Deja Dead Page 0,21

pretty uptight.” I regretted saying it immediately.

“What murders?” Her voice was becoming thick, the words rounded and soft on the edges.

“A pretty nasty one came in last Thursday.” I didn’t go on. Gabby has never wanted to hear about my work.

“Oh?” She helped herself to more bread. She was being polite. She’d told me about her work, now she’d listen to me talk about mine.

“Yeah. Surprisingly there hasn’t been much press. Her body was found off Sherbrooke last week. Came in as an unknown. Turns out she was killed last April.”

“That sounds like a lot of your cases. So what’s rattling ya?”

I sat back and looked at her, wondering if I really wanted to go into this. Maybe it would be better to talk about it. Better for whom? For me? There was no one else with whom I could do that. Did she really want to hear it?

“The victim was mutilated. Then the body was butchered and thrown into a ravine.”

She looked at me without commenting.

“I think the MO is similar to another one I worked on.”

“Meaning?”

“I see the same”—I groped for the right word—“elements in both.”

“Such as?” She reached for her glass.

“Savage battering, disfiguring the body.”

“But that’s pretty common, isn’t it? When women are the victims? Bash our heads in, choke us, then slash us up? Male Violence 101.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “And I don’t really know the cause of death in this last one since she was so badly decomposed.”

Gabby looked ill at ease. Maybe this was a mistake.

“What else?” She held her wine but didn’t drink.

“The mutilation. Cutting up the body. Or removing parts of it. Or . . .” I trailed off, thinking of the plunger. I still wasn’t sure what it meant.

“So ya think the same bastard did them both?”

“Yes. I do. But I can’t convince the idiot who’s working the case. He won’t even look into the other one.”

“The murders could be the work of one of these dirtbags who gets his rocks off butchering women?”

I answered without looking up. “Yes.”

“And ya think he’ll do it again?”

Her voice was sharp once more, the velvety edges gone. I put my fork down and looked at her. She was peering at me intently, her head thrust slightly forward, her fingers wrapped tightly around the stem of her wineglass. The glass was trembling, its contents rippling gently.

“Gabby, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked about this. Gabby, are you all right?”

She straightened in her seat and set the glass down deliberately, holding on to it a moment before letting go. She continued to stare at me. I signaled the waiter.

“Do you want coffee?”

She nodded her head.

We finished dinner, indulging ourselves in cannoli and cappuccino. She seemed to recover her humor as we laughed and mocked the memory of our student selves in the Age of Aquarius, our hair worn long and straight, our shirts tie-dyed, our jeans slung low on our hips and belled at the ankles, a generation following identical escape routes from conformity. It was past midnight when we left the restaurant.

Walking along Prince Arthur, she brought up the murders again.

“What would this guy be like?”

The question took me by surprise.

“I mean, would he be wacko? Would he be normal? Would ya be able to spot him?”

My confusion was annoying her.

“Could ya pick the fucker out at a church picnic?”

“The killer?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.”

She pursued it. “Would he be functional?”

“I think so. If one person did kill both these women, and I don’t know that for sure, Gab, he’s organized. He plans. Many serial killers fool the world for a long time before they’re caught. But I’m not a psychologist. That’s pure speculation.”

We arrived at the car and I unlocked it. Suddenly she reached over and grabbed my arm. “Let me show ya the strip.”

I didn’t follow. Again the mental leap had left me out. My mind went into bridge building.

“Uh . . .”

“The red-light district. My project. Let’s just drive by and I’ll show ya the girls.”

I glanced over just as the headlights of an oncoming car caught her. Her face looked strange in the shifting illumination. The light moved across her like the beam of a flashlight, accentuating some features, throwing others into shadow. Her eagerness was persuasive. I looked at my watch—twelve-eighteen.

“Okay.” It really wasn’t. Tomorrow would be tough. But she seemed so anxious I didn’t have the heart to disappoint her.

She folded herself into the car and slid the seat back to its farthest position. It gave her some leg room, but not