Patricia Cornwell: Black Notice

He got out his inhaler again and took two puffs.

"Chief Harris, we've got a sadistic killer out there who murdered Kim Luong. The M.O. here is the same. It's too unique to be someone else. There aren't enough details known for it to be a copycat-many details are known only by Marino and me."

He struggled to breathe.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" I asked. "Do you want others to die like this? Because it will happen again. And soon. This guy's losing control at a lightning rate. Maybe because he left his safe haven in Paris and now he's like a hunted wild animal with no place to run? And he's enraged, desperate. Maybe he feels challenged and he's taunting us;" I added as I wondered what Benton would have said. "Who knows what goes on inside a mind like that."

Harris cleared his throat.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"A press release, and I mean now. We know he speaks French. He may have a congenital disorder that results in excessive hairiness. He may have long pale hair on his body. He may shave his entire face, neck and head, and have deformed dentition, widely spaced, small, pointed teeth. His face is probably going to look odd, too."

"Jesus Christ"

"Marino needs to handle this," I told him, as if it were my right to do so.

"What did you say? We're supposed to tell the public we're looking for some man with hair all over his body and pointed teeth? You want to start a panic like this city's never seen?" He couldn't catch his breath.

"Calm down. Please."

I put my fingers on his neck to check his pulse. It was running away with his life. I walked him into the living room and made him sit down. I brought him a glass of water and massaged his shoulders, talking quietly to him, gently coaxing him to be still, until he was soothed and breathing again.

"You don't need the pressure of this," I said. "Marino should be working these cases, not riding around in a uniform all night. God help you if he's not working these homicides. God help all of us."

Harris nodded. He got up and moved in slow steps back to the doorway.of that terrible scene. Marino was rooting around in the walk-in closet by now.

"Captain Marino," Harris said.

Marino stopped what he was doing and gave his chief a defiant look.

"You're in charge," Harris said to him. "Let me know if there's anything you need."

Marino's gloved hands went through a section of skirts.

"I want to talk to Anderson," he said.

Rene Anderson's face was as hard and glazed as the glass she stared through when attendants carried Diane Bray's pouched body past on a stretcher and loaded it into a van. It was still raining.

Dogged reporters and photographers poised like swimmers on blocks, all of them staring at Marino and the as we approached the patrol car. Marino opened Anderson's passenger's door and poked his head inside.

"We need to have a little chat," he said to her.

Her frightened eyes jumped from him to me.

"Come on," Marino said.

"I've got nothing to say to her," she said, glancing at me.

"I guess the doc must think you do," Marino said. "Come on. Get out. Don't make me have to help you."

"I don't want them taking pictures!" she exclaimed, and it was too late.

Cameras were already on her like a storm of hurled spears.

"Just put your coat over your head to cover your face like you see on TV," Marino said with a trace of sarcasm.

I walked over to the removal van to have a word with the two attendants as they shut the tailgate doors.

"When you get there," I said as cold raindrops fell and my hair began to drip, "I want the body escorted into the cooler with security present. I want you to contact Dr. Fielding and make sure he supervises."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And we don't talk about this to anyone."

"Never do."

"But especially not this one. Not one word," I said.

"We sure wouldn't:"

They climbed inside the van and backed out as I walked to the house and paid no attention to questions and cameras and flashes going off. Marino and Anderson sat in the living room, and Diane Bray's clocks said it was eleven-thirty now. Anderson's jeans were wet, and her shoes were caked with mud and grass, as if she'd fallen down at some point. She was cold and trembling.

"You know we can get DNA off a beer bottle, right?" Marino was saying to her. "We can get it off a cigarette butt, right? Hell,.ve can get it off a damn pizza crust."

Anderson was slumped on the couch and didn't seem to have much fight left in her.

"It's got nothing to do With…" she started to reply.

"Salem menthol butts in the kitchen trash," he continued his interrogation. `,`Believe that's what you smoke? And yeah. It does have to do with it, Anderson. Because I believe you was.here last night not long before Bray was murdered. And I also believe she didn't struggle, maybe even knew the person who beat the shit out уf her back in the bedroom."

Marino didn't believe for a nanosecond that Anderson had murdered Bray.

"What happened?" he asked. "She tease you until you couldn't take it no more?"

I thought of the sexy satin blouse and lacy lingerie Bray had been wearing.

"She eat a little pizza with you and tell you to go on home like you was nothing to her? She dis you for the last time last night?" Marino asked.

Anderson silently stared down at her motionless hands. She kept licking her lips, trying not to cry.

"I mean, it would be understandable. All of us can only take so much, isn't that right, Doc? Like when someone's fucking around with your career, just as an example. But we'll get to that part a little later."

He leaned forward in his antique chair, big hands on his big knees until Anderson's bloodshot eyes lifted and met his.

"You got any idea how much trouble you're in?" he said to her.

Her hand shook as she pushed back her hair.

"I was here early last night." She spoke in a flat, depressed voice. "I dropped by and we ordered pizza."

"This a habit of yours?" Marino asked. "To drop by? Were you invited?"

"I would come over here. Sometimes I dropped by," she said.

"Sometimes you dropped by unannounced. That's what you're saying."

She nodded, wetting her lips again.

"Did you do that last night?"

Anderson had to think. I could see yet one more lie condensing like a cloud in her eyes. Marino leaned back in his chair.

"Damn, this is uncomfortable." He rolled his shoulders. "Like sitting in a tomb. I think it might be a good idea to tell the truth, don't you? 'Cause guess what? I'm going to find out one way or other, and you lie to me, I'll bust your chops so bad you'll eat cockroaches in prison. Don't think we don't know about you and that goddamn rental car sitting out there."

"There's nothing unusual about a detective having a rental car." She fumbled and knew it.

"Sure as hell is if it's following people everywhere," he retorted, and now it was my time to speak.

"You parked it in front of my secretary's apartment," I said. "Or at least somebody in that car did. I've been followed. Rose was followed:'

Anderson didn't speak.

"I don't suppose your e-mail address would happen to be M-A-Y F-L-R." I spelled it out for her.

She blew on her hands to warm them.

"That's right. I forgot," Marino said. "You was born in May. The tenth, in Bristol, Tennessee. I can tell you your Social Security number, address, too, if you want."

"I know all about Chuck," I said to her.

Now she was getting very nervous and scared.

"Fact is," Marino stepped in, "we got of Chuckie-boy on tape stealing prescription drugs from the morgue. You know that?"

She took a deep breath. We really didn't have that on tape yet.

"A lot of money. Enough for him and you and even Brayto have pretty good lives."