That’s all I saw.”
“Would you recognize him?”
Lavinia began to cry.
Longarm hurried over and put his arms around the woman. “It’s going to be all right. I’m sorry about the judge, but you’re the one who is more important. And there is no reason for the killer to return again. None whatsoever.”
“I saw a little of his face,” she was finally able to whisper. “Not much, but a little.”
“Did he look anything like the sketch I showed you?”
“No.”
“Then what …”
“I could smell …”
“What!”
“Burned flesh.”
Longarm hugged Lavinia even tighter. The horrible picture in his mind of James Smith’s burned, flesh-seared face was enough to make anyone hysterical.
Chapter 4
Longarm wasn’t looking forward to telling his boss, Billy Vail, about last night’s assassination of Judge Getty. It was hard to admit that he had been sleeping downstairs on the judge’s own couch when the gruesome hanging had taken place. He would not, of course, admit that he had earlier spent a few pleasantly exhausting hours with the sex-starved and very passionate Lavinia, making love and sipping the judge’s excellent brandy.
“Come on in,” Billy said, looking surprised and anxious. “And close the door.”
Longarm closed the door and took a seat across from Billy. He fidgeted for a moment, and then decided to come right to the point. “The Assassin got to Judge Getty last night. I expect that you’ll be hearing about it very soon. But I wanted to tell you what happened first.”
“Damn!” Billy breathed. “I thought you were going straight to his house to look out for him!”
“I tried,” Longarm said, “but he was very antagonistic. He accused me of being a ‘power-monger’ and refused to allow me to stay close to him.”
“So The Assassin found a way to do it, huh?”
“Yeah.”
When Longarm chose not to elaborate, Billy grew impatient. “All right, give me the details.”
“You aren’t going to like this.”
“Tell me anyway,” Billy snapped.
“The Assassin got into his upstairs room, gagged him so there wouldn’t be much noise, then found a curtain cord and hoisted him up on a chandelier.”
“Oh, shit!” Billy swore. “He hanged Judge Getty!”
“A proper hanging would have been a mercy,” Longarm said. “The judge was hoisted up into the air like a flag on a pole. From the look on his face, I suspect that he had a relatively slow, horrible death.”
Billy groaned. “Wait until the newspaper reporters get ahold of this story. They’ll have a wonderful time with it, and I don’t have to tell you who will be blamed.”
“It was my fault,” Longarm admitted. “I should have insisted that the judge allow me to sleep in an adjoining room. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his housekeeper and companion, I’d have been sleeping on the porch instead of downstairs in the parlor.”
“Judge Getty was a sonofabitch,” Billy said, leaning back in his office chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. “I’d be a hypocrite if I said that I wasn’t secretly glad to be rid of the old softhearted fossil. No one deserves to be strangled to death, of course, but you can’t blame yourself, Custis.”
“Oh?”
“Really,” Billy insisted. “Nobody ever insisted that Judge Getty do anything. He was arrogant, stubborn, and opinionated. And since there really was nothing that you could do, don’t blame yourself. That’s all that I’m saying.”
“All right, I won’t,” Longarm replied. “But now I haven’t a clue as to where to start looking for Commissioner Pinter’s secret assassin—even if his name is James Smith, which I’m sure is just an alias.”
“I quite agree,” Billy said. “It seems that we have lost the trail. I don’t suppose that you found any clues at the judge’s house?”
“The judge’s housekeeper and companion caught a glimpse of the killer.”
“She did! Excellent, we can-“
“The woman told me that she smelled burned flesh.”
Billy wasn’t squeamish, but he did grow a shade paler at this news. “The woman was very fortunate not to have also been murdered.”
“Yes,” Longarm said. “The Assassin escaped through the window, then jumped off the roof and ran into an alley. After that, his tracks were lost on the street.”
“Such a man should not be that difficult to find. Do you suspect he was burned in the fire that claimed his wife
