It was only when they were really hungry that Carl would jump out of bed, throw on some pants, shoes, and a rain jacket, and head for the elevator. He would be back in twenty minutes with croissants, Danish pastries, doughnuts filled with cream and jelly, and special coffee from the bakery around the corner.
She remembered how, as soon as she heard the apartment door close, she would be up, trying to use the twenty minutes as efficiently as she could. She would quickly bathe, running the water while she brushed her teeth. She would do her makeup, brush her hair, put on something that looked good on her but maintained the pretense that she wasn’t bothering today. As she remembered, she felt a sharp sense of loss, not for Carl but for the days with Carl. What was lost was the way she had felt and been.
She picked up the telephone and called Greg’s house. She heard his voice answer, “Hello?”
“Hi,” she said. “Are you planning to do anything important at work this morning?”
“Important, but not life-and-death important. Anything I can do for you on the way?”
“Yes. Come here instead of there, and spend a rainy morning with me. I’ll make your dreams come true. One of them, anyway.” She hung up. Then she went into the bathroom and threw off her pajamas. She got ready with the same efficiency that she had used in the old days when Carl had gone out for pastries. She knew it would take Greg about twenty-five minutes to drive here at this time of the morning in the rain.
Today Judith was determined to live the life she had willed for herself. It was precarious, because some stupid piece of bad luck could throw her into the hands of her enemies at any second, but that didn’t matter right now. Maybe perfection was always supposed to be brief, just a limited period when everything was in its prime. The life she had imagined existed only if she was at her most beautiful and energetic, not a girl any longer but a grown woman, someone who had been loved enough to take all of the man-woman maneuvering lightly, like a dance, and not be overwhelmed by it or scared. The rest was eternal: the nights of drinking martinis with their icy, oily shimmer, even the shape of the glasses unchanging; the man, purely appealing because he was the man of the moment only; the dim, romantic lighting and the music; a day of soft sun filtered through rain.
There had never been anything in the fantasy about having the perfect moment go on into some decrepit old age, and it couldn’t. For now, for this series of heartbeats—whether now lasted for a couple of years or now was already ending—things had reached a perfect pitch.
Judith savored her rainy morning, and in the afternoon she and Greg dozed peacefully on her bed, listening half-consciously to the steady rain. She roused herself twice, once to lift Greg’s sleep-heavy arm and drape it across herself so she could press her back against his chest and feel the skin warming her. The other time it was to crawl off the bed and pick up the newspaper she had never gotten around to reading.
She took a pen to the ads for the nightspots, then looked at the ones she had circled and made a plan for the evening. They would start at the Ringside for dinner, because on a rainy night she didn’t feel in the mood to ruin a pair of heels and get a good dress splashed. A leather booth in a steak house with big, warm dinner plates and a coat rack behind her felt right. Then she picked out a cluster of four clubs within a couple of blocks of one another, so she and Greg could move easily from one to another.
She made fresh coffee, drank the first cup by herself, and let the smell of it drift into her bedroom to wake Greg. When she heard him beginning to stir, she poured a cup and brought it to him. He sat up and took it, sipped it, and said, “I’m trying to sort out what part of this day was real.”
“It’s all real,” she said. “The good parts have happened, or will happen, whatever they were.”
“What time is it?”
“Time to drink your coffee and wake up. After that it will be time to take a shower and get ready to go out to dinner with me. You can do it all slowly, because I intend to.”
“You sound as though it’s all planned.”
“It is. I want to walk in the rain so I can see it and smell it, but without getting too wet. I want to eat, drink, and dance a little. Are you up to all that?”
“Of course.” He looked at her. “Did I tell you I like your hair that way?”
“I did get the impression you had no complaints,” she said. “I’ll take the first shower, because it will take me longer.”
At nine they were in the Ringside, their umbrellas and raincoats hung on the coatrack beside their booth. Judith had not really eaten a meal today, just nibbled a few things from the refrigerator—a little cheese and fruit. She and Greg ate steaks and drank red wine, then sat and talked until they were ready for the rain again.
They walked to the Mine, listening to the drops popping on the fabric of their umbrellas. They stayed close to the storefronts, far from the curb, where a passing car might plow through a puddle and splash them. Once, Greg suddenly tugged her with him into an alcove outside a store entrance, and she thought he was saving her from a soaking. In a second she learned he had done it so he could kiss her in the alcove, where they were out of the lights and the rain.
The Mine was good tonight, the music all new work by a girl band called Danae. They had their own following, so the energy was all happy and appreciative, and the band tried to show itself at its best. Judith didn’t mind that Greg’s eyes lingered too long on the girls of the band. She might have resented the tight jeans on the bass guitarist, the ripped and abbreviated T-shirt on the drummer, but not tonight. It all helped to keep people’s eyes on the stage, and not on her. She was enjoying a part of her perfect moment, and she didn’t want to be disturbed.
49
Catherine Hobbes knew exactly how she wanted to conduct her hunt. The only success she’d had so far was the result of circulating the pictures of Tanya Starling and Rachel Sturbridge. This time she had printed five hundred flyers with the two color pictures, the physical description, and the list of murders. The words “armed and dangerous” were in larger, darker type.
During the early part of the afternoon, uniformed officers went to the businesses where the Catherine Hobbes credit card had been used, left flyers, and talked to salesclerks and waiters to find out what they could remember about the girl. Catherine had gone to Stahlmeyer’s Department Store herself.
The women’s-wear manager had checked the computerized record to find out exactly what purchases Tanya had made. As she walked Catherine to the right part of the fourth floor and began to show her the items Tanya had bought, Catherine felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to stand.
Tanya had bought designer pantsuits. Two of them were almost exactly like the ones Catherine had bought at Stahlmeyer’s a week before, tailored so the coats were not pinched inward to the waist but had a bit of drape. They were cut to hang from the shoulders, like a man’s suit, so they allowed Catherine to carry a concealed weapon. Tanya was doing the same thing.
Catherine went outside to retrieve the digital camera in the trunk of the unmarked car, then carried one sample of each of the four suits Tanya had bought into a dressing room and photographed them. The blouses Tanya had chosen to go with them were conservative, very like the ones that Catherine had bought.
Catherine knew that Tanya must have seen her on television in Arizona and probably in Portland. It wasn’t difficult to find clothes like Catherine’s in a big city. But why was she buying them? What did Tanya hope to accomplish by imitating Catherine Hobbes? Did it have something to do with getting the credit card accepted?
Maybe Tanya was working up to doing a killing and then taunting Catherine. She might rent a getaway car in Catherine’s name, or leave a charge receipt with Catherine’s name on it at a crime scene.
The idea that Tanya might be making her killings into a game was not a welcome one. The list of killers who had begun teasing the police and leaving riddles for them was long and ugly. From the time when they began to taunt the police until the time they were caught, they became more active and prolific. Catherine hoped that whatever Tanya was doing, she was not getting ready to kill somebody just to torment Catherine Hobbes.
Catherine drove back to the bureau, downloaded the photographs into her computer, and made copies for the evening-shift patrol officers in the downtown district. Then she went to the second floor, to the vice squad office, and found Rhonda Scucci.
Rhonda looked up from a file she was reading, and said, “Hello, Cath. What’s up?”
“Hi, Rhonda. I’ve got to go out tonight looking like somebody else.”
“What are we talking—whore? Drug mule?”
“This is a single woman, maybe five years younger than I am, if the light is dim enough. She works nine to five in an office. She might be out with a female friend or two. She hasn’t got a date. You know the Mine? Metro?
