David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

“And she didn’t affect you, I suppose? I’ve never seen a grown man bat his eyelashes like that.”

Becker laughed.

“What did you think of her, Jack?” Becker asked. “She acted like she wanted to eat you up.”

“Gah,” said Jack.

“She showed good taste in boys, though, to give her credit,” Karen said. “I can’t think of any boy I’d rather gobble up myself.” She reached into the backseat and patted Jack. “You put up with it very politely. I’m proud of you.”

“Strange taste in men, though,” Becker said.

“Meaning you?”

“I was thinking of her ‘husband.’ ”

“One thing’s certain,” Karen said after they had regained the highway, “that is no average married couple.”

“Certainly not average.”

“Not married either,” Karen said.

“How do you know?”

“Apart from the fact that he has one hanger in the closet and she has eight? That he has no other shoes? I don’t know what there was in the bathroom, but there was practically no sign whatever that he even lived there.”

“Nothing in the bathroom, either,” Becker said. “Except for two toothbrushes. And a child’s toothbrush in the wastebasket.”

“The old lady had that much right, at least.”

“She had it all right,” Becker said. “She said they were a strange couple, and she was right, she said the man was something spooky, and I’d have to agree with that, she said there was something odd going on in the room, and I’m certain that’s true, although I’m not sure I know what it was.”

“So she was right on all counts except the one we came for,” Karen said.

“There’s no law against being strange, however,” Becker said.

“Or none we care to enforce,” Karen said. “I don’t know what those two get up to together, but I’m sure it’s in violation of some code or other.”

“Flagrant weirdness,” Becker volunteered.

“Worse than that. Something… I don’t know, unclean. I left feeling as if I wanted to wash, as if I have oil on my skin… No sign of a child other than the toothbrush, I suppose?”

“None,” said Becker. “But there was the toothbrush.”

Karen grinned and shook her head.

“What?”

“Feminine secret,” she said.

“Terrific.”

“Okay. I have a child’s toothbrush, too. I use it to brush my eyebrows sometimes.”

“You do?”

“You men have no idea what we go through, do you? I put hair spray on the brush, then sort of comb them up so they don’t go every which way.”

Becker stared at her., Karen moved uneasily behind the wheel.

“Some-times,” she said. “Only some-times.”

Becker continued to look at her, exaggerating his bafflement.

“Stop it,” she said sternly, after a moment. “So I think, in the absence of any other evidence, we can forget the toothbrush.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Becker said.

“We had to do it, though, right?” Karen said.

“Oh, sure, we had to check it out. And it wasn’t a total waste of time.”

“Why not?”

“Well, Jack gained an admirer.”

“Great.”

“And it got me thinking.”

“You found that visit intellectually stimulating?”

“Well, it didn’t make me start thinking about the Great Books. But the woman’s nurse uniform did make me remember something. After the Bickford snatch I stood in on a couple of interviews. One of them was with a guy who made doughnuts. He said he had seen the outing of kids when they came to the mall.”

“Yeah?”

“He said-I think he said-he saw the teachers, he saw the kids, he saw the school nurse. Did he say she was bringing up the rear? I don’t remember, but I think so. I have that image in my head.”

“Yes, so?”

“So does a uniformed nurse usually go along on every school outing?”

“I don’t know. It seems like a good idea.”

“It does. But does it happen?… Jack? When your class takes a trip, does the school nurse usually go along? Does she wear a uniform?”

Jack hesitated long enough for Karen to speak impatiently. “Jack, John asked you a question.”

“I don’t think I’ve even seen her in it,” Jack said thoughtfully.

“You mean you’ve never seen her on an outing?”

“Oh, she doesn’t go on those. Because what if someone at school gets sick? But I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in her uniform. She just wears clothes at school.”

Karen and Becker drove in silence for a moment, both thinking. Karen broke the silence as she reached for the phone.

“Of course that’s just Jack’s school.” Karen said, punching in the phone numbers. “They might do it differently at other schools.”

“Or a nurse just happened to be going in the same direction,” Becker said.

“Just a coincidence,” Karen said.

“Most likely.”

“Probably… Malva? Deputy Director Crist. I’m in my car. One, check with the principal of Bobby Reynolds’s school. See if a uniformed nurse went along on the outing to the mall on the day Bobby was”-she glanced back at Jack-“when he went on the outing. Two, have Hemmings go through all the interview notes of the other Lamont cases and see if there are any mentions of nurses.”

Karen paused, looked at Becker, and arched an eyebrow.

“Do the malls have their own nurses?” Becker asked.

“And Malva, find out if the malls in question have uniformed nurses on duty… That’s right. I’ll be in the car until around six. I want answers before then… Thank you.”

“Let’s not get excited yet,” Becker said as Karen returned the phone to its cradle. “A, there are virtually no cases of women being involved in serial killings except the one in Florida. B, a woman could not have disposed of the bodies from a moving car with one hand.”

“That would require a man with great strength.”

“Or… Christ, or two people. One driving, the other sitting in the backseat and using both hands. What’s wrong with that?”

“Two people. Serials don’t work in teams, they’re loners.”

“Although the Hillside Strangler was actually two people.”

“And Braun and Rosenbloom committed those atrocities in New Haven.”

“Yeah, for years.”

“You had something to do with that case, didn’t you?”

“Not enough… So, it does happen.”

“Not often, but it happens… but never with a mixed couple, that I know of.”

“It wouldn’t have to be mixed. Sitting in the backseat, using two arms to lift. A woman could do that.”

“Two women?”

“Why not? Just because we’ve never seen it?”

“The woman in Florida, she had another woman with her part of the time.”

Becker took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“How much did you talk to that big guy in the motel?” he asked.

“Hardly at all.”

“And why?”

“Because… I’m stupid, I guess.”

“No, you’re not stupid, Karen. Why didn’t you talk to him? Really.”

“Because once a woman entered the picture, there didn’t seem to be any point.”

“Why no point?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Why no point in interviewing him?”

“Because a man and woman together didn’t match our profile.”

“And who gave us the profile?”

Karen paused.

“It’s not your fault, John.”

“Who came up with that profile?”

“Lots of us, all of us. It was a consensus long before you entered the case. This kind of thing is done by male loners…”

“Who went out driving on the Merritt tossing bags out the window? Who convinced us all that it was, that it had to be a strong man, so we all stopped looking at or even considering anything else? Who was that genius, Karen?”