home, a collection of upper-middle-class snorters and pretenders driving leased Porsches, leaning close to young women in sequinned designer knockoffs.
The lady asked for Pimm’s over lemonade, and the barman didn’t bat an eye. He poured some red stuff into 7UP, added a slice of cucumber, and Pamela Metcalf nodded with appreciation after a dainty sip.
“Dr. Riggs is quite fond of you,” the doctor said, as if she couldn’t imagine why.
“And I of him.”
“He said you used to play… rugby?”
“Football.”
“Yes, we have your football on the telly now. Grown men in knickers with all that stuffing inside their clothing. Jumping onto each other with incredible aggression.”
I smiled at her imaginative but entirely accurate definition of pro football.
“Freud conceived of aggression as a derivative of the death instinct,” she added. “Others debate whether aggression is a primary drive itself or just a reaction to frustration.”
“I just liked hitting people. It was fun.”
She opened her eyes a little wider. The green shimmered in the muted lighting. She pursed her full lips and thought a private thought. I expected her to start taking notes, maybe send me a bill later.
“Fun?” she pronounced carefully, as if trying out a new word.
“Sure. The hitting, the contact. Tackling is fun, particularly a good, clean hit that knocks the wind out of the runner. The kind that jolts him, makes the crowd go oooh.
“The sounds of the crowd. Did it represent to you a woman’s sighs, her moans of ecstasy?”
I didn’t like where this was heading. “I think I can distinguish between the two.”
“And this tackling people, did it make you feel bigger, more… manly?”
I laughed and nearly spilled my Grolsch. “Look, if you’re going to tell me the NFL is full of closet queens…”
She ran a hand through her thick auburn hair, now tangled from the wind. “Why are you defensive about your masculinity?”
This was getting me nowhere. “Let me tell you a story,” I said. “When I was a rookie, there was a big tight end on the Jets who was so tough he made Mike Ditka look like a pussycat. He liked to talk trash at the line. So I come in at outside linebacker late in the game, and my uniform is clean and white, and he’s there all muddy and bloody, and yells out, ‘Here comes the cherry.’ Then the QB is calling signals and all I hear is the tight end saying, ‘Hey, cherry, didn’t they teach you how to put on your uniform in college? I can see your dick, and it’s all shriveled up.’ So just like somebody saying your shoes are untied, I look down, the ball is snapped, and the tight end slugs my helmet with a forearm that could ring the bell at Notre Dame.”
She considered my story and stirred her red drink. “And do you attempt to compensate for this humiliation?”
I shook my head. “No, I just don’t look at my dick unless absolutely necessary.”
She tried to see if I was joking, and when she figured I was, gave me a full smile. “Do you really want my help or are you just hoping to charm your way into my room?” she asked.
“I think I have a significantly greater chance at the former.”
“Dr. Riggs was right. You are smarter than you look.”
That was as close to a compliment as I was going to get. A winsome lass on a sailboard-perhaps overcome by sunstroke-once compared my eyes to the azure waters off Bimini. Later, she tossed me over for a scuba instructor.
Pamela Metcalf declined a second drink and we looked at each other a moment, her thoughts imperceptible. She told me she was leaving for New York in the morning, a couple of network appearances, a book signing in the Doubleday store on Fifth Avenue, then back to England. I should call her if I learned anything or if there was another killing.
“Look for messages,” she said.
“Besides ones in lipstick?”
“Frankly, I’m puzzled by the reference to Jack the Ripper. Jack was a disorganized murderer, a slasher who was extremely violent and quite messy. He stalked women he did not know and used force, not persuasion, to subdue them.”
“So the killer’s tossing a curveball?”
“A curve…”
“A red herring, a bum steer.”
“Perhaps. But even if the killer is tossing a… bum steer, the message is still meaningful. Whoever wrote it is well read, perhaps an amateur historian, or someone who knows a great deal about classic criminal cases, stories of law enforcement, that sort of thing.”
“Like the honorable state attorney,” I mused, mostly to myself.
“If that were the case, the crime would not be motiveless, would it? If the Diamond girl was his chippy and he killed her, there would have to be a motive. But if it’s a random killing, the work of a serial murderer, you’ll know soon enough.”
“How?”
“Because there’ll be another one presently, won’t there?”
I hadn’t thought about that before, but now I did. Looking for a little excitement with the gun-and-badge set was one thing, hunting a serial killer was something else again. Serial killers are lifetime obsessions of guys with little offices and big file drawers. It takes forever to nab one. Isn’t that what makes them serial killers, unsolved murders over several years? What had I gotten into?
“I don’t know how to catch those guys,” I admitted.
Dr. Metcalf smiled faintly. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Mr. Lassiter. The police are always complaining that serial killers are so difficult to apprehend because there is no connection between victims and no apparent motives. But they do leave clues, and usually they are quite careless. Often they contact the police or stand in the crowd that gathers at the scene.”
“So they want to be caught?”
“No, a common misconception. Part of the thrill is outwitting the police and reliving the crime. There was an ambulance driver who would abduct young women, kill them, call the police, then race back to the hospital so he would get the call to pick up the body.”
While I thought that over she smoothed her skirt in a gesture even my nonpsychoanalytic mind could understand.
Thank you for the ride and the drink, Mr. Lassiter,” she said with British formality, and stood up to leave.
“All my friends call me Jake… Pamela,” I said.
She rewarded me with a second smile and then extended a finely tapered white hand. “Good evening, Jake. And good luck.”
The hand was cool, the shake firm. She didn’t ask me to share the view from her room, so I headed out the front where my 442 was parked in a space of honor next to a Rolls. The hood was still hot, and the gas tank was a nudge lower than an hour earlier.
I looked hard at the valet.
“Your shocks are a little soft on the turns,” he said sheepishly.
I gave him five bucks. “You’re telling me.”
CHAPTER 5
Joining the Club
It was one of those muggy June days with fifteen hours of daylight but hardly any sunshine. A tropical depression hung over the Gulf of Mexico and raised the blood pressure of Miami’s frothy weather guys. Come six and eleven, they show us their color radar and satellite photos, their computerized maps and digital barometers. They blather about wind speeds and waterspouts and reveal what we already know: baby, it’s hot outside.
