He blurted the last otwo words. The possessiveness of a kid with a new toy.
I said, 'This isn't just a job with you, is it?'
His gaze flicked across the room and back to me. 'That's exactly what it is. I just happen to love my work.'
'So you have no idea why Herbert was murdered.'
He shrugged. 'The police say it was a sex killing.'
'Do you think it was?'
'I'm not a policeman.'
'No?' I said, and the look in his eyes made me go on. 'I'll bet you were some kind of cop before you went back to school. Before you
learned to talk like a business school professor.'
He gave another eye-flick, quick and sharp as a switchblade.
'What's this, free psychoanalysis?'
'Business administration,' I said. 'Or maybe economics.'
'I'm a humble civil servant, Doctor. Your taxes pay my salary.'
'Humble civil servant with a false identity and over a million dollars of phony grant money,' I said. 'You're Zimberg, aren't you?
But that's probably not your real name, either. What does the B' on Stephanie's note pad stand for?'
He stared at me, stood, walked around the room. Touched a picture frame. The hair on his crown was thinning.
'Four and a half years,' I said. 'You've given up a lot to catch him.'
He didn't answer but his neck tightened.
'What's Stephanie's involvement in all this?' I said. 'Besides true love.' He turned and faced me, flushed again. Not anger this timeembarrassment. A teenager caught necking.
'Why don't you ask her?' he said softly.
She was in a car parked at the mouth of my driveway, dark Buick Regal, just behind the hedges, out of sight from the terrace. A dot of light darted around the interior like a trapped firefly.
Penlight. Stephanie sat in the front passenger seat, using it to read.
Her window was open. She wore a gold choker that caught starlight, and had put on perfume.
'Evening,' I said.
She looked up, closed the book, and pushed the door open. As the penlight clicked off, the dome-light switched on, highlighting her as if she were a soloist on stage. Her dress was shorter than usual. I thought: heavy date. Her beeper sat on the dashboard.
She scooted over into the driver's seat. I sat where she'd just been.
The vinyl was warm.
When the car was dark again, she said, 'Sorry for not telling you, but he needs secrecy.'
'What do you call him, Pres or Wally?'
She bit her lip. 'Bill.'
