Part III
Friday, April 19, 1985
"Lee . . . Lee, did you hear me? Stetson!"
The hand on Lee's arm caused him to jump. Focusing abruptly on the woman beside him, he blinked and said, "What?"
Yvette Montand looked up at her companion irritably and replied, "I asked if you would dance with me. What's wrong with you? You're acting like you're bored."
The glitter of ball gowns, expensive jewelry, fine crystal, and powerful people surrounded them, while music and the sound of laughter filled the air. But it all seemed dull and somehow dreary to him tonight. He had no heart for this evening, but knew that he owed it to his companion to at least try. After a moment, he smiled at the lovely blonde apologetically. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to seem distant. Work's just been a bear recently and I can't seem to let it go tonight."
"Well, I'd suggest you try," she said snappishly. "I have better things to do than hang around with a man who can't keep his mind where it belongs. So do you want to dance with me or not?"
"Of course," he replied, forcing himself to hide his own irritation. Reluctantly, Lee followed her out onto the dance floor and took her into his arms. The music was slow and romantic, and Yvette stepped into his embrace and nestled against his body immediately. She rested her head against his shoulder and after a moment, he felt her hand begin drifting up and down his back in a slow, sensual caress as the two of them moved in time to the music. Still feeling a little guilty, he ignored her caresses and once again let his mind return to the subject that had been eating at him constantly for the last 24 hours.
Amanda.
How could you have been such a stupid, idiotic, callous, God-forsaken son of a bitch, he asked himself angrily. You knew she wouldn't be happy if she found out you'd been checking up on her. And throwing Alan Squires in her face! What the hell were you thinking, Stetson?!? And now, because of your thoughtlessness and temper, she's gone. You've lost the best friend you've ever had. That thought sent a stab of pain through his chest that all but took his breath away. He closed his eyes, once again remembering the look on her face and when he had manhandled her. He had never seen her look like that. He might just as well have struck her.
Why? he asked himself for about the hundredth time. What made you act like that? The first thing that came to mind was that she was being unreasonable. So he checked on the men she dated. Was that so wrong? A large part of his job was to keep his partner safe. That was what he had been trying to do. Wasn't it? Then why did the answer to that question make him feel so uneasy? And if it was that simple and straightforward, why didn't Amanda see it? For someone capable of babbling the way she did, she had a remarkably neat and orderly mind. Why didn't she see the logic in his reasoning? Worse yet, why didn't Francine? She had argued long and hard with him about doing the background check on Carlyle, even after she had agreed. Her parting comment about what she would do to any man that did something like that to her still rang in his ears.
But reason aside, it didn't explain why he had lashed out at Amanda when she tried to defend the man. Francine had told him point-blank several times that it sounded to her like good, old-fashioned jealousy. But there was nothing for him to be jealous over. They didn't have that kind of relationship. They came from two entirely different worlds and neither had any desire to cross over into the other's . . . did they?
He felt Yvette stir in his arms, and met her gaze with a half-hearted smile as she leaned back and looked up at him coldly. "This is so much better," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Sorry," he snapped back, feeling anger beginning to stir. Give me a break, he thought. I've got a lot on my mind right now. Briefly, he considered telling Yvette about the problem, but dismissed the idea as soon as he thought of it. He wasn't about to tell this woman about Amanda. She would neither understand nor care. Furthermore, Amanda was so special . . . it would be like violating her trust to speak of their relationship to someone like Yvette. No, this was his problem and he would have to be the one to find a way out of it.
They drifted to a stop as the music ended and the band rose to take a break. "Do you want some champagne?" he suggested.
"All right."
Catching her hand, he tucked it into the crook of his arm and led her toward the champagne fountain at one end of the huge reception room. Picking up a glass, he handed it to her and then gazed around the room idly. Stifling his irritation, he tried again. "I notice that all of the big-time, Washington power brokers are out in force tonight," he commented, and began pointing out some of the more prominent senators, lobbyists, and government officials.
