She might have been talking about the unknown killer. But somehow the anger seemed more specific.

“Who?” Myron tried.

“Helen?”

Kenneth was back. He quickly crossed the room and took his wife in his arms. Myron thought he saw her back away at his touch, but he couldn’t be sure.

Kenneth looked over her shoulder at Myron. “See what you’ve done,” he hissed. “Get out.”

“Mrs. Van Slyke?”

She nodded. “Please leave, Mr. Bolitar. It’s for the best.”

“Are you sure?”

Kenneth bellowed again. “Get out! Now! Before I throw you out!”

Myron looked at him. Not the time or the place. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, Mrs. Van Slyke. My most sincere condolences.”

Myron showed himself out.

9

When Myron entered the small police station Jake’s chin was coated with something red and sticky. Might have been from a jelly doughnut. Might have been from a small farm animal. Hard to tell with Jake.

Jake Courter had been elected sheriff of Reston, New Jersey two years before. In view of the fact that Jake was black in an almost entirely white community, most people considered the election result an upset. But not Jake. Reston was a college town. College towns were filled with liberal intellectuals who wanted to lift a black man up. Jake figured his skin color had been enough of a disadvantage over the years, might as well turn the tide. White guilt, he told Myron. The best vote-getter this side of Willie Horton ads.

Jake was in his early fifties. He’d been a cop in a half dozen major cities over the years—New York, Philadelphia, Boston, to name a few. Tired of chasing city scum, he’d moved out to the happy suburbs to chase suburban scum. Myron and Jake met a year ago, investigating the disappearance of Kathy Culver, Jessica’s sister, a student at Reston University.

“Hey, Myron.”

“Jake.”

Jake looked, as always, rumpled. Everything about him. His hair. His clothes. Even his desk looked rumpled, like a cotton shirt kept in the bottom of a laundry hamper. The desk also had an assortment of goodies. A Pizza Hut box. A Wendy’s bag. A Carvel ice-cream cup. A half-eaten sandwich from Blimpie. And, of course, a tin of Slim-Fast diet powder. Jake was closing in on two hundred and seventy-five pounds. His pants never fit right. They were too small for his stomach, too large for his waist. He was constantly adjusting them, searching for that one elusive point where they’d actually stay in place. The search required a team of top scientists and a really powerful microscope.

“Let’s go grab a couple burgers,” Jake said, wiping his face with a moist towelette. “I’m starving.”

Myron picked up the Slim-Fast can and smiled sweetly. “ ‘A delicious shake for breakfast. Another for lunch. And then a sensible dinner.’ ”

“Bullshit. I gave it a try. The shit doesn’t work.”

“How long were you on it?”

“Almost a day. Zip, nothing. Not a pound gone.”

“You should sue.”

“Plus the stuff tastes like used gunpowder.”

“You get the file on Alexander Cross?”

“Yeah, right here. Let’s go.”

Myron followed Jake down the street. They stopped at a place very generously dubbed the Royal Court Diner. A pit. If it were totally renovated, it might reach the sanitary status of an interstate public toilet.

Jake smiled. “Nice, huh?”

“My arteries are hardening from the smell,” Myron said.

“For chrissake, man, don’t inhale.”

The table had one of those diner jukeboxes. The records hadn’t been changed in a long time. The current number one single, according to the little advertisement, was Elton John’s Crocodile Rock.

The waitress was standard diner issue. She was grumpy, mid-fifties, her hair a purplish tint not found anywhere in the state of nature.

“Hey, Millie,” Jake said.

She tossed them menus, not speaking, barely breaking stride.

“That’s Millie,” Jake said.

“She seems great,” Myron said. “Can I see the file?”

“Let’s order first.”

Myron picked up the menu. Vinyl. And sticky. Very sticky. Like someone had poured maple syrup on it. There were also bits of coagulated scrambled eggs in the crease. Myron was losing his appetite in a hurry.

Three seconds later Millie returned, sighed. “What’ll it be?”

“Give me a cheeseburger deluxe,” Jake said. “Double order of fries instead of the coleslaw. And a diet Coke.”

Millie looked toward Myron. Impatiently.

Myron smiled at her. “Do you have a vegetarian menu?”

“A what?”

“Stop being an asshole,” Jake said.

“A grilled cheese will be fine,” Myron said.

“Fries with that?”

“No.”

“To drink?”

“A Diet Coke. Like my low-cal buddy.”

Millie eyed Myron, looked him up and down. “You’re kinda cute.”

Myron gave her the modest smile. The one that said, Aw, shucks.

“You also look familiar.”

“I have that kind of face,” Myron said. “Cute yet familiar.”

“You date one of my daughters once? Gloria maybe. She works the night shift.”

“I don’t think so.”

She looked him over again. “You married?”

“I’m involved with someone.”

“Not what I asked you,” she said. “You married?”

“No.”

“All right then.” She turned and left.

“What was that all about?”

Jake shrugged. “Hope she’s not getting Gloria.”

“Why?”

“She kinda looks like a white version of me,” Jake said. “Only with a heavier beard.”

“Sounds enticing.”

“You still with Jessica Culver?”

“Guess so.”

Jake shook his head. “Man, she’s something else. I’ve never seen nothing that looked that good in real life.”

Myron tried not to grin. “Hard to argue.”

“She also got you wrapped around her finger.”

“Hard to argue.”

“Lots of worse places for a man to be wrapped around.”

“Hard to argue.”

Millie came back with the two Diet Cokes. This time she almost managed to smile at Myron. “Good-looking man like you shouldn’t be single,” she said.