“Allen,” said Elizabeth, “this is—”
“Yeah, I know,” said Grimes, thrusting his hand at me. “Nice to finally meet you, Professor. Or do you prefer ‘Doctor’? I’m not ashamed to say that I understood only half your book.”
“Not to worry,” I said. “The other half was just made-up bullshit.”
He laughed loudly, the smell of alcohol, tobacco, and a way-overmatched Altoid blanketing my face. “Actually, that’s probably the half I understood!”
He laughed some more as a waitress came over with a menu, but he waved it off, already knowing what he wanted. A Western omelet and a whiskey.
“It’s after four,” said the waitress in a monotone, barely glancing up from her order pad. “I can’t serve you alcohol.”
Grimes took a fifty out of his shirt pocket, placing it under the saltshaker. “That’s for you if you change your mind, sweetheart.”
Elizabeth cocked her head at Grimes as the waitress walked away. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“What are you going to do, Detective? Arrest her?” he asked.
“You’d like that—an instant column,” said Elizabeth. “The only thing she’s coming back with is your omelet.”
Grimes elbowed me in the ribs. “Tell her, Dr. Professor. Tell the pretty detective what you and I both know. Human behavior is more pliable than a bowl of mashed potatoes. And nothing whips it up better than the almighty dollar.”
Before I could admit that the guy had a point, the waitress returned with a coffee cup. Quickly and smoothly, she set it down in front of Grimes while swiping the fifty from underneath the saltshaker.
We all leaned over, peering into the coffee cup. It wasn’t coffee.
“Cheers,” said Grimes, taking a sip of his whiskey. He wiped his mouth and grinned. “Now, what do you two have for me?”
Chapter 18
GRIMES WAS the newsman, but Elizabeth knew enough not to bury the lede. “We have a real live serial killer,” she said.
“I thought we already knew that,” Grimes shot back, unimpressed. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
“No, I told you that’s what it could be,” said Elizabeth. “Now I’m convinced. Do you know who Aaron VonMiller is?”
Duh, said Grimes’s face. Do I live in this city? “You can’t throw a rock without hitting one of his restaurants.”
“So I’ve been told,” said Elizabeth. “Clearly I don’t eat out enough. In any event, his son was murdered a couple of hours ago at White Lines.”
Immediately Grimes reached for his cell.
“Don’t bother,” said Elizabeth. “There’s no missed text from anyone on your payroll.”
Still, Grimes checked anyway. Sure enough, there was no text. “How did you know that?” he asked.
“Because right now the three of us are the only ones who know that the VonMiller kid was murdered,” she said. “Everyone else will be reading later today that it’s a suspected drug overdose.”
Watching Grimes creep forward in his seat while hanging on Elizabeth’s every word was…well, a bit creepy. The guy undoubtedly lived for this sort of stuff.
“So it wasn’t an overdose?” he asked.
“Actually, that’s exactly what it could’ve been. We’ll wait on toxicology for that,” said Elizabeth. She reached for a few of the single-serve grape jellies from the jelly caddy hugging the wall. She neatly lined them up next to one another, as if she were missing her color-coordinated folders.
“Stop yanking my chain!” Grimes practically yelled.
Everyone within earshot—which was pretty much everyone in the diner—turned to look, but he couldn’t care less. He wanted answers, and Elizabeth was making him wait. On purpose. A little revenge, perhaps, for the fifty-under-the-saltshaker stunt.
“You remember the bookmark, right?” asked Elizabeth.
“Of course,” said Grimes. “The playing card.”
“Yeah, but which playing card?” asked Elizabeth.
Grimes gave her his duh face again. “The king of clubs,” he said. “So what?”
“So VonMiller’s son was known for his partying, always on the scene,” said Elizabeth. “In fact you might say he was the king of…”
“Motherfucker,” said Grimes. “The killer was announcing his next victim.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Tipping his hand, you might say.”
“Damn, I like that,” said Grimes, jabbing his index finger at her. He quickly pulled out a tiny digital voice recorder from his jacket, hitting Record. “The killer is tipping his hand, playfully declaring his next victim with…”
Grimes stopped and stared at Elizabeth. She nodded a second time, as if she’d been waiting for him to catch up.
“Motherfucker,” he said again. “That’s how you know it was murder. Our guy left a card behind on the kid, didn’t he?”
“The two of hearts,” said Elizabeth. “Stuffed in VonMiller’s pocket.”
Grimes turned to me. He could barely contain himself. “Tell me you’ve already figured it out,” he said. “Who’s the next victim? Or is it two victims? A couple, maybe? No, wait. It’s much better if you don’t know. No one should know. That’s a much better story. The whole city should be wondering.” He raised his recorder again, speaking in a hushed tone. “The two of hearts…who will it be? Who will the killer…no, no, no…who will the dealer kill next? Yes, that’s who he is…the Dealer!”
It was as if someone had pulled a string on his back; Grimes was rambling on, an endless stream of consciousness, totally absorbed in the moment.
So much so that he never saw it coming.
The real reason Elizabeth had called him.
Chapter 19
FASTER THAN Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime came her right hand, swiping Grimes’s recorder. “Hey!” he barked. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s what you’re not doing,” she said. “You’re not writing about this yet.”
“The hell I’m not.” He tried to swipe back the recorder, but he looked more like George Foreman against Muhammad Ali. Too slow.
“I need you to wait,” said Elizabeth.
“For what?” asked Grimes.
Elizabeth pointed at me. That was my cue.
“There are two types of serial killers,” I said. “Those who want to get caught and those who really want to get caught. On the surface it seems like our guy is just seeking publicity, that he wants to be famous. You’re a reporter, and he sends you that package. He’s chosen you as his messenger. But what’s the message?”
Grimes shot me a look, basically the opposite of his duh face. He didn’t quite follow.
“It’s a game,” chimed in Elizabeth. “Catch me if you can. If he only wanted publicity he would’ve flat-out told you about his first victim. Instead he sent you two clues. He knew, though, that there was only one thing you would do with them. Go to the police.”
“So how do you factor in?” Grimes asked me. “If my role is so clear, that is.”