Mary, Mary (Alex Cross 11)

The actress’s clothing appeared to be intact. No indication of any kind of sexual assault. And no sign of blood froth from the nostrils or mouth, which meant she’d died and stopped breathing almost immediately. Who would make this kind of violent attack? Why Antonia Schifman? She’d seemed like a nice person, got good press. And everybody liked her, according to, well, everybody. So what could explain this massacre? This desecration at her home?

Agent Page appeared and leaned in over my shoulder. “What do you think the cutting is about? Some kind of reference to plastic surgery maybe?”

The young agent had shaken off every subtle and not-so-subtle clue I had dropped that I needed to be alone right now, but I didn’t have the heart to dress him down.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I don’t want to speculate yet. We’ll know more once she’s checked in and cleaned up.” Now, please let me work, Page.

A dull-brown wash of dried blood covered the actress’s ruined face. What a terrible waste. And what exactly was I supposed to relay to the president about what I’d seen here, about what had happened to his friend?

The driver, Bruno Capaletti, was still propped up at the steering wheel. A single bullet had entered his left temple before it destroyed most of his head. The blood on the empty seat next to him was smeared, possibly by his own body but more likely by the killer, who had apparently shot Antonia Schifman from the front seat. A small amount of cocaine had been found in the driver’s jacket pocket. Did it mean anything? Probably not, but I couldn’t rule out anything yet.

I finally stepped out and away from the limousine and took a breath of fresh air. “There’s a strange disconnect going on here,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else.

“Neat and sloppy?” Page asked. “Controlled, yet out of control.”

I looked at him, and my mouth twisted into something resembling a smile. The insight surprised me a little. “Yes. Exactly.” The bodies had been arranged, just so, inside the car. But the shooting and, in particular, the cuts on Schifman’s face had an angry, haphazard quality to them.

There was a calling card, too. A row of children’s stickers was affixed to the car door: glittery, bright-colored pictures of unicorns and rainbows. The same kind had apparently been left at the scene of the previous week’s murder.

Each of the stickers was marked with a capital letter, two with an A, one with a B. What was that all about?

Page had already briefed me on the companion case to this one. Another woman in the movie business, Patsy Bennett, a successful production head, had been shot dead in a movie theater in Westwood six days prior. There were no witnesses. Bennett was the only victim that day, and there had been no knife work. But the stickers at that scene had also been marked with capital A’s and a B.

Whoever was doing this certainly wanted to take credit for the murders. The murders weren’t improvisatory, but the killer’s methods were dynamic. And evolving, of course.

“What are you thinking?” Page asked. “Do you mind if I ask? Or am I getting in the way?”

Before I could tell him, another agent interrupted the two of us. If it was possible, she was tanner and maybe even blonder than Agent Page. I wondered if maybe they’d been put together at the same factory.

“We’ve got another e-mail at the

L.A. Times,” she said. “Same editor, Arnold Griner, and the same Mary Smith.”

“Has the paper reported on the e-mails yet?” I asked. Both agents shook their head. “Good. Let’s try to keep it that way. And keep a cap on these kids’ stickers, too. If we can. And the A’s and B’s.”

I checked my watch. Already 5:30. I needed at least another hour at the Schifman property; then I wanted to speak with Arnold Griner at the Times. And I would definitely have to meet with the LAPD before the day was over. James Truscott was probably still prowling around outside, too. At home in D.C., I missed meals as often as not. Nana and the kids were used to it, and Jamilla would probably understand, but none of that was an excuse. This had been as good a time as any to break one of my very worst habits in life: missing dinner with my family.

But it wasn’t going to happen, was it? I called Nana at the hotel first, and then I called Jamilla. Then I thought about the poor Schifman and Bennett families, and I went back to work.

Part Two

I LOVE L.A.

Chapter 15

“WHY ME, OF ALL PEOPLE? Why do you think she’s writing these awful missives to me? It doesn’t make any sense. Does it? Have you found out anything that makes some sense of this? The mothers being slaughtered? Hollywood’s about to go totally insane over these murders, trust me. Mary’s dirty little secret will get out.”

Arnold Griner had already asked me the same questions a couple of times during the interview. Our meeting was taking place in an L-shaped glass fishbowl of an office at the heart of the L.A. Times newsroom. The rest of the floor was a wide expanse of desks and cubicles.

From time to time, someone would pop his or her head over a cubicle wall, steal a quick glance our way, and duck back down. Prairie-dogging, Griner called it, chuckling to himself.

He sat on a brown leather couch, clutching and unclutching the knees of his wrinkled gray Dockers. Occasionally, he scribbled something on a legal pad on his lap.

The conversation so far had focused on Griner’s background: Yale, followed by an internship at Variety, where he proofed copy and ran coffee for entertainment reporters. He had earned a staff position quickly, and famously, when he managed to interview Tom Cruise on the record at an industry party. Two years ago, the L.A. Times had wooed him away with an offer for his own column, “Behind the Screens.” His reputation in the business, he told me, was for “insider” Hollywood stories and “edgy” reviews. He obviously had a very high opinion of himself.

I hadn’t found any further links between Griner and either of the murders outside of the movie-industry connection. Still, I wasn’t prepared to believe that he’d been randomly selected to receive Mary Smith’s e-mails.

Griner didn’t seem inclined to believe it either. His focus was all over the place, though, and he’d been peppering me with questions since we started.