Morrisy bit down hard on the stem of his unlit pipe. He’d been thinking about his former wife, Bonita. About the time he’d discovered her in bed with-
Hell with that! Better not to remember it.
He removed the pipe from his mouth and focused his mind on the Verlane mess. He’d decided to turn the screws tighter on the husband. The asshole kept shooting off his mouth to the media, and it was having its cumulative effect. Subtle and not so subtle pressure, from the media and from higher-ups in the department, was being applied to Morrisy to bring the case to a conclusion. They were beginning to squeeze, and Morrisy didn’t like it.
The loose tail kept on Verlane had been stepped up to almost constant surveillance, and in a way calculated to let Verlane know he was being observed. So far there’d been no results, but Morrisy knew these things could take time. Then, when there were results, they could be sudden and decisive.
He was leaning back in his desk chair, staring at the dark patterns the gentle salvos of beginning rain were making on the building across the street, when he heard a perfunctory knock and Waxman walked into his office.
Morrisy’s swivel chair squealed as he turned away from the window and the view of outside gloom. He liked the expression on Waxman’s smooth, handsome face; it suggested he’d found out something he was eager to share.
“Verlane’s called the airport,” Waxman said, standing close to Morrisy’s desk.
They had a tracer on Verlane’s home phone, but not a wiretap. Pansy-ass judges needed more than Morrisy could give them right now for a wiretap warrant. A cop’s intuition didn’t count for as much as it used to, as it should still. “Which airline?” Morrisy asked, nonetheless liking this development.
“I’m supposed to find out any minute now. We can ask some questions when we know, get Verlane’s destination.” Waxman adjusted his tie’s strangulation-tight knot. His sleekly combed hair looked a little wet from the rain. “Think it’s cut-and-run time?”
“We’ll know more when we discover the destination,” Morrisy said, “assuming Verlane made a reservation. Could be just a business trip, but if he’s got a seat on a flight to South America or someplace like that, we can figure he’s broken enough to confess, providing we pick him up and work him right.”
Actually Morrisy didn’t think Verlane had reached the point where he’d flee, even if he was guilty. He’d so far demonstrated more anger than fear, shown he had some balls. But you could never tell, so Morrisy allowed himself to hope.
“What if it’s South America?” Waxman asked.
“We let him almost make the flight, then we collar him at the airport.” Maximum psychological effect; Dr. Schutz would approve.
“And if it’s Atlanta, someplace like that?”
“We let him fly, but we keep tabs on him. We wouldn’t want him to make a connecting flight in some other city.”
“He runs anywhere,” Waxman said, “and it doesn’t gel with Schutz’s theory that the killer might be blanking out the crimes and not know he’s guilty.”
“I never put a lot of stock in that one anyway,” Morrisy said. Yet a part of him knew it was unwise to dismiss completely anything Schutz told him. But this theory made him unaccountably uneasy. “I don’t even want to hear about that nonsense,” he said to Waxman.
“Fine by me.” Waxman carefully brushed raindrops from his hair without mussing it. An oddly feminine gesture. “Verlane hasn’t been back to work since Danielle died,” Waxman said. “They told me at the brokerage firm he’d taken some vacation time. We got the usual story there, how he loved his wife and they seemed happy together, all that stuff.”
“You’d have heard the same thing about Bluebeard’s wives,” Morrisy said. He meticulously placed the pipe in an ashtray, as if it were actually lit.
“Guess that’s true.”
“Stay tight on him,” Morrisy said. “Wherever he’s booked a flight to, when he leaves home, I wanna know how much luggage he’s carrying.”
Waxman nodded and turned to leave.
“When I say tight,” Morrisy said, “you know what I mean?”
“You mean tight,” Waxman said. He smiled and left the office.
Morrisy turned back to the window and watched the rain, falling much harder now. It had been raining when Bonita-
He picked up the pipe and clamped it between his teeth again. Stared harder at the grayness beyond the glass.
Squeeze anything tight enough, he thought, and something’s sure to break.