“Wife’s taken up bridge. She belongs to this club—duplicate bridge, they call it. Some kind of a round-robin thingy, where the hands are dealt ahead of time, and each team gets a chance to play them.”
“Sounds fun.”
“I dunno, Doc—I’m not a card-playing man. All I know is they sit there playin’ for hours, and at the end someone wins fifty bucks or somethin'. Seems like a waste of time to me, and they pretty much take over the living room for the evening.”
“So you decided to be elsewhere tonight.”
Butts threw his arms up in surrender. “I’m just in the way. I can’t even go to the kitchen for a beer without havin’ to pass by a dozen people or more.”
“I understand. I felt that way sometimes when my parents had parties when I was a kid.” Lee remembered with a pang what a handsome, glamorous couple they were—his tall, elegant father with his curly black hair and Italian suits, presiding over the arrival of smartly dressed guests, his mother hanging on his arm, her head thrown back, laughing—a hearty, full-throated sound Lee hadn’t heard since the day his father walked out.
Butts took a swig of beer, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and set the glass down on the table with a clunk. “Hey, listen, I’m glad the wife has her own thing, really I am. I just don’t happen to share her love of cards, is all.”
Lee rested one elbow on the white linen tablecloth and looked around the room. Virage had an easygoing East Village charm, elegant and casual at the same time, a relaxed atmosphere with seriously good food. The floor was done in the classic black-and-white Art Deco tiles used in so many building interiors in the twenties, and the décor reflected the French/Moroccan cuisine: comfortable green and white wicker chairs, white tablecloths, with French movie posters on the walls. With the slowly rotating ceiling fan and potted palms, the restaurant could have been a back room at Rick’s in Casablanca.
Lee glanced at his watch. Kathy was late, but he knew the rush-hour trains from Philadelphia often ran behind schedule.
“So what is this mysterious case you’re working on?” he asked.
Butts licked his lips and took another sip of beer. “It’s very weird, you know, Doc—very weird.” “How so? Who’s the victim?” Butts leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Well, that’s the thing. There’s more than one.” “Yeah? Tell me more.”
“Okay, but if they decide to call you in on this one, you didn’t hear this from me.”
“Really? You think they might call me in?”
“Who knows? Alls I know is that we’re not even sure yet these are homicides.”
“Is Chuck Morton involved yet?”
“Well, if we decide that these guys are vics and not suicides, he will be.”
Besides being the head of Bronx Major Case Unit in the Bronx, where Butts was a homicide detective, Chuck Morton was also Lee’s college roommate and best friend—and was largely responsible for his appointment as the only criminal profiler in the NYPD.
Lee took a long swallow of beer. It was very fizzy and a little sweet—it tasted yellow, like honey.
“Okay,” he said, leaning forward, “tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”
CHAPTER FOUR
By the time Kathy showed up at the restaurant, Butts and Lee were well into their second round, hunched over the table deep in conversation, their heads almost touching. When he saw her, Lee leapt up from his chair and rushed over to her, his handsome face flushed with happiness. How different he was from the thin, pale, and worried-looking man Kathy had met five months ago. Though he still suffered from occasional bouts of depression, he was much more relaxed than he had been when they met. Of course, he told her it was because of her presence in his life, and as much as Kathy wanted to believe this, she suspected there were other factors as well.
“Hi! We were beginning to worry about you,” he said, kissing her on the lips and putting his arm around her shoulders. She was much shorter than he was, so he had to bend down a little. Kathy was self-conscious about her height, but Lee Campbell made her feel good about the way she looked—one of the many reasons she loved him. She was dark-haired and small, and he claimed to prefer compact brunettes over the American stereotype of beauty—tall, leggy blondes. She didn’t even need to believe him to feel grateful—it was enough that he said it. She was