Olivio's was a turn-of-the-century restaurant with elegant atmosphere, elegant meals and elegant prices. Set in the industrial valley near the junction with Center City, it was secreted within a sagging stockade fence overwhelmed by ivy, euonymus and other assorted vines. The building was ash faced and stucco framed, reminiscent of those in ancient Florentine villas, and it was not without design that the restaurant's menu derived from the tastes of Tuscany, even as its name reflected one of the dominant crops of that region.
The stucco had been continued inside, wrapping around and suffusing into ceilings slung low above Old World furnishings. There, generations of soft and russet candlelight had transformed the grimmest patrons into temporary romantics.
After helping remove Kathy's overcoat, David escorted her into the basil aroma of Italian cuisine, imagining the ceiling growing two feet lower as he snaked among the tables, grumbling about pricey restaurants unable to pay electric bills. He touched the shoulders of some people he knew and addressed them by name. There were only two empty tables in the main dining room and the maitre d' sat them at the recessed corner one, David's favorite which he had phoned ahead to reserve. Mellow Sinatra oozed from a speaker directly overhead, clouding the hum of diners in their designer clothes and the chitchat of fawning waiters. It would be the best spot to discuss the summary after dinner.
Kathy evened out her burnt almond sheath dress before sitting. "And don't tell me I tore my dress in the back," she said.
"I hadn't noticed," he retorted, sitting alongside her and sliding the birthday package under the table onto the next chair.
"Why do we hide it," she said, "when this is the ninth gift in a row we've exchanged here?"
David gazed around the room and said, "What gift?" He unbuttoned his blue blazer and tugged down the only turtleneck he owned. He felt it snap back up.
"Can I open it now?" she asked, tightening an earring.
He placed the book-size package before her and said, "Happy birthday. Hope you like it. By the way, where's your gun tonight?"
"What? What's that got to do with anything?"
"I don't see any bulges."
"It's in my purse." She eyed him suspiciously. "Don't tell me you bought another holster. You did that three years ago."
He remained silent while she admired the red bow up close and put it aside next to her purse before removing the outer wrapper. She separated the tissue inside, frowned, peered up at David and back at the box.
"This looks magnificent, but why?"
He leaned over to view a Beretta Cougar F semiautomatic as if he had never seen it before. A card attached to its grip read, ".45 cal. firepower with Cam-Loc System."
Kathy ran her fingertips along its muzzle and then replaced the tissue. "David, I love you dearly but I hate guns. Plus, I have one already. Thank God, I've never had to use it."
"But this is state of the art. It puts that ridiculous government issue to shame," he said. "And the `Cam-Loc'? That means there's less recoil."
"But I hate guns."
"So do I."
"David, come off it," she said with a sardonic grin. "Then why the big deal with this?"
"I already said it. It's state of the art. You've got to keep pace with criminals."
"How can you hate guns when you have that ludicrous collection taking up half the house?"
"You know the answer. We've been through this before. I inherited it."
"Then sell it."
"I can be talked into that." David was surprised at his own firmness.
Kathy's eyes crinkled at the corners, thinning the shadow she seldom wore. "Will you give me that promise as another present?"
"Will you keep the Beretta and throw out the other one?"
"Yes."
David said, "It's a deal," and held out his hand.
She studied the hand for a moment and said, "I want more than a handshake."
"Not here," he said, looking around.
"Oh, for crying out loud," she responded and lifted up to kiss him on the lips. He pulled back.
"Wait," he said. "Let's clarify this. If the house goes when we get married, the guns go, too."
"Now there you go again." Kathy rearranged the silverware. "Why do you always have to rethink things?"
"Because I'm wrong so many times." David thought his response was clever and his face showed it. "Let's put it this way," he continued, "the house and the collection go together. We'll treat them as one."
Kathy paused, her features shifting as if she were reaching for the marrow of a complex solution. "David, let's face it. You're nearly forty and still living in a pad."
David signaled for the waiter and said, "Sure, and that's why we'll probably sell it."
"And the guns?"
"And the guns."
