Blood Of Angels by Michael Marshall Page A

ascribes pawing hands — on female behinds. Who was also an occasional customer at local bars — never left with a woman that anyone can testify to yet, but spent time talking to them. Including the ones behind the bar, one of whom went so far as to describe him as a "pussy-hound". We'll be talking to the night shifts later. None of which proves he wasn't gay, of course, but in terms of direct evidence the ball's in your court. And while you're at it, you'll be wanting to explain the trace of lipstick found on the victim's neck.'
    'I'll try to find some evidence this is a serial killer, too, rather than just a one-off homicide. Which right now is all it is.'
    'You're the expert.' Reidel pinched out the end of his cigarette, and replaced the butt carefully in the pack. 'Guess I'll leave you to your thoughts, Agent Baynam. Let me know if ya'll need anything.'
    He wandered off down the slope to where the other guys were. After a few moments Nina heard a laugh float up.
    She turned away. Spent a few moments considering the slope.
    ===OO=OOO=OO===
    Nina and Monroe went alone to talk to Julia Gulicks and Mark Kroeger. Both lived in Thornton but worked together in Owensville, the nearest sizable town. Their walk in Raynor's Wood had come in the evening of their fifth date. They had not yet slept together. They were taking it real slow, evidently wondering if this might be the one. They were two kids, really, and yet they were not actually kids at all. Twenty-nine and twenty-five.
    They were interviewed in the meeting room of the company they worked for. Neither seemed comfortable, but Nina supposed that wasn't surprising. After three weeks of covertly meeting after work at a bar a hundred yards down the street, their nascent affair was now presumably the talk of the water cooler. Nina believed she detected in Gulicks a species of considered privacy that was not unlike her own. Over the age of twenty, this stuff is not a game, and it's most definitely not a spectator sport.
    Monroe was leading the questions. 'You stayed in the bar until what time?'
    'Around nine,' Kroeger said. He had a soft voice and a few early grey hairs around his temples. 'A little later than we usually do, because, well, recently we'd gotten in the habit of going on to the Italian Kitchen. It's a couple of blocks further.'
    'How come you didn't go there last Thursday?'
    Kroeger seemed to colour, glanced across at Gulicks and then down at the floor.
    'Well,' Gulicks said. Her hair was a striking red, her skin pale but tawny with freckles. 'We've kind of been through this?'
    'I know,' Monroe said. 'But please.'
    Nina tried not to smile, and tuned out. It was in the notes, teased out of them by Reidel in the previous day's interviews. Most of it had come from Kroeger. Thursday night had been the Night. He had known it. He thought Gulicks had known it too. This unspoken factor had conferred a formality to the evening, conversation stilted by the dark matter of the thing not being said. They met after work, going to the bar on Union as usual. Their first two semi-dates had taken place here, and for the next two they had gone on to the Italian. The staff were cheerful and good at treating people like couples. Dates two to four inclusive had featured kissing of an increasingly fervent nature. Date five stepped up to the plate knowing it was time for a big swing of the bat. Neither person was sure if this evening would involve food. Neither wanted to ask. Nina was willing to bet there had been two apartments back in Thornton in states of unusual tidiness that night. Hers probably even had clean sheets on the bed. He wouldn't have gone quite that far (not even realizing, perhaps, that it was an option) but it would have been recently made, at least. Both fridges would have held a single cold bottle of very decent wine — no more, as both were declared light drinkers. Sofas had been straightened, bookshelves arranged with the brainiest books centre stage. And yet