series of four shots, they showed Jess and another girl, wearing fencing pantaloons but also unmasked and, mysteriously, bare to the waist, fighting with sabers like duelists.
At first he couldn't bear to look at them. The exposure of Jess's flesh, the way her pert young breasts were pointed, their tips so eager and erect… he felt obliged to avert his eyes.
What the hell was going on with her? What the hell did she think she was doing?
She was playing some weird sort of game, he decided-perhaps some species of charades. Whatever it was it had shamed her or she wouldn't have hidden the pictures. But it had also meant something important to her or she wouldn't have bothered to keep them.
He wondered who had taken the photographs. Their existence implied an observer. Then he remembered that Polaroid cameras contain self-timers, so the camera could have been mounted on a tripod and set to fire off automatically. What are these pictures about? Do they have anything to do with her call?
As much as he hated the thought, he knew he had to examine them. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he held them closer, searching their backgrounds for clues. they had been taken in an all-white high-ceilinged room.
No windows showed, but something about the slant of light made him think the pictures had been taken very early in the day.
The other girl had pale skin, short jet black hair, and icy blue eyes.
Who was she? What did she mean to Jess? Why on God's earth are they both bare-breasted? Were they posing, clowning around? Or were they really fighting?
From the intensity of their expressions they appeared to be duelists. In one shot, in a corner of the room, he could make out their discarded jackets.
Why were they fighting, risking disfigurement and injury? Were they settling some kind of grudge? Daring each other? Showing bravery? Exciting each other by the ritual of combat? Janek sat at Jess's desk and held his fists to his head. First Greg Gale, now this.
But the longer he thought about it, the more clearly he understood that Jess was no less enigmatic than other homicide victims he had investigated. So perhaps he shouldn't expect to understand her; perhaps, like every other human being, she would turn out to be unfathomable.
He took up his search again, combing through her notebooks. He checked her address book for coded telephone numbers. He pulled every book out of her bookcases and fanned its pages for hidden notes.
He emptied her wastebasket, then searched each scrap for a revealing notation. When, at two in the morning, he finally left the dorm, a new security team was in place at the desk and he had to show his shield to get out.
He didn't sleep well that night. Images of Jess kept ricocheting in his mind. He recalled Dr. Archer's words:
'Perhaps you had unconscious fantasies about her. Perhaps you longed for her in some way you don't fully understand. was that true? He had interviewed Jess's lover, handled her underwear, searched out her secret pictures. When he'd found the pack of condoms in her dresser, he'd tossed them casually aside. But inside, he hadn't reacted casually at all. The condoms spoke of sexuality; if she owned them, she used them. And now, as whenever he thought of her engaging in sex, he felt something he couldn't define: a quick flush of excitement, followed immediately by a hard, harsh throb of despair.
Had he desired her, and, detesting his desire, immediately repressed it?
Perhaps Dr. Archer was right; perhaps he had forced his way into this investigation in order to stay close to Jess. was he after her killer, or was he really chasing something inside himself, some perverse aspect of his character he had hitherto denied?
The question tormented him until, with the dawn, he got out of bed, went to his living room, sat in his easy chair, and stared at Monika's glass.
Then memories flooded back, memories of their carnal afternoons in room 13 with the sea smell drifung to them from the lagoon. Longing for Monika, her body, and her touch, he knew that Dr. Archer was wrong.
It was Monika he wanted, not Jess. Feeling confident this was true, he knew he could go on.
He and Aaron spent the entire first week of November talking to people, then using what they learned to fill in the gfid on their office wall.
As is usually the case with students, Jess's schedule was rigorously defined. She went to classes, worked out with the fencing team, studied, ate, slept. No one took attendance at Columbia, so there was no hard proof which classes she attended and which she cut, but by putting together the recollections of her friends, they were able to reconstruct a large portion of her final days.
There were other less typical things she did, and they charted these activities as well: her midmorning therapy sessions with Dr. Archer; her late-afternoon classes in martial arts at a dojo on upper Broadway; her long, lonely early-evening runs through Riverside Park. But still there were gaps, often hours long. And they had no way of knowing what she did at night; students in her dorm came and went as they pleased.
When Janek met Fran Dunning, he felt a familiar glow. She was the confidante he was looking for.
Jess's fencing coach, Sergei Simionov, pointed her out in the fencing hall at the Columbia gym. Janek recognized her at once; he had seen her at Jess's funeral and at the cemetery, too.
'they were teammates and best friends,' Simionov said. He was a stout, mustachioed, barrel-chested Soviet 6migr6, a onetime Olympic medalist in saber. 'Fran's the one you want to talk to,' he said.
Janek stayed to watch the workout. Women athletes fascinated him.
He liked their poise, the way they moved, their ease and comfort with their bodies. Fran Dunning, a thin, willowy blonde with pert features and puffed cheeks, moved across the exercise floor with the smooth, liquid mobility of a dancer.
He waited until the workout was over, then positioned himself outside the women's locker room. When Fran appeared, he introduced himself, then asked if she had time to talk. She was on her way to a biology lab, but she invited him to escort her as she walked across the campus.
'I know who you are,' she said on the steps of the gym. 'Jess talked about you a lot. I saw you at the funeral. I wanted to say hi, but you were busy with the Dorances. I didn't want to intrude.'
Janek liked her. She had the same direct look-you-inthe-eyes manner as Jess. Taller, thinner, she carried herself the same way, too, back straight, head high in the confident manner of an athlete.
'I miss her a lot, still can't believe she's gone. You read about these things, but you never think they can happen to anyone you know.'
'What do you mean by 'these things,' Fran?'
'Getting attacked, suddenly, for no reason. Running in the park, just enjoying yourself, thinking your thoughts. Then suddenly a man appears out of the dark.'
'Could Jess have known her attacker?'
'The way I heard it, it was one of those psychos, maybe a mugger gone berserk.' Fran stopped walking, looked at him. 'Do you think she knew him?' 'I don't know yet,' Janek said. 'Did you see much of her the last few days before it happened?'
Fran nodded. 'The Sunday before. We spent the whole day together.' she and Jess saw each other daily at fencing practice and also spent time together on weekends. That particular Sunday was the last day of the Custom Knives Show, so they joined up in the morning, took the subway down to Grand Central, then walked over to the Hotel Roosevelt, where the show was being held.
'Jess got me started with knives. She had this great collection, mostly historical pieces, Italian stilettos, a couple of Japanese tantos, an Indonesian kris, a tertffic French rapier. When I saw her stuff, I knew I wanted to collect, too. She was very generous with advice, and she steered me to the good dealers. That's how we became friends. On the fencing team we were rivals. We kidded each other about one of us switching to saber so we wouldn't have to compete. The joke, of course, was that neither of us was willing to switch.'
American-made custom knives were Jess's most recent passion. And as with the historical daggers and swords, she was the one who took the lead, learning to differentiate the work of the leading makers, then introducing Fran Dunning to the field.
'The knives some of those men make are remarkable,' Fran said. 'They're like art objects, but still, you can use them. Hunting knives, bowies, fighting knivesJess thought knifemaking was one of the few crafts at which Americans excel.'
