He frowned with the effort at remembering. “I only sold a couple pairs this summer, but I’ve seen hundreds of people coming through my store. She was German, you say?”
“Yes, and she would have been very excited about the shoes.”
He nodded slowly, concentrating as he remembered. “Thick ankles.”
“What?”
“She had thick ankles. I see a lot of ankles in my business. A woman tries on a pair of shoes. you see her ankles. Can’t help it.”
Now Sarah wanted to throttle him, but she restrained herself. He surely wouldn’t tell her anything if she did. “So you do remember her?”
“I only sold two pairs of the red shoes, and the other girl was an American.”
He really did remember. He was just being difficult. “Do you remember the man who was with her, the one who bought her the shoes?”
He frowned again. “I ain’t too sure. Is there some kind of reward or something?”
“If the information leads us to the killer, there’s a reward of one hundred dollars,” Sarah lied without batting an eye. Quite frankly, if someone could tell her who the killer was, she’d gladly pay the hundred dollars herself.
The man suddenly seemed much friendlier than he had been. “Can’t blame me for being careful, can you? Don’t know just who might be coming in here, asking questions. Don’t want to get mixed up in no murder, now do I? Can’t have the police in here. Bad for business, you know.”
Sarah could just imagine. “The man who bought the shoes,” she prodded.
“Well, they don’t usually introduce themselves, if you know what I mean, and I don’t notice the men much any-ways. But I remember the girl well enough. She was babbling in German, and he kept telling her to talk English, and she kept saying, ‘Oh, Will, they’re so pretty,’ or something like that.”
Sarah felt the blood rushing from her head. “Will? She called him Will?”
“I think so.” He was hedging, seeing Sarah’s excitement but not knowing what it meant. “I wouldn’t want to get nobody in trouble, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I remember. Now who did you say was going to pay this reward?”
“Her family,” Sarah said, “and I’ll certainly tell them how helpful you’ve been.”
Now she had it, proof that all the murdered girls had known the man named Will. He must be the one they were looking for. She couldn’t wait to get back to the city and tell Malloy. She was mentally answering all of the questions she imagined Malloy would ask when she almost bumped into Dirk in the corridor outside the shop.
“You look particularly satisfied,” he remarked with a grin. “Did you find your killer?”
If only it were so easy. “I learned that a man named Will bought the red shoes for Gerda. That means she really did know him, and all the other girls knew him, too!”
His smile vanished. “What other girls?”
Sarah was so excited, she had forgotten her resolve not to tell Dirk about the other murders. Now, of course, there was no reason not to.
“There have been other murders in which girls like Gerda were killed in the same way. That’s how we knew about this man named Will. They had all been seeing him right before they were killed. We knew Gerda had been seeing someone new, too, but we didn’t know his name, at least not until today.”
He was horrified. “So you think this Will character must be the killer? That he’s killed… how many girls did you say?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, hedging. “Three more that we know about, but there may be others. We only found out about these by accident, because some of Gerda’s friends knew the other victims.”
Dirk was pale. For all his worldliness, he had probably never been exposed to something so ugly before. He tried his usual grin, but it was crooked and strained. “So now that you know this fellow Will is connected to all the murdered girls, how do you propose finding him?”
“We don’t have to talk about this anymore, Dirk,” Sarah said kindly. “I can see you’re upset and-”
“Oh, please, I’ll be more upset if I don’t know everything. I must believe that you have a plan for catching this… this monster, or I won’t be able to sleep at night.”
“Actually, I’m not sure we do have a plan. Mr. Malloy might be able to come up with some ideas, but… I’m afraid that photographer was right. Unless I can find a picture of this fellow, or someone who knows what he looks like, we might never find him.”
He was still upset, but he asked no other questions. He just started walking, and Sarah went with him.
By unspoken consent, they strolled over to the entrance to the Vista Room, which was actually the head of the elephant. Long windows on either side, that were actually the slits that formed the elephant’s eyes, allowed a panoramic view of the ocean, the beaches, and the Island itself. Other visitors were clustered in front of them, so Sarah and Dirk stood back, waiting for an opening.
“Perhaps one of the dead girl’s friends would know this Will,” he suggested. “Have you asked them?”
She almost said that of course she had asked them, but then she caught herself. She’d asked them to give her the names of the men Gerda had been seeing. They hadn’t mentioned a Will, so naturally, she hadn’t asked if they knew a man named Will. “No! No, I didn’t!” she exclaimed.
Dirk smiled. It was a funny, crooked thing, but a smile nonetheless. He was trying so hard to pretend he was as unaffected as she by the subject of murder and murderers. “Then you must speak to them again. Why, for all you know, one of them might be able to lead you straight to this man. Who do you think would be the most likely to help you?”
Now he was even trying to help solve the case. She could hardly fault him for that, though, not when she was trying to do the same thing. “Gerda had three friends she worked with. They knew everything about her, so it seems strange she didn’t tell them this fellow’s name.”
“Maybe not so strange. Maybe she wanted to keep him to herself,” he suggested. “Girls like that are very jealous, especially when they find a generous companion.”
He should know. She considered his theory. “Or maybe it was just the opposite. Maybe the other girls knew him, and she didn’t want them to know she was seeing him.”
“Because she’d stolen him from one of them.”
“Exactly!”
“Now all you need to do is decide which of them was most likely to have been his first choice,” Dirk said.
“Oh, that’s easy enough. Lisle would be any man’s first choice,” Sarah said, thinking aloud.
“Lisle?” he echoed, arching his eyebrow at her. “Another German girl, obviously. From the same neighborhood?”
“Yes.”
“This fellow doesn’t go far afield, does he? He should be easy to find.”
Sarah only hoped he was right.
THE NEXT MORNING, Mrs. Elsworth was on Sarah’s doorstep bright and early, her wrinkled face pale and drawn and her graying hair done up so hastily, the knot sat crooked on her head. “Oh, Mrs. Brandt, I had to see that you were all right. I had the most terrible dream last night, and then this morning…” She clutched at her chest, gasping for breath, and Sarah quickly took her arm and led her inside.
“Sit down right here and let me listen to your heart,” she said, putting her in the chair beside her desk in the examining room. “Are you having any pain?”
“Goodness, no,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I’m just… I can’t seem to get my breath. I was so frightened when I saw it.”
“The dream, you mean?” Sarah asked, reaching into her medical bag and pulling out the stethoscope.
“No, the cricket!”
Sarah was just about to put the stethoscope in her ears, but she stopped at this. “You were frightened by a cricket?”
“Not just any cricket! Everyone knows that a cricket in the house is good luck. Unless it’s a white cricket, of course. And this one was. Pure white, and you know what that means!”
“No, I don’t,” Sarah admitted.
Mrs. Elsworth closed her eyes and laid her hand over her heart again. Sarah reached out, fully expecting her to keel over and ready to break the fall, but she didn’t move. She only said, “Death.”
