“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Grimes covered his mouth sheepishly, sending Baldwin a mental message instead. Get her to talk, his eyes implored. This could be the best information we get.

“Lurene, you said Marni Fischer came in here often. When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Friday morning. She always comes in before work on Friday, says it’s her treat for the week. Boy, that girl sure could put away some food. Always had what you’re havin’, finished the whole plate and usually asked for more biscuits. They’re my own recipe, you know.”

Baldwin took the hint and demolished a biscuit. He was amazed, he’d never had anything quite so good. Having grown up in the South, that was saying some-110

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thing. He gave Lurene the compliment and she practically purred. Baldwin imagined Eugene must have his hands full.

“So you say you saw Marni on Friday. She didn’t stop in Saturday?”

“Nope, sugar, she didn’t.”

“Any chance you had a stranger in here on Friday?

A man, maybe?”

She pursed her lips and thought hard, air leaking out the small O where her lips weren’t entirely closed in a tinny little whistle. “Honey, we have strangers in here all the time. There was a boy in here, cute kid I hadn’t seen before. But he was just a kid. Maybe seventeen, eighteen. He wasn’t legal, I’ll tell you that. Figured he was in here while his momma had an appointment or somethin’.”

“What did he look like?” Eighteen was younger than Baldwin expected the killer to be, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Handsome boy, dark hair, like yours. Don’t really remember much about his features. Just a good-looking kid. Came in, ate and left, he was only here about twenty minutes, tops. Didn’t linger like you men.” She winked at him. “I’m sorry for that girl, I liked her a lot. You finish your breakfast now, y’hear?” She topped off their coffee and left them to their thoughts. They finished as much of the food as they could, and Grimes wisely mopped up the remainder of his eggs with the last biscuit. They got up and went to pay, but Lurene waved them off.

“You just find that girl, okay?”

“We’ll do our best, ma’am. Thank you for a wonder- All the Pretty Girls 111

ful breakfast.” Baldwin surreptitiously slipped a twentydollar bill under a saltshaker on the counter and they made their way out onto the quiet street. They sat in Baldwin’s hotel room, waiting. At least, Baldwin sat. Thinking about how young his killer could actually be. A kid, that wouldn’t fit. This guy was too organized, too mobile to be that young. He needed his own place, his own wheels and a lot of cash to circulate himself around the Southeast. Naw, that didn’t work. Grimes paced a few feet away. A member of his team had called a few minutes earlier. Shauna Davidson’s apartment had been searched and a poem found in her desk drawer. Baldwin read and reread the lines Grimes gave him.

How can those terrified vague fingers push, The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

How can anybody, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

This was not good at all. Baldwin closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Grimes’s relentless pacing. He could still hear the man’s shoes passing through the industrialgrade carpet— swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. As Grimes made his latest turn, his phone rang. He looked at Baldwin. “Finally.” He snapped the phone open.

“Grimes.” He listened, then motioned for a pen and pad to write on. He scribbled furiously, nodding and uhhuhing for a few minutes, then hung up and looked at Baldwin.

“I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

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Grimes’s admission of the mistake was surprising. An undercurrent of animosity had plagued their relationship from the beginning, yet here he was, ready to confess all his sins, to be absolved by the one man he didn’t want in the investigation. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Baldwin couldn’t justify the blunder, but he could understand it.

“Grimes, you’ve been dealing with three separate law enforcement agencies in three states. Countless people, high-stress situations. Anyone could have missed it.”

“But you didn’t,” he said miserably. “See, I haven’t really been on my ‘A’ game with this. I’ve been having some trouble at home, been thinking about retiring. Turn in the badge, get a real life.” The melancholy in his tone was alarming. “I should take myself off the case. I could have blown the whole thing. I might have been able to save one of those girls.”

Baldwin clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Hey, I didn’t find the note in Nashville attached to Shauna Davidson’s murder.” He waited until Grimes met his eyes. “Listen, I need you to keep your head in the game. Yeah, it was a miss. A big miss. But we need to move forward now, okay? I want you on this case. Read me what they found.”

Grimes nodded, swallowing hard.

Jesus, Baldwin thought. Just what I need. Grimes shook his head, cleared his throat, tried to gain an element of dignity and control. “All right. Let’s see how you do with these.”

“More poetry?” Baldwin felt his heart beating just a little harder. His instinct was right.

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“Yep. The notes have been there all along. Each girl had one in their personal effects. According to Petty, Lernier’s and Palmer’s were in their gym bags, Jessica Porter’s was in her date book. We just didn’t see it. God, how could we have missed this? They’ve been collected, they’ve already been printed, but nothing showed. Jesus, I’ve blown the whole case.” Grimes was back off on his

“woe is me” tangent, and Baldwin was getting impatient.

“Grimes. The poems?”

“Yeah, yeah, let me read them off to you. Ready?”

“Okay, shoot.”

“This was in Susan Palmer’s car.” He read the verses aloud.

“A perfect woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of an angelic light.”

Baldwin scribbled and nodded, murmuring to himself. “Wordsworth. Okay, who’s next?”

“Jeanette Lernier. Here we go.

“A creature not too bright or good

For human nature’s daily food

For transient sorrows, simple wiles Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”

Baldwin smiled. “Another stanza from the same poem. What was found in Jessica’s dayrunner?”

Grimes flipped the page of his notebook. “Jessica, Jessica… Here.

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“A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.”

“Same poem?” Grimes asked.

“No, that’s one’s Yeats. Excellent poet, Yeats.” He reached for Grimes’s notebook. “Let me see that.”

Grimes handed it over and Baldwin read the lines again.

“Jessica’s, Shauna’s and Marni’s poems are from

‘Leda and the Swan,’ William Butler Yeats. Jeanette’s and Susan’s are from a William Wordsworth poem,

‘She Was a Phantom of Delight.’ Our killer knows some of the classics.”

Grimes scratched his head. “Apparently you do, too. But what does it mean?”

“See, that’s the problem. It means something different to different people. What I’m concerned about is this stanza of Marni’s poem. Being so caught up, so mastered by the brute blood of the air… indifferent beak… When he started, with Susan and Jeanette and Jessica, he worked hard. He stalked them, took his time, seduced them. Now he’s picking up speed, moving too fast to get involved emotionally with his victims. These girls are a means to an end now, not an object worthy of worship and desire.