Sacred Sins

Barbara Clayton worked in a dress shop, divorced, no kids. Family lives in Maryland, blue collar. She'd been seeing someone pretty heavily up to three months ago. Things fizzled, he moved to L.A. We're checking on him, but he looks clean.”
    He reached in his pocket for a cigarette and caught his partner's eye.

    “That's six,” Ed said easily. “Ben's trying to get under a pack a day,” he explained, then took up the report himself.
    “Clayton spent the evening in a bar on Wisconsin. Kind of a girls' night out with a friend who works with her. Friend says Clayton left about one. Her car was found broken down a couple blocks from the hit. Seems she's been having transmission problems. Apparently, she decided to walk from there. Her apartment's only about half a mile away.”
    “The only things the victims had in common were that they were both blond, white, and female.” Ben drew in smoke hard, let it fill up his lungs, then released it. “Now they're dead.”
    In his territory, Harris thought, and took it personally. “The murder weapon, the priest's scarf.”
    “Amice,” Ben supplied. “Didn't seem too hard to trace. Our guy uses the best—silk.”
    “He didn't get it in the city,” Ed continued. “Not in the past year anyway. We've checked every religious store, every church. Got a line on three outlets in New England that carry that type.”
    “The notes were written on paper available at any dime store,” Ben added. “There's no tracing them.”
    “In other words, you've got nothing.”
    “In any words,” Ben drew smoke again, “we've got nothing.”
    Harris studied each man in silence. He might have wished Ben would wear a tie or that Ed would trim down his beard, but that was personal. They were his best. Paris, with his easygoing charm and surface carelessness, had the instincts of a fox and a mind as sharp as a stiletto. Jackson was as thorough and efficient as a maiden aunt. A case was a jigsaw puzzle to him, and he never tired of shifting through the pieces.

    Harris sniffed the smoke from Ben's cigarette, then reminded himself that he'd given up smoking for his own good. “Go back and talk to everyone again. Get me the report on Clayton's old boyfriend and the customer lists from the religious outlets.” He glanced toward the paper again. “I want to take this guy down.”
    “The Priest,” Ben murmured as he skimmed the headline. “The press always likes to give psychos a title.”
    “And lots of coverage,” Harris added. “Let's get him out of the headlines and behind bars.”

    H AZY after a long night of paperwork, Dr. Teresa Court sipped coffee and skimmed the Post . A full week after the second murder and the Priest, as the press termed him, was still at large. She didn't find reading about him the best way to begin her day, but professionally he interested her. She wasn't immune to the death of two young women, but she'd been trained to look at facts and diagnose. Her life had been dedicated to it.
    Professionally, her life was besieged by problems, pain, frustrations. To compensate, she kept her private world organized and simple. Because she'd grown up with the cushion of wealth and education, she took the Matisse print on her wall and the Baccarat crystal on the table as a matter of course. She preferred clean lines and pastels, but now and again found herself drawn to something jarring, like the abstract oil in vivid strokes and arrogant colors over her table. She understood her need for the harsh as well as the soft, and was content. One of her top priorities was to remain content.

    Because the coffee was already cold, she pushed it aside. After a moment she pushed the paper away as well. She wished she knew more about the killer and the victims, had all the details. Then she remembered the old saying about being careful what you wished for because you just might get it. With a quick check of her watch, she rose from the table. She didn't have time to brood over a story in the paper. She had patients to see.

    E ASTERN cities are at their most splendid in the fall. Summer bakes them, winter leaves them stalled and dingy, but autumn gives them a blast of color and dignity.
    At two A.M. on a cool October morning Ben Paris found himself suddenly and completely awake. There was no use wondering what had disturbed his sleep and the interesting dream involving three blonds. Rising, he padded naked to his dresser and groped for his cigarettes. Twenty-two, he counted