Bury the Lead - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,14

callers.

There is still a police presence at the scene, and the public is kept away by the ten or so cops assigned to protect it. Two of them were trained by Laurie when she was on the force, and she has no trouble getting them to let us in.

Padilla’s body was found in the pavilion, so that is where we go. There is a chalk outline where the body had been. I wonder whose job it is to draw that, and if they give a class in it at the Police Academy. If I were a cop, that would be the assignment I’d go after. I’d even be willing to start as an assistant chalker and work my way up.

“She was strangled?” Laurie asks.

I nod. “From behind.”

“She wasn’t killed here.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

She points to some scrape marks which lead to the area where the body was. “She was dragged . . . from that door . . . probably wrapped in a sack. If she was alive, he wouldn’t have bothered dragging her this far . . . he would have killed her closer to the door. There’s also no blood; if her hands were cut off here, even postmortem, there would be some blood.”

There’s something about the way she re-creates what happened here that both chills me and leaves me very sad. No one deserves to be dragged in a sack to be dumped on a cold floor. If there is a way to end a life, this sure ain’t it.

We’re quiet on the way to the hospital, each of us affected by what we have just seen. Laurie is frustrated; she knows this maniac has struck four times and will keep going until he’s caught. She wants to be involved in tracking him down, rather than simply hanging out with the lawyer for the newspaper that is reporting the story.

“Why would he pick a guy like Cummings?” I ask.

“Certainly, he wants attention, a forum to speak to the world without exposing himself to danger. But why Cummings? It’s hard to say. Isn’t he a law-and-order, tough-on-crime guy? Maybe that’s why the killer picked him. It’s another way to thumb his nose at authority. Which also may be why he picked Linda Padilla.”

“I’m not so sure,” I say. “There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to the victims. My guess is they were chosen at random. Padilla may just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

We arrive at the hospital and walk through the lobby toward the elevators. Laurie sees the cafeteria down the hall. “I just want to get a cup of coffee first,” she says.

“More coffee?” I ask. “Doesn’t anybody drink tea anymore? What the hell is this society coming to?”

“Investments not going well?” she asks, but since she knows the answer, she doesn’t wait to hear it, and heads to the cafeteria.

When we finally get to Cummings’s room, he is sitting in a chair, fully dressed and talking to Vince. I introduce him to Laurie, and then Vince gives Laurie a big hug and wide smile. For some reason, Laurie brings out gracious behavior in human beings otherwise incapable of it.

Cummings says, with obvious frustration, “So, defense attorney, you specialize in getting clients out of confinement? How about getting me out of here?”

“What’s the problem?” I ask, irritated by his tone.

“Hospital regulation bullshit,” says Vince. “They have to do all kinds of paperwork before a patient can be released.”

“That’s nice for them, but they have five minutes. I have work to do.” Cummings looks at his watch, as if that will make his threat more credible.

“Relax, Daniel,” says Vince. “Your story for tomorrow is written already.”

Cummings’s face shows no sign of relaxing, and he opens the door, calling out to a nurse as she walks by the room. “Nurse, we need to get out of here.”

The nurse answers nervously, “I’m sorry, Mr. Cummings, I’m sure they’ll be here momentarily.”

She closes the door and doesn’t hear him ask, “Who’s ‘they’?”

Cummings doesn’t go back to his chair and instead paces the room. He turns to Laurie and me. “Are they making any progress on the murders? I’m cut off from the damn world in here.”

As I’m about to tell him that I have no idea, the door opens and Captain Millen walks in, flanked by five officers. They seem to come in a little too quickly, as if rushed, but that is not the most surprising thing about their entry. The