Mary, Mary

Chapter 40

IT ENDED JUST LIKE THAT - in midsentence.

Even if it hadn't, this was a whole new wrinkle in the case. Carmen D'Abruzzi wasn't dead, and they had the death- threat note. That was something positive, right?

Jeanne Galletta squeezed her eyes shut, trying to process the new information quickly and correctly Maybe Mary Smith drafted her messages ahead of time and then finalized them posthomicide.

But why leave this one here? Would she do it on purpose? Was this even her at all?

Might not be.

Jesus Christ, the questions never ended on this one. So where the hell were the answers?

How about just one answer for starters?

She thought about Alex Cross - something he'd said in that book of his. “Keep asking until you find the keystone, the one question at the heart of it all. Then you can start working your way back out again. That's when you start finding answers.”

The one question. The keystone. What the hell was it?

Well, six hours later it was still a mystery for Galletta. Just after dark, she finally let the last of the morning's customers go home. Five people had given five different eyewitness accounts about who was sitting at the computer in question; the rest of them had no clue.

No one Detective Galletta spoke to struck her as remotely suspicious, but all twenty-six would require follow-up. The paperwork alone was more than she wanted to think about, now or ever.

To no one's surprise, Mary Smith's credit card turned out to be hot. It belonged to an eighty-year-old woman in Sherman Oaks who didn't even realize it was gone, a Mrs.

Debbie Green. Nothing else had been charged on the card; there was no paper trail, no anything. She's careful, and she's organized - for such an obvious nutcase.

Galletta asked Brett the manager for a full-strength espresso. From here, it was back to the office, where she would sort through the day's events while they were fresh in her memonj Her neighbor said he'd let the dog out. The Chinese place along the way to her office said twenty minutes for pickup. Life was good, no? No! She wondered if she'd be home before midnight and, even then, if she'd be able to sleep.

Probably not - on both counts.

So what was the one question she needed to ask? Where Was that keystone?

Or was Alex Cross just full of shit?