Kiss the Girls Page 0,32

I asked him.

“Nah. Never been any worse in my life. You?”

“Never worse.”

“After you called,” Seth said, “I was thinking about this visit, about this talk that we’d eventually have. I tried to think the way that you might be thinking. You know, like a police detective. Please, don’t have any more thoughts that there’s some chance that I could have anything to do with Naomi’s disappearance. Don’t waste time on that.”

I looked over at Seth Samuel. He was hunched over, and his head rested on his chest. Even in the dark I could see that his eyes were shiny-wet. His grief was a palpable thing. I wanted to tell him that we were going to find her and that everything would work out, but I knew no such thing.

We finally held on to each other. We were both missing Naomi in our own way, mourning together, on the dark roof.

Chapter 31

A FRIEND of mine from the FBI finally returned one of my phone calls that night. I was doing some reading when he called: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I was working on Casanova’s profile and still not getting very far.

I had originally met Special Agent Kyle Craig during the long, difficult manhunt for the serial kidnapper Gary Soneji. Kyle had always been a straight shooter. He wasn’t territorial like most FBI agents, and not too uptight by Bureau standards, either. Sometimes I thought that he didn’t belong in the FBI. He was too much of a human being.

“Thanks for finally returning my calls, stranger,” I said over the phone. “Where are you working out of these days?”

Kyle surprised me with his answer. “I’m here in Durham, Alex. To be a little more precise, I’m in the lobby of your hotel. C’mon down for a drink or three in the infamous Bull Durham Room. I need to talk to you. I’ve got a special message for you from J. Edgar himself.”

“I’ll be right down. I’ve been wondering what the Hoove’s been up to since he faked his own death.”

Kyle was seated at a table for two beside a large bay window. The window faced directly onto the putting green of the university golf course. A lank man who looked like a schoolboy was teaching a Duke coed how to putt in the dark. The jock was standing behind his lady, showing her his best putt-putt moves.

Kyle was watching the lesson of the links with obvious amusement. I watched Kyle with obvious amusement. He turned as if he could sense my presence.

“Man, you have a nose for bad trouble,” he said by way of a greeting. “I was sorry to hear that your niece is missing. It’s good to see you, in spite of the particularly vile and shitty circumstances.”

I sat down across from the agent, and we started to talk shop. As always, he was extremely upbeat and positive without sounding naïve. It’s a gift he has. Some people feel that Kyle could wind up at the top of the Bureau, and that it would be the best thing that ever happened.

“First, the honorable Ronald Burns appears in Durham. Now you show up. What gives?” I asked Kyle.

“Tell me what you have so far,” he said. “I’ll try to reciprocate as much as I can.”

“I’m doing psych profiles on the murdered women,” I told Kyle. “The so-called rejects. In two of the cases, the rejected women had very strong personalities. They probably gave him a lot of trouble. That could be why he killed them, to get rid of them. The exception was Bette Anne Ryerson. She was a mother, in therapy, and she might have had a nervous breakdown.”

Kyle massaged his scalp with one hand. He was also shaking his head. “You’ve been given no information, no help whatsoever. But zip-a-dee-doo-dah” —he smiled at me— “you’re still a half-step ahead of our people. I haven’t heard that theory about the ‘rejects.’ It’s pretty good, Alex, especially if he’s a control freak.”

“He could definitely be a control freak, Kyle. There has to be a damn good reason why he got rid of those three women. Now, I thought you were going to tell me some things I didn’t know.”

“Maybe, if you pass a few more simple tests, that is. What else have you figured out?”

I bad-eyed Kyle while I slowly sipped my beer. “You know, I thought you were all right, but you’re just another FBI prick.”

“I was programmed at Quantico,” Kyle said in a passable computer