Chase: Roman

said, ‘You see, I must research you as thoroughly as I did those first two. Otherwise, I would never be sure if you deserved the judgment of death or whether I had murdered you simply because you had interfered with my plans and I wanted revenge. In short, I am not killing people. I am executing those who deserve it.’
        Chase said, ‘I don't want you calling here again.’
        ‘You can stop me?’
        ‘I'll have the line bugged.’
        ‘That won't stop me,’ the stranger said, again amused. ‘I'll simply place the calls from various booths around the city, and I'll keep them too short to trace.’
        ‘If I refuse to answer my phone?’ Chase asked.
        ‘You'll answer it.’
        ‘What makes you sure?’
        ‘You'll want to know what I've learned about you, and you'll want to know when I've passed judgment on you, when you'll die.’ His voice had grown progressively less audible through the last dozen words, and now he seemed unwilling to force it any longer. ‘Six o'clock this evening,’ he reminded Chase, then hung up.
        Chase dropped the receiver, uneasily aware that the killer knew him better than he knew himself. He would answer every time, of course. And for the same reasons he had answered all the nuisance calls of the last few weeks rather than obtain an unlisted number. The only problem was that he did not know just what those reasons were.
        Impulsively, he lifted the receiver and placed a call to the police headquarters downtown. It was the first time in ten and a half months that he had used the dial, initiated a call. The police number, along with the numbers of the firehouse and River Rescue, was on a sticker at the base of the phone, as if someone had wanted to make it as easy as possible for him to make this move.
        When the desk sergeant answered, Chase asked for Wallace, gave his name. At the moment he was not above using his present fame to cut red tape.
        ‘Yes, Mr Chase, can I help?’ Wallace asked.
        He did not say what he had intended to. Instead he asked, ‘How is the investigation coming along?’
        Wallace was not averse to talking shop. ‘Slowly but surely,’ he told Chase. ‘We found prints on the knife and sent copies of them into Washington and to the state capital. If he's ever been arrested for a serious crime or if he's worked for any branch of the government, we'll have him in twenty-four hours.’
        ‘And if he's never been printed?’
        Wallace said, ‘We'll get him anyway. We found a man's ring in the Chevy. It didn't belong to the dead boy, and it looks as if it would be too small for your fingers by a size or three. Didn't lose a ring, did you?’
        ‘No,’ Chase said.
        ‘I thought so. Should have called you on it, but I was pretty sure about it. It's his, right enough.’
        ‘Anything else besides the prints and ring?’
        ‘We're keeping a constant watch on the girl and her parents, though I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything about that to anyone. We'd like to see him try for her where we could get at him.’
        ‘Might he?’
        ‘If he thinks she can identify him, yes. Remember, he knows she got a good long look at his face, and he has no way of knowing how badly her mind was working then.’
        ‘I guess so.’
        ‘It's occurred to me that we wouldn't be far off if we gave you a tail as well. Have you thought of that?’
        Alarmed out of proportion by the suggestion, Chase said, ‘No. I don't see what value that would have.’
        ‘Well,’ Wallace observed, ‘the story was in the papers this morning. Though he probably doesn't fear you identifying him as much as the girl, he might bear a grudge of some sort.’
        ‘He'd have to be a madman, then.’
        ‘What else is he, Mr Chase?’
        ‘You mean you've found no motives from questioning the girl, no old lovers who might have -’
        ‘No,’ Wallace said. ‘Right now we're operating on the assumption that there was no rational motive, that we're dealing with a psychotic.’
        ‘I see.’
        ‘Well,’ Wallace said, ‘I'm sorry there isn't more solid news.’
        ‘And I'm sorry to have bothered you,’ Chase said. ‘You've probably not had much sleep.’
        ‘None,’ Wallace admitted.
        They said goodbye, and Chase hung up without telling him a thing, though he had intended to spill it all. A twenty-four-hour guard on