'It sounds like him,' she said. 'No certainty, it could be someone else, but it could be him.'
I took the tape out of the stereo. Hawk sat in repose, stool tipped back, balanced lightly with his elbows against the edge of the counter.
I was pretty sure he didn't really need the counter.
Susan took her chin from her hand. 'I too know it's him,' she said.
'But there's nothing I can say in terms of courtroom-type evidence.
Because these crimes fit a man with his pathologies, it doesn't mean he committed them. I've had many men with similar pathologies that are able to master them.'
'What makes the difference?' Hawk said.
'I don't know,' Susan said. 'Character, influences of other people in their lives, degree of Oedipal manipulation on the mother's part, intelligence of the patient, will to succeed in the therapy, blind chance.' Susan smiled. 'All of the above.'
'How 'bout divine intervention,' Hawk said.
'Wouldn't it be pretty,' Susan said.
Hawk smiled at her with warmth that no one ever got.
'He's the one,' I said.
'Yes,' Hawk said.
'Yes,' Susan said.
'And we can't prove it,' I said.
'The voiceprint?' Susan said.
'Just proves that the same guy called me twice. Doesn't prove he's Red Rose. Doesn't prove the guy they've got for it isn't Red Rose. Even if you could identify the voice without equivocation, it wouldn't prove he was Red Rose.'
'Equivocation,' Hawk said.
'Keep hanging around with me,' I said to Hawk. 'Listen and learn.'
'My appointment book will show that Felton was there the day that you chased him,' Susan said.
'So were, what, seven other people?' I said.
She nodded.
'What about the murders?' Hawk said.
'The murders?' Susan said.
'Compare the dates of his therapy with the dates of the murders,' I said.
'Why?'
'See what happen,' Hawk said. 'We know the fish in there, we casting around trying to find where.'
'I'll get my book,' Susan said.
She left us and went down to the office.
Hawk said, 'We can't prove this guy did it, but we know he did. Sooner or later we got to do something.'
'I know,' I said.
Susan came back with her appointment book.
'What are the murder dates?' she said.
I knew them by heart and told her.
She wrote them down in her attractive and completely unreadable hand. It was graceful and composed of well integrated linear sweeps, which had great surface charm and no intelligibility. Susan's handwriting was so bad that often she couldn't read it herself when she went back to it later.
She leafed through her appointment book while Hawk and I cleared the counter and rinsed the cups and put them in the dishwasher. I capped the cherry preserves and put the top back on the cream cheese container and put them in the refrigerator. Hawk was washing his hands and face at the sink and drying them on a paper towel.
'Sonovabitch,' Susan said.
Hawk and I turned and looked at her.
'Felton normally comes twice a week,' Susan said. 'The days vary, but the twice a week doesn't. All the murders except the first were on the day after an appointment.'
'When did he start therapy?' I said.
'Two weeks after the first one,' Susan said.
The room was quiet. The wet hum of the dishwasher was all there was to listen to.
'Something in the sessions must have set him off,' Susan said.
I could feel the faint tremor in the floor as the dishwasher went about its business.
