Worst Fears Realized

few minutes.”
    “How are you feeling?”
    “Like somebody worked me over with a baseball bat.”
    “You went to the hospital?”
    “Yeah; it was Alma. Sorry, I forgot to call and tell you.”
    “A citizen found her handbag in a wastebasket a couple of blocks away. There was over a hundred bucks in it, plus her credit cards.”
    “Nothing at all taken?”
    “Not that we can figure.”
    “Doesn’t make any sense.”
    “I know.”
    “She was such a happy person,” Stone said. “Didn’t matter if I was having a grumpy day; she just took it in stride. Always managed to cheer me up.”
    “She was a nice lady,” Dino said. “I always liked her.”
    They sat quietly for a while, watching the garden grow dark and the lights come on in the other houses in Turtle Bay, all of which backed up onto the same garden.
    “Stone,” Dino said finally.
    “Yeah?”
    “You see any possible connection between these two killings?”
    “I thought about that; the only connection is me.”

    “I thought about that, too,” Dino said. “Think for a minute: Is there somebody out there who hates you enough to want to kill people you know?”
    “I thought about that, too; couldn’t think of anybody.”
    “Neither could I.”
    “They can’t be connected,” Stone said. “It’s just an awful coincidence.”
    “I think you’re right; I just had to explore the other possibility.”
    “I know.”
    “When you’re a cop, or when you’vebeen a cop, it’s always hanging over your head.”
    “What is?”
    Dino sighed. “The other possibility. The idea that somebody you’ve busted and sent up will come back to haunt you, to get even. I think that, after getting killed in the line of duty, it’s every cop’s worst fear.”
    “I never thought about it until this minute.”
    “Stone, what did you and Susan Bean talk about last night? We never got into that.”
    “Just first-date chitchat,” Stone said. “What do you do? Where are you from? Like that. She didn’t seem to be happy in her job.”
    “How so?”
    “She said she was thinking of leaving the DA’s Office.”
    “From what Martin Brougham told me last night, she was on her way up.”
    “She said that, but it didn’t seem to matter. I think she was just disillusioned with the system; she didn’t like the way she had to do her job.”

    “What do you mean?”
    “I don’t know; it was just something she said. We never had time to go into it. You know how it is, Dino; a lot of idealistic people don’t like an up-close view of how the justice system works. It takes a pretty thick skin to live with it every day.”
    “Yeah; I had a hard time with it at first, too.”
    “You? I’m surprised.”
    “What? You think I’ve always been the tough-but-honest, cynical cop you see before you? I had to grow a thick hide, just like you had to.”
    “If you say so.”
    Across the garden a light came on in a house directly opposite Stone’s, and a woman in a business suit walked into a room framed by a large picture window.
    “Watch this, Dino,” Stone said.
    “Watch what?”
    “The woman across the way.”
    “What about her?”
    “Just watch. I think you’ll find this interesting.”
    The woman, who was tall with long red hair, began to undress.
    “You’re right,” Dino said, “this is interesting.”
    “Just keep watching,” Stone said.
    The woman carefully hung up her suit, then stepped out of her half-slip, unhooked her bra, and slid out of her panty hose and panties. She dropped the underwear into a hamper. Now she was completely naked, exposing a slender but shapely body with high, firm breasts.
    “Wow,” Dino said softly.

    “She’s something, isn’t she?”
    Now the woman went to a closet, took out a vacuum cleaner, plugged it in, and began to vacuum the room.
    “What the fuck is she doing?” Dino asked.
    “She’s vacuuming. She does this two or three times a week; she comes home from work, takes off her clothes, and vacuums her bedroom. Then she disappears for a while. I guess she’s vacuuming her whole apartment. The she comes back into the bedroom, puts away the vacuum, and disappears again. Sometimes she gives a little wave.”
    “You mean she knows you’re watching her?”
    “I expect half the neighborhood is watching her,” Stone said.
    Dino abruptly sat up straight in his chair. “Look at that,” he said.
    “Iam looking at it,” Stone replied.
    “No; there’s a guy.”
    “Where?”
    “Standing in the bedroom