“Everything takes time,” I said.
She let her hands drop from her face. Stared up at the ceiling. “Well, folks, I may just have made a giant goof.”
“No,” I said.
“I wish I could be sure of that.”
I rolled closer and held her.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
“I’m going to believe that,” she said. “Given the alternative.”
15
Ten days later, I heard from Milo. In the interim, I’d persisted with the Cambridge police and managed to talk to a detective named Ernest Fiorelle. He began by scoping me out, and we went through the old security bit. Finally, I satisfied his curiosity by faxing a copy of an old LAPD consultant’s contract and a couple of pages of my deposition on the Ingalls case. Despite all that, Fiorelle ended up asking more questions than he answered about Angelique Bernet.
No serious leads had developed, and the case remained unsolved.
“My guess is some nut,” said Fiorelle. “You’re the shrink, you tell me.”
“A sexual psychopath?” I said. “Was there evidence of rape?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Dead air.
I said, “What was crazy about it?”
“Cutting up a beautiful young girl and dumping her in an alley seems pretty crazy to me, Doc. Out there in L.A. does that pass for nahmul?”
“Depends on the day of the week.”
His laughter was brief and harsh.
I said, “So none of Bernet’s fellow dancers or musicians came under suspicion?”
“Nah, wimpy bunch, mostly females and gays. Scared witless. Everyone claimed to love the girl.”
“Even though she’d been promoted.”
“So what?” he said.
“I was wondering about jealousy.”
“Doc, if you’da been to the crime scene, you wouldn’t be wondering. This wasn’t some . . . spat. This was ugly.”
Still thinking about China’s possible encounter with a stalking fan, I asked him about music conventions at the time of the murder.
“You kidding?” he said. “This is College-Town, Hahvuhd, the rest of them. We’ve got nothing but conventions going on all the time.”
“Anything to do with the music business, specifically? A group of critics, journalists, fans.”
“Nah, don’t remember anything like that. And frankly, Doc, I don’t know why you’re bahkun up this tree.”
“Nothing better to bark up.”
“Well, maybe you should find something. And keep all that nutty stuff on the Left Coast. Nah, doesn’t sound like any matches between the girl and your cases. Fact is, I found a better match in Baltimore, and that didn’t pan out either.”
“Who was the victim in Baltimore?”
“Some secretary cut up like Ms. Bernet. What’s the difference, I just told you it didn’t pan, Baltimore busted a lunatic and he hung himself. Gotta run, Doc. Have a nice warm L.A. day.”
I searched for Baltimore homicides on the net but came up with nothing remotely familiar to Angelique Bernet or the other killings.
Nothing seemed to be the operative word.
During the same ten days, a few other things happened.
Tim Plachette called me one evening, and said, “Apologies for that ridiculous little mano-a-mano thing the other day.”
“No big deal,” I said. “You weren’t out of line.”
“Whether I was or not, I should’ve held my peace . . . I really care about her, Alex.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“You don’t want to have this conversation,” he said.
Something in his voice—desperation, anxiety that came from deep love, flipped my mood.
“I do appreciate your calling, Tim. And I won’t get in the way.”
“I’m not trying to be a censor, it’s a free country. If you want to drop by, that’s fine.”
I flipped again: Gee, thanks for permission, buddy. But I knew he was right. Life would be a lot easier for all of us if I kept my distance.
“We all need to move on, Tim.”
“It’s good of you to say that. . . . Robin . . . and then there’s Spike—I’m making an ass out of myself.”
“That’s the way it can be with women,” I said.
“True.”
We traded Y-chromosome chuckles.
“Anyway,” he said.
“Be well, Tim.”
“You, too.”
Two days after that, Robin phoned. “I don’t want to bother you, but I also don’t want you to find out from someone else. Guitar Player’s running a profile on me, and I must admit I think that’s extremely cool. I know you buy it sometimes, so I thought you might see it.”