They learned soon enough that the boxes contained sea shells.

“Conch shells,” Beam said.

“They look like the kind of sea shell you might be able to blow like a horn,” Nell said. “Or put to your ear and hear the ocean.”

“They are,” Beam said. “Down in Key West and other places they fry and eat what lives inside. Conch fritters.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Nell said. “I haven’t spent my whole life in New York.”

“There are plenty of these shells down there, but not a lot as perfect as these are. Notice they’re all unbroken?”

“I did,” Nell said. “What on earth was Rodman doing with sea shells?”

“He stole ’em,” a voice said.

Beam and Nell turned to see a skinny African American girl about sixteen standing in the doorway. She was wearing baggy red shorts, rubber sandals, and a sleeveless white T-shirt lettered JUST VOTE. She would have been pretty if it weren’t for severely crooked yellowed teeth.

“He tol’ me he stole them shells,” she said. “What you gonna do to him?”

“Try to catch him and find out why he stole them,” Beam said.

“Oh, I know why. Lenny’s kinda man like to brag on hisself. Like to play the lead role in his own movie. Need the audience. Need a leading lady. We close. He tol’ me lotsa things. You know what I mean?”

Beam and Nell glanced at each other. They could imagine.

“We know,” Beam said. “We don’t want to hurt Lenny, but we do need to find him. You understand that?”

“Sure. I warned him more’n once. He jus’ laugh the way he do.”

“Where would he steal sea shells from?” Nell asked.

“Place in New Jersey buys shells and ships ’em up here from Florida, uses ’em to crush and pave things like driveways an’ such for rich folks here an’ down south. But the good shells that ain’t broke, they set aside and sell ’em to souvenir shops and the like.”

“Lenny told you this?”

“Sure. He trust me. Got his reasons.”

“But now you’re telling us about him,” Nell said.

“Don’ make me no difference now. He ain’t comin’ back, not ever. Ain’t nobody standin’ here don’t know that.”

“So Lenny just stole the unbroken shells,” Beam said. “But why?”

“Telephones. He tol’ me he’s gon’ make phones outta them shells—designer phones, he called ’em—an’ sell ’em all over the place. Make hisself some cash.” The girl looked from Beam to Nell. “You know how people likes to hold them shells to their ears an’ all.”

“Mind telling us your name?” Beam asked.

The girl smiled with her horrible teeth. “Candy Ann.”

“Last name?”

“Kane, thas’ with a K. I lives right downstairs in 1D, me an’ my kids. I knowed the kinda things goin’ on up here even before Lenny tol’ me. Man don’t know how to keep a secret no how. Got hisself a tongue too big for his mouth.”

“How old are you, Candy Ann?” Beam asked.

“Eighteen next month. Lenny was gonna give me one of them shell phones for my birthday. Promised me. I didn’t pay him no mind.”

“Got any idea where Lenny might have run to?” Nell asked.

“Not nothin’ like an idea. Lenny the kinda man know how to hide.”

Beam and Nell didn’t doubt it.

“I’m going to have an officer come up here and seal this apartment,” Beam said to Candy Ann. “It’s going to be examined closer by the police. You’ll stay out of it, won’t you?”

“Sure. You got no worry over me. You wanna talk to me some more, I be right downstairs from here. I stay clean. Outta trouble with no law.”

“Good.” Beam smiled at her. Nell sensed that he genuinely liked the hapless young woman.

“You think it woulda worked?” Candy Ann asked as they were leaving and closing the damaged door.

“What’s that?” Beam asked.

“Them designer shell phones. You think people really woulda bought ’em?”

“No,” Beam said.

Candy Ann smiled. “Tha’s what I been thinkin’.”

13

Nell sat hunched over her notebook computer at her kitchen table, scouring various data bases from around the country. Wind-driven rain peppered the window. At her right elbow was half a glass of diet root beer with ice in it. She’d gulped down the other half. Her upper lip, which she now and then unconsciously licked, was rimmed with foam from the root beer.

The tiny apartment was still warm from the heat of the day, and all the more humid from the rain. The window air conditioner in the living room had stopped working. She had a call in to a guy whose name a Manhattan South detective had given her, a repairman and sometimes actor who’d done work for some other cops and given them a break. The problem was, the guy—Terry Adams—was seemingly impossible to contact. No doubt he was enjoying his season of being much in demand, the man with a corner on cold air. The thought kind of pissed off Nell. After half a dozen calls, she’d left a curt message telling him she was about to perish and would he please call back, and soon.

On the floor next to her was a folded New York Post. The headline read JUSTICE KILLER JOLTS CITY. The Times and Daily News had similar headlines. Nell thought the killer would probably approve of the title the media had bestowed on him. It was probably exactly what he was seeking with his letter J calling cards.

She huddled closer to her glowing laptop. Though it was slightly cooler in the kitchen than the rest of the apartment, this was still painstaking work. She’d exhausted NYPD data bases, the federal National Crime Information Center bank, and was reduced to hooking into various obscure sites with no, or unofficial, affiliations with investigative agencies. These websites were mostly the work of skilled amateurs, and not all of them were reliable. But in conjunction with established data banks, they might prove useful. One didn’t need to be a computer genius to do this, but one did need to be obsessive, relentless, and tireless. Right now, Nell was having difficulty with tireless.

It was almost midnight, and the summer storm blew more rain against the window and rattled the glass. Beneath the bottom of the old wooden frame, Nell saw moisture appear, build to form a small drop, then track down an ancient stain toward the baseboard. It made it about halfway before spending itself and disappearing. Another drop formed, wavered, then began its unsteady downward course. Nell watched it, hypnotized, her fingers stilled on the keyboard. Would it make it farther than the last drop?

Would it…

What the hell?

She was awake with a start, staring at the computer’s small screen.

She realized she’d fallen asleep and her hand had slid from the keyboard into her lap.

Shoulda gone to bed a long time ago.

Nell tightened her hands into fists, threw her shoulders back, and stretched her aching spine. Her right shoulder was still sore from bumping the brick wall when Lenny Rodman brushed her aside in his flight to freedom. Though the shoulder was badly bruised and taking on a nasty purple and green coloration, she was sure it wasn’t seriously injured. Nell had experienced debilitating damage and knew the difference.

The apartment was still a sauna. Perspiration was stinging the corners of her eyes. She rubbed them and looked more closely at the computer screen. The website that had been slowly loading when she fell asleep was now up all the way. Dark Nor’easters.vis was the name of the site, and it seemed to be made up of notable unsolved crimes committed in northeastern states.

Awake again, even feeling somewhat refreshed, Nell went through her search routine, specifying deliberate clues, single victims (in number, not marital status), shootings, stabbings, bludgeonings, strangulations, indoors, outdoors, men, women, days, nights, in vehicles, urban, suburban, exurban settings.