skin.
“I’ll always remember the first time we touched,” I told her, showing my All-Conference smile.
She dug deeper, letting up just before severing the radial artery. I held up my arm, and sure enough, the crescents went the opposite direction of each nail’s shape. Charlie was explaining something about the free edge of the arch of the nail having no purchase and therefore creating the reverse crescent and how fallacious it was to infer much from fingernail marks. I just looked at the little dents in my arm and said to Pamela Metcalf, “I’ll bet you leave a mark on every man you meet.”
“With some,” she replied, “it takes a sledgehammer.”
Having exhausted my store of witty repartee, I stood silently, surveying the scene. The apartment was sparsely furnished in Yuppie Modern-white tile and green plants, a large-screen TV and CD player, a few bookshelves. There was a galley kitchen with a few pots and pans and a cupboard containing bran cereal, microwave popcorn, bottled spaghetti sauce, and spinach pasta from a gourmet market. The oven was practically sterile, indicating either an immaculate cook or no cook at all. The refrigerator had four different flavors of yogurt, none of which had expired, bottled water, an eyemask filled with what looked like antifreeze, and not much else. The bedroom and bathroom were down a hall, but I hadn’t seen them yet.
Young Dr. Whitson picked up his camera and click-clicked through several roles of film, shooting the body, the furniture, and even one or two of me. Charlie puttered around the body for a while, giving more tips to the young pathologist. Pamela Metcalf walked through the little apartment, her green eyes bright, taking everything in, letting nothing out.
Nick Wolf motioned me onto the small balcony where we were alone. I looked him in the eye. I was half a foot taller, but he had impressive width. A stocky fireplug of explosive energy. “Michelle Diamond,” he said. “Ever see her on Live at Five? ”
I shook my head. Usually, Fm still working then. If not, Fm playing volleyball on the beach or fishing with Charlie. Afternoon television is for those in traction. Physical or mental.
“I want you to be a special prosecutor and lead the investigation,” Nick said. “Present a case to the grand jury when you’ve got a suspect.”
“Why can’t your office handle it?”
He didn’t hesitate, just shrugged those big shoulders. “Conflict of interest. I was seeing her. Not heavy-duty. But I’d slip over here in the mornings or she’d come by my place at night. It’s sure to come out in the investigation.
Before I could ask, he said, “I’ve been separated for six months. Irretrievably broken and all that.”
“So the first statement I take is from you,” I said.
He showed the hint of a smile. “Should I have my alibi ready?”
I looked at him hard. His girlfriend’s body was drawing flies and he makes a little joke. A used little joke.
“I don’t show much emotion,” Wolf said, reading my mind. “Not in public, anyway. Maybe tonight I’ll get drunk by myself. Maybe I’ll put my fist through a wall. But that’s none of your business. Your job is to find the slime that did this, get an indictment, and try the case.”
Through the glass I saw Pamela Metcalf talking to Detective Rodriguez. He was nodding and making notes on a little pad. Across the street the ocean breeze rattled the palm fronds. Traffic crept along Ocean Drive, young people cruising at a pace to see and be seen.
I came in and told Rodriguez what I wanted. A computer whiz to print out everything inside the beige box on Michelle Diamond’s desk and the disks in her drawer. All her address books, appointment schedules, credit-card receipts, a list of her friends, relatives, and coworkers, and a chronology of her daily routine. I wanted statements from her gynecologist, her hairdresser, her pharmacist, her landlady, her maid, and her masseuse. I wanted to know every man she dated in the last three years and anyone she met in the last three months. Did any deliverymen bring her groceries or furniture or laundry? Where was she every minute of the last week? Within forty-eight hours, I wanted to know more about Michelle Diamond than her best friend, her mother, or her lover ever did.
It wasn’t asking too much. Anyone who cares to can know everything about us. Somewhere, I am sure, there is a giant computer that stores a thousand megabytes about each of us. What we got in geography and who we took to the senior prom. Where we eat, what we buy, who we call. How much money we make and how much we give away. What airlines we use, where we sleep, how much we spend on clothes, booze, and pills. Traffic tickets, domestic disputes, diplomas, and the books we buy. Modern life is one sweeping, cradle-to-grave invasion of privacy. An encroachment on our ever-narrowing space. Behind us we leave a trail of carbon copies and floppy disks. Fodder for the snoop and the historian alike.
In the twenty-first century, they tell us, our houses will be smaller, our lawns nonexistent. We’ll work at home and recycle our garbage into compost. Our bathroom scale will record our weight, pulse, and blood pressure and transmit the information to the company physician and anyone else with the right seven-digit password. The computer will link us with the office, the grocery store, and each other. The paper trail will be obsolete, but in its place, microscopic chips and laser scanners will transcribe details even the most astute biographer would overlook.
“Lassiter, come take a look back here.”
It was Rodriguez, motioning me through the bedroom and toward the bathroom. I moseyed back there and stood, filling the doorway, peeking over Charlie Riggs’ shoulder. It was old-fashioned but clean, a small porcelain sink, shower stall, and toilet crammed into a room without a window. There were powders and perfumes and white fluffy towels, and on the mirror above the sink was a message scrawled in bloodred lipstick: Catch me if you can, Mr. Lusk.
“We got ourselves a show-off,” I said. “Now, who the hell is Mr. Lusk?”
“Probably some guy she was playing tag with,” Rodriguez said, “and it looks like he caught her.”
In the mirror I saw Charlie’s jaw drop in astonishment. It was not his usual expression. He moved closer, as if the image might disappear at any moment. “Pamela, come here please!”
In a moment Pamela Metcalf joined the party. And there the four of us stood. I hoped somebody knew more than I did.
“Mr. Lusk.” Pamela’s voice trembled.
“Yes, Mr. Lusk,” Charlie said.
“You know the hombre?” Rodriguez asked.
“George Lusk,” Charlie Riggs mumbled, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I’ll bring him in,” Rodriguez said.
Charlie laughed but there was no pleasure in it. “Sorry, detective. Mr. Lusk is quite dead.”
Rodriguez squinted at the mirror. “Then who’s-”
“In the fall of 1888, in the East End of London, the Whitechapel section, there were a series of murders of young women.”
“I get it,” Rodriguez said. “George Lusk was the cop who cracked the case.”
“Not exactly,” Charlie said. “He was a private citizen who formed the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee to patrol the streets and help the police. One day Lusk received a parcel in the mail. It contained a kidney cut from the body of one of the victims and a most grisly note. I can’t remember the contents exactly, but the note concluded-”
“‘Catch me if you can, Mr. Lusk,’” Pamela Metcalf said.
Charlie nodded.
“Hey,” Rodriguez said. “You’re talking about Jack the Ripper.”
Charlie nodded again and looked straight at me.
“And I guess that makes me Mr. Lusk,” I said.
CHAPTER 4
