Icarus

'Yes. Yes, I do. I did.'

'How about Jack and Caroline Keller. Do you know them, too?'

A pause. 'What is this about, may I ask?'

'I'd like to discuss that in person. I can be there in twenty minutes.'

'I'm afraid I'm on my way to the airport, Sergeant. I'm off to London. I was on my way out the door when the phone rang.'

'Well, I'll tell you what, Ms. Rhowam. How about you change your flight?'

'I'm sorry, but-'

'You'll be sorrier if you don't. Because what I'm gonna do is find out what flight you're on. I can do that with a couple of phone calls; it's easy for us big-shot police types, takes a lot less time than it'll take you to get to the airport. And what'll happen is that if you don't talk to me in person now, you'll get out there to that airport, you'll go to get on board, and two big, scary security guards are gonna grab you, arrest you, put your hands behind your back and cuff you. Then they're gonna bring you here to me. And I'll be angry by that time. So what I suggest is you reschedule your flight and go to England another time. And right now, you wait there in your apartment and I'll be there just as soon as I can. Okay?'

There was a long pause and she heard the woman on the other end of the phone mumble 'Okay' and Sergeant McCoy slammed the phone down. She stood up from her desk and almost collided with Lewis, who was standing over her, hanging on her every word.

'Can you really do that?' he asked breathlessly. 'Can you really find out what flight she's on just like that and get those security guards to arrest her?'

'Lewis,' she said, 'I'm lucky if I can get the damn elevator to stop on this floor. But she don't know that, does she?' And when his eyes widened in appreciative awe, she said, 'Now check that file one more time and tell me what lawyer Caroline used when she got her restraining order.'

'It was Herb Bloomfield,' Lewis said. 'I already checked.'

'Good boy,' she said. 'You just might make a policeman yet.'

She then arranged for two policemen to get to 627 West Ninth Street as fast as they could and make damn sure that Emma Rhowam, suspected in the murder of at least four people, was waiting for her when she arrived.

– '-'-'MCCOY RECOGNIZED BLOOMFIELD from the Entertainer's apartment. But she also knew him by reputation. He was a rich man's lawyer and everything about his Park Avenue office looked the part. All the furniture, except for the glass coffee table, was brown leather. The blotter on the partner's desk was sheathed in brown leather. Most of the books on his bookshelves were bound in brown leather. His pen-and-pencil set was brown leather. She felt blessed that Herb Bloomfield was fifty pounds overweight or she was fairly sure that he'd be wearing a brown leather suit instead of his conservative pinstripe with white shirt and red tie.

'Sergeant, as I told you, I-'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' McCoy said. 'I know, we did all this on the phone. But let me lay this on you one more time, Herb. Your first client, Caroline, is dead. Your second client, Jack, is missing in action and I am worried as hell about him. You want me to start counting up again how many people have been killed so far? If you don't, why don't you just tell me what I want to know so I can try to stop anybody else from dying.'

The lawyer tapped his brown leather cigar case on the desk. The taps started out quick and rhythmic and ended with one decisive slam.

'He was having an affair with her.'

'What?'

'Jack. With this Emma Rhowam. About ten years ago. Well, no, I'm sorry, he wasn't having an affair with her. He'd had an affair with her. And he'd ended it.'

'So how did-'

'She was kind of a nut. What else can I tell you? Obsessive, I guess. Jack was a catch. Still is. Apparently, for him it was a fling, for her it wasn't. And she didn't like being dumped. So while he was still in London, she came over here, started harassing Caroline. Called her, told her about the affair, tried to give her intimate details. I suppose trying to break up the marriage.'

'And what did Caroline do?'

'She didn't want any part of it. At first she didn't believe it. But this Emma gave her enough information so Caroline knew it was true. She was devastated, of course. Furious. But then she calmed down and just wanted the whole thing to go away. So she came to me and I made it go away.'

'And what did Jack do when he found out?'

'He never did.'

'Come again?'

'She never told him. And swore me to secrecy. To this day I've never told Jack what happened.'

'Why would she do that?'

'I can't say for sure. Humiliation, maybe. Strength, just as likely. I think that Caroline wanted to handle it in her own way. And it's fairly safe to say that she was right. Their marriage certainly survived and flourished. And maybe it wouldn't have if this had all come out in the open.'

'And what about Kid Demeter?'

'What about him?'

'Do you know anything about the connection between Emma Rhowam and Kid?'

Now the lawyer looked surprised. 'I didn't know there was a connection.'

'Oh, yeah. There was quite a connection.'

McCoy didn't say anything for quite a while.

'Is there anything else I can help you with, Sergeant?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'Can you explain to me why it is that people do what they do to other people?'

'I'm afraid you're on your own with that one,' Herb said. 'That's out of my league.'

'Mine, too,' McCoy said. Then she headed downtown.

– '-'-'SHE DIDN'T EVEN have to talk to the cops on the street to know what had happened. She'd had too much experience and knew the moment she stepped out of her car.

She went up the three flights of stairs two steps at a time. When she got to Emma's apartment, the door was ajar and McCoy said, 'Shit.'

She stepped inside and saw the ME, already hard at work. When she saw the woman on the floor, the first thing she noticed was that she was extremely attractive. Short dark hair. Superb body. Early thirties.

Her damn throat spoiled her looks, though.

It was cut right in two.

Ruins the whole effect, McCoy thought.

And that's when her cell phone rang. She answered it, listened as the cop on the other end told her what had happened at Dominick Bertolini's Meat Mart on Gansevoort and Greenwich streets.

'Nobody saw anything?' she asked.

'Not a soul. And the old guy sure can't tell us what happened.'

'Can we get any prints?'

'They're probably all over the weapon,' the cop said. 'Only problem is it ain't here.'

'Do what you can,' she said, then immediately called Jack Keller's apartment and left her third message on his phone machine. 'This is McCoy,' she announced. 'We got a full-fledged lunatic on a rampage now, Jack. Don't let anybody into your apartment without checking with me first. Anybody. Particularly Grace Childress. She ain't the Destination, Jack. The Destination's dead. She's the Murderess and my guess is she's doin' her best to live up to her nickname. I don't know where the hell you are but call me as soon as you get this. Bad has gotten worse and you need to know about it.'

She didn't hang up immediately, felt she should say more, but didn't know what else to leave on the tape. So she tapped the phone against her arm, realized she was still recording, and pressed the 'End Call' button.

And when she hung up the phone it was the first time in her professional life she'd ever felt a sense of pure and utter panic.

– '-'-'SURPRISES CAME IN threes.

Somebody said that, too, but there was no time to remember who. Whoever it was had definitely been right,