Even in the soft-rose lighting, it was easy enough to figure out which of the cases it was. The best one for polygraph keys—one of the first ones—the guy who’d gotten the ice pick in the spine. A blown-up car wouldn’t give away much. Oh sure, if the lab guys were good enough, they might find the triggering device. . . or a clue to it, anyway. Maybe even tell you the type of explosive. But there’s nothing like a face-to-face homicide to produce a crime scene you can vacuum all to hell.
And they had. I finally found exactly what I was looking for. The ice pick the newspapers had reported hadn’t been one at all. The weapon had been a ninja spike of some kind, a triangular piece of tempered steel with notches for finger grips at the thick end. On the top, where it was the thickest, there was an engraved icon, inset in red. I knew the color only because someone had written the word “red” with an arrow pointing toward it on the photocopy. I guess either the Department didn’t have color copiers or, more likely, Nadine’s playmate didn’t have access to one.
“Have you got a—?”
I looked up and realized I was talking to an empty space. Nadine had gone somewhere. I glanced at my watch. I’d been in that chair for almost two hours. I guess I’d gone somewhere too.
The apartment was sealed-off quiet, no street noises penetrating the thick glass, the rich gray carpet muffling anything else. Where was she? There had to be at least a bedroom and a kitchen. Bathroom too. But I didn’t want to start cruising around. And everything past the circle of rosy light I had been reading by was a pool of blackness.
“Nadine?” I called out, medium-voiced, pitched to carry past the living room, no more.
No answer.
It didn’t stink like a trap does. And the decor wasn’t a clue either. You walk into a room where everything’s covered in plastic, floor to ceiling, you better start shooting before they go to work with the baseball bats. But this. . .?
Nadine was a girl who loved her games. I could walk out and take the papers with me. Or get up and look through the other rooms.
I didn’t like the choices, so I pulled the cellular out of my pocket and dialed her number. I heard it ring, somewhere back through the walls. If there was a phone in the living room, I couldn’t see it. Or hear it.
She had it by the second ring, her voice awake and sharp even though it was almost two in the morning. But some people wake up just like that, so I couldn’t tell.
“Hello?”
“You mind taking a little walk?” I asked.
“Oh! It’s. . . sure. Just give me a minute.”
I wanted a smoke, but I didn’t even think about going through with it. There wasn’t an ashtray in sight. And one of those air-filtering canisters sat in a far corner whispering its work.
Then she seemed to just materialize out of the side of the wall. Nude.
“I was asleep,” she said, as calmly as if we were talking inside an office. “You were so. . . absorbed, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I didn’t want to disturb
My eyes never left hers. Still cobalt, hers were. So either she was lying about being asleep or they weren’t contacts like I’d first thought.
“That was very considerate,” she said, calmly. “Are you all finished?”
“Not quite yet. Have you got a magnifying glass of some kind? And a better light I could use for a minute?”
“Sure,” she said, spinning on her heel and disappearing again.
She came back with a large rectangular magnifier, the kind that comes with the Oxford English Dictionary inside that little tray at the top of the two volumes. And a clip-on gooseneck halogen light. “How’s this?” she asked, bending forward like a stewardess. In a porno movie.
“Perfect, I think. Let me try it.”
I attached the light, turned it on. Then I placed the magnifier over the photocopy of the icon. Blown up, it turned out to be a meticulously drawn little dinosaur with
“I got it,” I told her.
“You mean. . . you mean you know who he is?”
“No. But I know something I can use to find him. Maybe. If he wants to be found.”
“Wants to be—?”
“It’s. . . complicated,” I told her.
“And you can’t tell me?” she asked, perching herself back on the ottoman the same way she had hours ago.
“Not now.”
“But I did what you wanted, right?”
“Yeah, you did,” I admitted. “In spades.”
“So you believe me now?” she questioned, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child, but showing me she was all grown up at the same time.
“I believe you have a friend on the force,” I told her. “One that’ll do what you want.”
“She did a
“Sure did. This had to take some time. And it’d mean her job if she got caught.”
“I know. Do you think they’d. . . suspect her?”
“How would I know? I don’t know who’s got access to—”
“I don’t mean suspect her of making the copies. I mean suspect her of being in with. . . him.”
“Not a chance,” I assured her. “The sleaze tabs broke the mold when they published autopsy pictures of that little girl who was raped and murdered in her own home. Remember, the baby beauty queen?”
“In Colorado? Oh God, yes! I couldn’t believe when they. . . and they
“Yeah. Anyway, these pictures, they’d be worth a fortune to one of the rags.
“Oh,” she said, sounding more relieved than I would have expected.
“Anyway, she sure as hell can’t put these
“You?”
“You want them around here?” I asked her. “It’d be insane to burn them—there might be a real clue in here somewhere, even though there’s stuff missing.”
“Really? When I saw how much it was, I thought she got
“Is that what you asked her for?”
“No. I just. . . what you said. The ‘polygraph-key’ thing.”
“Well, you can tell her she came through, no question.”
“Me too.”
“You too, what?”
“I came through too, didn’t I?”
“Yes. I already said that. You made. . . you
“So I can. . . help you with this?”
“Yeah.”
“When do we start?”
“We already did,” I told her. “I’ll get back to you, let you know when the next move is.”
“That’s it?”
“What did you expect? You want to put some clothes on and go running after him right now?”
“Oh. I didn’t think you noticed.”
“Noticed?”
“My. . . clothes,” she said, trailing the back of her hand across her breasts.
