The Kills Read Online Free PDF

my
back whenever I was exposed to danger or double-dealing, and they could make me
laugh at the darkest moments of my life.
    Dinner
was casual and easy. We caught up on each other's personal lives and reminded
Mike of the details of the Tripping case. I wanted an early night, so Mercer
dropped me in front of my building before ten, and Mike went on to his office
to do paperwork, ready for the long tour ahead.
    The
doorman let me in and handed me the mail and dry cleaning that had been left in
the valet's room. I rode up the twenty stories in the elevator, key in hand,
opening my apartment door and flipping on the lights.
    I spent
an hour at my desk organizing my questions for the morning. Jake called at
eleven-fifteen, when he got off the air after delivering his piece.
    "Hope
you don't mind that I stayed in D.C."
    "Good
timing, actually. I get to concentrate on the trial. The sooner I have it
behind me, the happier I'll be."
    "Remind
me what we've got on for the weekend."
    "Saturday
night we've got theater tickets with Joan and Jim. Friday night I thought we'd
have a quiet evening at home."
    "That
means I cook."
    "Or
Shun Lee delivers. Or we starve, and just nibble on each other." I was
useless in the kitchen. Whipping up a tuna salad and removing ice cubes from
their tray was a slim repertoire.
    " That flight I won't consider
missing."
    I hung
up, undressed, and drew a steaming-hot bath, filling the tub with something
bubbly that smelled like vanilla. My friend Joan Stafford had written another
thriller, and I took the manuscript with me into the tub, trying to discern the
players who were so deliciously portrayed in the roman à clef.
    Sleep
came easily and I awakened at six, with time to make coffee and read the
newspaper before making my way to the garage in the basement of my building.
    "Good
morning, J.P.," I said to the attendant, who pointed to my Jeep, which he
had positioned at the top of the ramp.
    "You
got company, Ms. Cooper."
    I opened
the car door and found Mike Chapman dozing in the front passenger seat.
    He didn't
move a hair as I settled into the driver's side. I pressed the button to play
the first CD in the deck, turning the volume up so that the letters R-E-S-P-E-C-T blasted out of the
speakers.
    Mike
opened his left eye and shifted his weight. "If I had wanted to wake up
with Aretha Franklin, I would have gone to bed with the woman."
    "I
guess you didn't exactly want to wake up with me, either. You could have rung
the doorbell. There's always the sofa bed in the den."
    "And
all that temptation in the bedroom? Sorry, just came to pick your brain. Only
got here fifteen minutes ago and I was afraid I'd miss you if I didn't head you
off in the garage. Wild night in the naked city."
    "What
happened?"
    "Caught
two kills, so I gotta go right back uptown to sort things out."
    That's
what homicides were to Mike Chapman. Kills. Hunters used that word to describe
the slaughter of their prey, and fighter pilots spoke the same language when
referring to the downing of enemy planes-the unnatural termination of lives.
    "What
kind of cases?" I asked.
    "One's
a shooting, probably justifiable. Bodega owner on One Hundred Tenth dropped a
guy who pulled a knife on him and tried to steal a six-pack of Bud. Other one's
really ugly. Thought you could help."
    "Sure.
How?"
    "Break-in
at a brownstone in Harlem, West Side. Place was ransacked, lots of old junk
strewn all over the place," Mike said, shutting off the music.
"Eighty-two-year-old woman. Looks like she was raped and then smothered to
death with her own pillow. Thought you could tell me why."
    "Why
what?" I asked.
    "Why
somebody does that? Who am I looking for? What's inside his head? What the
hell's the motivation for a sexual assault on an octogenarian who's already had
a stroke and was partially paralyzed?"
    "I
can give you hours on this, but I probably still won't be able to answer your
question. No one can. Last time I had one like that, I called my favorite