Patricia Cornwell - Postmortem

She was a lovely black woman, recently divorced from a dentist now living in Tidewater. A receptionist at an employment agency, she was attending college classes at night to complete a degree in business. The last time she'd been seen alive was at approximately 10:00 P.M., a week ago Friday, about three hours before her death, I had estimated. She had dinner that night with a woman friend at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant, then went straight home.

Her body was found the next afternoon, Saturday: She was supposed to go shopping with her friend. Cecile's car was in the drive, and when she didn't answer the phone or the door, her friend got worried and peered through the slightly parted curtains of the bedroom window. The sight of Cecile's nude, bound body on top of the disarrayed bed wasn't something the friend was likely ever to forget.

"Bobbi," Marino said. "She's white, you know."

"Cecile's friend?"

I'd forgotten her name.

"Yo. Bobbi. The rich bitch who found Cecile's body. The two of 'em was always together. Bobbi's got this red Porsche, a dynamite-looking blonde, works as a model. She's at Cecile's crib all the time, sometimes don't leave until early morning. Think the two of 'em were sweet on each other, you want my opinion. Blows my mind. I mean, it's hard to figure. Both of 'em goodlooking enough to pop your eyes out. You'd think men would be hitting on 'em all the time… "

"Maybe that's your answer," I said in annoyance. "If your suspicions about the women are founded."

Marino smiled slyly. He was baiting me again.

"Well, my point is," he went on, "maybe the killer's cruising the neighborhood and sees Bobbi climbing into her red Porsche late one night. Maybe he thinks she lives here. Or maybe he follows her one night when she's on her way to Cecile's house."

"And he murders Cecile by mistake? Because he thought Bobbi lived here?"

"I'm just running it up the pole. Like I said, Bobbi's white. The other victims are white."

We sat in silence for a moment, staring at the house.

The racial mix continued to bother me, too. Three white women and one black woman. Why? "One more thing I'll run up the pole," Marino said. "I've been wondering if the killer's got several candidates for each of these murders, like he chooses from the menu, ends up getting what he can afford. Sort of strange each time he sets out to kill one of 'em, she just happens to have a window unlocked or open or broke. It's either, in my opinion, a random situation, where he cruises and looks for anyone who seems to be alone and whose house is insecure, or else he's got access to a number of women and their addresses, and maybe makes the rounds, maybe cases a lotta residences in one night before finding the one that'll work for him."

I didn't like it.

"I think he stalked each of these women," I said, "that they were specific targets. I think he may have cased their homes before and either not found them in or found the windows locked. It may be the killer habitually visits the place where his next victim lives and then strikes when the opportunity presents itself."

He shrugged, playing with the idea. "Patty Lewis was murdered several weeks after Brenda Steppe. And Patty also was out of town visiting a friend the week prior to her murder. So it's possible he tried the weekend before and didn't find her home. Sure. Maybe it happened like that. Who's to say? Then he hits Cecile Tyler three weeks later. But he got to Lori Petersen exactly one week after that-who knows? Maybe he scored right off. A window was unlocked because the husband forgot to lock it. The killer could have had some sort of contact with Lori Petersen as recently as several days before he murdered her, and if her window hadn't been unlocked last weekend he'd be back this weekend, trying again.

"The weekend," I said. "That seems to be important to him, important to strike on a late Friday night or in the first hour or so of Saturday morning."

Marino nodded. "Oh, yeah. It's calculated. Me, I think it's because he works Monday through Friday, has the weekend off to chill out after he's done it. Probably he likes the pattern for another reason, too. It's a way of jerking us around. Friday comes and he knows the city, people like you and me, are nervous as a cat in the middle of a freeway."

I hesitated, then broached the subject. "Do you think his pattern is escalating? That the murders are more closely spaced because he's getting more stressed, perhaps by all the publicity?"

He didn't comment right away. Then he spoke very seriously, "He's a friggin' addict, Doc. Once he starts, he can't stop."

"You're saying the publicity has nothing to do with his pattern?"

"No," he replied, "I'm not saying that. His pattern's to lay low and keep his mouth shut, and maybe he wouldn't be so cool if the reporters wasn't making it so damn easy for him. The sensational stories are a gift. He don't have to do any work. The reporters are rewarding him, giving it to him free. Now if nobody was writing up nothing, he'd get frustrated, more reckless maybe. After a while, maybe he'd start sending notes, making phone calls, doing something to get the reporters going. He might screw up."

We were quiet awhile.

Then Marino caught me off guard.

"Sounds like you been talking to Fortosis."

"Why?"

"The stuff about it escalating and the news stories stressing him, making his urge peak quicker."

"Is this what he's told you?"

He casually slipped off his sunglasses and set them on the dash. When he looked at me his eyes were faintly glinting with anger. "Nope. But he's told a couple people near and dear to my heart. Boltz, for one. Tanner, for another."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I got as many snitches inside the department as I got on the street. I know exactly what's going down and where it's going to end - maybe."

We sat in silence. The sun had dipped below rooftops and long shadows were creeping over the lawns and street. In a way, Marino had just cracked the door that would take us into each other's confidence. He knew. He was telling me he knew. I wondered if I dared push the door open wider.

"Boltz, Tanner, the powers-that-be are very upset by the leaks to the press," I said cautiously.

"May as well have a nervous breakdown over the rain. It happens. 'Specially when you got 'Dear Abby' living in the same city."

I smiled ruefully. How appropriate. Spill your secrets to "Dear Abby" Turnbull and she prints every one of them in the paper.

"She's a big problem," he went on. "Has the inside track, a line hooked straight into the heart of the department. I don't think the chief takes a whiz without her knowing it."

"Who's telling her?"

"Let's just say I got my suspicions but I haven't got the goods yet to go nowhere with them, okay?"

"You know someone's been getting into my office computer," I said as if it were common knowledge.

He glanced sharply at me. "Since when?"

"I don't know. Several days ago someone got in and tried to pull up Lori Petersen's case. It was luck we discovered it - a onetime oversight made by my computer analyst resulted in the perpetrator's commands appearing on the screen."

"You're saying someone could've been getting in for months and you wouldn't know?"

"That's what I'm saying."

He got quiet, his face hard.

I pressed him. "Changes your suspicions?"

"Huh," he said shortly.

"That's it?"

I asked in exasperation. "You don't have anything to say?"

"Nope. Except your ass must be getting close to the fire these days. Amburgey know?"

"He knows."

"Tanner, too, I guess."

"Yes."

"Huh," he said again. "Guess that explains a couple things."

"Like what?"

My paranoia was smoldering and I knew Marino could see I was squirming. "What things?"