Dream Man (27 page)

She stepped aside. “Just so we understand each other. Come on in.”

Trammell gave a long, low whistle when Dane walked in the next morning, and everyone in the squad room turned to look. Never mind that there was a serial killer on the loose; cops were never too busy to harass one of their own. Freddie clutched her heart and pretended to swoon. Bonness, who had been standing beside Keegan’s desk, was totally dead-pan as he asked, “May we help you, sir?”

“You sure can,” Dane replied good-naturedly as he dropped into his chair. “All you smart-asses can apologize for the crap you’ve given me for years about how I dressed.”

“He said it in the past tense,” Trammell noted, turning his eyes upward. “Please, God, let it stay that way.”

Dane smiled at him. “Want to go for a couple of beers after work?” he asked silkily. Trammell picked up the hint and subsided, but still with an unholy gleam of amusement in his dark eyes.

“Take
me,
take
me!”
Freddie cried, waving her hand exuberantly.

“Yeah, sure, and get my legs broken?”

She shrugged
. “I
don’t mind.”

“Gee, thanks. I’m overwhelmed by your concern.”

Bonness left Keegan’s desk to perch on Dane’s. “What caused the transformation?” he asked. “Were you mugged by a fashion designer on the way to work?”

Dane grinned, knowing that his answer would make Bonness choke. It wasn’t something he could keep to himself, so he decided to have a little fun. “Marlie doesn’t like wrinkles,” he explained calmly. Bonness looked blank. “Marlie?” Obviously he could think of only one Marlie and just as obviously he couldn’t get the connection.

“Marlie Keen. You know, the psychic.”

“I know who she is,” Bonness said, still confused. “What does she have to do with it?”

“She doesn’t like wrinkles,” Dane explained again, as deadpan as Bonness had been. He could hear Trammell snickering, but didn’t dare glance that way.

Poor Bonness was slow that day. “So she goes around the city zapping them out?” he demanded with heavy sarcasm.

“No.” Dane smiled, a slow, very satisfied smile. “She ironed them out. At least, she ironed the shirt. She made me iron the slacks myself, because she said I had to learn.”

Bonness gaped at him. Trammell was making choking sounds as he tried to keep from laughing aloud.

“You—you mean… Marlie… that is, you and Marlie—”

“Marlie and I are what?”

“Urn… dating?”

“Dating?” Dane pretended to think. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then what would you say?”

He gave a negligent shrug. “It’s simple. When I got dressed this morning, she said that no way was I leaving the house looking like that, so she hauled out her iron and ironing board and made me take off my clothes. When I put them back on, they looked like this.” He wondered why a crisply ironed shirt, neatly knotted tie, and slacks with a razor-edge crease were such a big deal, not just to Marlie but to everyone else. Not that he minded; he just hadn’t cared before. He didn’t care about his clothes now, but Marlie did, so therefore he would make more of an effort. Simple.

Bonness was literally sputtering, his eyes bugging out. “But you only met a week ago. You ridiculed her, accused her of being an accomplice to murder. She hated your guts on sight.”

“We changed our minds,” Dane said. “If you need me, you can reach me at her house.”

“Shit. You’re kidding me. I thought she had better taste than that.”

Dane smiled peacefully. “She does. She’s already improv-ing me.” And he would let her do it. If she wanted him to wear Italian loafers like Trammell’s, he’d do it. If she wanted him to shave twice a day, he’d do that too. If she wanted him to stand on his head for an hour every morning, he would happily put his butt in the air. When he had returned the afternoon before, with his clothing, it had been plain that the thought of living with him made her uneasy. He knew he should have lied to her about his motives, but damn it, his interest in her
was
two-pronged. He couldn’t just forget about the murders and assure her that her involvement never entered his mind. Hell, her involvement never
left
his mind. After this was over, he would devote all of his attention to her, but right now he couldn’t, and she knew it. Right away he had sensed a slight distance that hadn’t been there when he’d left. She kept rebuilding that damn wall of reserve, as if she couldn’t quite trust herself to let go, or trust him to catch her if she did. He would let her reform him from the ground up if it would make her feel more secure with him. Marlie was a solitary creature who didn’t easily share either her space or her time. He had carefully spent the evening not crowding her too much, but all the same establishing a tone of normalcy to his presence. They had done very ordinary things—cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, watched television—just as if they had been to-gether for months instead of one stressful weekend. It had worked; she had relaxed more and more as the evening wore on. And when they had gone to bed and he had begun making love to her, the reserve had completely vanished. He didn’t know if it was permanently gone; probably not. But he would deal with each reappearance as it happened, and in the meantime insinuate himself ever more deeply into the everyday fabric of her life. Besides, he had enjoyed it when she had made several acerbic remarks about his clothes. She had been too subdued and vulnerable for the past two days, and he had been delighted to see her return to her normal, sharp-tongued spirits.

