Chief Ruse opened his eyes, and turned around with fat Michelin chins to stare at Berridge as if the young lieutenant were babbling complete nonsense. But Berridge, though hyper-active, was too arrogant to allow Ruse’s famous death-ray stare to put him off. He raised a second finger, and said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, the most important question is not who she is, or why she was murdered, but why would anybody want to take her head? Don’t you agree? And, personally, I think there are three possible answers to that. One, her killers may have wanted to remove all traces of some unusual and incriminating head-wound. Perhaps she was killed with something incredibly specialized, like a glazier’s hammer, or a carpet-fitter’s tool - which is possible, but not particularly likely. Second, they may have taken it for kicks.’
‘You mean they wanted to play soccer with it?’
This time, Berridge was genuinely startled. But he managed to say, in words that fell out like a shower of loose teeth, They may have taken it for some kind of ritual, that’s what I mean. Sexual, or magical. Those sort of kicks.’
‘And the third possibility?’
‘The third possibility is that they may have taken her head as proof to some third party that they’d actually killed her.’
‘In other words, our poor Air Force widow was killed by contract? Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, that kind of stuff?’
That’s the inference, yes.’ Chief Ruse slowly scratched the capacious seat of his pants. ‘Well, now,he said, ‘those are all possibilities. But they still don’t get us any nearer to finding out who killed her, and why.’
‘On the contrary, chief, argued Berridge. The first thing we should do is run a computer make on any violent crimes which have involved blows to the head with the usual weapons. Then run a second make on any sex or black magic cults which hold the human head or skull to be particularly significant. And finally a make on any contract killings in which the head or other parts of the body were taken as proof of death.’
There was a chime at the front door. Berridge said, ‘I’ll get it. It’s probably the food I ordered.’
‘You ordered food?’
Berridge looked surprised. ‘I shall probably be working on this thing for the rest of the night. Besides, it’s only a diet burger.’
‘God help us,breathed Chief Ruse, hitching up his pants. ‘A diet burger.’
There was talking by the front door. After a while, Chief Ruse went out into the corridor, and said, ‘Berridge? What’s going on?’
‘Ah, chief, there you are, said a girl’s voice. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. They told me you went downtown with the coroner.’
I never ride with stiffs, said Chief Ruse. ‘Now get your tail out of here, Miss Forbes. This is a police prohibited area.’
The officer at the door said, ‘I’m sorry, chief, she just pushed past me.’
Berridge said, ‘It’s okay, chief. We can let in the star reporter from The Arizona Flag, can’t we? Maybe she can give us some assistance.’
‘Another damned Californian, grumbled Chief Ruse.
T’m not, as a matter of accuracy, said Kathy, unbuckling her black shoulder-bag so that she could check her tape-recorder. She gave Chief Ruse a wide, toothy grin. T was born in Tucson, near Randolph Park. I was raised
in Phoenix, and I only went to Los Angeles when I was fourteen years old.’
‘Thanks for the c.v., said Chief Ruse. ‘Now, what can you possibly want to know that you haven’t already been told? The body’s gone, the photographers have gone, the forensic team have made their initial studies and they’re going to be back tomorrow to do a little more. Everything’s running routinely.’
‘Do you have any theories?’ asked Kathy.
‘Yes,said Chief Ruse flatly, ‘I suspect that Mrs Schneider was murdered.’
Kathy didn’t blink. ‘How about you, lieutenant? Any ideas?’
‘Don’t ask him, Chief Ruse interrupted. ‘According to him, Mrs Schneider was decapitated either by someone who didn’t want us to know that they’d hit her over the head with some kind of weird object, like a piano; or some kind of sex-magic lunatics who get off on severed heads; or a hit-man who needed a souvenir to prove that he’d done what he was paid for.’
Is that right?’ Kathy asked Lieutenant Berridge.
Berridge drummed his fingers in a complicated tempo on the door-frame. ‘Not exactly. But I guess you could say that it’s close enough.’
‘So I can say that you’re looking for a piano-wielding sex-magic madman with a neurosis about being believed by his employers?’
‘Miss Forbes -‘ burst out Chief Ruse. But Berridge raised his hand to quiet him down, and laughed. ‘Come on, chief, she’s deliberately goading you. You should know that. Miss Forbes, I have to congratulate you on your technique.’
‘Lieutenant Berridge is married, by the way, said Chief Ruse, hitching up his belt again, and sniffing.
‘Maybe we’d better go through to the kitchen, suggested Berridge. ‘It’s kind of gory right here.’
