Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Tell us."

"You know," she says, and again blushes. "He… wanted to be with us, I guess."

"Be with you?"

"Well… have sex with us. Me and Lo."

"Did he say that?"

"He did, yes."

"But you said no."

"I said no. He really sounded desperate. I was a little scared, to tell the truth."

"Desperate how?"

"Well, the way he kept insisting."

On what?"

"Coming over. And wanting to, well, I told you, have sex with me and Lo."

"Did you ever have sex with him?" Morgan asks.

Point blank, Emma thinks.

"Well, just that once," Heather says.

"Which once?"

"The time he gave the lecture. And came here afterward. But that was just the two of us."

"What about these phone calls from L.A.?" Morgan asks.

They're phone fucks, Emma thinks. She looks at Morgan. He is thinking the same thing. They are in the same business, after all, more or less. Her guys are merely his guys who've lost complete control. That's the only difference. Heather said Thorpe sounded "sort of desperate" last night, but how desperate is "sort of desperate?" Emma wonders. She feels pretty certain she knows what kind of man they're dealing with here, but engaging in phone sex — or even visiting a massage parlor — is something quite different from raping and strangling a young girl, tearing out her hair, savagely biting her. Quite different. But it's possible. Listen, it could be possible. Guy on the town suddenly loses it, that's possible. Nothing's ever what it seems, she thinks.

"All we did was talk," Heather says.

"What about?" Morgan asks.

"Things."

"What things?

"Just things."

"Sex?"

"Sometimes."

"Heather… did you have phone sex with him?"

His voice is soft, his eyes are intent on her face. He looks like he's hypnotizing her. Emma remains silent. Let him run with it, she thinks.

"Well, yes," Heather says. "Sometimes."

Her voice is a whisper. She and Morgan could be alone together here. She could be sitting in the darkness of a confessional. He could be on the other side of the screen, listening in the dark.

"Did he want to have phone sex last night?" Morgan asks.

"Yes."

"With you alone? Or with both of you?"

"Me alone."

"And did you, Heather?"

"No. Actually, he didn't ask me. He said he wanted to take me out. But I knew he wanted to. He only calls when he wants to… you know… do it on the phone. He thinks all he has to do is call me any time of the day or night."

"Do you have phone sex with him every time he calls?"

"Yes."

Her voice so low Emma can hardly…

"Heather?"

"Yes. Every time."

"But not last night."

"No."

Morgan nods.

"When he spoke to you that second time," Emma says, "did he mention where he might be going?"

"No, he just wanted to come here, that's all."

"Why'd he call a third time?"

"I don't know."

"Well, he called at a quarter to five this morning…"

"I know."

"Well, what'd he want?"

"I don't know. I hung up."

Emma sighs heavily. "Thanks a lot, Miss Epstein," she says. "We appreciate your time."

Heather swings her legs off the couch and slips into her shoes. "I hope you get him," she says. "If he did it."

"If he did it, we'll get him," Emma says.

"Thank you, Heather," Morgan says, and shakes her hand. "We appreciate your help. Just be careful in the future, okay?" he says. "You and your friend both. Lo? Is that her name?"

"Well, Lois, actually," Heather says, and opens the front door for them. "Lois Ford."

In the hallway outside, Morgan says, "He's beginning to fit the profile all the way down the line, isn't he? Calls Heather here in the middle of the night, and three minutes later he's on the phone with her girlfriend. For all we know, he's out there looking for another vic right this fuckin minute. These guys are obsessed, you know, They try to stop themselves, but they can't, they're obsessed. They think about sex every minute of the day, they can't stop thinking about it. Right now, right this minute, he's thinking about sex, I'll bet a million dollars on it. Running girls through his mind, memories of every girl he ever knew or hoped to know, turning them over in his mind. I know these creeps, believe me, I've been with Vice for almost a hundred years now. We better catch this guy soon, before he—"

Emma's cell phone rings. She flips open the lid, and hits the SEND key. It's Manzetti.

"We got a guy here who looks ripe," he says. "We're picking up the two witnesses from this morning, going to run a little line-up in twenty minutes or so. You and Jimmy up for it?"

Every time Emma walks into this big white building with its red trim and blue windows, she feels as if she's stepping into an American flag. Squatting solidly on the corner of 133rd and Broadway, the structure is home to Homicide, Special Victims, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Child Welfare Organizing Project, the Harlem Bay Network Mental Health Association, and a dozen other profit and nonprofit organizations that share offices in the virtual shadow of the elevated train tracks running past outside. Emma's office is on the sixth floor; Manzetti's is on the fourth.

As they take the elevator up, she calls the XS Salon and asks to speak to Cindy Mayes. It is now almost eleven o'clock, five hours since she had her last conversation with the girl. When she comes on the line, her voice is clear and crisp, a trifle edgy. She sounds intelligent and young and beautiful. Even on the phone, she sounds beautiful.

"This is Cindy," she says.

"This is Detective Boyle," Emma says. "I…"

"Yes, what is it?" Cindy asks.

The elevator doors open. Morgan steps out into the fourth-floor corridor, and Emma follows him. Signaling for him to go on ahead to Manzetti's office, she walks to the windows, phone to her ear, and looks out at Broadway. In the dark, an elevated train rumbles by on the tracks outside.

"Cathy's apartment was broken into this afternoon…"

"I don't know anything about that."

"Her super says she just had the lock changed on her door. Would you know…?"

"I'm sorry, we're very busy up here just now."

"Would you know why Cathy had her lock changed?"

"No, I'm sorry, I don't."

"Did she ever mention changing…?"

"Look, I really don't have time for you just now."

" Make time," Emma says.

"I can't, really. I have to go. I don't want to get in trouble here. I have to go."

"Cindy…" Emma starts, but there is a click on the line.

She looks at the phone.

Shit, she thinks.

There is only one suspect, and Manzetti is reluctant to load the stage with too many police officers. These days, you make one false move, the case gets kicked out later on. He can look into the future and visualize Nelson's lawyer jumping up and asking the judge to exclude a positive ID merely because out of six possible choices, five of them were cops.

The lawyer's name is Rabinowitz. He has defended Nelson before, and apparently done a very good job of it since the punk walked on two occasions. On the other hand, Nelson spent seven-and-a-half in the slammer on each of two other occasions, so maybe a five-oh batting average ain't so terrific, after all. Rabinowitz spends at least fifteen minutes arguing that under the Miranda ruling, his client is not obliged to leave a bite mark in the apple Manzetti offers to him. Manzetti knows the ruling the way he knows his own name. But it takes four calls to the D.A.'s Office downtown to convince Rabinowitz that asking Nelson to bite into the apple is the same as asking him to put his finger to his nose or take off his hat. At last, Manzetti gets a bite impression he can compare against the bite mark on Cathy Frese's cheek.