"What time is Tony picking you up?" Cheryl asked casually.
"He said about six. Are you sure you don't mind-"
"Staying alone?" Cheryl deliberately misunderstood. "My dear, I won't be alone. Alexander will keep me company. Just be sure you're home by midnight, dearie, and don't let him take any liberties."
"I'm not so sure about that," Karen said. "He strikes me as the type who would take very nice liberties."
"Then let him take all he wants."
Tony never got the chance. He called shortly after six to tell Karen he couldn't make it; he was working late. Rob's body had been found in a wooded area in Virginia. He had been dead for almost two days.
CHAPTER TEN
MARK pounded the table with his beer can. "I hereby call the meeting to order-"
"Don't," Cheryl said, wincing. "This isn't a meeting of your awful old Murder Club, Mark."
"Well, I'm damned if I am going to go into deep mourning over Rob Simpson's demise," Mark said. "If a murder victim ever asked for it, he did. And if he was the one who's been harassing Karen, he got what was coming to him."
"I must be hearing things," Tony said. "Don't tell me you agree with me for once."
"I didn't say he was the one. I said he might be. It's possible-"
"Forget it," Tony said curtly. "I'm in no mood for your far-out theories tonight."
He looked older and more formidable as he sat hunched over the table, his hands clasped around his can of beer. Patches of wet darkened the fabric of his shirt and his black hair had curled into damp knots. There were a few wisps of dried grass clinging to it, and Cheryl gently plucked out the longest of them.
"You look exhausted, Tony. Why don't you go home and get some rest?"
Tony sat up straighten "I'm not tired. Just hot. Those Virginia woods were like a steam bath. I thought you'd want to know what happened. But if I'm in the way-"
A chorus of protests assured him he was not, and the lines in his face smoothed out. "It wasn't all that bad. Relatively neat, as these things go. The body wasn't far from the road-"
"Buried deep?" Mark asked.
"Not buried at all, just covered with loose brush and branches. The killer probably believed he wouldn't be found for months. What he didn't know was that there's a new subdivision just over the hill, on a parallel road. Kids and dogs…"
Cheryl made a faint sound of protest. Karen knew she was thinking of little Joe and imagining the shock a child would feel, stumbling over such a horror.
"Julie," she exclaimed. "Has she been told?"
"She was the first to be notified," Tony answered. "In fact, she identified him. Not that there was any doubt; his wallet and ID hadn't been taken. But there are formalities to be observed, and he didn't have any relatives in town, so…"
Karen rose. "I'm going to call her."
Cheryl started to speak, but then subsided with a shrug. "I have to," Karen said, answering the implicit objection. "I'll use the phone in the other room; you just… just go on talking."
But her cowardly hope that she might not hear the gruesome details was in vain; when she returned, the others were sitting in silence, waiting for her. At the sight of her face, Mark's brows drew together. "What did she say to you?" he demanded.
"She wants me to come tomorrow," Karen said wearily. "Well, what could I say? She was… very upset."
"Can't blame her," Tony said. "Her boyfriend was not a pretty sight."
Mark's was the only face that did not mirror Tony's distaste. "So the motive wasn't robbery," he said coolly. "How was he killed?"
"Multiple stab wounds, back and front. Some shallow and glancing, some deeper; it was one in his throat that did the job, tore the carotid artery. But a couple of the others-"
He stopped with an apologetic glance at the women.
"They won't thank you for treating them like shrinking violets," Mark said.
"That's right," Cheryl agreed. "I've heard worse from the two of you when you were dwelling on the gruesome details of your favorite murders. It's different for Karen, though. She knew him."
"Yes, I knew him. I didn't like him very much, but he enjoyed living so enormously, and it's horrible to think of someone you've met and talked to… But I'd rather know the facts than imagine things."
"The facts aren't very pleasant," Tony said. "He had been stabbed repeatedly, with a razor-sharp knife- not a switchblade, something longer and heavier. There were cuts on his forearms. The doc thinks he was on the ground by then, trying to shield his face and throat." He raised the can to his lips and drank deeply before continuing. "And more cuts on his back. Presumably he rolled over onto his face in the final moments, and the killer just-kept on slashing him."
Karen thought that after all she could not have imagined anything much worse. The shadowy charade was so vivid she could almost see it-the dim forms moving and whispering in the darkness under the tangled trees; the sudden lunge, the strangled cry, the fall and the struggle-and a featureless blackness stooping over the prostrate man, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing again, in a blind frenzy of hate.
"There must have been a lot of blood," said Mark.
"There was," Tony said, "a lot of blood."
"Then the killer would be splashed with it."
"Yeah, well, that would be a useful clue if we had any suspects," Tony said dryly. "We can't examine every closet in the Washington area. The killer has had time to change and destroy his clothes by now."
"It reminds me of something," Mark muttered. "Some case we discussed a year or two ago. Damn. My brain's gone sour."
Tony was not as hardened as he appeared. His reaction to Mark's remark was exaggeratedly violent. "Goddamn it, Mark, don't give me your crap about poltergeists and homicidal maniacs! I'm in no mood for academic discussions."
"You were the one who mentioned poltergeists the last time," Mark said mildly. "I'm talking about a murder case, one of the classic unsolved crimes. Something you said reminded me of it, but I can't pin it down."
"Huh," said Tony, only half-appeased. "You can find parallels to everything, Mark. There's nothing new under the sun. Especially these days, when half the killers we haul in are high on something or other."
"Your favorite junkie again?" Mark asked.
"Well, hell, what other explanation is there? From what I've heard about this guy, he had some peculiar friends. They wouldn't have to be all that peculiar; a lot of the smart young Washington types play around with coke and the latest fads in designer drugs. Either he picked the wrong friend to assist him in his burglary, or he ran into someone later that night who wasn't dealing from a whole pack."
"What does this do to your theory that Rob was the one hassling Karen?"
"It doesn't affect it in the slightest. I know-some crazy driver came close to nailing you last night, and it sure as hell wasn't Rob. It's my belief that that had nothing to do with the other incidents."
He eyed Mark warily, as if anticipating an objection, but Mark only shrugged. "It wasn't the same sort of attack."
"Again we agree. Or is this the first time? You can't eliminate the possibility of a drunk driver, there are plenty of them around. Also"-he looked at Karen-"your soon-to-be ex is driving a rental car, a tan Olds 88. There's no use testing it for bloodstains or dents, since the car didn't actually hit you. Also…"
He hesitated. "Oho and aha," said Mark. "Don't tell me you've located pretty boy Horton?"
"He's not in Cleveland," Tony admitted reluctantly. "That lead didn't pan out. He could be anywhere, including Washington. However, I can't think of any reason, sensible or otherwise, why he would want to harm Karen. It's been a week since she saw him; he must know she'd have reported it by now."
"Hmph," said Mark helpfully.
"Believe me, there is absolutely no reason for the girls-excuse me, the ladies-er-"
"Try 'women,'" said Cheryl.
Tony scowled at her. "The female persons to be alarmed. Whether Rob was the joker or not, his murder has absolutely nothing to do with the other business. That was harassment pure and simple. The frequency of the incidents proves it-night after night, a constant battering at the nerves of the victim. I think you've seen the end of that. A certain person got the bejesus scared out of her tonight-"