The lieutenant had. She tracked down killers for a living. She was obviously tough. She was obviously bright. She was obviously a marshmallow when it came to stray cats. She was also someone who did not like to reveal anything personal about herself. Clearly, she’d been bothered when Mitch had noticed the charcoal under her fingernail. Beyond that, Mitch could not read her. Which would not have been of any great concern to him were it not for two undeniable facts.
Fact number one was that she suddenly seemed to be running his life.
Fact number two was that she was good-looking. She was very good-looking. Her skin was smooth and glowing. Her smile, when she flashed it, did warm, strange things to the lower half of his body. And her figure was positively breathtaking. She was a big woman, at least six feet tall, but lithe and loose-limbed and light on her feet. She also happened to possess one of the top half-dozen cabooses he had ever laid eyes on, right up there with Cyd Charisse, Sheree North and Emily Rosenzweig, the girl who had sat in front of him in tenth-grade Biology at Stuyvesant High. Not that the lieutenant was showing it off. Her clothes were downright mannish. She wore no jewelry either. There was no wedding ring.
She was gazing intently at his right bicep now. It was a warm day and Mitch was wearing the complimentary red T-shirt that had been included in the press kit for Amityville: The Evil Escapes. “What does that mean?” she asked, referring to his Rocky Dies Yellow tattoo.
“It’s the headline from Angels with Dirty Faces.” On her blank look he added, “I guess you’re not into old movies. It’s one of the best films Cagney ever made for Warner Brothers. A true classic. It’s got Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Pat O’Brien, the Dead End Kids. Direction by Michael Curtiz… What does yours say?”
“My what?”
“Your tattoo.”
“What makes you think I have one?” she demanded.
Mitch shrugged his shoulders.
“It says The Answer,” she responded grudgingly.
“Are you?”
“On my good days.”
“And where do you have it?”
“Somewhere you’ll never, ever see it,” she said, sneezing.
Mitch shook his head at her. “I told you you’d catch a cold.”
“I don’t get colds,” she objected, dabbing at her nose with a tissue. “It’s mold spores. I’m allergic to them.”
“Then we’d better get out of here-this house is mold city.” Mitch flicked off his amp stack and started for the door. “Let’s get you some fresh air.”
“Mr. Berger, I do happen to be here on official business.”
“Uh-huh. Like Baby Spice is official business. C’mon, let’s walk.”
She wavered there uncertainly, her feet set wide apart. Clearly, she was ill at ease on Big Sister.
“Look, I’ll make this easy for you,” he said. “I am taking a walk. If you want to ask me any questions, then I suggest you walk with me. Do you need to use the bathroom before we go?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Berger,” she said curtly.
“I wish you’d call me Mitch. How about Kleenex? Can I get you some more Kleenex?”
“Let’s walk,” she snapped irritably.
They walked, taking one of the narrow paths lined with beach roses down to the beach. It was a bright, beautiful day. The salt air was clean and fresh. Gulls and cormorants soared overhead. But the tide was in and there was almost no dry sand to walk on. Mitch paused to pull off his chunky Mephistos and his sweat socks. Reluctantly, she did the same with her polished black brogans and gray cashmere dress socks. She had, without question, the longest, narrowest feet Mitch had ever seen.
“My God, what size shoe do you wear?”
“Twelve and a half double-A,” she replied, frowning. “Why are you asking?”
“Has anyone ever told you that your feet bear a striking resemblance to a pair of skis?”
“Um, okay, anyone ever tell you that yours look just like piglets?” she shot back. “Fat and pink and hairless?”
“Hold on,” Mitch cautioned. “I think there was a racial subtext to that remark.”
“There was not,” she insisted, nostrils flaring.
“Was.”
“Man, do you ever stop flapping your gums?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. When I’m working I have to be silent for hours and hours at a time.”
She glanced at him, nodding. “Okay, sure. And then as soon as the lights come up the gas just billows right on out of you. Consider me schooled. Next time I question you, Mr. Berger, it’s going to be in the dark.”
“That’s fine by me, just as long as you bring the popcorn. Extra butter, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind one bit,” she said, flashing her smile at him. “I’m not the one who has to look at you with your shirt off.”
They walked, her dreadlocks swinging, her stride uncommonly long. His own was plodding and rather heavy. He had to work to keep up with her.
“You ever date a woman named Torry Mordarski?” she asked him.
“I don’t think so-the name doesn’t ring a bell. How long ago are we talking about?”
“In the past few months.”
“Oh, then it’s definitely no. Why, who is she?”
“Was is the operative verb tense. She was a single mother in Meriden. We found her murdered in the woods up there six weeks ago.”
“And…?”
“And the thirty-eight slug that killed her matches up exactly with the slugs we took out of Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems.”
He glanced at her in surprise. “That wasn’t on the news this morning.”
“We don’t tell them everything. Same way you didn’t tell me everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you didn’t mention Mrs. Seymour’s episodes in the night,” the lieutenant said with flinty disapproval.
“I felt it was the family’s job to tell you. Besides, I promised Bud I’d keep it to myself.”
“And you’re a man who can keep a secret.”
“I guess. Never gave it much thought-I don’t get asked very often.”
They plowed their way past the lighthouse in the direction of Big Sister’s private dock. Jamie and Evan were working on their sailboat. Bud was working on his boat as well. Mitch supposed that this was what you did when you had a boat-you worked on it. Especially when you couldn’t leave the island without being assaulted by the media. Mitch waved to them. All three of them waved back, watching him with frank curiosity as he strode past with the lieutenant.
Overhead, a news chopper hovered, filming the island for the evening news. Mitch was beginning to get an idea what it must be like to be a Kennedy.
“So the same person who killed Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems also killed this Torry Mordarski woman?”
“Same weapon. Not necessarily the same person.”
“But probably, right?”
“Most likely.”
“Have you found the weapon?”
“Not yet. We did find one freshly dug hole in the woods near Mrs. Seymour’s house, but all we unearthed was-”
“A dead fox.”
She nodded, peering at him.
“I buried it for Dolly the other day.” Mitch furrowed his brow, confused. “Well, I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“How Torry Mordarski and the two dead men connect up.”
The lieutenant explained it to him. She told him that Torry had been seeing an older man named Stan, an elusive figure who had covered his tracks carefully and was the prime suspect in Torry’s murder. She told him that the description of Stan fit Niles Seymour to a tee-although a coworker who had once caught a glimpse of Stan failed to recognize Seymour from his photo. She told him that Torry Mordarski matched the description of the young woman Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck had seen with Niles Seymour at the Saybrook Point Inn the day before he disappeared. All except for the hair color-Torry had been a blonde, not a redhead. The inn had no record of Niles Seymour or Torry Mordarski having been registered there the night of April 17. But they did have a record of one Angela Becker of Lansing, Michigan, having registered there. She had paid cash for the room, so there was no credit card trail to follow. However, since it was standard hotel policy to photocopy the driver’s license of any guest who chose to pay with cash, the inn did have that on file. And Angela Becker’s driver’s license was a fake. In fact, Angela Becker was a fake. There was no such person living at any such address in Lansing, Michigan. Angela Becker’s age, height, weight and hair color-red-matched the woman who Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck had seen with Seymour. And the photocopy of her driver’s license picture bore a fuzzy resemblance to Torry.