Smugly sitting on his bunk, Jonathan did not rise to greet them.
Rick said, “You kill him?”
“I did.”
“Would you like to give me a reason?”
“Oh,” Jonathan airily commented, “I tossed him a few morsels, knowing he’d run to you when he could, and that way I had reason to kill him. He was a pervert. He deserved to die.”
Coop said, “Couldn’t you have killed him without tossing him morsels?”
“I could.” Jonathan spoke patiently, as though to a dim-witted child. “But it’s boring in here. This helped pass the time, and he deserved to die. It’s God’s will, you know.”
The two law-enforcement officers walked outside the cell block, shutting the door behind them.
“Jesus Christ, he’s crazy. He’ll get off because he’s crazy!” Coop uttered in total despair.
“He knows it, too. He’ll be spared the death sentence and spend the rest of his worthless life in a high-security mental ward.” Rick appreciated the twisted prisoner’s intelligence. “And there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. But I am going to do something he doesn’t like, even if we have to strap him down, and I bet we will.”
He did, too. One hour later, Sam Demotta had the honor of cutting off Jonathan’s beard, then shaving him. Tom had to hold his jaw tight, but they did it. A few cuts appeared on Jonathan’s good-looking face.
“I should have done that when we first arrested him,” Rick declared. “All right. I want photographs and, Sam, the best one better be in tomorrow’s paper. I’ll call them right now.”
“They won’t run it,” Coop told him as they hurried to the jail office. “Newspapers always use their own photographer.”
“They’ll use this, because I am going to tell them that the prisoner is far too dangerous for anyone to be near him and he has killed again.”
The next day, Friday, October 17, the newspapers, the television news, and the radio carried the story of Mike McElvoy’s murder.
The photo in the paper startled Benita Wylde. She remembered where she’d seen Jonathan Bechtal.
36
Benita, good with names and faces, remembered that she had once seen someone who looked like Jonathan Bechtal talking to Kylie Kraft outside Will’s office. Benita had gone by to drop off a salad for Will since he was being careful about his eating habits.
She also remembered that when Kylie came back into the office after only minutes outside, she made a crack about men not understanding that no means no. Given Kylie’s ever-changing string of boyfriends, Benita had discounted it.
However, Kylie had seen the photo in the paper, too. Taking no chances, she was at the airport one half hour after seeing the picture.
By the time Rick and Cooper reached Kylie’s apartment, she was gone. Her clothes and furniture remained. Cooper checked the bathroom; her makeup bag was gone.
Cooper found a pack of Virginia Slims, which they put in a plastic bag.
They put an alert out for her car, which was found at the Charlottesville Airport parking lot. However, her name did not appear on any flights.
Either she had been picked up by a friend or she stole a car from the parking lot. That wouldn’t be evident until the owner returned to an empty space days or maybe weeks later.
At nine-fifteen that morning, Rick and Cooper interrogated Jonathan Bechtal.
“Do you know Kylie Kraft?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you to kill Dr. Wylde?”
“No,” he answered Rick.
“Was Dr. Wylde on to her stealing the records?”
“How would I know?”
The only flicker of emotion in Bechtal’s face came when Rick said, “She left town in a hurry with all the money you’d raised.”
Rick didn’t know that. He was baiting Bechtal. But he was reasonably certain it was true.
When Bechtal said nothing, Cooper slyly mentioned, “She will continue your work.”
A beatific look infused his face. Again he said nothing.
Rick and Cooper ended their interrogation and left the jail. Once in the car, Rick started the motor. Before he pulled out, he reached into a dash cubbyhole, extracting two dollars and fifty cents. “Here.”
“What’s this for?”
“Half and half. I bet a woman. You bet a man.”
She smiled. “We’ll get her.”
“Might take years, but she’ll make a mistake. They always do.”
“Do you think she’s a true believer?”
He pulled out of the parking lot. “I don’t know. If she is, she’s in some ways more frightening than he is. And smarter.”
“True.”
“Still,” he smiled, “I have this vision of her in a beautiful hacienda in Uruguay or an opulent seaside house in Chile, living high on the hog.”
“And?”
“There’s a revolution.” He laughed.
“Probably not in those two countries, but she’ll tip her hand and we’ll get her. She killed a woman; she orchestrated the death of a doctor.”
“And she’s a nurse. You know, I never connected with that. Carla was killed by someone who understood anatomy, understood what happens when you slit a jugular. Somehow, she got out of the way of that mighty gusher.”
“I’d like to know how.” Cooper stared out the window at clouds massing up in the west.
“Well, when she turns up, wherever she turns up, we’ll find out.”
“At least Mike didn’t kill Carla. That’s some comfort to his widow.”
“Cold comfort,” Rick grunted.
Cooper turned to look at his profile. “If nothing else, this showed Little Mim’s mettle, and I bet there are women—we’ll never know who—who talked to their husbands or friends and resolved their burden about their past. Some good came of it.”
“We can hope.”
“Smoke?” she asked.
“Have you ever known me to refuse?”
She reached for the hardpack she’d slid in her front pocket, fishing out a long cigarette. “Coffin nail, just for you.”
He quickly glanced at it. “Dunhill Mild.”
“It’s true, you’re corrupting me.”
“Damn,” was all he said, as she held a match for him when they reached a stoplight.
“If you have no objection, I’ll drive out to Harry’s and give her the scoop.”
“That is one lucky woman.” He inhaled. “What are we going to do about her? She’s a damned nuisance, and one of these days she’s going to get herself or one of us killed, I swear.”
“Ask her to join the force.”
Rick laughed. “That will be the day. I’d sooner ask Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. In fact, they demonstrate more sense than she does.”
“They’ve saved her on more than one occasion.”
He rode along, silent for a while. “We use German shepherds. Why not a corgi and two cats?”
Cooper related this to Harry as she cleaned tack in the barn.
“Guess he’s mad at me.”
“Do you blame him?” Cooper’s eyebrows raised.
“I did find a criminal. Okay, Mike wasn’t the killer, but he sure was guilty of plenty of other stuff.”
“Paid for it,” Cooper tersely replied. “Harry, you’ve got to be more careful. You can’t just go do these things on a whim.”
“It wasn’t a whim. Well, okay. It was.”
“I can’t believe she admitted it!” Pewter listened to the mice behind the tack trunk.
“There. That’s finished.” Harry hung the tack on the half-round bridle holder on the wall. “Come on in the house. I’ll make you some Silver Queen.”
“Where’d you get Silver Queen in October?”
“I bought four bushels in August and put them in cold storage—you know the refrigeration plant downtown? Anyway, we tested two last night and they’re still really good.”
“Four bushels?” Cooper asked as they left the barn, Simon looking out from the open top barn door in the hayloft.
“For the St. Luke’s reunion.”
Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker tagged along.