“Also no client booked for the Saturday night. Of course, the usual blather about ‘client confidentiality.’ You’d think these women were all high-powered attorneys. Like what’s-his-name-Cochran? O. J. Simpson’s lawyer. He was guilty.” Jenkins rocked back in his chair.
“What?”
“O.J. He was guilty.”
“Probably, but unless he was Kate’s date, I don’t much care. The trouble is, I’ve got nothing when it comes to motive.”
Jenkins had come down in his chair and was leafing through the folder, stopping at a page. “You don’t think this might have been more than one killer?” Head still bent, he looked up at Jury from under his eyebrows. “No?”
“No. All three were working in the same job, and the killer used the same MO. They were all shot at close range.”
“Different guns, though, thirty-eight revolver, twenty-two automatic.”
“True. But it’s the range that suggests the victims were standing very close to their killer.”
Jenkins nodded. “As if the shooter’s body were pressed against Deirdre Small’s. If it wasn’t the boyfriend, or, rather, the client, then who?” Head down, arms folded tight across his chest, he considered. “Double Indemnity. Fred MacMurray shoots Barbara Stanwyck in the middle of a kiss. Great scene. But here…” He was tapping the folder Jury had just given him. “It wouldn’t have been that close.” He held up a morgue shot of Stacy Storm. “No, with the first victim there’d have been daylight between them.”
Jury liked that. “Not an embrace, then? Not close enough to kiss? But close enough to suggest the victim knew the killer. I mean, that these women would let the killer get that close.” He rose, said, “I’m going to have a word with our pathologist. Thanks.”
“What do you think? About the proximity of the two?”
The pathologist in this case was Phyllis Nancy; she looked up from the body of Deirdre Small and drew a sheet over her. She seemed puzzled.
“I could demonstrate what Jenkins is talking about if it would help.”
Phyllis gave him a look. Grow up.
Ashamed of his glibness in the presence of this girl, Deirdre, who would never stand close to anybody again, Jury said, “Sorry. I don’t seem to be on the right track lately.”
“I don’t see how you could be, what with worrying over Lu Aguilar. As to this…” She was looking at the police report. “‘You could have seen daylight between them’-what a lovely way of putting it. I think I see what he means, though: one bent over the other. Say the man’s already there, sitting at the table, when the woman comes along from the car park. ‘Hello. Hello, sweetie-’”
Jury smiled.
“I don’t mean you. I can see this Mariah Cox or Stacy Storm coming along to the Black Cat, walking over to him, saying hello, bending over to kiss or embrace him. The gun comes up and at an angle and fires into her chest. It’s a hypothesis, of course. But if it happened that way, yes, there would have been daylight between them. I see this Detective Jenkins’s point. Except it was nighttime. The shooters of these three women, then, were also their lovers.”
“Not necessarily. If the wounds suggest that kind of proximity, there are other people who might do the same thing: friends, relations. The wife of the Chesham detective claims that a heel mark was left by a Manolo Blahnik shoe.”
Phyllis was surprised and skeptical. “She thinks a woman did these killings? Well, of course a woman could shoot as well as a man, but somehow the psychology just doesn’t seem to fit.”
“I agree. And the heel print isn’t much evidence. But the embrace, if there was one, could’ve come from a woman. I’ve had friends clap me round the shoulders and hug me.” Had he really? He was trying to think up somebody-that is, besides Phyllis and Lu-and that thought pinched his eyes shut in a brief spasm.
“Richard? Something wrong?”
Phyllis was regarding him out of concerned and blameless eyes. That was one thing he liked, no, loved, about her. She didn’t judge people. He smiled a little and shook his head. “Thanks. I’ve got to get going.”
“All right. ’Bye.”
At the door he turned. “Good-bye, sweetie.”
41
All the while between the morgue and his office, Jury was trying to think of someone. Carole-anne? No. Mrs. Wassermann? Never. One or two children he knew. Gemma? Abby?
On his way into the office he grunted a hello to Wiggins, who was plugging in the electric kettle. Jury sat down without removing his coat. He picked up a paper clip and started bending it. He was feeling rather ill-used in his hugless universe.
Wiggins was looking at him, eyebrows dancing.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Jury punched in Melrose Plant’s number.
Ruthven answered in his most stentorian tones, then greeted Jury as if he’d been lost in a small craft off the coast of Scotland. The call was then overtaken by Melrose.
“You doing anything?” Jury asked.
“Playing with my dog.”
Jury crimped his mouth shut.
Melrose went on. “We were about to jettison the naming contest when Dick Scroggs, of all people, chimed in to complain about Lambert Strether: ‘Ain’t we got enough aggro round ’ere wiffout that Strether nosin’ about?’ Well, that was it, right there was the name!”
“Strether?”
Melrose blew his impatient curses into the air like smoke. “Of course not! ‘Aggro.’ It’s perfect. Listen: ‘Aggrieved.’ ‘Aghast.’ ‘Aggro.’”
Aggro. “That’s the stupidest name I ever heard for a dog. Besides, his name’s Joey.”
“That’s what the tramp called him, I guess.”
“It’s on the dog’s collar.” Jury bent another paper clip.
“So what? The tramp went off and left him and hasn’t been back.”
“We don’t call them tramps anymore.”
“Beggar? Ticket-of-leave man? Supplicant?”
“Homeless, as you well know.” Jury heard barking in the background. “Why isn’t Joey outside running around and herding your goat? All that open space to run around in, that’s the only reason I-”
“You what?”
“That I can see for having another dog. Where’s Mindy, anyway? I haven’t seen your dog in ages.”
“Hanging out at the Man with a Load of Mischief.”
“Well, you should take better care of her. She’s old. We’re all old. Look, I’m going to Chesham within the hour. Can you leave off playing and drive down to meet me? There’s something I’d like you to do.”
Melrose was suspicious. “What?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
Silence. “Well…”
Jury was fast losing patience. “Don’t give me ‘well.’ It’s hardly more than an hour’s drive. You can meet me at the Black Cat.”
“All right, then. ’Bye.”
Aggro. Jury smashed down the receiver.
Wiggins jumped.
“Sorry. The man ticks me off sometimes.” Jury wasn’t sure why, exactly. He folded his arms across his chest, hands warming in arm-pits. “What’ve you got?”
“About the case, guv?”
“Of course about the bloody case. Why else would I be here?”
Wiggins pursed his lips.
Jury regarded him narrowly. “The Smart Set escort service. You went there presumably with one of City police.”
“Right.” Wiggins pulled out his notebook and the plug of the electric kettle, which was roaring like a bullet train barreling into Kyoto. “A Mrs. Rooney. That’s the manager’s name. Alva Rooney. She was rightly appalled by Deirdre’s murder. As to Deirdre’s date the night before: she didn’t want to give me a name, client confidentiality, blah blah blah, sick of hearing that, I am. So I saved myself the trouble of nicking her and asked if she knew Nicholas Maze. Yes. That was the man Deirdre was to see. She recognized the name right away. And seemed genuinely shocked that he’d have shot Deirdre.”