“Christina, Emily Gozonka is a world-class exaggerator.”
“Granted. But this time I believe her.”
“Well, I can’t believe that systematic sexual harassment of that magnitude goes on in this day and age.”
“You’re living in a dream world, Ben.”
“Then how do you explain yourself? You’re a woman who’s succeeded in a man’s world.”
“Because I’m a legal assistant, Ben—a subservient, clearly nonthreatening role. I could be at Apollo twenty years, but I’d still have to take orders from the greenest male attorney in the department. It’s different for women trying to make it as attorneys. When they start invading the old boys’ club, the old boys get nervous.”
“Christina, I’m not going to judge an entire corporation based on one isolated rumor.”
“Why not? That’s your biggest problem. Don’t you know that?”
“I didn’t even know I had a biggest problem. What the hell are you talking about?”
“You won’t trust your feelings. That was your problem in the courtroom today—you were planning to battle the expert on his own turf, challenging his empirical data. As a result, you missed what should’ve been apparent—that he was several irons short of a golf bag. Same here: all you see are the career advantages, the high-profile cases, the chance to be a corporate do-gooder.”
“And what am I missing?”
“You’re missing my gut feeling which says, in boldface letters: don’t do this! I can’t explain why. I just know it’s a mistake.”
“But what if you’re wrong?”
“What if I am? Your life is perfectly fine as it is. Why risk screwing it up? The key to success is to find something you enjoy doing and to do it. You already have that.”
Ben finished his cheeseburger and washed it down with the last of his chocolate milk. “I don’t know, Christina.”
She laid her head heavily on the table. “You’ve already decided, haven’t you?”
Ben didn’t reply.
The waitress came by and left the check. Christina scooped it up. “You’re thinking about your mother, aren’t you? How excited she’ll be that you finally have a respectable job.”
Ben looked away. “The thought did cross my mind.”
“Jeez. How old do we have to be before we stop ordering our lives to please our parents?” She examined the tab. “What about Jones? And Loving?”
“Loving’s private investigations are practically more than he can handle. We’ll let Jones secretary for him for awhile, just to hold down the office. If this new job becomes permanent for us, we’ll see about bringing Jones over.”
“I can’t believe I’m going along with this. Kincaid, sometimes you are almost more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Thank goodness for the almost.”
“Yeah.” She tossed him the check. “Here, pal, you can pay. After all, you’re about to be rich.”
4
SERGEANT TOMLINSON ENTERED THE briefing room and took his assigned seat on the end of the first row. All the other officers were already there, but Morelli wasn’t, thank God. The last thing he needed was for Morelli to have another excuse to chew him out in public.
Tomlinson didn’t understand why, but ever since he requested a transfer to the Homicide Division, Lieutenant Morelli had been riding him, humiliating him in public, and taking every opportunity to make him look like an idiot. Maybe he wasn’t the brightest guy on the Tulsa police force. Maybe he hadn’t gone to college like Morelli and couldn’t quote Shakespeare at the drop of a pin. But he worked hard—harder than any of the other candidates. He did his homework and he never turned down an assignment. And once he took an assignment, he didn’t give up. So why was Morelli always ragging on him?
Tomlinson supposed it was because he was married. Very married. And he and Karen had a six-year-old daughter, Kathleen, to boot. For some reason, that really seemed to jerk Morelli’s chain. Once, in a booming voice in front of all the other officers, Morelli asked if Tomlinson had been playing paper dolls during the briefing. On another occasion he suggested that Tomlinson join a stakeout—if he could get his wife’s permission to stay up late. Tomlinson had heard that Morelli himself was married a while back, but that it dissolved into a bitter divorce. Now he was apparently down on any police officers with families.
Tomlinson thumbed through the briefing book that had been left on his chair. As he suspected, this meeting was about the mutilation-murders of the teenage girls. After three dismembered corpses, there seemed little doubt—they had a serial killer on their hands.
Tomlinson pored over the materials, all of which he had seen before. He wanted badly to be assigned to this case, so he’d made a point of reviewing everything that came through the office on it. If he could track down this serial killer, he’d be transferred to Homicide for sure. Chief Blackwell would sign the transfer, even if Morelli wouldn’t. And who knows? Maybe Morelli would back off. At least for a day or two.
As if on cue, Lieutenant Morelli came stomping into the room in that ridiculous tan overcoat he always wore. What a pretense. It wasn’t even cold outside. Morelli gripped the podium and began talking, without any introduction or greeting.
“As you’ve probably figured out,” Morelli growled, “you’ve been selected to be part of a special task force to investigate—and solve—this recent chain of murders.”
Tomlinson grinned. A special task force. That sounded cool, very elite. The boys down at the bowling alley would be impressed.
“Don’t get excited,” Morelli said. He seemed to be looking directly at Tomlinson. “This is no great honor. You were chosen because…frankly, you’re all that’s available. We’ve got every able-bodied person on the force working this case, and that’s going to continue until it’s solved. Everyone’s in on this one—Homicide, Sex Crimes, the Special Investigations Unit—and just about anyone else we could round up. This could be the most grotesque crime spree Tulsa has seen since the race riot of the 1920s. I don’t have to tell you how we’ve been crucified in the press since the killings began. This bastard has killed three teenage girls—and I want him caught. Because if we don’t, he’ll kill again.
“There’s something else,” Morelli added, “and this will really curdle your blood. If we don’t solve these crimes soon, the FBI will be butting in. So far we’ve been lucky; all three murders have occurred within Tulsa County. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ve got a serial killer, so it’s just a matter of time before those federal bozos descend with their profiles and high-tech geegaws. I don’t care for that a damn bit. I want this case solved before it happens.
“Now open your books and follow along.”
Tomlinson opened his briefing notebook to the front page.
“You’ll find all the police reports, the medical examiner reports, and the forensic lab reports. Everything we’ve got is right in here.”
Morelli’s subordinates flipped to the next page, a photo taken at one of the crime scenes.
“As you probably remember, the first body was found on the morning of May second, the next was found on the fourth, and the third was found last night. In each case, the victims were teenage girls, found nude, with no identification”—he took a deep breath and stared down at his notes—“and with their heads and hands cut off.”