Hands grabbed the shower curtain, pushed it aside. Jess lunged forward.
“Hohh!”
she cried loudly, hurling the soap at her attacker’s head. He flinched, fell backward against the sink, his hands raised to protect his face.
“Jesus Christ, Jess,” she heard him yell. “Are you nuts? Are you trying to kill me?”
Jess stared at the man cowering in front of her. “Don?” she asked meekly.
“Jess, are you all right?” Adam called, racing into the room.
“I’m not sure,” Jess told him honestly. “What are you doing here, Don? You scared the life out of me.”
“I scared
you?”
Don demanded. “I almost had a heart attack, for God’s sake.”
“I told you to wait until she was finished her shower,” Adam said, not doing a very good job of hiding his growing smile.
“What are you doing here?” Jess asked again.
Don looked from Jess to Adam and then back to Jess. “Can I talk to you for a few minutes alone?”
Jess pushed some wet hairs away from her forehead, realizing suddenly that she was standing naked in front of two men, one of whom was her ex-husband, the other her would-be lover. “Could somebody please hand me a towel,” she asked, trying to sound casual.
Adam immediately wrapped her in a large peach-colored bath towel, helping her out of the tub and onto the bath mat. Jess found herself squeezed between the two men, not sure how she wound up in situations like this one, wondering whether it was all another of her silly dreams. The small bathroom, barely big enough for one, was threatening to explode with three.
“It’s okay, Adam,” Jess assured him.
Adam looked toward Don, then gave the smile that had been playing with the corners of his mouth full rein. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he told Don before leaving the room.
“What’s going on, Don?” she asked.
“Suppose you tell me.”
“You’re the one who barged into my bathroom,” she reminded him.
“I didn’t barge in. I called your name a couple of times. I thought I heard you say something. I assumed you said to come in. So I did. Next thing I know I’m getting beaned with a bar of soap.”
“I thought you were Rick Ferguson.”
“Rick Ferguson?”
“My imagination’s in overdrive these days,” she told him. “Do you mind if we go into the bedroom. I’m feeling a little ridiculous talking to you dressed in a towel.”
“Jess, we used to be married, remember?”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
Jess walked past him into her bedroom, pulling on her housecoat and using the towel to dry her hair.
“I was worried about you,” he said. “The guy I hired to watch you said there was some excitement here with the police.”
“That was last night.”
“I didn’t get home till this morning,” he admitted sheepishly.
Jess looked at him with mock reproach. In truth, she felt enormous relief.
“I came right over. Your boyfriend,” he said, almost choking on the words, “let me in. He said you were in the shower, but …”
“ … but you wanted to see for yourself. Well, you certainly did.”
“What happened last night?” Don asked.
Jess told him about returning home, meeting Adam outside, finding the window in her apartment open, the bird missing. About waking up in the night hungry, deciding on a snack, opening the door to the microwave oven, finding her dead canary inside.
“Jesus, Jess. I’m so sorry.”
Jess wiped away a few stray tears, amazed at her seemingly endless supply. “He was such a sweet little bird. He just liked to sit in his cage and sing all day. What kind of sick mind …?”
“There are a lot of sick people out there,” Don said sadly.
“One in particular.”
“I have something to tell you,” Don stated. “Something that should put your mind at rest. If that’s possible.”
“What’s that?”
“Rick Ferguson walked into the police station at eight o’clock this morning and turned himself in.”
“What?” Jess ran immediately to her closet, started fumbling for some clothes.
“He claims he had no idea the police were looking for him. He’d been with a woman he’d met …”
“Sure he was. He just doesn’t happen to remember her name.”
“I don’t think he asked.”
Jess pulled on some underwear, followed quickly by her jeans and a heavy blue sweater. “How long have you known about this?”
Jess noted the sadness that registered in Don’s eyes. “There were two messages on my service when I got home this morning,” he said evenly. “One concerned you and what went on here last night; the other was from Rick Ferguson, telling me he’d been home, talked to his mother, found out the police were looking for him, and that he was headed for the station to turn himself in. I’m on my way down there now. I think I might be able to persuade him it’s in his best interests to cooperate with the state’s attorney’s office.”
