“Yeah?”
Washington laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “And Teabone’s always right.”
Teabone was a condescending shit with a master’s degree in criminal psych from UMKC. He had a team of clowns to run his leads for him. If he said the perp was a short guy with self-esteem problems, then odds were that Beispiel — a six foot plus, good-looking lawyer from River Market — was worth looking at. So they’d asked him to drop by the station when he had a chance.
The cell rang again, and this time it was Melichar from C.I.B. He had an ID on the vic. “Gertrude Farber,” he said. “She had a prescription for Xanax in her pocket. Made things easy. She lives on Central Ave., in Overland Park.”
“Not downtown,” Washington said.
Armand nodded. “Right down the road from my house,” he said. “The suburbs.”
Gertrude Farber was the fifth vic to turn up cold downtown in as many months. And on the surface she didn’t look that different from the others: white, nicely dressed, a nylon rope wrapped around her neck, tightened by means of what looked like a foot of wood sawed from the end of a broomstick. The killer worked at night, Armand figured, stalking his prey for some time before striking, strangling each quickly and efficiently, then posing them on park benches throughout the River Market area. Sometimes hours would go by before anyone noticed that the well-dressed young person on the bench hadn’t moved in a very long time.
Tomorrow, Armand knew, the KC Star would receive a typed note, something about a downtown that hadn’t given what it owed the killer, about payback, the old lady’s body another small payment on a large debt from a city that trod on its citizens, that built swanky lofts and filled the upscale streets with Starbucks, Dean & Delucas, that took from the powerless and gave to the rich. A man with a grudge. Long, rambling letters from a civic-minded psychopath whom Armand sympathized with. Except for the part about killing people.
The killer had made only one clear mistake so far. The second victim had gotten what Armand hoped was a piece of him under her right index fingernail, enough for a DNA profile. But with no one to match it to — they’d run it through the database and checked it against two or three suspects — it was worthless.
But this new murder bothered Armand for another reason. Gertrude Farber was from the suburbs, from Overland Park, his own neighborhood. Unlike the other vics — three women and a young man — she didn’t live in one of the swank new downtown warehouse apartments, and odds were she didn’t frequent the cozy little boutiques or overpriced antique shops near the River Market or in Westport. That was strange because Armand had assumed the killer had stalked his vics for some time, was checking out where they lived, where they shopped, making sure they were profiting from whatever it was he thought he’d lost.
Her husband — a chubby guy about sixty-five, name of Jerry — just shrugged and sniffled. The room was hot and he was sweating. “I don’t know,” he said. “She didn’t often go downtown, so I have no idea what she was doing there.” He sat back in a big worn easy chair and wiped his eyes. He’d only just found out an hour ago, so Armand was prepared to tread lightly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The old man shrugged, like things couldn’t possibly get worse. “Were you aware of where she was today? Where she was going?”
The old man shook his head. “She went out, said she was meeting friends, left around two thirty, three o’clock.”
“Do you know which friends?” Washington asked.
The old man shook his head. “I didn’t ask.” He seemed a little stunned. Armand remembered the day he learned of his own wife’s death, in a car crash on Highway 71, north of Kansas City. Then he blinked the memory away.
“Did she have any friends down around River Market?” he asked.
The old man thought about it. “She had a lot of friends,” he said at last, as if from a great distance. “I mean, she could’ve.”
“What I want you to do,” Armand said, “is sit down for a little while and make a list of any friends she might have been out with, anyone she might have gone to see downtown. Any stores she liked to shop at.”
The old man nodded, but his expression was one of someone who’s not quite hearing. “When you get a chance,” Armand said gently. “Soon.”
“Okay,” the old man said. “Would you like something to drink?”
Washington asked for a glass of water, and the old man disappeared for a moment into the kitchen.
Armand walked around the living room, trying to get a feel for the woman who’d lived here until just a few hours ago. She collected glass animals — there was a menagerie on a little shelf next to the fireplace. Armand picked one up, a glass owl, turned it over, put it back down. It was cracked. Beside them were family photos — what looked like a couple of kids, grandkids at the beach, a couple of Jerry and Gertrude Farber together, some black and whites of older relatives, probably long gone by now. In the back row, a couple of photos were upside down, and Armand righted them.
Then Jerry Farber returned, handing a glass of water to Washington. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “I got something a little stronger for myself. I don’t usually—”
“It’s all right,” Armand said.
“She did have a few friends from the synagogue who lived downtown.”
Armand made a note in his book because he wasn’t sure what else to do with his hands. He hated this part of his job, the part where people cried. Especially good people. Jerry Farber reminded Armand of his own father. Washington shifted behind him. “Write the names down for us, okay?” The old man nodded. “Did she work?” he asked.
“At the public library.”
Armand wrote that down too.
“And you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m outta work, but it’s temporary.”
“Temporary how?” Washington asked, and Armand gave him a look.
“Until I find another job.” Jerry dabbed his eyes with a Kleenex.
“What line of business are you in?” Washington asked.
“Housepainter,” the old man said. “I’ve got a few good years in me.” He sighed. “But I’ve got to compete with a lot of big companies these days.”
Armand looked around the living room again. Chintz curtains, an old plaid sofa and matching loveseat, the rows of family photos. The house was modest, cheerful, and very neat. Armand liked it, despite the circumstances.
The killer had switched typewriters and was using a cheaper brand of paper than before, but otherwise the note checked out pretty well. The Star was making the most of it: an old woman, they suggested, probably a mistake. Since she was nicely dressed and walking around by River Market on a Monday night, the killer figured her for a local. “A tragedy,” they said. The anchors at The News at Eight agreed, shaking their well-coiffed heads. “A terrible tragedy, every way you look at it.” Then they replayed some of the footage they’d gotten from the helicopters earlier that week.
But something didn’t wash for Armand. He lay back on the sofa, the lights off so he wouldn’t have to look at the mess his living room had become. He was drinking bourbon, the TV on mute. First, the killer had botched the job in all kinds of ways, which wasn’t like him. He’d killed the wrong woman, and then he’d left thumb marks on her neck, mean little red bruises that grew clearer as the body cooled. Probably, she’d gotten out of her noose, and he had to use his hands.
Next — Armand was getting sleepy, the booze going to his head — he didn’t like this Beispiel character, the tall redheaded guy. Rich kid. He’d come by the station and was way too helpful, too easygoing, didn’t complain about being printed or having his fingernails scraped. Most people would complain, but Beispiel just smiled, like he knew they wouldn’t find anything.