Acknowledging his attempt to try to smooth things over, she replied more civilly. "There are a few celebrities, too." They played an amusing game of who's who for a while, testing the other's knowledge of the identities of various people in the room, but it wasn't long before Lee's attention began to wander back to his partner again. With a low, aggravated mutter, Yvette handed her empty glass to a passing waiter and said, "I've had it. You want to brood all night, then fine . . . go right ahead. But I'm not going to stand here and wait while you do it. Consider yourself ditched, Stetson. I'll find my own way home!" With that, she stalked off.
He watched her swaying hips and cascade of honey-blonde hair with an immense feeling of relief. Good riddance, he thought. It was a stupid idea to even try to come tonight. Then Lee shook his head, somewhat bemused. What was wrong with him? This woman was perfect for the kind of evening he thought he wanted. Why couldn't he just let the entire business with Amanda go for now? But he knew why. The nagging doubts about Carlyle still plagued him. He'd tried calling Francine two or three times throughout the day, but had never been able to reach her. He needed to know the results of her background check. Once he knew for certain that Carlyle was who he said he was, Lee was sure he could set the entire business with Amanda aside and work at salvaging the evening. He had just decided to go in search of a telephone when a familiar voice stopped him.
"Lee!"
Turning, he spotted Adam Dwyer coming toward him. "Hey, Adam. I didn't know you were going to be here tonight."
"Um hmm. Working. How about you?"
"Nope. Tonight's pure recreation for me."
Dwyer looked around with raised eyebrows. "Alone?"
"On a Friday night? When have you ever known me to –"
"Never mind," the other man interrupted with a laugh. "I should have known better."
"Actually, you may not be that far off base. Yvette's around here somewhere, but she's ticked off at me and just told me to get lost."
"You losing your touch, Stetson?" Adam ribbed him.
"No. I just made a bad choice in dates, that's all."
"So what does she do?"
"She's a flight attendant."
"Well, it's not a whole lot different from most of the women you date."
"What do you mean by that?" Lee demanded testily.
"Nothing," Adam replied hastily. At Lee's look, Adam shrugged and with a sidelong glance, he added, "It's just that most of the women you date tend to be longer on looks than on brains."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lee said stiffly. After a moment of strained silence, Lee decided to change the subject and asked, "So how did you get stuck working this affair? Don't the Brits have their own security people? Or has the Bureau decided you need more to do than chase your serial killer and opted to contract you out?"
Dwyer suddenly looked pleased. "I think we've finally caught a break on that bastard."
"Really? It's about time. You deserve one. What've you got?"
"His latest victim," Dwyer replied, looking almost gleeful. "Alive. The doctors say they think she's going to make it and we should be able to talk to her by tomorrow or the day after."
"That's definitely a break. Congratulations! What happened?"
"By the grace of God, she got away from him," he replied in satisfaction. A flash of light caught Lee's attention and he noticed that Dwyer was nervously working something silver between his fingers. The man's barely controlled anticipation was tangible. "They were in Louisiana . . . in a cypress forest. Apparently, she managed to get away from him and ran. She was lucky enough to stumble into a bunch of local hunters. Before the men could sort out what she was telling them, the guy had disappeared. The impression I get is that the locals would have gone after the guy, but the woman was pretty badly cut up and they were afraid if they didn't get her to help right away, that she was liable to die on them. So they got her to a hospital. Local law enforcement put two and two together and called us. We recruited local help and combed the woods, but by that time, it was way too late."
"She give you any kind of description?"
"Not yet. He'd managed to nail her with the knife several times before she got free. Something about the damned thing causes the victims to bleed like crazy and she was in pretty bad shape by the time they got her to the hospital. We managed to get her name and address and that was about it. She's been sedated ever since, but we've got men on the door ."
"Was she a local?"