“Good. I’m going with you.” Jess pulled her wet hair into a ponytail.
“What about Chef Boyardee?”
Jess looked through the bedroom wall toward the kitchen. “Breakfast will have to wait till I get back.”
“You’re going to leave the man alone in your apartment?” Don’s voice was incredulous. “Jess, need I remind you that the last time he was here, you woke up to find all your panties slashed to ribbons.”
“Don, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Was it just a coincidence that he turned up here last night, Jess?” Don asked, impatiently. “Hasn’t it even occurred to you that it might have been Adam who broke into your apartment? That it might have been Adam who killed your canary? You caught him leaving the scene, for God’s sake!”
“I didn’t catch him,” Jess protested, her voice hollow. “He was here looking for me. He hadn’t been upstairs.”
“Says who?”
“He does,” Jess stammered.
“And you believe everything he tells you? You don’t even admit the possibility that he might be lying?”
“Tell me no secrets, I’ll tell you no lies,” Jess said quietly, not realizing she was speaking out loud.
“What?”
Jess snapped back into the present. “It doesn’t make sense, Don. Why would Adam be doing these things? What motive could he possibly have?”
“I have no idea. I only know that ever since you met this guy, a lot of strange things have been happening to you. Strange and dangerous.”
“But Adam has no reason to hurt me.”
The look on Don’s face changed from concern to sadness. “Are you falling in love with him, Jess?” he asked.
Jess released a deep sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Jesus, Jess, he’s a shoe salesman, for God’s sake. What are you doing with this guy?”
“He isn’t a shoe salesman,” Jess said quietly.
“What?”
“Well, he is, I guess,” Jess corrected herself. “Not that it matters.”
“What are you trying to say, Jess?”
“He’s a lawyer.”
“What?”
“He’s a lawyer.”
“A lawyer,” Don repeated.
“Something happened. He got disillusioned, so he gave it up. …”
“And found fulfillment selling shoes, is that what you’re seriously trying to tell me?”
“It’s a very long story.”
“And a very tall one. Jess, are you so enamored of this guy that you can’t recognize a crock of shit when it hits you in the face?”
“It’s very complicated.”
“Only lies are complicated,” Don told her. “The truth is usually very simple.”
Jess looked from the floor to the ceiling, then over to the window, anywhere but at her ex-husband, refusing to consider the possibility he might be right.
“You know I only want what’s best for you, don’t you?” Don was saying.
Jess nodded, tears returning to her eyes. She brushed them angrily away.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he added quietly.
Jess nodded. “We should get over to the station,” she said. “I have a few questions I want to ask your client.”
Rick Ferguson was slumped into the same chair, in the same interrogation room, in almost the same position, as when Jess had questioned him the last time. Two plainclothes detectives sat off to one comer. For an instant, Jess felt as if she’d never left.
He was wearing the same brown leather jacket, the same blue jeans, the same spiked-toed black boots. The same superior attitude clung to his posture. As soon as Jess walked in the room, he stiffened, following her movement with his hooded, cobralike eyes. Slowly, he uncoiled his body, as if preparing to strike. Then immediately, he relaxed, opening his legs wide, as if deliberately exposing the bulge at his crotch. “I like your hair,” he drawled at Jess, scratching lazily at the inside of his thigh. “Wet suits you. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Shut up, Rick,” Don ordered, following Jess into the room. “And sit up straight in the chair.”
Rick Ferguson pushed his body into something vaguely resembling a sitting position, though he kept his legs wide apart. His long hair hung loose to his shoulders. Absently, he reached up to flick it behind his ears. Jess noted the presence of an earring in his left ear.
“Is that new?” she asked, pointing to the small gold loop.
“How observant you are, Jess,” Rick Ferguson remarked. “Yes, it’s new. I also got a new tattoo. The scales of justice.” He laughed. “On my ass. Want to see it?”
“Cut the shit, Rick,” Don told him succinctly.
Rick Ferguson looked surprised. “Hey, what are you getting so bent out of shape about? You’re
my
lawyer, remember?”
“Not if you keep this up.”