David had been going through the motions. Kathy's fortuitous birthday, talk of guns and the future of 10 Oak Lane, his studied repartee-they all combined to inhibit, however feebly, the angst of a punishing day and of yesterday and of the days before that. And he shrunk from thoughts that the days were running out before more violence erupted, before more friends were taken, or clues were lost or the hospital became buried in terminal scandal.
He felt pinched in and, try as he might, failed to develop into a temporary romantic even after two rounds of drinks. He knew Kathy shared the emotion but it was an unequal sharing because the killings had occurred on his turf, some of the victims were his friends and, after all, she was the professional. But they both agreed to forgo a champagne toast this time.
After pledging they would refrain from "detective talk" during dinner-prime rib for each-they ate in near silence. Finally, over coffee, David sensed his features turning to steel as he said, "Okay, now down to business. First, about Nick back there in the parking lot. I thought you said he wanted me off the cases. He was his usual frothy self but other than that …"
Kathy blurted, "I spoke to him."
"Saying what?"
"That you're of more value in the investigation than out of it. Simple."
"He agreed?"
"It sure looks like it."
"Okay, end of that." He pulled out the summary printout from his breast pocket. "Next, here's a nutshell of what's transpired lately, plus what I think are possibilities and who I think the suspects are. Look at the last line-no big surprises, you agree?"
Kathy read the list of suspects and replied, "I agree except for Nick." She shook her head. "Hey, it's your list. And I still have doubts about the psychiatrist, but tell me again, why's he included?"
"He wanted the Chief of Staff job pretty badly and … just a vague hunch, I guess."
"But David, before we go any further, when you say suspects, you mean in the Spritz killing or what?"
"Ah, one of the two sixty-four dollar questions. Did Spritz kill all the others or are there two murderers? The other is, how do the drugs tie in, if at all?"
They discussed the trilogy of motive, opportunity and means and debated the merits of the physical evidence to date. They had engaged in "detective talk" for over an hour-it was now nine o'clock-before deciding in favor of David's confrontation with each of the suspects as the next priority.
David paid the bill in plastic and they rose to leave. He bent down, kissed her forehead and said, "Happy birthday, again. You're sleeping at my pad as you call it, right."
"I'll suffer through it."
"No more detective talk there?"
"No talk at all."
As he led Kathy to the exit, they approached the other table that was empty when they had arrived. Three of the four chairs were now occupied. Kathy crashed into David as he stopped in his tracks. Seated were Nick, Sparky and a matronly woman David had never seen before. They were drinking wine.
The two men scraped their chairs back along the wooden floor and stood, baring their teeth in broad smiles. David's ears felt like molten rocks and he was sure they noticed but decided he didn't care.
"Please sit," he said. They returned to their chairs.
"David, I'd like you to met my wife, Gretchen," Nick said. "Dear, this is Dr. Brooks."
She extended her hand and David reached down and shook her fingers. "Hello," he said, evenly.
"Nicholas speaks of you often, Dr. Brooks."
"And I speak of him often," David said, too quickly.
He put his arm around Kathy to guide her to his side. He noticed her saying shut up silently.
"And of course you know Kathy Dupre," Nick said.
"Yes, hi there again," Gretchen said. She was an industrial size woman with a puffy face, a shade shorter than her husband. In silhouette from the shoulders down, she resembled a question mark. Her smoky hair was coifed high on her head and she wore a black granny dress without ruffles. David wondered whether her pearl necklace was real.
"What brings you here?" David asked, looking at Nick. What he actually had in mind was, what brought him and Sparky there?
"Just a night out," Nick said. "And you're here to celebrate Kathy's birthday, I take it?" He wore a dark business suit and appeared to be on his best behavior.
"I didn't know you two were social friends," David said, bowing first at Sparky, then back at Nick.
"Oh, but we are," Nick replied. "Cross-country for years. I guess that's not really social but it's good to celebrate any friendship at last."
David had to work at a smile. Is that all they're celebrating? He faced the unmarried criminalist whom he had seen eating out many times before, usually alone. Sparky looked out of place in a blue pinstripe.
