Read Online Bannerman's Law by John R. Maxim - Free Book Online Page A

e was treating so gently had killed at least three times that number over the years. So had most of them, for that matter. Except that, as a rule, they never killed for plea sure. Satisfaction, now and then, but not pleasure. But in this case, any one of them, even Paul, she suspected, would make an exception.
    Molly started the engine. “ You okay ?” she asked.
    “ I'm fine ,” Ca rl a answered distantly.
    “ What did you find in the grass ?”
    “ What ?” Carla blinked. She was someplace else. “ Oh. Those were footprints. They took casts of them .”
    Molly exited the ramp, then swung back onto the Free way, going east.
    “ He wore rubbers ,” Carla told her. “ Totes .”
    “ You could see that? At night ?”
    “ That kid told me. The cop .”
    ”0h .”
    ” I could feel him, though. I could almost see him .”
    “ Ah . . .” Steady, Car l a. “ What else did he say ?”
    It took a moment for the question to register. Carla shook her head as if to clear it. “ They recovered her car today .”
    “ Where ?”
    “ Not far from here. In a parking lot at Pierce Junior College .”
    Another campus. Molly frowned. “ Which means that's where the killer . . . found her ?”
    ”I guess /’
    “ Lisa was a g r ad student at USC . What was she doing at a little junior college? And on a Sunday .”
    “ Maybe she wasn't there. Maybe he just left the car there .”
    The answer gave rise to more questions but Molly de cided not to pursue them. The detectives, she knew, were asking them as well. Does this mean the campus killer forced his way into her car? Or asked for a lift? Why, afterward, would he go directly to another campus? Why that one? Had he left his own car there?
    Whatever. Let the police and the FBI puzzle it out. Sooner or later, one piece at a time, they'll close in on him. Or he'll try to gray a decoy, a policewoman. And, if she's worth anything, she'll shoot his pecker off, and then his kneecaps, before her backup can move in.
    “ Which exit for your father's house ?” she asked.
    It was a small house, stucco, not much yard, neat, gen erally modest. He met them at the door. He'd been sitting up, waiting, on the chance that Carla would come tonight. An average sort of man, thought Molly. Might have been nice looking once. Tall, almost her height but gone to flesh, hair more gray than brown. She could see some resemblance around the eyes and mouth but that was about all. Carla must have inherited her coloring and size six from her mother.
    He leaned an inch or s o toward his surviving daughter. an d his hands reached up, just barely. He seemed to want to embrace her. That was Molly ' s impression. But for some reason, he could not.
    Car l a mumbled an introduction. Her father did not offer his hand. Rather, he stared at her for a long moment, a measure of surprise evident on his face. Molly was used to it. She did not look like what she was. But then few of them did.
    “ I've made a fresh pot of tea ,” he told them.
    It was not an invitation to enter. Not exactly. Nor did he step to one side. It was more like saying that if his daughter wished to come in, he would try not to make her feel unwelcome.
    The living room was comfortable, very California, furniture that was a sort of Ethan Allan Spanish, fake beamed ceilings, lots of plants. There was a piano in one corner. Molly tried to imagine Carla, as a little girl, practicing on it.
    Atop the piano there were several framed photographs. One frame was empty, its photo probably given to the police. There were three other pictures of Lisa, taken at various ages, one with her mother, now deceased. There were none of Carla .
    Molly knew most of the story. Carla had gone to Europe nearly twenty years before, junior year in Paris, met a guy, an Algerian, who studied electrical engineering by day and made bombs at night. By the time Carla caught on, so had the French Secret Intelligence Service. She was given the choice to work for them or to go to