handed me the last page of the last scene of Equus. 'The psychiatrist's speech to the boy,' she said.
I read aloud, ''He may even come to find sex funny. Smirky funny. Bit of grunt funny. Trampled and furtive and entirely in control. Hopefully, he'll feel nothing at his fork but approved flesh. I doubt, however, with much passion! Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created.''
She smiled again. 'You read quite well. Both the poem and the play are laments to lost passion, are they not?'
'In a way, but-'
'The professor admits sending the Equus message the same night Miss Rosedahl is killed,' she continued. 'The murder scene was organized, no blood or entrails dripping from the walls. An organized murderer is usually intelligent and able to converse with his victims. Rather than using violence to subdue, he controls with conversation. He assumes a position of authority, not unlike a teacher with a class. He can be quite winning. He frequently has problems with alcohol. Your professor fits the profile quite nicely, don't you think?'
In the movies, this is when the detective takes a long pull on his cigarette, exhales, and says, 'A little too nicely, eh, babe?' But I don't smoke, and it all seemed to fit, just like the lady said.
Somewhere in my head, a memory was stirring. 'After we left Marsha Diamond's apartment, you said something about an organized crime scene.'
'And you made a rather pathetic joke demeaning psychiatry.'
'I just thought it was a little much, your profiling the killer as somebody who got Bs in math and wasn't close to his father.'
She shrugged.
The rest of the memory filled itself in. 'And that's when we got off on the wrong foot,' I said.
She seemed to think about it. It took a moment of self-analysis. ' Before that. About two seconds after you joined Dr. Riggs and me at the restaurant. You came on as some sort of American-what do they call it? — hulk?'
'Hunk?'
'Yes. A big, Yank hunk. A cocky, grinning male predator.'
'Me?'
'You.'
'And how long have you had these feelings of insecurity in the presence of the male animal?'
She smiled but didn't say a word.
'I think you got me wrong,' I said. 'When I met you, I'd just been drop-kicked out of the courthouse. My ego was dragging. If anything, I needed feminine companionship to buoy my spirits. I was trying to impress you and it didn't work. I regret it.'
She thought it over. 'You sought validation that your product was still good.'
I nodded.
'So perhaps you overcompensated.'
I nodded again, eagerly anticipating her compassion.
'And I misinterpreted your pitiful yearning.'
She seemed to be convincing herself that I wasn't half-bad, and who was I to argue?
'My goodness! I've been so frosty to you, haven't I?'
'Like Green Bay in January,' I agreed.
'Then I apologize.'
'Accepted.'
Again, she slid the glasses back to the top of her head. She let her hand push the hair back and it tumbled over her shoulders. Then she looked at me the way a woman looks when she wants to be looked at right back. 'Now, what were we saying?' she asked quietly.
'Something about the organized murderer.'
She appraised me with those wide-set intelligent eyes, the flinty specks lost in the green. She didn't seem to have murder on the mind when she said, 'Actually, I was thinking about you a few days ago.'
'Really?'
'Yes, I was watching one of those American football shows on the telly.'
'And the mindlessness of it reminded you of me.'
'Well, I thought there must be more to it than meets the eye. I mean, just jumping onto each other and all. I thought you could explain it to me.'
'Gladly. Where should we begin? First downs? Touchdowns? The I-formation or full-house backfield?'
'Actually, I was wondering about all the committee meetings?'
'The what?'
'Every few moments the lads stop, gather 'round a circle, pop their asses into the air, and have a meeting.'
I could see we would have to start at the beginning. I remember my high-school coach the first day of practice. 'Girls,' he would say, 'this is a football.'
Pam continued: 'You were quite proficient at the game, weren't you?'
'Not really.'
'But Dr. Riggs said you won an award. At university, you were an Early American.'
'All-American, honorable mention, my senior year. It's not that great.'
We were interrupted by a shout. ' Deus Misereatur! I'm so late.'
Charlie was trundling across the lobby, his coattail flying, a wad of index cards in his hand. 'I was going over my notes and now look at it. Tempus fugit! '
Pam Maxson assured him that his audience would wait, and we headed out of the hotel and back into the Range Rover. 'I hope you two found some common ground,' Charlie said, somewhat hesitantly.
'Your friend is actually quite nice,' Pamela Maxson responded.
Charlie didn't have a coronary. He didn't even snicker.
'We were talking about radical psychiatry, the myth of the unconscious, that sort of thing,' I told him, trying not to boast.
'Dr. Maxson must have been doing the talking,' Charlie said, 'because you don't know diddly-'
'Now, now, Dr. Riggs,' she clucked, angelically rising to my defense, 'Jake is quite knowledgeable about the law. I'm sure he knows many esoteric procedures that are quite foreign to you and me.'
'Like how to spin webs of gold from piles of manure,' Charlie harrumphed.
'Now, now, Dr. Riggs,' I chided, pinching the back of his neck. He harrumphed again and shut up. I think the old goat was jealous in an avuncular kind of way.
Pam deftly guided the Rover out of the Mayfair section past St. James Park and across Westminster Bridge over the Thames. The rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking out of the clouds. She gunned the engine, and as we barely avoided a major pileup at a roundabout, Charlie turned to me and whispered, 'What were you talking about, really?'
'Royalty,' I said.
'The Queen, the Duke of Windsor?' Charlie asked.
'The Prince of Passion,' I said.
CHAPTER 21
'Fantasies?' mused Clarence the Chemist. 'I've had fantasies since I was eleven years old.'
'About killing women?' asked Dr. Pamela Maxson in a neutral tone.
'If you could call my mother a woman.'
'What do you call her?'
'Dead,' Clarence said, suppressing a grin. 'Braggart,' chided the Fireman, from his seat across from
