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“You have no idea,” Drummond said, wheezing. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“You heard everything?” I asked, going past Mrs. Striker, who was still bleeding and looking confused. I crouched down to the carpet and picked up my cell phone and the magazine from the Ruger.
“Loud and clear,” the sergeant said, waving his cell at me. “Enough probable cause in anyone’s book.”
“This is entrapment,” Mize said. “I want a lawyer. I’m being persecuted.”
“For what?” Johnson demanded as he hauled him to his feet.
“Cross-dressing,” he said. “Getting into a little weird sex. Right, Pauline?”
Mrs. Striker raised her bleeding head and glared at him. “He’d been a friend since he’d painted my portrait, and he just tried to kill me. He put on my lingerie, said I was his mother tonight, and tried to kill me. And I’ll testify to it in court, Edwin’s new deal be damned.”
“Can we call an ambulance for you?” I asked, smiling.
“Please,” she said. “And could you get me some clothes? I don’t want to be seen this way.”
“Tell me what you need,” I said as Johnson hauled Mize from the room.
She asked for the clothes Mize had stripped her of and held them and the robe against her when she stood unsteadily and walked to the bathroom. Before she closed the door completely, she peered out at me.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Drummond said, “That’s Alex Cross, don’t you know?”
She shook her head and shut the door.
“That was something,” the sergeant said as he scratched at his slack chin.
“We good?” I asked.
“Oh, you and me, we’re fine,” Drummond said. “Me and my boss and the DA? That may be another story.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the way I came in here gets some of it excluded in court. But so what? You know who killed the four now. Just have to rebuild the case based on what you know and prove it outside of here. And I’ll testify however I’m allowed.”
Drummond thought about that, nodded, said, “I suppose the most important thing was saving Mrs. Striker and getting a lunatic cross-dresser off the streets of Palm Beach.”
“Or out of the bedrooms, anyway.”
The sergeant seemed to chew on something, and then he said, “This how a lot of your cases go?”
“Actually, every single one of them is different.”
“After you make your statement, you’ll go back to North Carolina?”
“Tomorrow sometime, I hope.”
“Get that guy Melvin Bell?”
“Marvin Bell. He’s one of our suspects, but I haven’t excluded anyone.”
“Sounds to me like he’s your man.”
Sirens wailed, coming closer.
“My gut says he is too, but we’ll see,” I said.
Drummond stuck his hand out, said, “A pleasure to meet you, and thank you for your help here.”
