“Who is Albia?”

“She’s John Rothman’s older sister. They’re very close, always have been.”

“What is she like?”

“Albia is some seven years older than John. After their mother died in an auto accident, Albia more or less became his mother. As I said, they’re very close. Once I asked her about the family, and she told me about their mother, that she’d died tragically, that their father had died about five years ago of a heart attack.”

“Lots of automobile accidents in this man’s life.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So Albia didn’t tell you about her mother being unfaithful to her father?”

“No, would you?”

“Maybe not.”

“But there was something. At Albia’s birthday dinner, before I got really sick, I gave her a scarf. She started to talk about how their mother had had a scarf like that and then she looked like she’d swallowed something bad. She shut up like a clam. They explained it to me that it was a touchy subject.”

“No explanation at all.”

“Not really.”

“Nothing much there. Is that it?”

“No, there’s more, and this is something I know. I remember John told me he was in love with Cleo within minutes of meeting her. When she left him, he was devastated, just couldn’t believe it. He wondered and wondered why she hadn’t spoken to him, told him what was wrong, but she’d just up and left.”

“Hmmm,” Dane said again.

She said, “You know, Dane, it was really hard for me to believe that John began murdering women just because his mother cheated on his father. Do you think it’s remotely possible that he might have killed his own mother?”

“I think it’s possible that someone did.”

“But who else could it have been?”

He just shook his head. “There’s lots here to process, Nick. Let’s get Savich and Sherlock involved. MAX found out that you’re Dr. Nicola Campion quickly enough. They’re primed to help.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

The four of them met in the Holiday Inn coffee shop.

Dane said, “Maybe you guys could consider stopping off in Chicago with us before going back to Washington.”

“Actually,” Savich said, “Sherlock was just about ready to call you, Nick, get all the details out of your mouth and not from MAX.”

“It’s a real mess,” Nick said. She talked and talked, slowly covered again all that had happened, answered many of the same questions, though many of them had a different slant, refreshing her memory for different things. She realized she was being questioned by experts. It was quite painless, actually. Finally, both Savich and Sherlock fell silent. Savich was holding his wife’s hand, stroking his thumb over her palm, slowly and gently.

Nick watched Savich sip his tea, frown. He said as he gently sloshed the tea around in the cup, “It’s very flat, no taste at all.”

Sherlock patted his hand. “I think we should start traveling with the tea you like.”

Dane, impatient, said, “Well? What do you guys think?”

Savich smiled at Nick and said, “I want to cogitate on all of this for a while. But first, I need to make a phone call.”

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed, waited. “Hello, George? It’s Savich, and I need a bit of help.”

“Who’s George?” Nick whispered to Dane.

Sherlock said, “It’s Captain George Brady, Chicago Police Department.”

Savich waited, listened, then said into the cell phone, “Here’s the deal, George. I need you to tell me about Cleo Rothman.”

Two minutes later, Savich pressed the off button on the phone. He looked at each of them in turn, then said directly to Nick, “I’m sorry, Nick, but Cleo Rothman wasn’t killed a couple of weeks ago.”

Nick said, “What do you mean? I don’t understand. I got the letter from her not more than a month ago.”

Savich said, “Captain Brady said the medical examiner was just about ready to announce his findings. Fact is, Cleo Rothman was murdered at least three years ago.”

THIRTY-FIVE

They spent the entire late afternoon and evening in meetings with Jimmy Maitland, Savich’s boss and an assistant director of the FBI, Gil Rainy from the LA field office, and LAPD Chief William Morgan and his staff, including Detective Flynn. They had time for only a brief good-bye to Inspector Delion before he flew back to San Francisco late that evening.