"You're absolutely right. It won't happen again."
She really hated it when people did that. She had been ready to go upside his head, and he instantly took all the wind out of her sails. "I'd appreciate it," she repeated.
Cahill glanced around the area, letting his scolding dissipate. The sun was high and hot and merciless. Before the moment became awkward, he waved a hand in the general direction of the motel. "This is really good casework, Detective Balzano."
God, the feds were arrogant, Jessica thought. She didn't need him to tell her that. The break had come from Mateo's good work with the tape, and they had simply followed up. On the other hand, maybe Cahill was just trying to be pleasant. She looked at his earnest face, thinking: Lighten up, Jess.
"Thanks," she said. And left it at that.
"Ever think about the bureau as a career?" he asked.
She wanted to tell him that it would be her second choice, right after monster truck driver. Besides, her father would kill her. "I'm pretty happy where I am," she said.
Cahill nodded. His cell phone rang. He held up a finger, answered. "Cahill. Yes, hi." He glanced at his watch. "Ten minutes." He closed the phone. "Got to run."
There goes the investigation, Jessica thought. "So we have an understanding?"
"Absolutely," Cahill said.
"Okay."
Cahill got into his fed car, slipped on his fed aviator sunglasses, tossed a fed smile her way, and, observing all traffic laws-state and local- pulled onto Dauphin Street.
As Jessica and Byrne watched the Crime Scene Unit unload their equipment, Jessica thought of the popular television show Without a Trace. Criminalists loved that term. There was always a trace. The officers in the CSU lived for the fact that nothing ever vanished completely. Burn it, soak it, bleach it, bury it, wipe it down, chop it up. They'd find something.
Today, along with the other standard crime scene procedures, they were going to perform a Luminol test in the bathroom of room ten. Lu- minol was a chemical that revealed blood traces by causing a light- producing chemical reaction with hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying element in blood. If trace blood evidence was present, Luminol, when viewed under a black light, would produce a chemiluminescence, the same phenomenon that causes fireflies to glow.
In short order, with the bathroom dusted for prints and photographs taken, the CSU officer began to spritz the liquid on the tile surrounding the tub. Unless the room had been washed down repeatedly with scalding- hot water and bleach, blood evidence would remain. When the officer was finished, he plugged in the UV arc lamp.
"Lights," he said.
Jessica flipped off the bathroom light, closed the bathroom door. The CSU officer turned on the black light.
In an instant, they had their answer. There was no trace evidence of blood on the floors, the walls, the shower curtain or the tile, no minute telltale specks of evidence.
There was blood everywhere.
They had found the killing ground.
"We're going to need the registration records for that room for the past two weeks," Byrne said. They were back in the motel's office and, for any number of reasons-not the least of which was that there were now a dozen members of PPD at his formerly quiet place of illicit business- Karl Stott was sweating big time. The small, cramped space had taken on an acrid, monkey-house smell.
Stott glanced at the floor, back up. It looked like he was going to disappoint these very scary cops, and that notion seemed to be making him ill. More sweat. "Well, we don't really keep detailed records, if you know what I mean. Ninety percent of the people who sign the register are named Smith, Jones, or Johnson."
"Is every rental on the books?" Byrne asked.
"What… what do you mean?"
"I mean, do you sometimes let friends or acquaintances use these rooms off the books?"
Stott looked shocked. The crime scene techs had examined the lock on the door to room ten and determined it had not recently been jimmied or picked. Anyone entering that room recently had used a key.
"Of course not," Stott said, indignant at the suggestion he might be guilty of petty larceny.
"We'll need to see your credit card receipts," Byrne said.
He nodded. "Sure. No problem. But as you might expect, this is mostly a cash business."
"Do you remember renting these rooms?" Byrne asked.
Stott ran a hand over his face. It was clearly Miller time for him. "They all kind of look alike to me. And I've got a bit of a, well, drinking problem, okay? I ain't proud of it, but there it is. By ten o'clock I'm in my cups."
"We'd like you to come down to the Roundhouse tomorrow," Jessica said. She handed Stott a card. Stott took it, his shoulders sagging.
Cops.
Out front, Jessica drew a time line on her notepad. "I think we've got the time frame down to a ten-day window. These shower rods were installed two weeks ago, which means that between the time Isaiah Cran- dall returned Psycho to The Reel Deal and Adam Kaslov rented it, our doer got the tape off the shelf, rented this motel room, committed the crime, and got it back on the shelf."
Byrne nodded in agreement.
In the next few days they would be able to narrow this down further, based on the results of the blood evidence. In the meantime, they would start with the missing-person database and see if there was someone matching the general description of the victim on the tape, someone who hadn't been seen in a week.
Before returning to the Roundhouse, Jessica turned and looked at the door to room ten.
A young woman had been murdered in this place, and a crime that might have gone undetected for weeks or maybe months was, if their calculations were correct, only a week or so old.
The madman who did this might have thought he had a pretty good lead on the dumb old cops.
He was wrong.
The chase was on.
14
There is a moment in Double Indemnity, the great Billy Wilder noir based on the novel by James M. Cain, when Phyllis, played by Barbara Stanwyck, looks at Walter, played by Fred MacMurray. The moment comes when Phyllis's husband unwittingly signs an insurance form, thereby sealing his fate. His untimely death, by certain means, would now produce an insurance settlement that was twice the normal payoff. A double indemnity.
There is no great music cue, no dialogue. Just a look. Phyllis looks at Walter with a secret knowledge-and no small measure of sexual tension-and they know they have just crossed a line. They have reached a point of no return, after which they will be murderers.
I am a murderer.
There is no denying or escaping that now. No matter how long I live, or what I do with the rest of my life, this will be my epitaph.
I am Francis Dolarhyde. I am Cody Jarrett. I am Michael Corleone.
And I have much to do.
Will any of them see me coming?
Perhaps.
Those who accept their guilt, yet refuse their penance, might feel me approach, like an icy breath on the nape of their necks. And it is for this reason I must be careful. It is for this reason I must move through the city like a ghost. The city might think that what I am doing is random. It is anything but.
"It's right here," she says.
I slow the car.
"It's kind of a mess inside," she adds.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," I say, knowing full well that it will soon get messier. "You should see my place."
She smiles as we pull into her driveway. I glance around. No one is watching.
"Well, here we are," she says. "Ready?"
I smile back, turn off the engine, touch the bag on the seat. The camera is inside, batteries charged.
Ready.
15