"I don't know. She wanted to see me again. One last fling, I guess."
"Did you agree to see her?"
"No. I told her we were finished."
"What else did you say?"
"Nothing."
"What else did she say?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure? Do you remember anything at all?"
"No. Nothing."
"Did she seem distressed?"
"Not that I could tell."
The door opened. Players began to file in, many offering Duane icy congratulations. Rising stars were not big in the locker room. If someone new was joining the ultra-exclusive tennis club known as the "Top Ten," another member had to be thrown out. The way it was. No boardroom was this cutthroat. Everyone was a rival here. Everyone was competing for the same dollars and fame. Everyone was an enemy.
Duane suddenly looked very much alone.
"You hungry?" Myron asked.
"Starved," Duane said.
"You want anything in particular?"
"Pizza," Duane said. "Extra cheese and pepperoni."
"Get dressed. I'll meet you out front."
Chapter 16
"Myron Bolitar?"
The car phone. He'd just dropped Duane off at his apartment.
"Yes."
"This is Gerard Courter with the NYPD. Jake's son."
"Oh, right. How's it going, Gerard?"
"Can't complain. I doubt you remember but we played against each other once."
" Michigan State," Myron said. "I remember. And I have the bruises to prove it."
Gerard laughed. Sounded just like his old man. "Glad I was memorable."
"That's a polite word for what you were."
Another Jake-like guffaw. "My dad said you needed info on the Simpson homicide."
"I'd appreciate it."
"You probably heard there's a major suspect. Guy named Roger Quincy."
"The stalker."
"Yeah."
"Is there anything specific tying him to the murder?" Myron asked. "Besides the stalking?"
"He's on the run, for one thing. When they got to Quincy 's apartment he was packed and gone. No one knows where he is."
"He might have just been scared," Myron said.
"Good reason to be."
"Why do you say that?"
"Roger Quincy was at the tennis center on the day of the murder."
"You have witnesses?"
"Several."
That slowed Myron down. "What else?"
"She was shot with a thirty-eight. Very close range. We found the weapon in a garbage can ten yards away from the shooting. Smith amp; Wesson. It was in a Feron's bag. The bag had a bullet hole in it."
Feron's. Another tournament sponsor. They were licensed to sell "official tournament merchandise." Feron's had at least half a dozen stands selling to a zillion people. No way to trace it back. "So the killer walked up to her," Myron said, "shot her through the bag, kept walking, dumped the gun in the garbage, and headed out."
"That's how we see it," Gerard said.
"A cool customer."
"Very."
"Any prints on the gun?" Myron asked.
"Nope."
"Any witnesses to the shooting?"
"Several hundred. Unfortunately all anyone remembers is the sound of the gun, and Valerie toppling over."
Myron shook his head. "The killer took a hell of a chance. Shooting her in public like that."
"Yeah. A major case of brass balls."
"You got anything else?"
"Just a question," Gerard said.
"Shoot"
"Where are our seats for next Saturday?"
Chapter 17
Esperanza had neatly stacked two piles of six-year-old press clippings on Myron's desk. The pile on the right – the taller pile – was made up of articles on the murder of Alexander Cross. The smaller stack was on the hospitalization of Valerie Simpson.
Myron ignored the third stack – the one with his messages – and started sifting through the pile on Valerie. The story was already familiar to him. Valerie's family had claimed she was "taking time off," but a well-placed source leaked the truth to the press: the teen tennis star was actually a patient at the famed Dilworth Mental Health Facility. The family denied it for a few days – until a photograph of Valerie taking a walk on the Dilworth grounds appeared in the papers. A belated statement from the family claimed that Valerie was "resting from exhaustion caused by external pressures," whatever that meant.
The media coverage was only mildly intense. Valerie was already a has-been in the tennis world, ergo the press was interested but not ravenous. Still, rumors surfaced, especially in some of the fringe periodicals. One said that Valerie's breakdown had been the result of a sexual assault. Another said she'd been attacked by a stalker. Still another claimed Valerie had murdered someone in cold blood, though the article didn't bother the reader with mundane details – like the victim's name, how he or she was killed, why the police hadn't arrested Valerie, the little things.
But the most interesting rumor, the one that really snared Myron's attention, appeared in two separate papers. According to several "unnamed sources," Valerie Simpson had gone into hiding to cover up a pregnancy.
Might be something, might be nothing. Pregnancy rumors always surface when a young woman goes into hiding. Still…
He moved on to articles on Alexander Cross's murder. Esperanza had limited her search to Philadelphia area periodicals, but the material was still immense. The stories basically followed the police version. Alexander Cross had been at a party at his snooty tennis club. He stumbled across two burglars, Errol Swade and Curtis Yeller. He took chase, confronted them on the main grass court, and was stabbed by Errol Swade. The blade punctured Alexander's heart. Death was instantaneous.
Senator Cross and his family had not commented on the case. According to the senator's spokesman, the family was "in seclusion" and was "relying on law enforcement agencies and the justice system," whatever that meant.
The press focused on the manhunt for Errol Swade. The police were confident to the point of cocky that Swade would be captured within a matter of hours. But hours turned to days. Editorials harshly criticized the police for not being able to nab one nineteen-year-old drug addict, but the Cross family remained silent. The story provoked the standard public outrage – why, editorials demanded to know, had a lowlife like Errol Swade been let out on parole in the first place?
But the anger fizzled, as it always does in such cases. Other stories began to take precedence. The coverage trickled from front page to back page to oblivion.
Myron checked through the pile again. The police shooting of Curtis Yeller had been neatly glossed over. There was no mention of an internal affairs investigation into the incident None of the usual reactionaries protested the police "brutality," which was strange. Usually some whacko managed to get himself on television, no matter what the facts, especially in the case of a black teen being gunned down by a white cop. But not this time. Or at least it wasn't covered by the press.
Wait. Hold the phone.
An article on Curtis Yeller. Myron had missed it the first time because it'd been printed the day immediately following the murder. Very early for this kind of piece. Probably sneaked in before Senator Cross put his foot down – but that might just be conspiracy paranoia on Myron's part. Hard to tell.
It was a small article on the bottom corner of page 12 in the metro section. Myron read it twice. Then a third time. The article was not on the shooting in west Philly or even the police's role in said shooting. The article was on Curtis Yeller himself.
It started out like any puff piece: Curtis Yeller was described as an "honor roll student." Not a big deal really. A psychotic child molester with the IQ of a citrus beverage was suddenly dubbed an honor student when killed prematurely. Very Bonfire of the Vanities. But this story went a bit further. Mrs. Lucinda Elright, Curtis Yeller's history teacher, described Curtis as her "best pupil" and a boy who "had never even gotten a detention." Mr. Bernard Johnson, his English teacher, said Curtis was "unusually bright and inquisitive," "one in a million," and "like a son to me."