Mrs. Yap tapped on the foyer window again like a bird. She reminded him of a bird every time he saw her. She wore bright-colored clothing, had a beaklike nose, and seemed way too peppy to be human.
The room began to vibrate and he felt himself break into a sweat-the Love Drug rolling through him freely now. He bit through the Tootsie Pop, crushing the hard candy until he reached the soft, chocolaty center. He was in the flow. He was wading through it. And he hoped Mrs. Yap would get the message that he wasn’t home and just leave. He parted the curtain slightly and took another look outside. Then he did a double take and blinked.
There was giant canary on the porch pecking at the window, then marching over to the Mercedes on stick-thin legs. He blinked his eyes again, trying to see through the hallucination, but the canary got behind the wheel and drove away.
Was it the Love Drug or could it be his unique way of seeing the world? His vision. His genius. And what the fuck did it matter anyway?
Eddie Trisco laughed, rushing back downstairs and hoping Rosemary was finally ready to come out of the bathroom and join the party. They’d start with water and more Tootsie Pops. They’d listen to music and dance. Then maybe take a shower and spend the rest of the afternoon in bed getting to know each other while they sucked on teething rings and sniffed Vicks VapoRub. The people in the corner house could watch and listen all they wanted now. Eddie didn’t even care it they were reading his mind. He could feel his wings again. He could feel the joy. He was stronger than all the watchers in all the world put together. He was invincible. Soon to be famous and thinking in another language. Maybe it was the language of dolphins.
He entered the basement filled with anticipation, his arms and legs feeling finlike. The bathroom door was open, the light on. He found Rosemary sitting at the worktable staring at the picture on her license and giggling. When he approached her, she looked up at him and smiled. He pulled the pop stick out of his mouth and smiled back. Ready, Eddie….
THIRTY-THREE
He legged it out of the Central Detective Division offices located in the art museum district, hustled to his car, and punched Carolyn Powell’s number into his cell phone. When her assistant refused to put him through, Teddy realized Powell was still angry with him. He told her assistant that he wanted another look at the Lewis house in Chestnut Hill, expecting Powell would make things difficult for him. But when her assistant came back on, she said an escort would be waiting for him at the house in an hour with the keys.
His trusted escort. Michael Jackson. Perhaps the man who’d beaten him over the head until he was unconscious.
Teddy slipped the phone into his pocket, mildly surprised and wondering why it had been so easy. Shrugging it off, he pulled down to the corner, hit the parkway, and set out for another look at the death house in Chestnut Hill.
He’d gotten nowhere with the detective assigned to Rosemary Gibb’s disappearance. Maybe nowhere. Although Detective Ferarro wouldn’t show him a copy of the missing persons report, claiming it was confidential, he seemed happy to answer any questions Teddy might have.
Originally from Baltimore, Rosemary Gibb had moved to the city only one year ago and was a student at Drexel University. She didn’t have many friends, and called home to check-in on a regular basis. Her mother had been reading the papers and was aware of the Darlene Lewis murder. When she couldn’t reach her daughter, she panicked and called the police. Detective Ferarro seemed to have taken a special interest in finding Rosemary, perhaps because Valerie Kram’s body had just been found. Rosemary lived within a mile of Boathouse Row and only four blocks from the Central Detective Division. An examination of her apartment revealed nothing out of the ordinary.
Everything except for her picture. Her likeness.
Ferarro admitted to Teddy that he spotted the similarity between Rosemary, Valerie Kram and ten other young women he’d been trying to locate over the past year. He stepped up his investigation, and with the help of a partner and ten cops in uniform, scoured the neighborhood. Because Drexel and Penn were set side by side, they worked both campuses with the help of volunteers from the police academy. By day’s end, they’d narrowed their search to a health club just off Walnut Street downtown. A classmate, another young woman who worked out at the gym, remembered seeing Rosemary on the Stair Master that night. They checked every business around the club, including a cafe located directly across the street, but turned up nothing. Rosemary’s classmate had been the last person who remembered seeing her before she vanished.
The following day, Detective Ferarro was given an early heads-up on the DNA results linking Holmes to the murders of Darlene Lewis and Valerie Kram. Detectives Vega and Ellwood were asking him for his files on any related cases dated prior to Holmes’s arrest. That left Rosemary out, as Nash said it would. Ferarro was looking for her just the same as he was looking for thirty other people from all walks of life. But he was out of leads, and Teddy knew that Rosemary was in the wind.
Teddy made a right onto Scottsboro Road, didn’t see any cars or news vans outside the Lewis house, and pulled over to the curb. Breaking open the flap on a cup of take-out coffee, he took a sip and lit his second cigarette of the day while he waited for his escort. When a neighbor drove by in a Lincoln Navigator, a woman with two young children in the backseat, he caught the look in her eyes, the fear and suspicion. Darlene Lewis’s murder-that ominous feeling of death-pervaded more than just the Lewis house. It was part of the neighborhood now.
Teddy turned back to the house. He wasn’t interested in the dining room or even the plumbing. Three days ago he’d walked through the place thinking Holmes had been caught in the act. He wanted to get a feel for the house without all that baggage. He wanted a clean view.
A car hit its horn. Teddy watched the DeVille sweep by and pull to a fast stop before him. Michael Jackson got out, not the dancer but the detective with tired legs and an old gun who’d worked with the DA since Andrews got rolling. He had a manila envelope in his hand. As he approached, Teddy tried to remember the shape of the figure standing in the darkness who clubbed him over the head. His memory wasn’t clear enough to make a match, but Jackson had a big smile going, and Teddy wondered if the detective wasn’t overcompensating for what he’d done.
“I come bearing gifts,” Jackson said with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Just like Santy Klaus.”
Teddy took the envelope, pried it open and peered inside. Photographs from the crimes scenes and autopsy.
“You’re keeping an album, right?” Jackson said. “A murder book? Powell asked me to give them to you. She said she wants to keep you up to date.”
“She say anything else?”
“Yeah, kid. You can’t be trusted. We’ll have to stay close.”
Teddy tossed the envelope on the front seat and they walked to the house. As Jackson pulled out the keys, Teddy glanced at the letter box on the wall, then turned to the door. The curtain on the other side of the glass was opaque. He heard the lock click and watched Jackson swing open the door.
“Wait a minute,” Teddy said before the detective stepped inside. “I want to see something first.”
“What do you want to see, kid?”
“Stand out here a minute.”
Teddy walked inside and started to close the door.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Jackson shouted. “You heard the lady. We’re supposed to stay close.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I just want a look through the curtain.”
“Okay, but no tricks. I don’t like tricks, kid. I never have.”