Adam shook his head. "No. Believe it or not, she was from Silver Spring. Works for one of the government agencies over on 20th Street." He rattled off the name of the agency absently. "I told you he was moving east."
Lee felt a shiver as the cold finger of premonition touched him. "Do you know the address of the agency?"
Adam caught the strange expression on Lee's face as he repeated the address. "What's wrong?" he asked Lee quizzically.
"It's nothing," Lee said, trying to shrug off the growing sense of uneasiness. "Just a coincidence. The address is virtually identical to I.F.F.'s . . . same building number and everything. It's just that we're on 30th Street and this address is on 20th . . . just a mile or so over. So you found her in Louisiana? That's a long way from here."
"I told you the guy was moving his victims. If he's been consistent about that, we may never get the others identified."
Once again, the flash of silver caught Lee's attention and he noticed that Dwyer's increasing agitation had triggered an increase in the way he was working the object in his hand. "Have you taken up worry beads, Adam?" The other man looked at Lee blankly, so Lee gestured toward the object Dwyer was holding.
The F.B.I. agent laughed in embarrassment, stilling his restless movements. "Nervous habit. I've been carrying this since shortly after the third murder came to light . . . trying to make a link to the killer's mind, I guess." At Lee's puzzled look, Adam elaborated. "I told you he tended to leave a calling card." He opened his hand to show it to Lee, but before he could, a voice interrupted them.
"Lee!"
Looking up, he spotted Francine hurrying toward him. That she was seriously upset was obvious. She was well groomed as always, but her brown silk sheath was one he'd seen her wear to work several times and it was definitely inappropriate for this function. She came toward him at a cross between a fast walk and a trot, ignoring the stares she received in the process. He took a couple of quick steps toward her and caught her arm as she hurried up.
"Francine! What are you doing here? What's wrong?"
"I've been searching for you everywhere!" she gasped breathlessly. "You were right about Carlyle. There's something really wrong about him."
Drawing her back to where he and Adam had been standing, he reached for the folder she held as he asked urgently, "What did you find?"
"He was a salesman for a company in San Francisco all right, but he was fired about four months ago. They said he had a really volatile temper and that he'd made threats against others in the company."
"What kind of threats?" Lee demanded, flipping through the sheets of paper in the file.
"The corporate Human Resources office wouldn't be specific, but I talked to one of the secretaries and she told me that for all that he seemed really charming when she first got to know him, after a while he really began to give her the creeps . . . always staring at the women in the office and going from sweet and friendly one minute to bitter and angry the next, seemingly with no warning at all. She also said that when he turned nasty, his favorite rant was about how women couldn't be trusted and that they were all liars. And that's not all. After hearing that, I decided to find out if this was the first time this problem had shown up. I began checking his employers previous to the San Francisco firm, and it seems he has a history of this same kind of problem in every company he's worked for. I backtracked him as far as his undergraduate degree at U.C. - San Diego and then lost the trail. But the pattern of behavior is pretty consistent."
"Who are we talking about?" Adam asked, craning to look at the file over Lee's shoulder.
"Remember the guy that turned up at I.F.F. a couple of weeks ago?" Lee said distractedly, continuing to skim the papers in the file.
"You mean the lost one that your partner helped?"
"Yes. He's been around off and on ever since. Dear God . . . he was suspected of murder in L.A.!" Catching the flash of silver out of the corner of his eye again, he glanced over. Suddenly, his eyes focused sharply on the object in Dwyer's hand and icy fear washed through him. His hand flashed out and grabbed Adam's wrist in a numbing grip. "What is that thing?" he demanded hoarsely.
Adam looked at him strangely but held it up at eye level so both Lee and Francine could get a clear view of the object. "I told you. My serial killer leaves a calling card on his victims. This came from one of them."
Lee's knees turned weak and he felt all of the blood drain from his face as he stared at the object. The leaping dolphin charm gleamed brightly from the silver bracelet . . . a bracelet identical to one he had seen yesterday.
"Amanda . . ."