He took Kathy’s arm and guided her through to Margot Schneider’s neat wood-panelled kitchen. ‘You won’t touch anything, will you?’ he told her. ‘The forensic boys
have finished in the murder room, but they have to go over the whole house.’
On the kitchen wall, next to the icebox, was a memo pad with the legend, ‘Don’t forget brocc! also bank I’s check!’ A half-finished cup of coffee had been left on the worktop, still impressed with the pink lipstick of a woman who now had no head. Lieutenant Berridge thrust his hands in his pockets and looked around, and said, ‘Pretty strange, isn’t it? The last person who came into this kitchen is dead.’
Chief Ruse followed them in, and folded his arms over his belly. ‘I don’t want to rush you, Miss Forbes, but I’m going to rush you. Three questions and then that’s it. I have a duty to all of the Phoenix media, not just to The Flag.’
‘Oh, sure, I understand,’ said Kathy. Tell me - do you happen to have any photographs of the victim - anything that we could publish?’
Chief Ruse glanced at Lieutenant Berridge uneasily. The question of photographs was one which he would have preferred to hold over until tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow. The truth of the matter was that they had found no photographs of the murdered woman at all, not even amongst the framed pictures of her family on the sitting-room table. If there were any photograph albums in the house, they hadn’t located them yet; and even when they had sent a sergeant around to Luke Air Force Base this afternoon to check on any photographs the Air Force might have on file of social gatherings and parties, they had found no identifiable picture of Margot Schneider in any of them. Plenty of Major Rudolph Schneider, smiling and holding up glasses of champagne. Even one tantalizing picture showing him waltzing with Mrs Schneider - she with her back to the camera. But that was the only one, and it was impossible to make a positive identification from that. It seemed, oddly, as if Margot Schneider had never in her life been photographed. Even her Social Security card was missing. ‘Er, we have some pictures, but we have to show them
to her next-of-kin first,’ Lieutenant Berridge extemporized. ‘You understand how it is.’ ‘May I see one?’
Chief Ruse shook his head. ‘Not at this time. And not ahead of any of the other media.’
‘Well, suit yourself,’ said Kathy. ‘But I have to tell you that Mrs Margot Schneider seems to have been the world’s least-photographed human being. None of her neighbours have pictures of her. The Arizona Biltmore doesn’t have any pictures of her, despite the fact she often used to go to dinners and social functions there. And, of course, we can’t even photograph her dead.’
‘Right,’ nodded Lieutenant Berridge. ‘No head.’ It sounded like a comic oneline.
Kathy said, ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that the murderer might have cut her head off simply to prevent you from finding out who she was?’
‘She was Margot Schneider,’ said Lieutenant Berridge. ‘All the papers prove it. She had pension papers, letters from friends. She was wearing one slipper when she died and that slipper was bought from the Scottsdale Shopping Mall nine weeks ago by Margot M. Schneider. She used her American Express card. Listen, there are theories in homicide cases and there are wild guesses. Sometimes, very rarely, the wild guesses pay off. But if we begin to doubt the overwhelming circumstantial and documentary evidence that the murder victim was Margot Schneider, then we’re going to complicate ourselves up our own assholes. Chief Ruse and I don’t usually see eye-to-eye on very much when it comes to detective work, but I think we’re in agreement about that. The fundamental undeniable fact is that a woman like Margot Schneider has been murdered by decapitation. Now we have to work on the probable theories about why she was decapitated. That’s what we’re doing, and that’s all. All I can say in our favour is that we’re very good at what we do. We’re
the best.’
Kathy Forbes was silent for a moment. Berridge looked at her with patronizing interest and thought for the first time how pretty she was. She had dark shoulder-length hair, but today it was tightly tied back with a scarlet-and-yellow silk scarf. Her face was squarish, with high cheekbones and wide hazel-brown eyes. She had one of those nice short, straight noses he always liked, and a wide mouth that looked as if it could smile a lot and talk a lot and kiss a lot. Her figure wasn’t anything to complain about, either, in spite of her severe grey linen suit and her sheer grey stockings (seamed, too - he liked that). He thought: 25-years-old, married once and probably divorced, no children, a small-time career girl, Christopher Cross fan and aerobics enthusiast. A feminist until she can find a man who can really take care of her. One hundred per cent wholesome American girl, no dental fillings, closely-depilated underarms, sheer nylon panties, warm well-filled stockings. Breasts that are just a little too large to hold in one hand. At least 10% of US RDA, Ms Kathy Forbes, no doubt about it.
