Options raced through her mind. She had no idea how close the person might be behind her, or how close they might be to the door. The phone was on the wall on the other end of the room—too far away.
Casually opening the tote, she looked inside with an eye for a weapon. She didn't carry a gun. The canister of pepper spray she had carried for a while had expired and she'd thrown it out. She had a plastic bottle of Aleve, a packet of Kleenex, the heel from the shoe she'd ruined Monday. She dug a little deeper and found a metal nail file, palmed that, and slipped it into her coat pocket. She knew her escape routes. She would turn, confront, break right or left. Plan set, she counted to five and turned around.
The kitchen was empty. But framed by the doorway to the dining room, sitting on one of Kate's straight-backed oak chairs, was Angie DiMarco.
“HE CONFESSES TO having Jillian Bondurant's underpants, and you don't think he's the guy?” Kovac said, incredulous.
His temper had a direct effect on his driving, Quinn noticed. The Caprice roared down 94, rocking like a clown car. Quinn braced his feet in the floor well, knowing his legs would snap like toothpicks in the crash. Of course, it probably wouldn't matter, because he would be dead. This piece-of-crap car would crumple like an empty beer can.
“I'm just saying there are some things I don't like,” he said. “Vanlees doesn't strike me as a team player. He lacks the arrogance to be the top dog, and the sadistic male is virtually always the dominant partner in a couple that kills. The woman is subservient to him, a victim who counts herself lucky not to be the one he's murdering.”
“So this time it's reversed,” Kovac insisted. “The woman runs the show. Why not? Moss and Liska say his wife had him pussy-whipped.”
“His mother probably did too. And yes, it's often a domineering or manipulative or otherwise influential woman in his past or present a sexual sadist is killing symbolically when he kills his victims. That all fits, but there are holes too. I wish I caould say I just look at him and like him for these murders, but I'm not feeling that bolt of lightning.”
But then, that feeling had more or less deserted him in recent years, he reminded himself. Doubt had become more the rule than the exception, so what the hell did he know anymore? Why should he trust his instincts now?
Kovac swerved the car across three lanes to the exit he wanted. “Well, I can tell you, the powers that be like this guy fine. You talk about lightning. They're all getting a goddamn thunderstorm in their pants over Vanlees. He's got a history, he fits the profile, he has a connection to Jillian, access to hookers, and he's not Peter Bondurant. If they can find a way to charge him, they will. If they can, they'll do it in time for the press conference today.”
And if Vanlees wasn't the guy, they ran the risk of pushing the real killer into proving himself again. The thought made Quinn ill.
“Vanlees says Peter was in Jillian's place predawn Sunday morning, and sent Noble on Monday to pay him to keep his mouth shut,” he said, drawing a frighteningly long stare from Kovac. The Caprice began to drift toward a rusted-out Escort in the next lane.
“Jesus, will you watch the road!” Quinn snapped. “How do they give out driver's licenses in this state? You save up bottle caps or something?”
“Beer-can tabs,” Kovac replied, returning his attention to the traffic. “So Bondurant was the one who cleaned up Jillian's house and erased the messages on the answering machine.”
“I'd say so—if Vanlees is telling the truth. And I think it's a safe bet then that Peter is the reason you didn't find any of Jillian's own musical compositions. He might have taken them because they revealed something about his relationship with Jillian.”
“The sexual abuse.”
“Possibly.”
“Son of a bitch,” Kovac muttered. “Sunday morning. Smokey Joe didn't light up the body until midnight. Why would Bondurant go to her place Sunday morning, wipe the place down, take the music, if he didn't already know she was dead?”
“Why would he wipe the place down at all?” Quinn asked. “He owns the town house. His daughter lived there. His fingerprints wouldn't be out of place.”
Kovac cut him a glance. “Unless they were bloody.”
Quinn braced a hand against the dash as a tow truck cut in front of them and Kovac hit the brakes. “Just drive, Kojak. Or we won't live long enough to find out.”
WITH RUMORS OF a suspect in custody, the media circus had begun anew on the street in front of Peter Bondurant's house. Videographers roamed the boulevard, taking exterior shots of the mansion while on-air talent did their sound checks. Quinn wondered if anyone had even bothered to call the families of Lila White or Fawn Pierce.
Two Paragon security officers stood at the gate with walkie-talkies. Quinn flashed his ID and they were waved through to the house. Edwyn Noble's black Lincoln was parked in the drive with a steel-blue Mercedes sedan beside it. Kovac pulled in behind the Lincoln, so close the cars were nearly kissing bumpers.
Quinn gave him a look. “Promise you'll behave yourself.”
Kovac played it innocent. He had been relegated to the role of driver and wasn't to leave the car. He wasn't to cross Peter Bondurant's field of vision. Quinn had kept Gil Vanlees's revelation to himself, as an added precaution. The last thing he needed was Kovac bulling his way into this.
“Take your time, GQ. I'll just be sitting here reading the paper.” He picked up a copy of the Star-Tribune from the pile of junk on the seat. Gil Vanlees took up half the front page—headline story, sidebar, and a bad photograph that made him look like Popeye's archnemesis, Bluto. Kovac's eyes were on the house, scanning the windows.
Noble met Quinn at the door, frowning, looking past him to the Caprice. In the car, Kovac had his newspaper open. He held it in such a way as to give Edwyn Noble the finger.
“Don't worry,” Quinn said. “You managed to get the best cop on the case busted to chauffeur.”
“We understand Vanlees has been taken into custody,” the attorney said as they went into the house, ignoring Kovac as an unworthy topic.
“He was arrested on a DUI. The police will hold him as long as they can, but at the moment they don't have any evidence he's the Cremator.”
“But he had . . . something of Jillian's,” Noble said with the awkwardness of a prude.
“Which he says Jillian gave to him.”
“That's preposterous.”
“He tells a very interesting story. One that includes you and a payoff, by the way.”
Fear flashed cold in the lawyer's eyes. Just for an instant. “That's absurd. He's a liar.”
“He hasn't exactly cornered the market there,” Quinn said. “I want to speak with Peter. I have some questions for him regarding Jillian's state of mind that night and in general.”
The lawyer cast a nervous glance at the stairs. “Peter isn't seeing anyone this morning. He isn't feeling well.”
“He'll see me.” Quinn started up the stairs on his own, as if he knew where he was going. Noble hurried after him.
“I don't think you understand, Agent Quinn. This business has taken a terrible toll on his nerves.”
“Are you trying to tell me he's what? Drunk? Sedated? Catatonic?”
Noble's long face had a mulish look when Quinn glanced over his shoulder. “Lucas Brandt is with him.”
“That's even better. I'll kill two birds.”
He stepped aside at the top of the stairs and motioned for Noble to lead the way.
THE ANTECHAMBER OF Peter Bondurant's bedroom suite was the showcase of a decorator who likely knew more about the house than about Peter. It was a room fit for an eighteenth-century English lord, all mahogany and brocade with dark oil hunting scenes in gilt frames on the walls. The gold damask wing chairs looked as if no one had ever sat in them.