“Hey, man, what’s going on here?” His eyes traveled rapidly between Don and Jess. “You got something going with the pretty prosecuting attorney?”
“You said you’d answer a few of Ms. Koster’s questions,” Don said, his voice sharp. “I’ll tell you if there’s anything I think you shouldn’t answer.”
“Hey, my life’s an open book. Fire away, Counselor.”
“Did you kill Connie DeVuono?” Jess asked immediately.
“No.”
“Where were you on the day she disappeared?”
“What day was that?”
She gave him the exact date and approximate time.
Rick Ferguson shrugged. “I think I was home with my mother that afternoon. She hadn’t been feeling too well.”
“You work where?”
“You know where.”
“Answer the question.”
“Ask me nicely.”
Jess glanced at her ex-husband.
“Answer the question, Rick. You agreed to cooperate.”
“She doesn’t have to be rude.” Rick Ferguson’s hand rubbed at the crotch of his jeans.
“You work at the Ace Magnetic Wire Factory, is that correct?”
“Bingo.”
“Can you describe your job for me, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Mr. Ferguson?” he repeated sitting up tall. “I think I like the way you say that.”
“Tell her what you do, Rick,” Don advised.
“She knows what I do. Let her tell me.”
“You operate a forklift that transfers spools of wire from the warehouse down to the dock, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Before that, you were a press man, someone who presses out the wire.”
“Right again. You’ve obviously done your homework, Jess. I had no idea you were so interested in me.”
“What do you make of the fact that the wire you take down to the dock every day is the same wire that was used to kill Connie DeVuono?”
“Don’t answer that,” Don said quickly.
Rick Ferguson said nothing.
“Where have you been the last few days?”
“Nowhere special.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Not really.”
“Why did you sneak out of the house in the middle of the night?”
“I never snuck out of the house.”
“Your house was being watched. You were seen entering it on the night of December ninth. You were not seen leaving. You didn’t show up for work the next morning.”
“I took a few days sick leave. I’m entitled. And hey, if you didn’t see me walk out of my front door, that’s your fault, not mine.”
“You didn’t run off?”
“If I’d run off, why would I have come back? Why would I voluntarily turn myself in?”
“You tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t run off. Hey, as soon as I heard you guys were looking for me, I rushed right over. I had no reason to run away. You got nothing on me.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Ferguson,” Jess told him, “I have motive, I have opportunity, I have access to the murder weapon.”
Rick Ferguson shrugged. “You got nothing,” he repeated.
“You never answered my questions about where you’ve been the past several days.”
“Yes, I did. It just wasn’t the answer you wanted to hear.”
“What about yesterday?”
“What about it?”
“Where were you yesterday? Surely, you can remember that far back?”
“I can remember. I just don’t see where it’s any of your business.” He looked at his lawyer. “What’s where I was yesterday got to do with why I’m being arrested?”
“Answer the question,” Don told him, and Jess thanked him with an almost imperceptible nod of her head.
“I was with a girl I met.”
“What’s her name?”
“Melanie,” he said.
“Last name?”
“I never asked for her last name.”
“Where does she live?”
“I have no idea. We went to a motel.”
“Which motel?”
“The one that was closest.”
Jess looked from the blood-red concrete floor to the acoustic tile ceiling in exasperation. “In other words, you can’t prove where you were yesterday.”
“Why should I have to?” Again, Rick Ferguson turned to Don, his eyes squinting into a question. “What does where I was yesterday have to do with this DeVuono woman’s murder?”
“Ms. Koster’s apartment was broken into sometime between two in the afternoon and seven in the evening yesterday,” Don told him.
“Gee, that’s too bad,” Rick Ferguson said, his voice a smile. “Anything missing?”
Jess pictured the open window and empty birdcage that greeted her upon her return to her apartment. “You tell me,” she said, her voice flat, void of emotion.
“What—you think I did it?” A look of reproach filled Rick Ferguson’s face.
“Did you?” Jess asked.
“I already told you. I was with a girl named Melanie.”
“We have witnesses who can place you at the scene,” Jess lied, wondering whether Don would object, grateful when he didn’t.