“Obviously,” I said.
Chapter 6
“WELL, Well,” Jill Joyce said as she came off the set. “The cutie-pie cop with the big muscles.”
“I didn’t think you’d noticed,” I said.
“You here to take care of me?” she said. Her on-camera make-up was a little heavy, but standing there in front of me she was fresh-faced and beautiful. Her cheeks dimpled as she spoke. Her skin was clear and smooth, her eyes sparkled with life and a hint of innocent sexuality. She looked like orange juice and fresh laundry, the perfect date for the Williams-Amherst game, in a plaid skirt, picnicking beforehand on a blanket. Her lips would taste like apples. Her hair would smell like honey. Freshscrubbed, spunky, compliant, brave, beautiful, decent, cute. With a TVQ that made your breath come short.
“I’m here to discuss it,” I said.
“Your place or mine?” Jill said and dimpled at me.
“Your place,” I said, “but remember, I’m armed.” Jill giggled deep in her throat.
“I hope so,” she said. She looked at the director. “Half an hour, Rich?”
“Sure, Jilly,” the director said. “No more, though, I’m trying to bring this thing in under, for once.”
“Maybe you could make your mind up where to put the fucking camera, Rich,” Jill said. She spoke without heat, almost absently, as she walked away. I followed her, watching her hips sway as she walked. Her back was perfectly straight. Her hair was glossy and thick. The skirt fit smoothly over her elegant backside. We went out a side door into the cold, walked twenty feet to Jill’s mobile home and went in. Jill was all business today. She sat in the driver’s seat sideways, crossed her legs, rested her left arm on the steering wheel.
“Okay, cutie,” she said. “Talk.”
I didn’t answer. I was looking down the length of the mobile home toward the bed. Above the bed, suspended from a ceiling fixture, was a plastic doll, dressed in a gold lame evening gown, hanging with a miniature slipknot around her neck. Jill saw me looking and shifted her glance, and saw the swaying doll.
“What’s that?” she said.
I walked down the length of the mobile home and looked more closely at the doll without touching it. I could hear Jill’s footsteps behind me. The doll gazed at me from a face that looked a little like Jill Joyce, its happy smile entirely incongruous above the hangman’s knot around its throat. The knot caused the doll to cant at an angle. I could feel Jill press ugainst me. Her hand was on my arm just above the elbow. She squeezed.
“What is that?” she said.
“Just a doll,” I said. “You recognize it?”
She stayed behind me but moved her head around for a closer look, her cheek pressed against my upper arm. She looked for a moment.
“Jesus God,” she said.
“Yeah?” I said.
“It’s me,” she said. “It’s me.”
She slid around over my arm and pressed herself against me, both arms around me, her head against my chest.
“It’s a doll of me,” she said, “as Tiffany Scott.” Even I had heard of Tiffany Scott, the spunky, lovable girl reporter, caught up in a series of hair-raising adventures, week after week, for six years on ABC. It was the series that had made her the preeminent television star in the country. Her body was tighter against me than my gunbelt and she seemed to insinuate herself at very precarious spots.
“Got any theories?” I said.
“He did it,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, throaty with fear. “It’s…” She squeezed tighter against me. I would not have thought that possible, but she did it. “It’s a warning.” Her breath was short, and audible.
“Who’s he?” I said. Spenser, master detective, asker of the penetrating questions.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Then how do you know it’s him?” I said. “Or is it he?”
“He’s done things like this before.”
“He has,” I said. “But we don’t know who he is.” I was losing control of my pronouns. “Or whom?” I said.
She turned her face in against me. “It’s not funny,” she said.
I reached up with my free hand, the one she wasn’t clinging to, and took the doll down.
“His name isn’t Ken, is it?”
“I told you,” she said. “I don’t know who he is. I just know he’s after me.”
I got my arm free of her clutch and turned her around and steered her back to the front of the mobile home.
“I’ll need to talk to your driver,” I said.
“Paulie,” she said.
“Paulie what?”
