Leslie Glass - Burning Time

But even though Milt and his friend agreed there was a striking resemblance between the injuries on the chest, even though the two girls did appear to have been tortured and were found in similar circumstances, that’s all there was. They had not been murdered in the usual way. For homicides, you needed more than a body. You needed a murder weapon. You needed a place of death, some indication someone else was there.

Newton Regis certainly couldn’t go to the FBI and say he had a serial killer. Yes, sir, and by the way, sir, the desert did it .

Maybe the guy hadn’t worked his way up to killing them yet. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. In any case, at the moment it was some kind of sex crime thing. And they certainly didn’t have a Sex Crime Unit in Potoway Village. So Rose should understand he had a problem, if the girl Milt had on ice was the girl from New York.

Newt got in at eight and sat at his desk gloomily until ten, when Milt finally called him. They had a positive ID.

34

Jimmy leaned against the driver’s door of the white LeBaron. His hair had gotten quite long, and his face was lean and narrow. Even in its best moments, it was not a generous face. Now it had kind of a pinched look about it, as if he had just eaten something sour.

April knew the sour thing he had to swallow was her insistence that he come into Manhattan right away. She called him every place she could think of, and someone must have given him the message.

“What’s so urgent?” he said on the phone when he called her back.

“Hello,” she said.

“What?”

“You skipped our lunch. The least you could do is say ‘Hello, how are you, April,’ ” April said.

She had gone up to the dorm at Columbia to look for letters, and had found Connie Sagan but no letters. Connie was sure there had been no letters. She was sure Ellen hadn’t been seeing anyone since she broke up with her boyfriend, and certainly didn’t go to California with someone. Connie was absolutely sure she would have known that.

“I guess you haven’t found her yet,” Connie said. She was the opposite of Ellen, a fat girl with a lot of pain in her face.

April shook her head. “No, I don’t have any information on that.”

She had gone back to the precinct instead of home to wait for Jimmy’s call. She was in a bad mood and didn’t care who knew it.

“Look, I’m sorry about lunch. Something came up,” Jimmy said. It didn’t sound like he was in a good mood, either.

“You haven’t called me in two weeks.” She was sitting at her desk. Everyone was out. For some reason she felt strong.

“I’ve been on a case. What’s the big deal? Are you my wife or something?”

“You have my car, Jimmy.”

“You gave me your car. You told me to drive carefully.”

“Now I want it back.”

“Huh? I’m on a case right now. You called me for that?”

“You’re off duty right now, Jimmy. Today was your day off. We were going to go to lunch. You stood me up.”

“Look, you asked me . I told you it wasn’t convenient. So just because I couldn’t get there you want the car back. That’s not a nice way to be.”

“Jimmy, I want the car back because I need it to get around.”

“I’m disappointed in you.”

Yes, she’d heard that before. Whenever she opened her mouth to disagree with him, he either called her a crazy woman or said he was disappointed in her. She thought she used to be a crazy woman. Now she was a sane woman.

“You’ve changed since you’ve been Uptown,” he complained, like she was contaminated in some way because of it.

“How soon can you be here? I’m not leaving here without my car. I’ll let everyone know you have it. I want it now.”

He showed up in an hour and had to wait outside the building because there was no way he would go in and look for her. He was leaning against the car scowling when she ambled out of the building and crossed the street.

“I told you I’d be here. Why’d you have to make me wait on the street?” he grumbled.

April held out her hand for the keys.

“I kept you waiting three minutes. You kept me waiting for an hour and a quarter. You knew where I was. You could have called. Now you know what it feels like.”

His face turned red. There were some blue uniforms watching him lose face.

“Uh, get in. I’ll drive you home,” he said.

She shook her head. “I’m not going home.”

“Then I’ll take you where you’re going.”

“I thought you were on a case,” April reminded him.

“I have time to take you where you’re going.” He cocked his head at her, telling her to get in the car.

“Uh-uh. You can’t take me where I’m going, Jimmy.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not going to the same place anymore. So we’re not seeing each other again.”

“What, just like that?”

His thin face was very red.

“Not so just like that. It’s been coming on for a long time. You don’t love me, Jimmy, and I don’t love you. I guess that about covers it.”

“How do you know I don’t love you?” he said very quietly, with daggers coming out of his eyes.

She wanted to get away from those angry eyes before he found a way to curse her for all time.

“Because of the way you act,” she replied.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve been together almost three years.”

“And that’s about long enough.” Too long.

“Look, I said I was sorry about the lunch.” He was very angry now. His voice was tight. His eyes had all but disappeared into their Mongolian folds.

She looked around for someone she knew. “Give me the keys, Jimmy. I have to go now.”

He saw her nod at a uniform, a big guy, probably Irish. He handed her the keys.

She got in the car and closed the door very gently. “Have a good life,” she said, careful not to curse him.

It was more than he would do for her. He sloped off toward the subway without a word.

35

Troland knelt on the floor and lifted the blind just a few inches, so he could peer out sideways at Mrs. Bartello’s living room window. He did this every few minutes. She never seemed to be in there. That was good. Sometimes he thought she was dead. There was no sign of life in her house.

When she came to the door the first time, the old lady was wearing a stiff black dress and said, “What do you want? I’m in mourning.”

That was good. He switched his attention to the front window. Out on the street the traffic was backed up. A jet thundered in over the roof, heading for LaGuardia.

“I want to rent the place,” he said. He pointed to the hand-lettered sign in the window, GARAGE APARTMENT FOR RENT.

He had seen the sign as he wandered around looking for the way into Manhattan the first time, and knew it was there for him. He exited to the service road and parked in front, just like he had lived in the neighborhood all his life. It didn’t feel good, though. He breathed in the air and felt dangerous particles entering his body. It was gray and damp. He didn’t think much of New York.

“You can call me Mrs. Bartello.” She was a small, thin woman. She looked him and his rented Ford Tempo over. “I guess you’ll want the garage, too.”

“I have to have the garage,” he said.

She shrugged. He had to have it. It was the only way into the apartment.

“You don’t have wild parties with loud music, do you?” she asked, looking him over again. He was blond and not too big. He had blue eyes, was wearing a leather jacket, black jeans, and boots.

“I don’t like music,” he said.

“What about drugs?”

He shook his head.

“Okay.” She took the two hundred in cash he gave her, counted the bills with surprising speed, and shut the door.