“Some of it, but not all. Didn’t have to. Women can tell. You understand, I’m sure.”

Beam did. He also understood that Mary Jane didn’t like Lenny Rodman, or maybe liked him too much, or she wouldn’t have made it a point to mention him.

Now she wanted to do more than merely mention. She was ripe.

Time to dish.

He aimed his kindly smile at Nell like a flashlight, then at Mary Jane. “So tell us about Lenny.”

11

Beam and Nell were in Beam’s Lincoln, on their way to Lenny Rodman’s Brooklyn address, when Beam’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Taking a corner with one hand on the steering wheel, he yanked out the phone, flipped up its lid, and glanced at the Caller ID. Looper.

“Beam, Loop.”

They were breaking the law, using a hand-held phone in New York while driving, Nell thought. Felt good.

“I talked to Floyd Baker, then called two of his golf buddies,” said Looper’s voice on the phone, almost breaking up as the big Lincoln rounded the corner and rocked as it straightened out. Looks like his alibi is tight. In fact, he already seems to be getting over his grief at his wife’s death. Once it was obvious he wasn’t going to be a suspect, all he wanted to talk about was this eagle he made on the tenth hole. Popped the ball out of a sand trap, it bounced once and hit the pole, then dropped straight down into the cup. Says he shot two on a par four. You believe that?”

“I dunno,” Beam said. “What do his golfing partners say?”

“I checked it out with them and they swear to it, too.”

“Think you could get them to say it under oath?”

Nell was looking intently at Beam.

“Hah!” Looper said. “You a golfer?”

“Used to be. Get them to swear to it and we can believe it.”

Beam broke the connection.

“What?” Nell said anxiously. “We catch a break?”

“Ever actually seen anyone use their sand wedge to clear a trap and eagle the hole?” Beam asked.

She stared at him, confused.

“Floyd Baker’s not a suspect,” Beam said. “His golfing buddies confirm his alibi.”

“Golf,” Nell said. “It’s one of the few male diseases that don’t infect women.”

Beam thought about telling her that was because women couldn’t drive the ball as far, then decided he’d better not. Besides, plenty of women liked golf.

The phone, still in his hand, vibrated again, startling him. He flipped the lid back up and said hello without taking his eyes off the traffic ahead.

“Da Vinci here, Beam. Get anything interesting on the Beverly Baker murder?”

“I just talked to Looper. Looks like Floyd Baker’s in the clear. He was out on the links when his wife was killed.”

“Links?”

“You don’t golf?”

“Never.”

“Floyd was playing golf in Connecticut at the time of his wife’s murder, shot an eagle out of a sand trap, has witnesses.”

Da Vinci was unmoved. “Ballistics says it was a steel-jacketed thirty-two caliber slug that killed Beverly Baker. It matches the others. Same gun that killed the previous victims.”

“Killer doesn’t seem to care that we’re making a match,” Beam said. He braked to a stop for a traffic jam as they neared the bridge. “I mean, he’s careful enough he recovers his shell casings, and wears gloves so he doesn’t leave prints, but using the same gun and knowing we can match it doesn’t seem to concern him.”

“Maybe he’s only got one gun,” da Vinci said.

“Could be that simple.” Traffic was moving again, but barely; Beam’s foot came off the brake and the long-hooded Lincoln crept forward like a dark, chrome-festooned predator. “But a guy like this, you’d think he’d know where to get his hands on more than one gun.”

“He doesn’t worry about getting caught,” da Vinci said.

“None of them think they’ll get caught. At least not until they’re ready. They’re all smarter than we are. I think he wants to be sure we match the murders, just in case one of the letter Js blows away or isn’t noticed. The steel-jacketed slugs penetrate flesh and bone better and don’t get too misshapen, so the lab can pick up marks on them and ID the gun. The bullets are part of his signature. He wants to be sure he gets the notch when each of his victims dies.”

“Not just for us, though,” da Vinci said. “The media’s starting to heat up on this, just as I feared. They’re zeroing in on the anti-Semitism angle.”

“They’re wrong,” Beam said, and told da Vinci about Nell’s theory, along with the fact that Beverly Baker once served as a jury foreperson.

“Impressive,” da Vinci said. “You buy it?”

“Hard not to. The media’ll like this angle, too.”

“You bet they will. That’s just what the asshole wants, I’m sure. You know how they are, in it for the notoriety, even if their name’s not in the papers.”

“Not in the papers at first, anyway,” Beam said.

Traffic was moving rapidly now. He had to concentrate to steer one-handed while talking on the phone. Breaking the law. Well, not technically, since he was the law. “I think we oughta let everything hang out,” Beam said. “Hold a press conference. Give the media what we know. The NYPD leaks anyway. You might as well get credit for being up front with the press, get them on our side. And the publicity might shake something loose.”

“I was thinking we could hold back on the matching bullets, give them another red letter J to chew on.”

“They’ll find out about the bullets anyway, if they don’t already know. And they’re dead certain to stumble across the jury foreperson tie-in.”

“You’re right.” Da Vinci obviously didn’t like admitting it. “You’re also beginning to break up.”

“Nell and I are in my car, approaching the bridge; that’s probably screwing up the signal. You want me with you for the press conference?”

“I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, too.”

The connection was broken. Beam flipped the phone closed and slid it back in his pocket so he could drive with both hands on the wheel.

“Pressure getting to da Vinci?” Nell asked.

“He’s still got his sense of humor,” Beam said. “So called.”

12

Lenny Rodman’s address belonged to a seriously rundown brick and stone building on Kloss Avenue in Brooklyn. The block was made up of almost identical buildings.

Cloning gone bad, Nell thought.

Except for a few that showed signs of being rehabbed, the buildings shared the same state of hopelessness. Small patches of grassless dirt on each side of the concrete stoops harbored only a hardy weed here and there, as well as rusted tricycles, empty soda bottles, and beer cans.

Beam parked the Lincoln two buildings down from Lenny’s, placed the NYPD placard where it was visible on the dashboard, and hoped for the best. Under the casual scrutiny of half a dozen or so people sitting out on the stoops, he and Nell walked down the jaggedly sectioned, uneven sidewalk to Lenny’s building.

There was a dirt-splattered red and yellow plastic car for a kid about five in the front yard, next to a leafless tree about three feet high that was surrounded by a low wire fence and supported by three pieces of twine wrapped round the spindly trunk and staked in a triangle. Nell stepped on an already shattered glass crack vial and thought the tree had about as much chance as a child born into this world on this block of Kloss Avenue. She knew that parts of Brooklyn were quite beautiful, desirable, and getting more expensive by the minute. This wasn’t one of them.