church steps, the crowd parted for them, people stepping respectfully aside as the couple moved slowly toward the waiting cavalcade of automobiles. When Mrs. O'Donnell saw the hearse, she stumbled and lost her footing, collapsing forward. Half a dozen hands came up to steady her, and she continued on her slow pilgrimage. Her husband tightened his grip on her arm, his face a tight mask of grief and anger.
The family climbed into the limousines the funeral home had provided, as everyone else dispersed toward their own cars, leaving the journalists alone on the wet sidewalk in front of the church. Lee studied the mourners, but he couldn't see anything unusual about them. They all looked grief stricken, and everyone seemed to be there with at least one other person. Lee was quite certain that the killer, if he came, would be alone. There were a few young men who fit the age and physical profile, but they were with girlfriends or families, or were part of the group of Queens College students. Lee looked over the students, but it was highly unlikely that the Slasher was a college student, let alone one of Annie's classmates.
The television journalists stood around delivering their spiels into the cameras. Others were scribbling earnestly in notebooks, while a few more lit up cigarettes, hunched under raincoats pulled over their heads, shielding their matches from the rain. Lee turned to go-and then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure standing apart from the rest of the press corps.
A thin young man in a dark blue raincoat stood leaning against a Douglas fir. Even under the bulky coat Lee could see that he had narrow shoulders, and his protruding wrists suggested a scrawny, underfed physique. He had long, thin neck and a prominent Adam's apple, but his head was bent over a notebook, so Lee couldn't see his face. There was something unsettling about him, the hunch of his shoulders perhaps, that reminded Lee of a vulture perched on a tree limb.
The man lifted his face to look at the column of departing cars, and Lee saw the delicate, almost feminine features-on a girl they would have been considered pretty. His face had a haunted quality, with sunken hollows beneath his cheeks and dark circles under his eyes, as though it had been a while since he'd had a good night's sleep. He looked about nineteen, but was probably twenty-five or so, Lee guessed. His most striking feature were his golden eyes, yellow as lamplight-wolf's eyes. Watchful and wary, they gleamed like gemstones in his pale face. Lee couldn't make out the name on the press pass hanging from the lapel of the blue raincoat, and he didn't want to stare. So far the young man hadn't noticed him. As he was watching, the man pulled something white from his pocket and put it to his mouth. At first Lee had the impression it was a pack of cigarettes, but then he realized the object was an inhaler. His stomach tightened as the stranger gave the plunger a single, well-practiced push, inhaled deeply, held his breath, then exhaled.
Lee's pulse raced as the man shoved the inhaler back into his pocket. He's asthmatic! Lee's palms began to sweat, and he tried not to stare at the man as he formulated a way to get closer to him without arousing his suspicion. He would approach and ask for a cigarette-no, that wouldn't do, when there were several journalists puffing away just a few yards from him. Something that wouldn't arouse suspicion, something. But as he was trying desperately to think of something, the man folded the notebook and put it into his coat pocket.
He looked around, until his eyes met Lee's, and a look passed between them. Lee couldn't be sure, but he thought it was a look of recognition on the other's part. The man's eyes locked with his, and-was it his imagination? — he gave a slight nod, as if to say, Yes, it's me. The ghost of a smile flickered on the pallid face. He knows who I am, Lee realized. The man pulled his coat around his lean body and strode rapidly around the side of the church.
Lee took off after him, but he was forced to go around a group of elderly mourners coming out of the church. Then, as he approached the gaggle of journalists, a short, balding man stepped forward.
'Excuse me, but aren't you with the NYPD?'
Taken off guard, Lee stared at him.
'Well, I-'
'Yeah, you're the profiler, right? The one who lost his sister?' the man said. 'My buddy wrote the story about you a couple of years ago. I recognize you from your picture.'
Lee groaned. He had been the unwilling subject of a 'human interest' story when he started working with the police department; someone at the city desk had gotten wind of his appointment, remembered his sister's disappearance, and decided it would make a good story. It did make a good story, but Lee did not enjoy the attention and publicity that followed.
'Are you working on this case?' the man continued, and then, without waiting for an answer, 'Do you have any comments?'
The others, smelling blood, crowded around him, shouting out questions:
'How's it going?'
'Any leads?'
'What have you figured out about the Slasher?'
'Will he keep killing until you stop him?'
'I'm sorry,' Lee said, 'but I can't comment on an ongoing investigation.' Standard fare, and he didn't suppose they would swallow it.
They didn't.
He struggled to push through them, murmuring apologies, but they trailed after him, sticking to him like so many leeches in black raincoats. He hurried around to the back of the church, turning the corner of the building just in time to see an old, dark-colored car peel around the bend in the road. He couldn't read the license plate, and he didn't know cars well enough to place the make of this one. It wasn't a late model, and he thought it was American-but he couldn't even be sure about that. Black or dark blue, dented left rear fender-that was all he could see.
The reporters crowded around him, barking out their questions.
'Do you think he'll strike again?'
'Are you any closer to solving it than you were?'
'Who else is on the special task force?'
'Are you going to bring in the FBI?'
When they saw that Lee wasn't going to give them anything, they broke up, peeling away one by one, tucking their notebooks into raincoat pockets before heading off to expense account lunches at local restaurants.
Well, if it is him, at least now I'm sure he owns a car, Lee thought. But he had been fairly certain of that already. Everything about this guy fit the profile-right down to the inhaler. Lee pulled his coat collar up to his ears and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. The rain was coming down harder now, cold little needles stinging his bare skin. He walked briskly toward the train station as the heavens let loose a torrent intense enough to wash clean the transgressions of an entire generation of sinners.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Later, back home in his apartment, Lee looked out the window at the softly falling rain. He thought about his earlier conversation on the phone with Chuck, who had been less than thrilled with his report of his visit to the funeral.
'Damn reporters-they're like goddamn locusts! I can't believe you couldn't even get a license plate number.'
Lee had no good reply. He didn't feel comfortable vilifying the press, but he had to admit that they had gotten in his way.
'How do you suppose he got a press pass? Just forged one, I guess?'
'Probably.'
Chuck was exasperated when Lee admitted that he didn't manage to read the name on his press pass.
'It was probably a pseudonym anyway,' Lee pointed out.
He had seen the department sketch artist, just in case. Lee had made a vow to himself that he would not forget the lean, ascetic-looking face with the striking yellow eyes and high cheekbones, the Cupid's-bow curve of his mouth. He had looked like a lost little boy, until he smiled-and then he looked like a hungry wolf. The resulting sketch was pretty good, though it failed to convey the feeling Lee had of the twisted personality behind that smile.