Still shaking his head at Marlie’s evident loss of common sense, Bonness gestured for Freddie and Worley to come over. When everyone was grouped together, they decided their course of action for the day. Freddie and Worley were going to talk to the people Jackie Sheets had worked with, including Liz Cline again, for she would be calmer now and might remember something else. They arranged to get copies of the canceled checks of both victims. Dane and Trammell went to the Hairport to talk to Jackie Sheets’s hair stylist.

The Hairport was situated in a small, renovated house. There was none of the pink neon and purple-and-black decor so beloved by the trendier salons where all the clients came out looking as if they’d stuck their finger into a light socket. But there were real ferns (Dane knew because Trammell stuck his finger into the dirt to check), and comfortable waiting chairs, as well as a truly impressive selection of magazines, stacked in rickety towers on every available flat surface. There were several women in the salon, in various stages of tonsorial improvement. A sharp chemical smell hung in the air, with an undertone of hairspray and nail polish.

The Kathy who cut Ms. Sheets’s hair was Kathleen McCrory, who looked as Irish as her name. She had sandy red hair that feathered around her face, a very fair complex-ion, and round blue eyes that widened even more when Dane and Trammell introduced themselves. She led them back to the tiny break room the stylists used, poured them each a cup of coffee, and offered them their choice of any of the varied snacks piled on the small table. They accepted the coffee, but turned down the Bugles and Twinkies.

Kathleen was a cheerful, self-confident young woman. Trammell began to ask her about Jackie Sheets, and Dane settled back to enjoy his coffee, which was pretty good. He watched Kathleen lightly flirt with Trammell, and his part-ner lightly flirt in return, all the while asking questions. Kathleen did stop flirting when he told her that Jackie Sheets had been killed, and her big blue eyes slowly filled with tears. She looked back and forth between Dane and Trammell, as if wanting one of them to say it was a joke. Her lips began trembling. “I—I haven’t watched the news this weekend,” she said, and swallowed hard. “My boyfriend and I went to Daytona.”

Dane reached across the small table and covered her hand with his. She clutched his fingers, and clung tightly to him until she had fought off the tears. She gave him a small, watery, apologetic smile as she began groping for a tissue to wipe her eyes.

Yes, she had cut Jackie’s hair about every three weeks. Jackie had gorgeous hair, thick and silky, with a lot of body. She could do anything she wanted with it. Trammell gently interrupted the hair analysis to get her back on track. No, Jackie hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone for quite a while now. No, Kathleen couldn’t remember anyone named Vinick.

Did she have any male customers? Sure. There were quite a few. Had Jackie spoken to any of them, gotten acquainted? Not that Kathleen could remember.

Another dead end, Dane thought. He was getting damn tired of them.

Tuesday was more of the same dead ends. A comparison of canceled checks and credit card receipts revealed that the Vinicks and Jackie Sheets had shopped at some of the same department stores, which told them exactly nothing. Dane imagined that almost everyone in Orlando had been in at least one of those stores at one time or another. Still, it was the only link they had come up with, so he doggedly pursued it, comparing dates to see if maybe they had been in any store at the same time. Jackie Sheets had had several department store credit cards, but Nadine Vinick hadn’t had any, usually paying for her purchases by check or charging the expense to their one credit card, a MasterCard, when she didn’t have the ready funds. But Mrs. Vinick had been very frugal, and had used the card only twice in the past year. Mostly the Vinicks had operated in a pay-as-you-go household, while Jackie Sheets had regularly made charges on her cards and paid in monthly installments, always living slightly above her means. Most of her purchases had been clothes, from the best stores in the city. Their life-styles had been different. The Vinicks had been blue-collar, and Nadine’s greatest interest had been cook-ing. Jackie Sheets had been white-collar, a woman who had loved clothes and made an effort to always look her best. But somewhere, somehow, the two women, as different as they were, had had the bad luck to attract the attention of the same man. But
where,
and
how?

