she wore the ring to the hotel,' he reminded me. 'We just said so for the sake of argument.'
'I know.'
'Maybe she left it at the apartment. Maybe someone took it from there.'
'Who?'
'The boyfriend. Let's say he didn't kill her, let's say it was an EDP
like I said from the beginning—'
'You really use that expression?'
'You get so you use the expressions they want you to use, you know how it works. Let's say the psycho killed her and the boyfriend's worried he'll be tied into it. So he goes to the apartment, he's got a key, and he takes the ring. Maybe he bought her other presents and he took them, too. He would've taken the fur, too, but it was in the hotel. Why isn't that theory just as good as the killer yanking the ring off her finger?'
Because it wasn't a psycho, I thought. Because a psycho killer wouldn't be sending men in lumber jackets to warn me off, wouldn't be passing messages to me through Danny Boy Bell. Because a psycho wouldn't have worried about handwriting or fingerprints or towels.
Unless he was some sort of Jack the Ripper type, a psycho who planned and took precautions. But that wasn't it, that couldn't be it, and the ring had to be significant. I dropped the piece of glass back into my pocket. It meant something, it had to mean something.
Durkin's phone rang. He picked it up, said 'Joe Durkin' and
'Yeah, right, right.' He listened, grunting acknowledgment from time to time, darting a pointed look in my direction, making notes on a memo pad.
I went over to the coffee machine and got us both coffee. I couldn't remember what he took in his coffee, then remembered how bad the coffee was out of that machine and added cream and sugar to both cups.
He was still on the phone when I got back to the desk. He took the coffee, nodded his thanks, sipped it, lit a fresh cigarette to go with it. I drank some of my own coffee and made my way through Kim's file, hoping something I saw might bridge a gap for me. I thought of my conversation with Donna. What was wrong with the word sparkle?
Hadn't the ring sparkled on Kim's finger? I remembered how it had looked with the light striking it. Or was I just fabricating the memory to reinforce my own theory? And did I even have a theory? I had a missing ring and no hard evidence that the ring had even existed. A poem, a suicide note, and my own remark about eight million stories in the Emerald City. Had the ring triggered that subconsciously? Or was I just identifying with the crew on the Yellow Brick Road, wishing I had a brain and a heart and a dose of courage?
Durkin said, 'Yeah, it's a pisser, all right. Don't go 'way, okay? I'll be right out.'
He hung up, looked at me. His expression was a curious one, self-satisfaction mixed with something that might have been pity.
He said, 'The Powhattan Motel, you know where Queens Boulevard cuts the Long Island Expressway?
It's just past the intersection. I don't know just where, Elmhurst or Rego Park. Right about where they run into each other.'
'So?'
'One of those adult motels, waterbeds in some of the rooms, X-rated movies on the teevee. They get cheaters, the hot-sheet trade, take a room for two hours. They'll turn a room five, six times a night if they get the volume, and a lot of it's cash, they can skim it. Very profitable, motels like that.'
'What's the point?'
'Guy drove up, rented a room a couple of hours ago. Well, that business, you make up the room soon
as the customer leaves it. Manager noticed the car was gone, went to the room. Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the door. He knocks, no answer, he knocks again, still no answer. He opens the door and guess what he finds?'
I waited.
'Cop named Lennie Garfein responded to the call, first thing that struck him was the similarity to what we had at the Galaxy Downtowner.
That was him on the phone. We won't know until we get the medical evidence, direction of thrust, nature of wounds, all that, but it sure as hell sounds identical. Killer even took a shower, took the towels with him when he left.'
'Was it—'
'Was it what?'
It wasn't Donna. I'd just spoken to her. Fran, Ruby, Mary Lou—
'Was it one of Chance's women?'
'Hell,' he said, 'how do I know who Chance's women are? You think all I do is keep tabs on pimps?'
'Who was it?'
'Not one of anybody's women,' he said. He crushed out his cigarette, started to help himself to a fresh one, changed his mind and pushed it back into the pack. 'Not a woman,' he said.
'Not—'
'Not who?'
'Not Calderon. Octavio Calderon, the room clerk.'
