The Last Precinct

The essence of who I am is ruined. The simple beauty and safety of my life is sullied. I tremble inside. My vision blurs with tears as I climb the front steps and stand beneath the overhead lamp that Chando

"What is it?" she says, her hands poised to open her fur coat.

"I need to make a quick phone call," I tell her.

I DON'T TELL BERGER WHAT I AM THINKING. I DON'T let on what I fear. I don't divulge that when I stepped back outside the house to use my cell phone in private, I called Marino and asked him to come here right now.

"Everything all right?" Berger asks when I return and shut the front door.

I don't answer her. Of course, everything isn't all right. "Where do you want me to start?" I remind her we have work to do.

She wants me to reconstruct exactly what happened the night Chando

"At about eleven," I tell Berger, "I switched over to NBC, I think, to watch the late news and moments later my burglar alarm went off. The zone for the garage had been violated, according to the display on the keypad, and when the service called, I told them they'd better dispatch the police because I had no idea why the thing had gone off."

"So your garage has an alarm system," Berger repeats. "Why the garage? Why do you think he tried to break into it?"

"To deliberately set off the alarm so the police would come," I repeat my belief. "They show up. They leave. Then he shows up. He impersonates the police and I open my door. No matter what anybody says or what I heard on the video- tape when you interviewed him, he spoke English, perfect English. He had no accent at all."

"Didn't sound like the man in the videotape," she agrees.

"No. Certainly not."

"So you didn't recognize his voice in that tape."

"I didn't," I reply.

"You don't think he was really trying to get inside your garage, then. That this was just for the purpose of setting off the alarm," Berger probes, as usual writing nothing down.

"I doubt it. I think he was trying to do exactly what I said."

"And how do you suppose he knew your garage had an alarm system?" Berger inquires. "Rather unusual. Most homes don't have an alarm system in the garage."

"I don't know if he knew or how he knew."

"He could have tried a back door instead, for example, and been assured that the alarm would go off, assuming you had it on. And I fully believe he knew you would have it on. We can assume he knows you are a very security-minded woman, especially in light of the murders going on around here."

"I have no clue what would go through his mind," I say-rather tersely.

Berger paces. She stops in front of the stone fireplace. It gapes empty and dark and makes my house seem unlived-in and neglected like Bray's. Berger points a finger at me, "You do know what he thinks," she confronts me. "Just as he was gathering intelligence on you and getting a feel for how you think and what your patterns are, you were doing the same thing to him. You read about him in the wounds of the bodies. You were communicating with him through his victims, through the crime scenes, through everything you learned in France."

Chapter 28

MY TRADITIONAL ITALIAN WHITE SOFA IS STAINED pink from formalin. There are footprints on a cushion, probably left by me when I jumped over the sofa to escape Chando

"I must know him to dismantle him in court," Berger goes on, her eyes reflecting her i

I think for a moment. "I can't begin to say what might be special about it to him."

"All right. Then what's special about it to you?"

"It's where! keep rny scene clothes." I begin trying to figure out what might be special about my garage. "'And an industrial-size washer and dryer. I never wear scene clothes inside my house, so that's rather much my changing room, out there in the garage."

Something shines in Berger's eyes, a recognition, a co

I turn on lights in the kitchen as we pass on through to the mud room, where a door leads into the garage.

"Your home locker room," Berger comments.

I flip on lights and my heart constricts as I realize the garage is empty. My Mercedes is gone.

"Where the hell's my car?" I ask. I scan walls of cabinets, and the specially ventilated cedar locker, and neatly stored yard and gardening supplies, the expected tools, and an alcove for the washer, dryer and a big steel sink. "No one has said anything about taking my car anywhere." I look accusingly at Berger and am rocked by instant distrust. But either she is quite an actor, or she has no clue. I walk out into the middle of the garage and look around, as if I might find something that will tell me what has happened to my car. I tell Berger my black Mercedes sedan was here last Saturday, the day I moved to A

She is walking around, too. She squats before the garage door and examines scrapes on the rubber strip where we believe Chando

I press a button on the wall and the door loudly rolls up. The temperature inside the garage instantly drops.

"No, your car wasn't here when I was." Berger straightens up. "I've never seen it. In light of circumstances, I suspect you do know where it is," she adds.

The night fills the large empty space and I walk over to where Berger is standing. "Probably impounded," I say. "Jesus Christ."

She nods. "We'll get to the bottom of it." She turns to me and there is something in her eyes I've never before seen. Doubt. Berger is uneasy. Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part, but I sense she feels bad for me.