Shoot / Don't Shoot

certain amount of nagging.”

Bob Brundage grinned with that impish smile that made him look for all the world like a much younger Big Hank Lathrop. “So am I,” Bob said, “but I usually get it from higher-ups and then only at work. You get it all the time. You’re very patient with her,” he added. “That’s why I wanted to thank you—for handling my share of Eleanor La­throp’s nagging all these years—mine and yours as well.”

“You’re welcome,” Joanna said.

This time Bob Brundage was the one who held out his hand. “See you again,” he said.

“When?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. The next time I’m out this way on business, I suppose,” he said a little wistfully.

“You and your wife could come for Christmas if you wanted to,” Joanna offered. “It’ll be our first Christmas without Andy, so I can’t make any guarantees of what it’ll be like, but I’m sure it’ll be okay. I’ve been told I cook a mean turkey.”

Bob looked both hopeful and dubious. “You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?”

“No,” Joanna said. “I wouldn’t mind. Besides, we could pull a fast one on Eleanor and not tell you were coming until you showed up. She loves to pull surprises on everyone else, but she hates it when someone puts one over on her.”

“That’s worth some thought then, isn’t it?” Bob’s eyes twinkled. “Marcie and I will talk it over and let you know, but right now I’d better go. Eleanor’s waiting downstairs to take me to the plane.”

Joanna escorted him as far as the door and then watched as he walked down the hall. “Hey, Bob,” she called to him, when he reached the elevator lobby.

He turned and looked back. “What?”

“For a brother,” she said, “you’re not too bad.”

He grinned and waved and disappeared into the elevator. Joanna turned back into the room. Making her way back to the desk, she expected it would be difficult to return to her train of thought after all the interruptions. Instead, the moment she picked up the paper, she was back inside the case though she had never left it.

Marliss had called in the midst of the words serial killer. Coming back to her notes, Joanna knew she was right. It wasn’t a matter of guessing. She knew. Proving it was something else.

Joanna still wanted to reach Carol, but it was too soon to try again, so she picked up the paper and resumed studying it once more. Assuming her theory was correct—assuming there was only one killer in all this—where was the connection? How did all those people tie together? What was the common link?

Joanna started a new list in the upper-left-hand corner of the paper: “Cops (2).” Divorced? First she wrote down: “3.” Then, reconsidering what Lorelie Jessup had said about Leann’s breakup with her long-term friend, Joanna Xed out the three and wrote in: “4 of 4.”

What else? Joanna stared at the paper for a long time without being able to think of anything more to add. Finally, it hit her: The Roundhouse Bar and Grill. According to Butch Dixon, Serena, Jorge, and Dave Thompson had all been in the Roundhouse the night Serena died. And Joanna herself had taken Leann there. That meant only two people on the list, Rhonda and Dean Norton, hadn’t been there, although they might have.

Dean Norton had been a professor at the ASU West campus, which was just a few miles away on Thunderbird. Maybe he and Rhonda had turned up in the Roundhouse on occasion, along with everybody else. After a moment, Joanna realized that there was one way to find out for sure.

Ejecting Lorelie’s tape from the VCR, Joanna dropped it into her purse. She made it as far as the door before she stopped short. She wasn’t on duty, but she was working.