rare as those moments were, they made the partnership work able and worthwhile — and he hoped that eventually this secret Rebecca would come into the open more often. Perhaps, someday, if he had enough patience, the other Rebecca might even replace the ice maiden altogether.
As usual, however, the change in her was short-lived.
She turned away from the window and said, “Better go talk with the M.E. and see what he's found.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “And let's try to stay glum-faced from now on, Chandler. Let's show them we really do have the proper respect for death.”
She smiled at him, but it was only a vague smile now.
She left the room.
He followed.
II
As Nayva Rooney stepped into the hall, she closed the door to the kids' bedroom behind her, so that the rat — or whatever it was — couldn't scurry back in there.
She searched for the intruder in Jack Dawson's bedroom, found nothing, and closed the door on that one, too.
She carefully inspected the kitchen, even looked in cupboards. No rat. There were two doors in the kitchen; one led to the hall, the other to the dining alcove. She closed them both, sealing the critter out of that room, as well.
Now, it simply had to be hiding in the dining alcove or the living room.
But it wasn't.
Nayva looked everywhere. She couldn't find it.
Several times she stopped searching just so she could hold her breath and listen. Listen…. Not a sound.
