Mary, Mary

Chapter 1 4

I COULD STILL HEAR Director Burns's voice in my head. I want to hear your take on what happened. . . . We'll have you back with your family for dinner.

But would I want to eat after this?

With two dead bodies still inside, the limousine was absolutely fetid. One of the best tricks I'd learned was to gut it out for about three minutes, until the olfactory nerves were numb. Then I would be fine. I just had to get through those three minutes that told me I was back in the homicide business.

I focused, and took in the grisly details one by one.

First came a shocker that I wasn't ready for, even though I partly knew it was coming.

Antonia Schifman's face was almost completely unrecognizable. A portion of the left side was gone altogether where she had been shot, probably at close range. What flesh remained - mostly the right eye, cheek, and her mouth - had been slashed several times. The killer, Mary Smith, had been in a frenzy - but only against Antonia Schifman, not the driver, or so it seemed.

The actress's clothing appeared to be intact. No indication of any kind of sexual assault.

And no sign of blood froth from the nostrils or mouth, which meant she'd died and stopped breathing almost immediately Who would make this kind of violent attack? Why Antonia Schifman? She'd seemed like a nice person, got good press. And everybody liked her, according to, well, everybody. So what could explain this massacre? This desecration at her home?

Agent Page appeared and leaned in over my shoulder. “What do you think the cutting is about? Some kind of reference to plastic surgery maybe?”

The young agent had shaken off every subtle and not-so- subtle clue I had dropped that I needed to be alone right now, but I didn't have the heart to dress him down.

“I don't think so,” I said. “But I don't want to speculate yet. We'll know more once she's checked in and cleaned up.” Now, please let me work, Page.

A dull-brown wash of dried blood covered the actress's ruined face. What a terrible waste. And what exactly was I supposed to relay to the president about what I'd seen here, about what had happened to his friend?

The driver, Bruno Capaletti, was still propped up at the steering wheel. A single bullet had entered his left temple before it destroyed most of his head. The blood on the empty seat next to him was smeared, possibly by his own body but more likely by the killer, who had apparently shot Antonia Schifman from the front seat. A small amount of cocaine had been found in the driver's jacket pocket. Did it mean anything? Probably not, but I couldn't rule out anything yet.

I finally stepped out and away from the limousine and took a breath of fresh air. “There's a strange disconnect going on here,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else.

“Neat and sloppy?” Page asked. “Controlled, yet out of control.”

I looked at him, and my mouth twisted into something resembling a smile. The insight surprised me a little. “Yes. Exactly” The bodies had been arranged, just so, inside the car.

But the shooting and, in particular, the cuts on Schifman's face had an angry haphazard quality to them.

There was a calling card, too. A row of children's stickers was affixed to the car door: glittery, bright-colored pictures of unicorns and rainbows. The same kind had apparently been left at the scene of the previous week's murder.

Each of the stickers was marked with a capital letter, two with an A, one with a B. What was that all about?

Page had already briefed me on the companion case to this one. Another woman in the movie business, Patsy Bennett, a successful production head, had been shot dead in a movie theater in Westwood six days prior. There were no witnesses. Bennett was the only victim that day, and there had been no knife work. But the stickers at that scene had also been marked with capital A's and a B.

Whoever was doing this certainly wanted to take credit for the murders. The murders weren't improvisatory but the killer's methods were dynamic.And evolving, of course.

“What are you thinking?” Page asked. “Do you mind if I ask? Or am I getting in the way?”

Before I could tell him, another agent interrupted the two of us. If it was possible, she was tanner and maybe even blonder than Agent Page. 1 wondered if maybe they'd been put together at the same factory “We've got another e-mail at the L.A. Times,” she said.

“Same editor, Arnold Griner, and the same Mary Smith.”

“Has the paper reported on the e-mails yet?” I asked. Both agents shook their head. “Good. Let's try to keep it that way And keep a cap on these kids' stickers, too. If we can. And the A's and B's.”

I checked my watch. Already 5:30. I needed at least another hour at the Schifman property; then I wanted to speak with Arnold Griner at the Times. And I would definitely have to meet with the LAPD before the day was ovet James Truscott was probably still prowling around outside, too.

At home in D.C., I missed meals as often as not. Nana and the kids were used to it, andJamilla would probably understand, but none of that was an excuse. This had been as good a time as any to break one of my very worst habits in life: missing dinner with my family But it wasn't going to happen, was it? I called Nana at the hotel first, and then I called Jamilla. Then I thought about the poor Schifman and Bennett families, and I went back to work.