'Why not? It's possible.'
'Because I can't see Tanarkle or Coughlin involved in a drug operation.'
'Not involved per se, but maybe they stumbled onto it.'
David turned his head aside and looked at Kathy with one eye. 'You really think that could have happened? Or did happen?'
She shrugged and answered, 'Could have?Yes. Did? No.'
'Well, let me say this: the most common things occur most commonly and I think there was just one killer for the first murders, and he was Spritz. In any event, the Spritz saga is over and now we have a brand new ball game.' He made the last statement with the assurance of an umpire's call.
Kathy responded timidly, 'We'll see. Which reminds me-you should know that Nick's stepping up the investigation.'
'I thought you were short-handed.'
'We are. He's asked for state assistance. And he made the point of saying he's glad you're still involved.'
'That's a switch. Did he hope to butter me up because he's worried about being a suspect?'
'David, for heaven's sake! A suspect for all those murders?'
'No. For Spritz's.'
'But why?'
'Some drug business? I don't know.'
Kathy got up and paced, something he had never seen her do. She turned and said, 'Besides the whole premise being ludicrous, think about it. Nick carries his own gun, so if you can say the Mafia has its own hardware and therefore can be ruled out, why can't you apply the same reasoning to Nick?'
David came close to stepping on her last words. `Because I'm not ruling anything out. Or in for that matter. If I had done that in medicine, I'd have been run out of town years ago. So let's just see what the final diagnosis is.'
Kathy gave him a comprehensive look and finally said, 'Yes, doctor.'
David closed the attache case, leaving the bags and protected gloves on the table. 'I'm curious,' he said, rising. 'Who claimed Spritz's body? Do you know?'
'No, I don't know about `claimed,' but I understand Bernie Bugles is making burial arrangements.'
Squares of dull light had brightened and crossed the table to the foot of the twin windows. David was about to kiss Kathy before leaving when, with the suddenness of a crack of lightning, a percussive shot and simultaneous shattering of glass reverberated behind them.
'Down!' David screamed, pouncing on Kathy and rolling with her on the floor. Instinctively, his eyes swept over her and what he could see of himself. He was looking for blood and detected none. His breathing felt unimpeded but deep and rapid, as deep and rapid as hers sounded and, as he pushed her against the wall beneath the windows, he blurted, 'You okay?'
'I'm-I'm okay. Are you?' she said, her voice constricted.
'Yeah, now stay where you are,' he said as he withdrew the Smith and Wesson snubby from his ankle rig. He crawled to the side of the left sash, avoiding several slivers of glass on the floor and, glancing up at the windowpane, noticed a stellate hole immediately above a cracked mullion and twisted lock. He looked over his shoulder at the bay window on the other side of the kitchen and saw a smooth-edged hole in its left lateral border. Alternating a studied gaze between windows, he detected no movement through either one.
'That lock up there probably saved our lives,' David said. 'I'm sure it diverted the bullet. It went clear out the other side. See, over there.' He spoke breathlessly.
Kathy nodded as she rolled her neck. David swung his head around and peered out the near window at an elevated rock ledge beyond the driveway. The ledge separated her property from her neighbor's, some forty feet away. 'That's where he pulled the trigger, the son-of-a-bitch. No doubt a pistol; that's what it sounded like, anyway. If he'd used a rifle, we'd have been goners. Even without a telescopic sight.' He began easing to a standing position.
'David, careful,' Kathy said, appearing ready to elaborate.
But David clamped his hand on her shoulder and said, 'Shh … wait … listen.' He cocked his head toward the front of the condo unit, toward a repetitive blast and final roar. He knew it had come from a two-stroke, internal combustion engine, and he jerked himself up and scampered out the kitchen, through the living room, out the front door and onto the lawn. He stood straight, feet spread, arms hanging, snubby pointed toward the ground. Through barren trees lining the road parallel to Kathy's, he followed the blur of a red motorcycle.
He returned the pistol to its rig as Kathy arrived, and, with an edge of impatience creeping into his voice, he said, 'What the hell's going on, anyway?'
'What? What was it?'
'A motorcycle. A red one.' David felt the lines of his face grow pensive. 'Didn't your men confiscate the Honda?'
'I'm not sure. You think this is that one?'
'Unless there are two floating around, which would be a helluva stretch.'
He put his arm around her waist and pulled her toward his hip as they walked back in. For the first time, he didn't like how fragile his detective felt in his grasp.
'Do you pack your gun when you're home?' he said.
'Not usually.'
'Pack it.'
They returned to the kitchen and, after a superficial inspection, David said, 'I'll be right back. There's got to be a shell casing out there.'
He hurried out the front door as if the casing might soon evaporate, and, reaching the forward extent of rock near the beginning of the driveway, climbed the slope back toward the unit, to a point above and opposite the kitchen windows. He shuddered as he looked through the shattered one, able to distinguish almost everything inside.
David scoured the area and, finding no casing, guessed it had disappeared down one of many deep crevices in the rock surface. Or else it wasn't a semiautomatic. The ledge was filthy and damp but he didn't care; he sat on it, legs over the side, fingers wrapped around the edge, unaware of the moisture he'd normally feel.
He asked himself whether the biker was the killer. The potshot here was not target practice.
He ran through his list of suspects, wondering who among them would-or even could-ride a motorcycle. Bernie-Robert-even Nick? Possibly. But Foster, Sparky, the psychiatrist? One more stretch.
And while we're on the subject, pal-if you can be so far off on who owned the red cycle, how far off are you on everything else? He thought of calling it a day but convinced himself it was much too early. Does the killer quit plotting his dirty deeds this early?
Before rejoining Kathy, he examined the opposite side of the unit-a courtyard of underbrush and trees adjacent to the kitchen's bay window-and he recovered no bullet.
David checked his watch. Only twelve minutes had passed since the gunfire and, back inside, he and Kathy took turns trying to locate the suspects, she on her home phone, he on his cellular. No contacts were made but Nora Foster believed her husband would return from a round of errands in a half-hour-one o'clock-and was certain he wouldn't mind talking with David at that time.
'You'll be all right?' David asked.
'I'll be all right,' Kathy replied.
'Remember, pack the gun, and I mean it. '
On the way to Alton and Nora Foster's, David detoured to the hospital's parking lot, making a simple U-turn before heading back out. The area behind the vine covered wall was cordoned off and a uniformed police officer waved as he drove by. The red motorcycle was not there. He would later check on whether the police had confiscated it, secretly hoping that if there had indeed been a foul-up, it was Nick's.
David took the usual hilly route to the Foster estate, the Mercedes barely qualifying for DRIVE, its top up and tapes quiet. He felt like a circus aerialist who yesterday had a new routine down pat and today woke up as the clown.
