“Uh… nothing.” But there was something.
Anyway, we entered the house of Aunt Ethel, where Elizabeth, Carol, and Aunt Ethel mobbed Janet, and, predictably, there was a lot of hugging and kissing, which is another of those Men are from Mars, Women from Venus things. And then they drew Janet into the kitchen, where they made her recount how it went, which I really didn’t want to overhear.
Spinelli, Bob, and I loitered in the living room, while I tried to put my finger on what bothered me. Also, I needed to find a way to chat with Janet regarding the firm of Culper, Hutch, and Westin, but without Bob listening in.
Incidentally, Bob had moved immediately to the window, and was standing full-square in the middle of the plate glass, hands on his hips, and his jaw thrust forward. This was for the benefit of the killer, I guess, like he’d see this badass profiling in the window and jump on the next flight to Brazil or something. I hoped Bob was wearing his bulletproof vest.
I said to Spinelli, “Hey, Danny, you see Aunt Ethel’s porcelain collection yet? As a porcelain aficionado yourself, I’m sure you’ll be impressed.”
“What?… I’m not interested in the old broad’s fuckin’-”
I jerked him toward me. “Check the unicorn with a dick on it.”
Well, my hint was subtle enough, but he did pick up on it, and he followed me until I got him out of Bob’s earshot, where I whispered, “Occupy the kid. I need to slip out back with Janet.”
He looked at me curiously. “Why?”
“Later.”
“Nah. You’ll explain now.”
I noticed Bob looking over his shoulder at us, and I said, “Don’t screw with me on this.”
He rubbed his chin. “You know somethin’. I smell it. And you ain’t sharin’.”
“Look, Spinelli… help me out here.”
“You owe me. You promised I get this guy. I wanta know everything.”
Well, what could I do? I promised, “I’ll tell you everything.” But my fingers were crossed.
He stared at me a moment, then sauntered over to Bob, saying, “So, kid, how long you been in?”
Content that he would keep Bob occupied with cop talk, I slipped into the kitchen. I told Elizabeth and Carol to keep chattering, and then drew Janet out the back door.
We ended up on a tiny back porch, where Janet said, “What’s this about?”
“It’s time for our discussion.” But I was being cautious, and I looked around for a moment and saw the cars parked on the street, and I suddenly realized what had been niggling at my brain. I said, “The killer… he stole a car, right?”
“It appears so.”
“How did he get to Boston in the first place?”
“Plane, train, boat, car, swam, hiked, parachuted in. Have I missed anything?” I shook my head and she said, “At this moment, they’re showing his composite at every terminal in the city.”
“So they should.”
Janet was sharp, though, and quickly concluded, “You’re suggesting he came in a rental car?”
“And he would’ve parked it nearby… for his getaway.”
She finished that thought, saying, “But after what happened at the river, he couldn’t come back here.”
So we began walking, through the backyard, then out to the street, where we started checking license plates. Rental cars tend to be fairly new, well-kept, clean, and shiny. Plus, if he’d driven up from D. C., the car should have out-of-state plates.
I moved to the other side of the street, and Janet stayed on the near side. We walked swiftly up the block, then took a right and did the cross street. We did the next block over, and the next. It was a residential neighborhood and early afternoon, and there weren’t that many cars. Also, Janet reminded me that because of Boston’s car theft rates, the smart citizens respond by buying inexpensive, crappy eyesores, which are cheaper to insure and less attractive to thieves. And in fact, most of the cars I saw were junkheaps.
We were moving quickly and we marked a few cars as possibilities, but they all had in-state plates. The third block over, I spotted a fairly new, forest green Ford Taurus with Pennsylvania plates. Virginia or D. C. plates seemed more logical, but this car was parked within twenty feet of a street corner, in fact, forward of the legal parking distance. If it was a getaway car, this was a smart stunt, because nobody else could park in front and hem it in. But this is America, where every privilege comes with a price-like a ticket on the windshield. I yanked the ticket off and noted it had been issued five hours before.
So, the right kind of car, in the right kind of place, and it had sat there the right amount of time. I waved at Janet and she jogged over. A swift inspection revealed a thin valise lying on the rear floor of an otherwise empty car.
The right and proper thing to do in this situation was call the Boston PD and have them dispatch a squad car. We’d have to wait for the cops, they’d have to call the DA’s office, legal cause would have to be established, a lawyer would have to go see a judge, the judge would have to be persuaded to issue a search warrant, and around and around we go.
In any regard, the. 22 in Janet’s pocket apparently had a mind of its own. It was really weird, the way it somehow leaped out of her pocket, and then flew through the air and slammed its own butt against the driver’s side window, which shattered inward. Well, what can you do?
Janet appeared shocked. “Damn it, Sean, I’m a city prosecutor and you just broke the law.” As she issued this warning she was eagerly unlocking the doors and scrambling into the backseat.
I clambered in behind her. She already had the valise open and carefully withdrew two manila folders, pinching them with her shirt sleeves to avoid fingerprints. She dropped the first folder on the seat and the contents spilled out.
“That’s me,” she said, pointing at a large black-and-white photo.
“Good picture, too,” I replied. And indeed it was, as were three more shots of her, taken from various angles, in different backgrounds and lighting, with her wearing a variety of outfits. Janet had obviously been under observation for a period of at least several days.
“Do you recall when you wore those clothes?”
She studied the photos and pointed at one. “Incredible. I wore that pantsuit before I went to D. C.” She paused. “The same day Lisa died.”
We jointly pondered that fact a moment.
Beneath the pictures were three or four printed sheets, and we spread them around using our elbows and shirt sleeves. The pages were neatly typed and paginated, with proper spelling, flawless punctuation, and so forth. The killer appeared to be one of those anal-retentive assholes who always did three more pages than the teacher asked for. I never trusted that type. Future serial killers-all of them.
Two pages were filled with carefully organized personal data about Janet: home address, phone number, automobile type and license number, family members, historical information, and so on. Nearly everything on these sheets could be obtained from public sources, though the sheer quantity of information indicated somebody who knew where to look and how much he could get.
But the next page did not appear to have been taken from public sources.
I pointed at a list of names and asked her, “Who are they?”
“Close friends.” She looked horrified. She pointed at a few entries on the bottom of the page. “My dry cleaner… my gym… my doctor… the deli where I usually get lunch.”
Janet swept her file sheets aside, then allowed the contents of the second folder to drop onto the seat.
The first item to spill out was a photograph of an extraordinarily good-looking man in a gray pinstriped Brooks Brothers suit, climbing into a green Jaguar sedan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Along moment passed where Janet and I avoided verbal and eye contact. It was somewhat of a jolt to discover my name on this ass-hole’s to-do list. It was unexpected, for one thing. Also, I’d seen this guy in action, and while I’d like to say I handled this news with my normal aplomb, in fact I felt a rumble of fear in my chest.