'Good, because I knew you'd be the toughest to convince.'
'As for the other women, evidently the family and friends were just trying to protect the good name of the dead. It happens all the time, and that makes it even more difficult for the cops.'
'He's got to tell me.'
He said very gently, 'You've got to bring it to a close, Sherlock.'
She hated him for the gentleness, the kindness. He had no idea. He couldn't begin to understand. She jerked up to look
at him across the table. Her voice was as cold as Albany in January as she said, 'Would you like another bagel?'
He sat back, folding his arms over his chest. 'You're tough, Sherlock, but you still aren't in my league. If you put cream cheese on the bagel, I'll eat it.'
16
BOTH CAPTAIN DOUGHERTY and Ralph Budnack were standing outside Room 423 when Savich and Lacey arrived at Boston Memorial Hospital.
'You don't look too bad,' Ralph said, peering down at her. 'On the other hand, Savich doesn't look too good. You haven't been a pain in the butt, have you?'
She rolled her eyes. 'Why do you guys always stick together? I'm the one injured here, not Savich.'
'Yeah, but Savich had to make sure you didn't croak it at the hotel. He deserves combat pay.'
'I slept all the way through, didn't moan or whine or anything to disturb His Highness. He just had to order room service. How about Marlin Jones? Can we see him now?'
Dr. Raymond Otherton, wearing surgical scrubs dotted with blood, said from behind her, 'Not more than three at a time. He still isn't all that stable. You the one who shot him?' At her nod, he said, 'Well, you blew a big hole in his gut. Either you're a bad shot, or you didn't want to kill him.'
'I didn't want to kill him. Not yet.'
'If that's true, then go easy now, all right?'
Marlin Jones was pasty white, his lips bluish. His eyes were closed. She could see purple veins beneath the thin flesh under his eyes. There was an IV going in each arm, a tube in his nose, and he was hooked up to a monitor. A police officer sat in a chair beside his bed, and another officer sat in a chair outside the hospital room.
He was awake. Lacey saw his eyelashes flutter-dark, thick lashes.
Captain Dougherty looked at Lacey, frowned just a moment, then said quietly, 'You worked him, it's only fair that you talk to him first. We've Mirandized him. He said he didn't want a lawyer yet. I really pressed him on that, even taped it. So, everything's aboveboard.'
She looked at Savich. He gave her a long emotionless look, then slowly nodded.
She felt her blood pound, a delicious feeling, her arm began to throb and that made her feel even better as she leaned down, and said, 'Hello, Marlin. It's me, Marty Bramfort.'
He moaned.
'Come on, Marlin, don't be a coward. Open your eyes and look at me. You'll be pleased to see that my left arm is in a sling. You did punish me, don't you want to see it?'
He opened his eyes and stared at that sling. 'I've thrown a knife since I was a boy. It should have gone through your heart. You moved too fast.'
'Yes.'
'You didn't kill me either.'
'I didn't want to. I thought that a gut shot would make you feel really bad, make you suffer for a good long time. I want you to suffer until you yell with it. Are you suffering, Marlin?'
'Yeah, it hurts like bloody hell. You're not a nice woman, Marty.'
'Maybe not. On the other hand, you're not at all a nice man. Tell me, would you have murdered another five women if you'd managed to kill me?'
He blinked rapidly. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'You killed Hillary Ramsgate. If I hadn't been a cop, then you would have killed me too. Would you have killed another five women and stopped again at seven?'
The pain seemed to bank in his eyes. He looked off into something that she couldn't see, that no one could see, or begin to fathom, his eyes tender and vague, as if he were looking at someone or something behind a veil. His voice was soft with the radiance of worship when he finally said, 'Who knows? Boston has rich pickings. Lots of women here need to be punished. I knew that long before I came here. Men have let them get away with foul language, with putting them down, insulting them. I don't know if I ever would have stopped.'
'But you stopped your killing in San Francisco at seven.'
'Did I? I don't remember. I don't like it that you're standing up and I'm not. I like women on their knees, begging me, or on their backs, watching that knife come down and down. You should be dead.' Incredibly, he tried to spit at her, but he didn't have the strength to raise his head. His eyes closed, his head lolled to the side away from them.
She felt Savich's hand on her arm. 'Let him rest, Sherlock. You can see him again later. Yes, I'll let you talk to him again. I'm sure Captain Dougherty will agree as well, even though I think he'd like to pin back your ears nearly as much as I did.'
She didn't want to leave until she knew every single detail, but she just nodded, and followed them out. The little psycho was probably faking it. She wouldn't put it past him.
Marlin Jones opened his eyes as the door closed. Who was that woman? How had she known so much? Was she really a cop? No, he didn't believe that. There was more to her than that. Bunches more. There was lots of deep wormy stuff inside her. He recognized the blackness, had felt it reaching out to him. Pain burned in his gut. He wished he had a knife, wished the cop sitting next to him were dead, wished he were strong enough, then he'd gut her but good. He needed to think before he spoke to her again. He knew she'd come back. He knew.
'That wasn't bad for a first interview, Sherlock.'
'Thank you, Captain Dougherty. But it wasn't enough time. He was faking it.'
'I think you're right, but it doesn't matter.' 'No,' Savich agreed. 'It doesn't. We'll come back later, Sherlock. I wanted to go back to Washington today, but I don't dare take a chance of leaving you here alone. You'd probably smile at the captain here, wink at Ralph, cajole in your FBI voice, and they'd agree to anything you wanted.'
'Not true,' Ralph Budnack said. 'I'm the toughest cop in Boston. Nobody ever winks at me and gets away with it.'
She laughed, actually laughed, enjoyed the sweetness of it for a moment, then punched him in the arm. 'I won't try it, I promise. As for you, sir, I really don't think you need to stay unless you really want to.'
'Stow it, Sherlock. We'll both go home tomorrow. What I want to do now is go over those reports again and have MAX correlate just how many times anyone said the murdered women might have even occasionally cursed or even bad-mouthed their husbands just one time.'
'I told you that no one did. Remember about not wanting to say bad things about the dead? It was just that there couldn't have been any other reason to cut out their tongues.'
'Yeah, you said that, didn't you? However, somebody had to have said something sometime.'
'He's anal, ain't he?' Ralph said, and Lacey laughed.
'Thank God the cursing was right on,' Captain Dougherty said. 'You nailed him good with that, Sherlock. My people told us that you really surprised him when you let out with the curses the first time at the lumberyard. They thought Savich was going to fall over with shock. Well, not really, but you didn't do badly.'
'Thank you, I think.'
'I'm sure glad we weren't wrong about the cursing being the red button for Marlin Jones. And talking back to the husbands. I guess we have to score a big one for the Profilers. Of course it made sense, since old Marlin had cut out their tongues.'
She knew, Savich realized, looking at that sudden brightness in her eyes. She knew without question that was what pushed Marlin Jones into violence. But how? There was something else that had happened seven years ago. It drove him nuts not to know what it was. If MAX couldn't find anything in any of the interviews of the other murdered women, then that meant that Sherlock had based everything on the Profilers' reports, that, or, well, something else had to have happened. But how could she have possibly known something that no one else did?
