“As what? What’s he dressed as?” Quinn asked.
Not that it mattered; the costume would be off by now, and tossed or stored where they would never find it.
“Woman,” Steve said.
“A woman?” Quinn repeated.
“Dressed...dressed as a woman.”
Quinn turned to head out in pursuit.
“Mr. Quinn, you need to wait for backup,” the officer said.
“We’ve already lost him,” Quinn said in disgust as he stopped at the open back door. He could hear sirens from the street and knew the place would quickly be filled with police.
He left Danni to calm Steve and stood in the doorway, looking out. It led out to a back lawn, slightly overgrown and filled with pieces of broken furniture Steve was apparently working on. There was a short wire fence at the back, a higher wooden barrier to the left, and bushes and trees to the right. He was heading to the rear then noticed something and turned toward the bushes. Part of a hedge seemed to be flattened; he walked out that way then passed through the neighbor’s yard and reached the sidewalk.
No one of either sex was running, or even walking, down the street. There was, however, a group of children playing in one of the yards. There were about seven or eight of them, and they were taking turns throwing a ball at a net attached to the family garage.
He trotted over to them. “Hey, kids,” he said.
They stopped; the kid holding the ball surveyed him gravely and then looked down the street to where several police cars were now pulled up on the sidewalk and the lawn.
“Did you see anyone running along here? Or walking? Did you see anyone at all who you don’t know?”
“Just the lady,” the kid holding the ball told him.
“The lady? What did she look like, and where did she go?”
“She was tall,” one of the other kids offered.
“Of course she was, moron. She was wearing heels,” a slightly older boy said.
“She had dark hair—long, down her back,” the first boy offered.
“She was funny-looking,” another said.
“Fat legs!” one said, laughing.
So their killer was a tall, funny-looking woman with fat legs—or a man in disguise.
“Thanks. Which way did she go?” he asked.
They pointed around the corner. Quinn began to run, his feet pounding hard on the pavement and then the grass as he cut across a lawn. As he ran, he heard the loud revving of an engine moving down the next street.
He kept running, hoping he could catch the license tag.
But it was no good. The car was gone, undoubtedly turning onto the highway beyond the next block. He stopped, doubled over as he caught his breath, and damned the fact that they’d missed the killer again.
*
Once he was untied, Steve seemed to be fine, at least physically. Danni kept a comforting hand on his shoulder as he trembled in reaction then finally looked at her and said, “Sorry. Guess I’m not hero material, huh? Asshole material, yes. I know it was stupid, but I opened the damned door. But it looked like a woman. In fact, at first I thought it was Jessica.”
“Jessica Tate?” Danni asked, frowning. “Why would she be here? Her mom is in the hospital, and her son—”
“I know. I thought she might have needed something—help, maybe, a shoulder to cry on,” Steve said.
“How well do you know Jessica?” Danni asked.
“I met her at the club, or I thought I did. But you know what? I’d run into her before. I realized that when we all had a night off and met up to see what was going on along Bourbon. We got to talking, and she reminded me that we’d met at a parish competition years ago.”
“And you really thought it was her today?” Danni pressed. It wasn’t surprising that people in the city knew one another. It just seemed odd that he’d thought she would come to him at a time like this.
“She looked kind of like Jessica,” Steve said. “I just saw a woman with long dark hair standing at the door. I admit, both my libido and my curiosity made me open it.”
Danni heard a commotion at the door and realized Larue had arrived.
He walked in, commanding, “Anyone touching anything, stop now. We’ve got to get something on this guy from someone.” He saw Danni sitting by Steve. “Of course you got here first,” he muttered.
“Steve was just telling me what happened after the killer got in.”
“He’d just gotten a knife out of my kitchen when you and Quinn got here. Without you guys...” Steve said dully. He shook his head, humiliated.
“Let’s go back to where you were,” Larue suggested. “You opened the door and...?”
“I opened the door, and he got me with a right to the jaw. I went down, and the next thing I knew, I was being tied up with my own stuff.”
“Why did you open the door in the first place?” Larue asked.
“It was a woman,” Steve said softly.
“The killer is a woman?” Larue said.