Hour Game

Michelle looked at the tattoo of the feline and the proximity of it to the woman's genitals and stood straight up. "I really don't want to think about that connection."

"Damn," said Williams, reddening.

"I know, not very ladylike, is it?" said Sylvia.

She looked up as Kyle entered the room.

"There's another police guy out front, wants to talk to the chief here, Doc."

"Police guy?" Her tone was a little strident. "Try police officer. "

"Right, this police officer wants to see the chief."

"Can you ask him to come back here?"

A malicious smile passed across the young man's features. "That's the first thing I did, Doc. The police officer declined, without explanation. Come to think, though, he looked a little green when I suggested it."

"I'll go out front," said Williams, and he hurried off with Kyle right behind.

Five minutes later Williams returned with a nervous-looking uniformed patrolman in his wake who was introduced by Williams as Officer Dan Clancy. Williams looked stricken. "We might have an ID on the girl from the picture we circulated," he said, his voice trembling slightly as they all stared at him. "Looks like she worked briefly at the Aphrodisiac."

"The Aphrodisiac?" exclaimed King.

Williams nodded. "As an exotic dancer. Her ‘stage' name was Tawny Blaze. Not real imaginative, I know. Her real name was Rhonda Tyler." He glanced at the paper in his hand. " Tyler worked there for a while but left when her contract was up."

"Will the person who recognized the picture come down and attempt to make a positive ID?" asked Sylvia. "Although with the state the body's in, I'm not sure that's possible. But if-"

Williams cut in. "That won't be necessary, Sylvia."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"We were told she has a distinguishing mark." Williams looked embarrassed.

It hit Michelle in an instant. "A tattoo of a cat next to her…?"

Williams's mouth gaped even as he nodded.

"Who was the person who provided the information?" asked King.

"The manager of the Aphrodisiac. Lulu Oxley."

Now King's mouth gaped. "Lulu Oxley! Junior Deaver's Lulu Oxley?"

"How many Lulu Oxleys do you know, Sean?" asked Williams.

"I know her too," said Sylvia. "Well, we used to have the same gynecologist."

Williams said, "That's not all. We got a message from the Wrightsburg Gazette. They received a letter."

"What sort of letter?" asked Michelle nervously.

"A coded one," replied a very pale Todd Williams. "With the mark of the Zodiac on the envelope."

CHAPTER 11

KING ACCOMPANIED WILLIAMS TO the police station to look at the note while Michelle stayed behind with Sylvia and Deputy Clancy to go over the autopsies already performed on Canney and Pembroke.

During the drive to the police station King called Bill Jenkins, an old buddy of his in San Francisco. When he made his request, his friend was understandably surprised.

"What do you need that for?" Jenkins asked.

King glanced at Williams and then said, "It's for a criminal justice class I'm teaching over at the community college."

"Oh, okay," Jenkins said. "After all the excitement you and your partner caused last year, I thought you were messed up in something like that again."

"No, Wrightsburg is back to just being a quiet, sleepy southern town."

"If you decide you ever want to rejoin the big time, give me a call."

"How soon can you have that for me?"

"You're in luck. We have a special running this week on classic serial killers. Thirty minutes. Just give me a number to fax to and a major credit card," he said, chuckling.

King got the police station fax number from Williams and gave it to his friend.

"How can you get it so fast?" King asked Jenkins.

"The timing of your call is impeccable. We conducted a long-overdue office cleaning and just last week pulled that file for archiving. Copies of the schoolteacher's notes are in there. I was just going over them the other night, in fact, for old time's sake. That's what I'll send you, the key he came up with to decipher the coded letters."

King thanked him and clicked off.

When they reached the police station, Williams strode in with King following.

Out of his professional depth or not, the chief was back on his home turf, and he was going to act like it. He bellowed for the deputy who'd called him about the coded letter and also grabbed a bottle of Advil from his secretary. King and the deputy gathered in Williams's office, where the chief plopped behind his desk and swallowed three Advil using only his saliva. Before he took the piece of paper and envelope from the deputy, he said, "Please tell me these have been checked for prints."

They had, the deputy told him. "Although Virgil Dyles, the owner of the Gazette, initially thought it was a joke when he got it in the mail. We wouldn't have known anything about it, but a friend of mine who's a reporter over there phoned and told me. I went right over and got it, but it's all Greek to me."

"So what did Virgil do, pass it around the damn office?" shouted Williams.