He glanced over at me, frowning.
“I’m just throwing out a lot of things.”
“No offense; but I think you can throw that idea right out the window. Unless the squirrel was fantasizing about whacking couples for years, then finally got around to it.”
“My guess is this individual’s got a very active fantasy life.”
“Maybe you should take up profiling,” he said. “You’re beginning to sound like Benton.”
“And you’re beginning to sound as if you’ve written Benton off.”
“Nope. Just not in a mood to deal with him right now.”
“He’s still your VICAP partner, Marino. You and I are not the only ones under pressure. Don’t be too hard on You sure are into handing out free advice these days,” he said.
“Just be glad it’s free, because you need all the advice you can get.”
“You want to grab some dinner?”
It was getting close to six P.M.
“Tonight I exercise,” I replied dismally.
‘Geez. Guess that’s what you’ll be telling me to do next.”
Just the thought of it made both of us reach for our cigarettes.
I was late for my tennis lesson, despite my doing everything short of running red lights to get to Westwood on time. One of my shoelaces broke, my grip was slippery, and there was a Mexican buffet in progress upstairs, meaning the observation gallery was full of people with nothing better to do than eat tacos, drink margaritas, and witness my humiliation. After sending five backhands in a row sailing well beyond the baseline, I started bending my knees and slowing my swing. The next three shots went into the net. Volleys were pathetic, overheads unmentionable. The harder I tried, the worse I got.
“You’re opening up too soon and hitting everything late.”
Ted came around to my side of the net. “Too much backswing, not enough follow-through. And what happens?”
“I consider taking up bridge,” I said, my frustration turning to anger.
“Your racket face is open. Take your racket back early, shoulder turned, step, hitting the ball out front. And keep it on your strings as long as you can.”
Following me to the baseline, he demonstrated, stroking several balls over the net as I watched jealously. Ted had Michelangelo muscle definition, liquid, coordination, and he could, without effort, put enough spin on a ball to make it bounce over your head or die at your feet. I wondered if magnificent athletes had any concept of how they made the rest of us feel.
“Most of your problem’s in your head, Dr. Scarpetta,” he said. “You walk out here and want to be Martina when you’d be much better off being yourself.”
“Well, I sure as hell can’t be Martina,” I muttered.
“Don’t be so determined to win points when you ought to be working at not losing them. Playing smart, setting, up, keeping the ball in play until your opponent misses or gives you an easy opening to put the ball away. Out here that’s the game. Club-level matches aren’t won. They’re lost. Someone beats you not because they win more points than you but because you lose more points than them.”
Looking speculatively at me, he added, “I’ll bet you’re not this impatient in your work. I’ll bet you hit every ball back, so to speak, and can do it all day long.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but Ted’s coaching did the opposite of what he had intended. It took my mind off tennis. Playing smart. Later, I pondered this at length while soaking in the tub.
We weren’t going to beat this killer. Planting bullets and newspaper stories were offensive tactics that had not worked. A little defensive strategy was in order. Criminals who escape apprehension are not perfect but lucky. They make mistakes. All of them do. The problem is recognizing the errors, realizing their significance, and determining what was intentional and what was not.
I thought of the cigarette butts we’d been finding near the bodies. Had the killer intentionally left them? Probably. Were they a mistake? No, because they were worthless as evidence and we could not determine their brand. The jacks of hearts left in the vehicles were intentional, but they were not a mistake either. No fingerprints had been recovered from them, and if anything, their purpose may be to make us think what the person who had left them wanted us to think.