heads down,” the detective said, and started threading this way toward one of the entrances. Glancing around, he lowered his voice before continuing. “Rudkowski is an idiot. After this thing with Lewis, Locke brought me into the loop.”
“You and he talked to witnesses who were near Gif when he went down?”
“Yeah, but didn’t get much. Boatload of people had just gotten off one of the harbor tours. Word spread about the deadly assault of a woman. The crowd began migrating toward the scene of the crime. Lewis must’ve got caught up and swept along.”
“No one saw the attack?”
He shook his head. “One guy we talked to said that at almost the same time Lewis dropped, he noticed a man making his way through the throng in a hurry. He didn’t think anything about it at the time.”
“Description?”
“He only saw him from the back, and all he remembers is that he had on a rain poncho. And it could have been just a man in a hurry. Security cameras may have picked him up. They’re being checked.”
“I’ll appreciate any information you can pass along.”
“You got it. Locke and me will do what we can to help.”
“If you’re called on it, I swear I won’t let them hang you out to dry.”
“Mr. Easton,” he said grimly, “if it means catching Ford, I wouldn’t mind if I was.”
They were approaching an exit where two uniformed policemen were standing together, chewing the fat more than being vigilant. “Just keep walking,” Menundez said out of the side of his mouth. “We’ll be in touch.”
He veered off and headed toward the officers, saying to them as he walked up, “Hey, guys. Menundez from CID. That second emergency near the wharf? It was an assault.”
“Any connection to the homicide?”
“We don’t know yet, but…”
That’s all Drex and Talia heard before they cleared the door. At the first opportunity, Drex pulled her out from under the bright lights of the porte cochere and into the shadows of the building. There he stopped.
“I thought we were in a hurry,” she said.
“Let’s wait here for a minute or two, see if anybody follows us out.”
“Police?”
“Jasper.” Thinking out loud, he said, “He killed that woman for no other reason than to draw me out, get me to make myself visible, so he could follow me. Follow me to you. I didn’t show, but he recognized Gif.”
“But how? From where?”
“Hell I know. I can’t figure that. Gif doesn’t just fade into the woodwork. He becomes the woodwork. But Jasper picked him out of that crowd.”
His eyes narrowed with wrath over what Jasper had done to Gif. “The calling card he left me was anything but subtle. If Jasper materialized in front of me right now, in any disguise, I swear to God I’d kill him.”
After waiting for several minutes and seeing no one worthy of a second look, he took Talia’s hand. Together they made their way to where she’d parked Gif’s car. Drex asked for the key. “I’m driving.”
“You may get lost.”
“I hope I do. It would make a tail more noticeable.”
Earlier that day, Jasper had bid Howard Clement a fond farewell. The man with a penchant for garishly printed shirts had served his purpose, but it had been time to assume another identity.
Tonight, as he’d moved among ordinary people looking very much like one of them, no one paid him any heed. Even if the woman he’d killed had seen him coming, she wouldn’t have felt threatened. Had she seen him as she walked alone across the dark and deserted parking lot—such a stupid thing for her to do—she probably would have smiled and wished him a good evening before turning her back to him to unlock her car door.
But she hadn’t seen him as he came out of the darkness and moved up behind her. The full nelson had taken her so unaware that she’d barely squeaked in surprise as he clamped his hands around her head like a vise, and forced it forward and down at such a steep angle that the vertebrae in her neck had snapped like twigs. Spine severed. She was dead. It had taken no time at all.
He’d left her where she fell and took a stroll out onto the wharf. It had been crawling with tourists who’d defied the inclement weather. He’d blended in. He’d walked all the way out to the end of it and stayed for several minutes to enjoy the view across the water. He had started back when he heard