Before Mira’s assistant could repeat the fact that the doctor had only a scant ten minutes free, Mira was stepping out, gesturing Eve inside.
“I’m glad you found the time to come in. I’ve read all the available data.”
“I have more,” Eve told her.
“I need something cold. Cool enough in here,” Mira said as she went to the minifridge. “But just knowing what it’s like outside makes me feel hot. Mind over matter.”
She took out a container of juice, poured two glasses. “I know you live on caffeine, in one form or another, but this is better for you.”
“Thanks. The two vics are distinct types. Very distinct.”
“Yes.” Mira sat.
“The first, a recovering junkie LC, busted down to street level. A lifer, with no friends, family, or support group, though it appears her own choice. He wasn’t concerned about who she was, but what she was. A street whore, working the dingier section of Chinatown. But the second was a who and what.”
“Tell me about the second.”
“A single woman, living alone in a nice neighborhood. A woman who’d raised her family and kept close ties with them. Active in her community, friendly, well-liked by everyone. More well-liked than I think he understood, because he doesn’t get that.”
“He has no strong feelings for anyone, but himself, so he doesn’t relate to those who do. Doesn’t understand the circle.” Mira nodded. “It was her situation-living alone, age, neighborhood, and the fact that she would be found quickly. That’s what drew him to her.”
“But it was a mistake, because she had impact on everyone she was associated with. People liked her, loved her, and they’re not just willing to cooperate with the police, they’re eager to. She isn’t going to be forgotten like Wooton, not ever. Everyone I’ve spoken to had something specific to say about her, something personal and positive. It’s like what I imagine people would say about you when you…” She caught herself, coughed, but it was too late. “Jesus, that sounded creepy. I meant-”
“It didn’t.” Mira cocked her head and quite simply beamed. “What a nice thing to hear. Why do you say it?”
She wished to hell and back she hadn’t, but she was stuck now. “It’s just”-she downed the juice like medicine, in one huge gulp-”I-ah-interviewed Gregg’s daughter-in-law earlier, and it reminded me, that’s all, of the way your daughter talked about you. There was this real bright… connection. A total bond. And I got that same sort of thing from the guy at her market, the people she worked with, everybody. She left her mark. So do you. It’s that he wasn’t considering, the way people would rally for her. Stand for her.”
“You’re right. He’d have expected the event itself to be the big story. Meaning he’d be the story. She, beyond her convenience for him, was incidental. Though the first victim made her living through sex, and the second was sexually brutalized, the killings aren’t a sexual act but a rage against sex. Against women. And this act makes him powerful, and makes them nothing.”
“He stalked Gregg,” Eve said and led Mira through it.
“He’s very careful. Meticulous in his way despite the fact that both killings were messy. His preparation is precise, as his imitations are. Each time he succeeds, he proves not only that he’s more powerful, more important than the women he kills, but more than the men he emulates. He doesn’t have to stick with a pattern-or so he tells himself because, of course, there is a pattern. He believes himself capable of any sort of murder, and the getting away with it. The outwitting you-the female he’s chosen, deliberately chosen, to play against. He beats you, a woman, and proves you’re less than him every time he leaves you a note.”
“The notes, they’re not his voice. It doesn’t fit with everything else you’re saying. They’re broad and jokey. He’s not.”
“Another disguise,” Mira agreed. “Another persona.”
“He’s making himself sound different in them, the way he made himself sound different to the people he spoke with when stalking Gregg. Mr. Versatility again.”
“It’s important to him that he not be pegged, labeled, pigeonholed. It’s very likely that he was, just that, during his upbringing, and by the female authority figure. He may maintain the illusion of the image she forced on him, but it’s not how he sees himself. It is the mother he kills, Eve. The mother as whore with Wooton, and now the mother as nurturer with Lois Gregg. Whoever he mimics next, the victim will be, in his mind, another form of mother.”
“I’ve run probabilities, but even if I narrow down who he’ll copy, I don’t know how that leads me to the next victim before he gets to her.”
“He’ll need some time to prepare, to assume the new face, the new method.”
“Not much,” Eve replied. “He won’t need much, because he’s already worked it all out. He didn’t start this last week.”
“Quite true. It began years ago. Some of his need would have manifested in childhood. The typical route of tormenting or killing small animals, secret bullying, sexual dysfunction. If his family or caregivers knew and were concerned, there may have been some therapy or counseling.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“If they did, or didn’t, we know his needs and his acts escalated. From the profile and your witness statements this man is in his mid to late thirties. He didn’t begin to kill at this age, didn’t begin with Jacie Wooton. There’ll be others. You’ll find them,” Mira said, “and they’ll create a path to him.”
“Yes, I’ll find them. Thanks.” Eve rose. “I know you were squeezed, and I’ve got a witness heading in.” She started to speak again, then changed gears. “And thanks for the invitation for Sunday. Sorry I had to duck out the way I did.”
“It was lovely to have you both there while you were.” Mira got to her feet as well. “I hope you’ll tell me what’s on your mind. There was a time you wouldn’t have-or wouldn’t have let me see there was something troubling you. I thought we were past that now.”
“My ten minutes are up.”
“Eve.” With that quiet word, Mira laid a hand on hers.
“I had a dream.” The words came out fast, as if they’d been waiting to be disgorged. “Sort of a dream. About my mother.”
“Sit.” Mira stepped to her desk, buzzed her assistant. “I’ll need another few minutes here,” she said and clicked off before her assistant could respond.
“I don’t want to hold you up. It wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t a nightmare. Exactly.”
“You’ve had no real memory of your mother up until this.”
“No. You know. Just one time before, I remembered hearing her voice, yelling at him, bitching about me. But I saw her this time. I saw her face. I have her eyes. Fuck it.”
She sat now, just dropping down and pressing the heels of her hands against those eyes. “Why is that? Goddamn it.”
“The luck of the gene pool, Eve. You’re too smart to think the color of your eyes means anything.”
“Screw the science, I hate it. That’s all. I saw the way she looked at me with them. She hated me, gut-deep hate. I don’t get it, I just don’t get it. I was… I’m not good at judging ages of little kids. Three, four maybe. But she hated me the way you hate a lifelong enemy.”
Mira wanted to go over, to enfold. To mother. But knew it wasn’t the way. “And that hurt you.”
“I wondered, I guess.” She drew in air, let it out explosively. “I guess I wondered if-even though I knew from what I remembered-I wondered if maybe, somehow, he snatched me from her at some point. Beat the crap out of her maybe, and took off with me. I wondered if, even though she was on the junk, she had some feeling for me. I mean, you cart somebody around inside you for nine months, you ought to feel something.”
“Yes, you ought.” Mira spoke gently. “Some people aren’t capable of love. You know that, too.”
“Better than most. I had this fantasy. Didn’t even know I had it until it shattered on me. That she was looking for me, worried about me. Trying to find me all this time because… under everything she loved me. But she didn’t. There wasn’t anything but hate in her eyes when she looked at me. Looked at the child.”