The Kills

at home.'

'That means I cook.'

'Or Shun Lee delivers. Or we starve, and just nibble on each other.' I was useless in the kitchen. Whipping up a tuna salad and removing ice cubes from their tray was a slim repertoire.

' Thatflight I won't consider missing.'

I hung up, undressed, and drew a steaming-hot bath, filling the tub with something bubbly that smelled like vanilla. My friend Joan Stafford had written another thriller, and I took the manuscript with me into the tub, trying to discern the players who were so deliciously portrayed in the roman a clef.

Sleep came easily and I awakened at six, with time to make coffee and read the newspaper before making my way to the garage in the basement of my building.

'Good morning, J.P.,' I said to the attendant, who pointed to my Jeep, which he had positioned at the top of the ramp.

'You got company, Ms. Cooper.'

I opened the car door and found Mike Chapman dozing in the front passenger seat.

He didn't move a hair as I settled into the driver's side. I pressed the button to play the first CD in the deck, turning the volume up so that the letters R-E-S-P-E-C-T blasted out of the speakers.

Mike opened his left eye and shifted his weight. 'If I had wanted to wake up with Aretha Franklin, I would have gone to bed with the woman.'

'I guess you didn't exactly want to wake up with me, either. You could have rung the doorbell. There's always the sofa bed in the den.'

'And all that temptation in the bedroom? Sorry, just came to pick your brain. Only got here fifteen minutes ago and I was afraid I'd miss you if I didn't head you off in the garage. Wild night in the naked city.'

'What happened?'

'Caught two kills, so I gotta go right back uptown to sort things out.'

That's what homicides were to Mike Chapman. Kills. Hunters used that word to describe the slaughter of their prey, and fighter pilots spoke the same language when referring to the downing of enemy planes-the unnatural termination of lives.

'What kind of cases?' I asked.

'One's a shooting, probably justifiable. Bodega owner on One Hundred Tenth dropped a guy who pulled a knife on him and tried to steal a six-pack of Bud. Other one's really ugly. Thought you could help.'

'Sure. How?'

'Break-in at a brownstone in Harlem, West Side. Place was ransacked, lots of old junk strewn all over the place,' Mike said, shutting off the music. 'Eighty-two-year-old woman. Looks like she was raped and then smothered to death with her own pillow. Thought you could tell me why.'

'Why what?' I asked.

'Why somebody does that? Who am I looking for? What's inside his head? What the hell's the motivation for a sexual assault on an octogenarian who's already had a stroke and was partially paralyzed?'

'I can give you hours on this, but I probably still won't be able to answer your question. No one can. Last time I had one like that, I called my favorite court shrink. 'The guy either hates his mother, or he loves his mother too much. Your perp either has an Electra complex, or his mother beat him when he was a child. The guy either needed to control his victim, or has a thing about-''

'How much does it take to control a semi-invalid eighty-two-year-old? I realize profilers are useless.'

'Have you checked burglary patterns? Try Special Victims. We've had a few cases with a guy who pretends to be a plumber, sent by the superintendent. Gets in, beats the women up pretty badly, and usually tears the place apart looking for cash and jewelry. Then he rapes them, almost like an afterthought.'

'Women as old as this?' Mike asked.

'No. But he's just opportunistic. He takes whoever is there.'

He opened the car door to get out. 'Will you look at the crime scene photos with me, and go over the autopsy report, in case I'm missing anything?'

'I'm in court all day today.'

'What's this?' he asked, checking the date on his watch. 'Thursday morning? I won't have much to show you in the way of pathology results until Saturday.'

'Fine. Meanwhile, I'll get Sarah to assign someone to work on it with you.'

Mike closed the door and I started the engine. He walked around to my side and leaned on the roof of the Jeep. 'Did your mother let you wear white shoes in September when you were a kid?'

I was anxious to get down to the office. 'What are you talking about?'

'The Chapman babes,' he said, referring to his three older sisters, 'after Labor Day my mother never let them be seen in white.'

'Yeah, I know what you mean.' I laughed, remembering my own mother's stories of the fashion rules of the fifties.

'So around two o'clock this morning, there's a squad car parked in front of the projects where your buddy Kevin Bessemer disappeared. The guys see this fashion vision walking down the street. White high-heeled patent leather shoes and a white shoulder bag. The whole outfit just didn't seem to fit.'

'With what?'

'Thermometer almost hit ninety last night. I'd give her a pass on the color of her footwear in that temperature, but she was sporting some kind of muskrat at the very same time.'

'Coat?'

'Yeah, a full-length fur-bearing rodent. May even be a mink for all I know. Kevin sure was grateful to his main squeeze and her rear window.'

'You got his girlfriend? Where is she now?' This brought us one step closer to getting a break on Bessemer's whereabouts. 'Talk about burying the lead. No wonder you came to deliver this news in person.'

He tapped his hand against the car door. 'She's up in the squad. I'll keep you posted. We're about to go interview her. Tiffany Gatts. And you can add a charge to Kevin's arrest warrant.'

'What now?'

'Statutory rape,' Mike said, backing away from me up the ramp to the street. 'Little Tiffany's only just turned sweet sixteen.'

4

'People of the State of New York against Andrew Tripping. The defendant, his attorneys, and the assistant district attorney are present,' the clerk announced in a flat monotone.

There were only three other people seated in the pews behind Peter Robelon, on what Mike Chapman referred to as the groom's side of the courtroom.

Harlan Moffett put aside the racing sheet he was studying and asked each of us if we were ready to get started. The judge had a fondness for the ponies, and would often interrupt proceedings to check the off-track- betting phone line for the outcome of a wager.

'Who you got here today, Alexandra?'

'Your Honor, I don't think any of the parties in court consider themselves prosecution witnesses. I assume,' I said, turning to look at the two women seated in the second row of benches, 'that Ms. Taggart is present. I spoke with her last evening but she hasn't identified herself to me.'

The middle-aged woman in a flowered dress that hung to the top of her ankles rose and stepped forward. 'I'm Nancy Taggart, sir. I represent the Manhattan Foundling Hospital.'

She motioned to the woman sitting beside her, who was younger but just as severe-looking. 'This is Dr. Huang. She's the psychologist responsible for the supervision of the Tripping boy.'

'And you?' Moffett pointed his gavel at the man sitting alone in the first row. 'You a legal eagle, too?'

'Jesse Irizzary. Counsel for the Agency for Child Welfare. We placed the child.'