Chief Champlin had clearly hoped they would come up with something; his disappointment that afternoon wasn’t pleasant. But he was also a cop, and he had looked at the files. The same man had done both women. The very lack of forensic evidence was as much an indicator as if they had found the same fingerprints at both scenes. This was a smart bastard, and they needed help.

“All right,” he said. “Call the Bureau. I’ll tell the mayor.”

Bonness made the call, and briefly explained the situa-tion. The local Bureau guys knew big stuff when they heard it, and said they would like to go over the files immediately.

“Hollister and Trammell, get the files and go,” Bonness said.

Dane saw Trammell check his watch, a sure sign that he had something else to do. “Why not send someone from each case?” he suggested. “They may have questions about Jackie Sheets that Trammell and I can’t answer.”

“Okay,” Bonness agreed. “Freddie? Worley? Which one of you wants to go?”

Worley grimaced. He clearly wanted to go, but he, too, checked his watch. “It’s my mother-in-law’s birthday. If I’m late for the party, my wife won’t speak to me for a year.”

“I’m free,” Freddie said. “Which one of you guys is going?”

“I am,” Dane said, and Trammell flashed him a grateful smile.

FBI Agent Dennis Lowery was waiting for them. Lowery had that Ichabod Crane look to him: thin, long-legged, stoop-shouldered, his clothes always flapping about him as if they were too large. His eyes were deep-set, his nose was beaky. But he was a calm, intelligent man who was more diplomatic than some when it came to dealing with local law enforcement agencies. Dane had dealt with him before, and liked him well enough.

A second agent, Sam DiLeonardo, was a young fart barely out of training, all spit and polish. Dane wasn’t as inclined to like him, because he looked like the type who would insist on going by the book even when everything was falling apart around him, but the kid redeemed himself by taking one look at Freddie and immediately falling in lust. He went absolutely still, his eyes widening a little as he stared at her. A slight blush darkened his cheeks. Freddie was always kind and could be very ladylike when she chose, so she pretended not to notice the kid’s fascination. Dane and Lowery exchanged wry glances as they sat down at a long conference table.

“So what do you have?” Lowery asked, pulling a legal pad toward him and uncapping a pen. Freddie gave copies of the files to both agents, who silently leafed through them. DiLeonardo forgot his preoccupation with the plain but remarkably fetching Detective Freddie Brown, his expression turning grim as he stared at the stark photos of the bodies, in both color and black and white.

“He probably stalks them before acting,” Dane said. “He knows if they’re alone or not. In both cases, we think it’s possible that he was in the house for some time before they knew it, hiding out in the spare bedroom. In the Vinick case, he was probably waiting for her husband to go to work. With Jackie Sheets, we don’t know why he waited.”

“Maybe for the neighbors to go to bed,” DiLeonardo said absently, still studying the notes.

“They would be less likely to hear anything if they were still up, with the television on. At any rate, none of the neighbors heard any screams.”

Lowery’s face was impassive as he looked at the photos. “You’d think, the way these women were butchered, that they would have been screaming bloody murder, but a lot of times it doesn’t work that way. He chased them, didn’t he? They were terrified, breathless, already traumatized by being raped. It’s difficult to scream, really scream, under those conditions. The throat tightens up, restricts sound. Probably they didn’t make all that much noise.”

He tossed the files onto the table and rubbed his jaw. “Just two cases? That doesn’t give us much to work on, but I agree, it looks like the same guy. What’s the link?”

“We haven’t been able to find one,” Dane said. “Not looks, life-style, friends, neighborhood, anything. We com-pared canceled checks and credit card receipts, and except for shopping at some of the same department stores, which applies to everyone else in town, their paths never crossed. They never met each other.”