“Wouldn’t put up with him if he didn’t.”
They walked for a few minutes without speaking. “You’re right,” Beam said.
“About not putting up with him if he acts up?”
“No. Well, yes. Also right about something you thought but didn’t mention.”
“Ah!”
“That your love life is none of my business.”
They’d reached Cold Cat’s building. A uniform was still standing outside, helping the doorman shoo away curious fans.
“Here we are,” Nell said.
“Exactly where JK wants us.” Beam glanced around. “He might even be here with us.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Nell said. “You’re on a roll.”
57
“You on your way to talk to my mom and dad?” Gina asked.
She was wearing blue shorts, a ragged gray sweatshirt cut off at the armpits, and white jogging shoes that could use a turn in the washer. Her body was slim and lithe and well toned, Nell noted with a twinge of jealousy. Youth.
“Not really,” Nell said. “They told me on the phone you weren’t home. Said you’d gone running. I’ve been waiting around out here for you to turn up.”
Sunlight illuminated a low haze hanging in the warm air, either the result of exhaust fumes, or dust from construction in the next block. Every few minutes distant jackhammers beat out the frantic clatter of machine guns. Traffic was streaming past, and Gina, with her shorts and casual hipshot pose, attracted a few horn blasts, a male shout of…what? Admiration? More like verbalized testosterone.
“Why me?”
“So we can talk more freely.”
That seemed to pique Gina’s interest. She shifted her weight to the other slim, tanned leg.
“I wanted to talk to you about Carl Dudman’s death,” Nell said.
“My family’s already talked about that. I’d think you’d be more interested in that rap star getting killed.”
“No, it’s Dudman I’m interested in. And I want to know how you feel.”
Gina shrugged. “I’m glad he’s dead. He was the person most responsible for Bradley Aimes walking out of the courtroom a free man even though he murdered my sister. It isn’t any secret. We’ve told the police and the media as much.”
“Do you see the Justice Killer as some kind of hero?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Gina frowned and gnawed on her lower lip. “I would admit I’m grateful for what he did.”
“Do you know a man named Terry Adams?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“Did Genelle ever mention him?”
This time Gina thought a long while before answering. “If she did, I don’t remember. It’s possible that she knew him, whoever he is. We didn’t have all the same friends.”
“But would it be safe to say most of your friends knew both you and Genelle?”
“Most, yes.” Gina cupped her waist with her hands and began jogging in place, causing some bouncing action beneath the baggy sweatshirt. “Whoo! Whoo!” yelled a guy from a passing car.
“What’s this all about?” Gina asked, ignoring her motorized admirer. “You suspect this Terry guy?”
“No,” Nell said, maybe too quickly, judging by the way Gina was staring at her. “We just want to make sure there was no connection between him and Genelle. Or between him and you, for that matter.”
“I’m sure I don’t know him, and I don’t think Genelle did. But we can never be sure about Genelle. The only thing I know about her for sure is that I miss her. You know how people say they become sad because after a while they can’t recall precisely what the people they grieve looked like?”
Nell didn’t know, but she nodded.
“That doesn’t happen with me and Gina. I see her complete every day in the mirror.” Gina glanced up at the sky, then back down, her Adam’s apple working. “That’s about all I can tell you.”
“I guess it is,” Nell said. She smiled. “Thanks, Gina. Say hello to your mom and dad.”
“Sure,” Gina said. She returned the smile and jogged away toward her apartment building half a block down. She drew more admiring looks, a pretty girl catching the sunlight, hair flouncing with each stride. The young in New York. Nell knew they weren’t as enviable as they appeared. Gina, who certainly had her problems, was an example.
Nell stood and watched her until she started up the steps to her building entrance, thinking about what had died along with Gina’s sister. Thinking about the Justice Killer, how he was killing victims, and killing her trust in Terry. Evil really was like a rock thrown in a pond; the ripples eventually reached every part of it.
Well, she refused to let the ripples destroy her trust. Apparently there’d been no connection between Gina or Genelle and Terry. So there was a crime, Genelle’s murder, that he had no alibi for, and it might as well have happened in another galaxy. Absence of alibi didn’t mean likelihood of guilt.
Suspicion could eat like acid. Like guilt itself. The best way to face it was head on. Find out. Shine the truth on it.
Nell felt better after talking with Gina.
Gina felt better after talking with Nell.
She entered the lobby of her apartment building, stood hands on hips and let her breathing even out, then pushed the up button for the elevator. While she waited, she thought back on her conversation with Nell.
The detective didn’t seem to consider that Gina or her mother or father might have murdered Dudman, a copycat crime.
If Gina had gone beyond simply stalking Dudman as a kind of cathartic exercise, and actually used her gun, she might well have gotten away with it. After all, Dudman had simply been shot from a passing car. The police had nothing to go on. Gina had read that the most difficult crimes to solve were the simple ones. Criminals tended to outsmart themselves.
The elevator arrived. Mrs. Grubman, from the apartment above the Dixon’s, appeared when the door slid open. She smiled and nodded to Gina. She had her feisty and odorous little dog Worry on a leash. Gina nodded back and stood aside, giving Worry plenty of room to get past. The animal had a habit of snapping at people.
After suffering only a growl, Gina entered the elevator and pressed the button for her floor. She leaned back with her eyes closed. As the elevator ascended, she enjoyed the sensation; when she was younger she used to think she might rise all the way to heaven. Today she thought the elevator smelled like dog.
Nell, the detective, had for some reason been interested in the Carl Dudman murder, rather than the more recent murder of Cold Cat the rap star. Gina was more interested in Cold Cat’s sudden and violent death, and not only because it screamed daily from every news source, along with that idiot woman’s campaign to stop conducting trials. What interested Gina was that Cold Cat, Richard Simms, hadn’t been a member of a jury, or any other part of the judicial system. He’d been the defendant.
It wasn’t credible to Gina that the little man, Knee High, had killed Cold Cat’s wife. Or if he had, it was a scheme of some kind and the husband was involved. The husband was always involved. Cold Cat had been the guilty defendant who’d gone free. Simms was the first of such monsters to be murdered by the Justice Killer. The police must be trying hard to figure out what that might mean.
Gina knew one thing it meant. Richard Simms’s murder signaled open season on Bradley Aimes.
The elevator stopped, bobbed slightly to adjust itself, then dinged, and the door glided open.
Gina had reached her destination.
Homicide.
Murder.
Was there any difference now between him and the vicious killers the police hunted down and killed or placed
