'Lucas?' Daniel's voice, hoarse, unhappy.
'What happened?'
'The sonofabitch did another one,' Daniel rasped. 'The guy who killed the Bekker woman. Call Dispatch for the address and get your ass over there.'
A little spark of elation? A touch of relief? Lucas hammered the Porsche through the night, across the Mississippi, west to the lakes, blowing leftover winter leaves over the sidewalks, turning the heads of midnight walkers. He had no trouble finding the address: every light in the little house was on and the doors were open to the night. Groups of neighbors stood on the sidewalk, looking down toward the death house; occasionally one would cross the street to a new group, a new set of rumors, walking rapidly as though his speed alone would prove to watching cops that he was on a mission of urgency.
Elizabeth Armistead was lying faceup on her living room carpet. A bloodstain marked the carpet under the back of her head, like a black halo. One arm was twisted beneath her, the other was flung out, palm up, the fingers slightly crooked. Her face, from the nose up, had been destroyed. In place of her eyes was a finger-deep pit, filled with blood and mangled flesh. Another wound cut across her upper lip, ripping it, exposing white broken teeth. Her dress was pulled up high enough to show her underpants, which appeared to be undisturbed. The room smelled like a wet penny, the odor of fresh blood.
'Same guy?' Lucas asked, looking down at her.
'Gotta be. I caught the first one, too, and this one's a goddamn carbon copy,' said a bright-eyed medical examiner's investigator.
'Anything obvious?' Lucas asked, looking around. The house seemed undisturbed.
'No. No broken fingernails, and they're clean. There doesn't seem to have been a fight, and there's no doubt she was killed right here-there are some blood splatters over there by the table. I didn't look myself, but the other guys say there's no sign of a door or window being forced.'
'Doesn't look like rape…'
'No. And there aren't any signs of semen outside the body.'
A Homicide detective stepped up beside Lucas and said, 'C'mere and look at the weapon.'
'I saw it when I came in,' Lucas said. 'The hammer?'
'Yeah, but Jack just noticed something.'
They went out in the hallway, where the hammer, wrapped in plastic, was being delicately handled by another cop.
'What?' asked Lucas.
'Look at the head and the claw. Not the blood, the hammer,' the second cop said.
Lucas looked, saw nothing. 'I don't see anything.'
'Just like the fuckin' dog that didn't bark,' the cop said with satisfaction. He held the hammer up to a lamp, reflecting light from the shiny hammerhead into Lucas' eyes. 'The first time you use a hammer, drive a nail or pull one, you start putting little nicks in it. Look at this. Smooth as a baby's ass. The goddamn thing has never been used. I bet the guy brought it with him, to kill her.'
'Are you sure it was his? Not hers?'
The cop shrugged. 'The woman's got about six tools-some screwdrivers, a crescent wrench and a hammer. One pack of nails and some picture hangers. They're still in the kitchen drawer. She wasn't a do-it-yourselfer. Why would she have two hammers? And a big heavy one like this? And how'd the guy just happen to get his hands on the second one?'
A bright light swept the front of the house and Lucas half turned.
'TV's here,' said the first cop. He stepped away toward the front door.
'Tell everybody to keep their mouths shut. Daniel'll issue a statement in the morning,' Lucas said. He turned back to the cop with the hammer.
'So he brought it with him,' Lucas said.
'I'd say so.'
Lucas thought about it, frowned, then clapped the cop on the shoulder. 'I don't know what it means, but it's a good catch,' he said. 'If it's new, maybe we could check and see where they sell this Estwing brand…'
'We're doing that tomorrow…'
'So what do we know about her?' Lucas asked, pointing a thumb back toward the living room.
Armistead was an actress, the hammer-toting cop told Lucas. When she hadn't shown up for a performance, a friend had come to check on her, found the body and called the police. To judge from the body temperature, still higher than the rather cool ambient temperature of the house, she'd been dead perhaps four hours when the medical examiner's investigator had arrived, a few minutes after eleven. There was no sign of a burglary.
'Where's the friend?' Lucas asked.
'Back in the bedroom, with Swanson,' the cop said, nodding toward the rear of the house. Lucas wandered back, looking the place over, trying to get a picture of the woman's life-style. The place was decorated with taste, he decided, but without money. The paintings on the walls were originals, but rough, the kind an actress might get from artist friends. The carpets on the floor were worn Orientals. He thought about the rugs at Bekker's house, and stooped to feel the one he was standing on. It felt thin and slippery. Some kind of machine-woven synthetic. Not much of a tie…
The bedroom door was open, and when Lucas poked his head in, he found Swanson sitting in a side chair, rubbing the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses with a Kleenex. A woman was lying faceup on the bed, one foot on the floor. The other foot had made a muddy mark on the yellow bedspread, but she hadn't noticed. Lucas knocked on the jamb and stepped inside as Swanson looked up.
'Davenport,' the Homicide cop said. He put his glasses back on and fiddled with them for a second until they were comfortable. Then he sighed and said, 'It's a fuckin' bummer.'
'Same guy?'
'Yeah. Don't you think?'
'I guess.' Lucas looked at the woman. 'You found the body?'
She was redheaded, middle thirties, Lucas thought, and pretty, most of the time. Tonight she was haggard, her eyes swollen from crying, her nose red and running. She didn't bother to sit up, but she reached up to her forehead and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. They looked dark, almost black. 'Yes. I came over after the show.'
'Why?'
'We were worried. Everybody was,' she said, sniffing.
'Elizabeth would go on with a broken leg. When she didn't show up and didn't call, we thought maybe she'd been in an accident or something. If I didn't find her here, I was going to call the hospitals. I rang the doorbell, and then looked through the window in the door and saw her lying there… The door was locked, so I ran over to a neighbor's to call the cops.' A wrinkle creased her forehead and she cocked her head forward and said, 'You're the cop who killed the Indian.'
'Mmmnn.'
'Is your daughter okay? I heard on the TV…'
'She's fine,' Lucas said.
'Jesus, that must have been something.' The woman sat up, a quick muscular motion, done without effort. Now her eyes were jade green, and he noticed that one of her front teeth was just slightly crooked. 'Are you going after this guy? The killer?'
'I'm helping,' Lucas said.
'I hope you get him and I hope you kill the sonofabitch,' the woman said, her teeth bared and her eyes opening wide. She had high cheekbones and a slightly bony nose, the craggy variety of Celt.
'I'd like to get him,' Lucas said. 'When was the last time anybody saw Armistead… Elizabeth?'
'This afternoon. There was a rehearsal until about three o'clock,' the woman said. She stroked the side of her cheek with her fingertips as she remembered, staring sightlessly at the bedspread. 'After that, she went home. One of the ticket ladies tried to call her an hour or so before the play was supposed to start, but there wasn't any answer. That's the last I know.'
'Why'd they call? Was she already late?'
'No, somebody wanted in on a freebee, and she'd have to approve it. But she didn't answer.'
