Mary, Mary

later, Agent Page was hovering at my desk. “How’s it going?” he asked. “Anything yet?”
    I spread my arms to indicate the breadth of information on the desk. “She doesn’t fit in.”
    “Which was probably true for about half the female serial killers in history at the time of their activity,” said Page. The young agent was impressing me more and more.
    “So what about our good friends at LAPD? Anything new from them?”
    “Sure is,” he said. “Ballistics came back on that gun of hers. Hear this—it’s a golden oldie. A Walther PPK, same one every time. There’s a full briefing tomorrow if you want to be there. If not, I’ll cover.”
    That was surprising news, and very odd—the age of the murder weapon.
    “How old is the gun? Do they know?”
    “At least twenty years, which deepens the mystery some, huh? Could be hard to trace.”
    “You think that’s her reason? Traceability?” I asked, mostly just thinking out loud. Page quickly ticked off a handful of possibilities.
    “She’s not a professional, right? Maybe it’s a weapon she’s had for a long time. Or maybe she’s been killing a lot longer than we think. Maybe she found it. Maybe it was her father’s.”
    All solid guesses from a rapid-fire mind. “How old are you?” I asked, suddenly curious.
    He gave me a sideways glance. “Uh, I don’t think you’re supposed to ask that.”
    “Relax,” I said. “It’s not a job interview. I’m just wondering. You’re a lot quicker than some of the folks I see coming out of Quantico lately.”
    “I’m twenty-six,” he said, grinning widely.
    “You’re pretty good, Page. Need to work on that game face, though.”
    He didn’t alter his expression. “I’ve got game; I just don’t need it here in the field office.” Then, affecting pitch-perfect surfer-speak, he said, “Yeah, dude, I know what you’re thinking about me, but now that my surfing scholarship fell through, I’m like, totally dedicated to being here.”
    It felt good to laugh, even if it was mostly at myself.
    “Actually,” I said, “I can’t imagine you getting up on a surfboard, Page.”
    “Imagine it, dude,” Page said.

Chapter 49
    AROUND 5:00 THE NEXT DAY, the briefing room at LAPD was packed to overflowing, a suitcase with way too much crap inside. I leaned up against a wall near the front, waiting for Detective Jeanne Galletta to get the madness going.
    She came in walking briskly alongside Fred Van Allsburg, from my office; L.A.’s chief of police, Alan Shrewsbury; and a third man, whom I didn’t recognize. Jeanne was definitely the looker in the group, and the only one under fifty.
    “Who’s that?” I asked the officer standing next to me. “Blue suit.
Lighter
blue suit.”
    “Michael Corbin.”
    “Who?”
    “The deputy mayor. He
is
a suit. Useless as tits on a bull.”
    I was kind of glad to have been left out of the speechifying at the meeting—but a little wary as well. Politics were a given on this kind of high-profile homicide case. I just hoped they weren’t about to start playing a larger-than-usual role here in Los Angeles.
    Galletta gave me a little nod hello before she started. “All right, people, let’s go.” Everyone quieted down immediately. The deputy mayor shook Van Allsburg’s hand and then slipped out a side door. Huh? What was that all about? It wasn’t a guest appearance, more like a ghost appearance.
    “Let’s get the nuts and bolts out of the way first,” Detective Galletta said.
    She quickly ran over all the common elements of the case—the Walther PPK, the children’s stickers marked with two
A
’s and a
B,
the so-called Perfect Mother victims, which was the angle the press was running with, of course. One nasty out-of-town paper had called the case “The Stepford Wife Murders.” Galletta reminded us that the exact wording in the e-mails Mary had sent to the
L.A. Times
was classified information.
    A few questions flew.
    Does the LAPD or Bureau know of or suspect any connection between Mary Smith and other homicides in the area?
No.
    How do we know it was a single assailant?
We don’t for sure, but all signs indicate as much.
    How do we know the killer is a woman?
A woman’s hair, presumably the offender’s, was found under a sticker at the movie theater in Westwood.
    “This might be a good time to ask Agent Cross to give us an overview of whatever profile the FBI has going. Dr. Cross has come here from Washington, where he solved cases