"Spark, as long as I've run into you, can I ask two `shop' questions? It'll save a phone call."
Sparky gave an annoyed nod before glancing at Nick.
"Prints and slugs," David said, not waiting for a reply.
"You mean at the Spritz scene?"
"Uh … yes." Where else, pal?
"I couldn't lift any prints except his own on some of the equipment."
"Not even mine?" David knew he had his winter gloves on when he entered the van and latex when he probed it.
"Not even yours."
David noticed Nick's etched smile and Gretchen buttering bread as if shoptalk had been her way of life. "And the slugs?"
"There were six of them. I only examined the three we pried out of the floor some distance behind the body. Incidentally, I think he was in a sitting position when the perp pumped him. I'll get the other slugs from the medical examiner tomorrow but I'm sure they're the same. Anyway, they check out as.45's. I can't be a hundred per cent sure but they could have been fired from one of the new Kimber ACP's. We just got some information on them. They come in a series."
"Hmm," David said. A bit too much information, or is he trying to impress Gretchen? Even David felt he was over reading the criminalist. He took Kathy by the hand.
"Thanks, Sparky," he said, leading her away. He looked back. "Good to see you folks. Enjoy your meal. Nice meeting you, Gretchen."
"Good night, everybody," Kathy said, bracing her legs. "See you two tomorrow."
Verdi had replaced Sinatra as they edged their way among the tables. Only Kathy acknowledged well-wishers.
Seated in the Mercedes, the ignition off, David said, "Well, what do you think?"
"I think you never let me ask a question in there-or say anything for that matter."
"You see them everyday."
"Exactly. Aha, exactly. So do Nick and Sparky-see each other everyday, I mean. So what's the fuss about their eating out together?"
"What fuss?"
Kathy snuggled against him, reached up and grabbed his chin as she always did to make a point. "Darling, you've already pegged them as the killers because they had dinner at the same table."
He snatched her wrists, circled them to her back and, elevating her to his size, gave her a brief but hefty kiss on the lips. He pulled back an inch and said, "Wrong," even as he informed her he'd changed his list to "Suspect-6."
"Suspects, not killers," he added. Then he replanted his lips and released her arms which she wrapped around his neck.
As Kathy dozed on the drive home, David dwelled on questions they hadn't addressed, and the, one that kept recurring was: why didn't Spritz dispose of evidence better? Its corollary: was the evidence planted? The answer to the last question would shape the entire character of the future investigation. In one scenario, he reasoned, Spritz killed the other four and someone then killed him. In the other scenario, a serial killer was still on the loose. David's inclination was that Victor Spritz murdered the others for very clear-cut reasons, but David questioned how long he could rationalize away Spritz's sloppiness in disposing of the evidence by means of his psychiatric history. Therefore, unless and until additional findings tilted the scales in that direction, he would assume a single evildoer was responsible for all five slayings.
David swerved into the driveway at 10 Oak Lane and Kathy flinched awake. He thought the night, though clear, seemed darker, the trees brooding, the silence thicker. In the garage, he noticed the slit to Kathy's eyes and, once in the den, he said, "You go on up. I'm clear on something and I want to upload it. I'll be up soon."
She opened the closet door and in attempting to hang up her coat, dropped the hanger twice. Exasperated, she said, "I give up," and flung the coat over the back of the sofa before climbing the stairs.
David, following her actions, said, "See you in the morning."
He sat at the computer and typed:
Five Point Tactical Plan:
1 — Interrogate 4 of the 6 suspects: Foster, Bernie, Robert, Corliss
2 — Visit or revisit homes. May need Musco: Bernie, Spritz, Robert
3 — Visit murder site: Coughlin at parking gate
4 — North End for druggie belchers. Definitely need Musco
5 — Special situation with Nick and Sparky: SURVEILLANCE
He turned off the computer, picked up Kathy's coat and dropped the hanger once himself before securing it in the closet. Upstairs he found her in bed, approaching full sleep. He was not far behind.