‘If you want to discuss the theories in more detail, I can at least do that with you,’ suggested Berridge. His voice dropped almost an octave. ‘I don’t think I really want to do it here, though. Maybe a restaurant? I haven’t eaten all day.’
‘Didn’t you order a diet burger?’ asked Chief Ruse, sarcastically.
‘A diet burger?’ asked Berridge, with an uncomfortable laugh. ‘What the hell would I need with a diet burger?’
‘Maybe you could slim down your head,’ said Chief Ruse.
There was another chime at the door and Chief Ruse went to answer it. It was Jackson Dawes from the mayor’s office, wanting to talk about the political side of this murder. ‘We don’t want Phoenix to look like the kind of place where …’ murmur, murmur. ‘Well, you understand what I’m saying, I’m not trying to put a lid on it, but …’
Kathy Forbes said to Berridge, ‘You’re really married?’
‘Separated. Considering divorce. Mary never liked the idea of police work. If s the hours, mainly. She’s a very
systematic kind of a lady, doesn’t like her life to be full of surprises.’
‘Are you really sure this was Margot Schneider? The woman who got beheaded?’
‘You want to see the evidence? There’s no question.’ ‘Then why did they do it? Why did they cut her head off? And why did they kill her, if she was nobody more important than a plain old Air Force widow? All the neighbours said she was sweet. Why should anybody want to kill a woman like that?’
Berridge folded a stick of gum into his mouth, and shrugged. Then, remembering his manners, he offered Kathy a piece. ‘Juicy Fruit?’
‘No, thanks. I think I’d better be getting back to the office. I want to file my story by ten.’
‘You don’t want dinner? We could go to Mother Tucker’s, it’s on the way back to town. They have a terrific salad cart.’
‘Well … maybe.’
But at that moment Chief Ruse came back into the kitchen, and slapped Berridge on the back. There isn’t any need for you to stay any later, Lieutenant. I’m sure Stella will be missing you as much as anybody ever can miss you.’
‘Stella?’ asked Kathy.
‘The delectable Mrs Berridge, Ms Forbes. Our ace detective here has one of the tastiest wives on the force. It makes you sick, doesn’t it? Sick to your stomach.’
Kathy smiled at Berridge tartly. Berridge, in spite of his bravado, couldn’t help blushing. ‘Yes, chief,’ said Kathy. ‘It does make you sick.’
‘Do you need a ride back to town?’ Berridge asked her. ‘Without stopping anywhere to eat.’ ‘No, thank you. I have my own car.’ ‘In that case, you can give me a ride. Just wait a couple of minutes while I make sure I’ve got everything. Chief, do you want to meet for breakfast tomorrow morning -say seven o’clock? I really want to run over this computer thing.’
Kathy waited in the kitchen while Chief Ruse and Lieutenant Berridge arranged meetings for the following day. She felt tired now; she had been up at six, as soon as news of Margot Schneider’s murder had broken. She felt like a cigarette, but it was nine weeks since she had smoked her last, and she was determined to keep up her record. This time, it was going to be for keeps. She didn’t want to be a slave to anything or anyone.
Lieutenant Berridge had been wrong about her age -she was 29 - but right about her divorce. In Los Angeles, six years ago, she had married an incandescently brilliant young actor, David Forbes, and for four years they had lived a life of fun and laughter and beach-parties and dancing at dawn. Then she had come home from a trip to Arizona to find David in bed with two wide-eyed girls of 13 and 14, and the world had split open like a broken alabaster egg.
Maybe she should have been more sophisticated about it, more Hollywood. After all, men needed their fun. But every single reaction inside her had been negative. She had married David for ever, however old-fashioned that seemed to be, and if it wasn’t going to be for ever, then it wasn’t going to be for one more minute. She had walked out.
She hadn’t asked him for anything, not even a half-share in their Westwood apartment. But he had given her his Mirada, probably on the advice of his lawyer, and, gratuitously, his complete collection of Miro lithographs. That had been the first thing he had ever said to her, ‘Come up and see my lithographs.’
While she waited, a police officer came into the kitchen with a large folder. He was slightly-built, round-shouldered, with a moustache, one of those police officers who always seemed to be called Rizzo or Wuschinsky^ and who always seem to be apologizing, even when they bust you. He put down a messy collection of magazines and photographs and papers on the kitchen table and said, ‘You seen Lieutenant Berridge? [ was supposed to hand over all this stuff to Lieutenant “Berridge/