He glanced at her. “Somebody been murdered with a band saw?”
“I don’t even know what a band saw is,” Meg said. “But I can’t imagine you murdering someone set to music.”
He moved away from her and sat down in a chair, crossing his legs. “Then you’ve never really listened to the blues.”
“Oh, but I have.”
He regarded her without changing expression. “What I sensed about you from the start is you might lie to me, but you’re honest.”
“Of course. I’m a cop.”
The sad smile again. “We keep things light so we don’t sink in quicksand.”
“Lots of us play it that way,” Meg said. “The cop’s world is a kind of swamp.”
He didn’t answer and wasn’t looking at her now. She knew where he was. Back in his personal swamp he could never quite escape, where he would eventually fall prey to the thing he kept alive there.
She walked to the door. The motion stirred enough air to raise again the acrid but pleasant scent of turpentine and freshly hewn or sanded wood. She imagined his muscle-corded arms and powerful hands working the wood, shaping it, creating …
“Interview over?” he asked, sounding disappointed.
“For now.”
“Learn anything?”
“Yeah.”
“Got any wise words for me?”
“Yeah.” She opened the door and looked back at him before stepping into the hall, giving him a mock serious expression. “Don’t leave town.” A touch of humor to show he could get out of the quicksand if only he’d try hard enough.
It hadn’t quite worked. She felt as if she were slowly sinking with him.
He nodded as if giving her instruction careful consideration. “Okay. Don’t be a stranger.”
Back in the unmarked she sat squeezing the steering wheel with both hands, staring straight ahead at nothing beyond the windshield.
23
Kelli Wilson and her ten-year-old son, Jason, left Grand Central Station after riding the train in from Stamford. They took a cab to the Frick Museum, Kelli’s favorite. The museum was open extended hours to accommodate public demand for its Impressionist Masters exhibition.
Kelli and Jason spent almost three hours roaming the spacious rooms. Kelli was an amateur painter and knew she didn’t have as much talent as Jason, whose art teachers at the Bennett School were mightily impressed.
So Kelli was the mother of a superior child. Thinking about it made her smile. She liked to remind herself and smile. Heredity could be a wonderful thing.
Jason liked art, and loved painting almost as much as playing ice hockey. He was receptive when the recorded voice in the earphones of the tape players worn at the Frick explained the histories of the paintings and their creators. Kelli enjoyed watching the expression in his guileless blue eyes as he listened while he stared at the paintings with something like religious awe.
When they left the Frick the evening had turned cooler, and she was glad she’d brought her retro mink jacket into the city. Kelli was an attractive blond woman in her forties and had never owned anything mink before the jacket. Always she’d been antifur, but when she had a chance to buy the jacket at an estate sale, she reasoned that it was secondhand, the minks used to make it were long dead, and there would be no real difference in the world if she wore the jacket or if someone else did. The jacket was made of light-colored female mink fur and was incredibly soft. It looked just right with her pale complexion, and it did the magical thing expensive mink could do for a woman. When she wore it, she looked and felt ten years younger, and far more beautiful than she knew she actually was; the mirror didn’t exactly lie, but it became her friend.
Kelli put her hand on Jason’s shoulder to get his attention, and they stopped at the corner and moved out of the flow of pedestrian traffic. She dug her cell phone from her purse and speed-dialed the work number of her husband, Warren, who was an architect with Lohan and Berner. Warren had been with the firm almost five years, and lately was doing very well. Which was how they’d managed to buy their eighteen-foot cabin cruiser
They kept the boat docked in a slip at the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin. When Warren had to work late, which was often, he would stay in the city and spend the night on the
The three years they’d owned the boat had proved him right. Not only that, Kelli came to love sleeping on the boat, feeling the gentle bobbing as water lapped at the hull, hearing the soft and subtle sounds of strain on wood, metal, and fiberglass. She also discovered that sex on a small boat was great, though not exactly private. Of course, it only happened on those rare nights when Jason wasn’t aboard. Kelli wondered if they might call Jennifer, the babysitter who sometimes stayed all night with Jason. Jennifer understood-
Warren picked up on the third ring.
“I’m in the middle of a meeting right now, hon,” he said, when he heard Kelli’s voice.
“Sorry. I’ll keep it short. We still on tonight for dinner at Four Seasons?” Kelli had never dined at the famous and expensive restaurant. This was to be a special dinner, celebrating the third anniversary of their purchase of
“We’re still on. But I’m gonna be tied up here for a while longer discussing soil samples and city ordinances. I called and changed the reservation for eight-thirty. That okay with you?”
“He never minded staying up past his bedtime.”
“That’s for sure. Jason and I can find someplace to kill time.”
“There’s a big new toy store over on Fifth Avenue.”
“I know the one you mean. We can cab over there and explore. But I can’t promise not to buy something.”
“With Jason along, it’s a given. Listen, I really gotta get back.”
“Of course. We’ll meet at Four Seasons a little before eight-thirty. Love you.”
“Love you back.”
The connection was broken.
“So what’re we gonna do?” Jason asked, as Kelli flipped the cell phone closed and slipped it back in her purse.
“Oh, I’m not sure. Maybe we could go explore a new toy store.”
“Kids’ toys?”
She had to grin. “I sure hope so.”
“We gonna buy something?”
She tried to ruffle his hair but he pulled away. Grinning, though.
“It’s a given,” she said.
The Night Sniper overheard most of what Kelli had said on the cell phone, her side of the conversation, on the corner near the Frick Museum. And he’d overheard both sides of the brief conversation between mother and child.
