'Let's say she wore it to the hotel where she was killed.'

'You can't know that.'

'Let's just say so, all right?'

'Okay, run with it.'

'Who took it? Some cop yank it off her finger?'

'No,' he said. 'n.o.body'd do that. There's people who'll take cash if it's loose, we both know that, but a ring off a murder victim's finger?' He shook his head. 'Besides, n.o.body was alone with her. It's something n.o.body'd do with somebody else watching.'

'How about the maid? The one who discovered the body?'

'Jesus, no way. I questioned the poor woman. She took one look at the body and started screaming and she'd still be screaming now if she had the breath left. You couldn'ta got her close enough to Dakkinen to touch her with a mop handle.'

'Who took the ring?'

'a.s.suming she wore it there - '

'Right.'

'So the killer took it.'

'Why?'

'Maybe he's queer for jewelry. Maybe green's his favorite color.'

'Keep going.'

'Maybe it's valuable. You got a guy who goes around killing people, his morals aren't the best. He might not draw the line at stealing.'

'He left a few hundred dollars in her purse, Joe.'

'Maybe he didn't have time to go through her bag.'

'He had time to take a shower, for Christ's sake. He had time to go through her bag. In fact, we don't know that he didn't go through her bag. We just know he didn't take the money.'

'So?'

'But he took the ring. He had time to take hold of her b.l.o.o.d.y hand and tug it off her finger.'

'Maybe it came off easy. Maybe it wasn't a snug fit.'

'Why'd he take it?'

'He wanted it for his sister.'

'Got any better reasons?'

'No,' he said. 'No, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I don't have any better reasons. What are you getting at? He took it because it could be traced to him?'

'Why not?'

'Then why didn't he take the fur? We f.u.c.king know a boyfriend bought her the fur. Maybe he didn't use his name, but how can he be sure of what he let slip and what the salesman remembers? He took towels, for Christ's sake, so he wouldn't leave a f.u.c.king pubic hair behind, but he left the fur. And now you say he took the ring. Where did this ring come from besides left field? Why have I got to hear about this ring tonight when I never heard of it once in the past two and a half weeks?'

I didn't say anything. He picked up his cigarettes, offered me one. I shook my head. He took one for himself and lit it. He took a drag, blew out a column of smoke, then ran a hand over his head, smoothing down the dark hair that already lay flat upon his scalp.

He said, 'Could be there was some engraving. People do that with rings, engraving on the inside. To Kim from Freddie, some s.h.i.t like that. You think that's it?'

'I don't know.'

'You got a theory?'

I remembered what Danny Boy Bell had said. If the boyfriend commanded such muscle, was so well connected, how come he hadn't shown her off? And if it was someone else with the muscle and the connections and the insufficient words to the wise, how did that someone else fit in with the boyfriend? Who was this accountant type who paid for her mink, and why wasn't I getting a smell of him from anywhere else?

And why did the killer take the ring?

I reached into my pocket. My fingers touched the gun, felt its cool metal, slipped beneath it to find the little cube of broken green gla.s.s that had started all of this. I took it from my pocket and looked at it, and Durkin asked me what it was.

'Green gla.s.s,' I said.

'Like the ring.'

I nodded. He took the piece of gla.s.s from me, held it to the light, dropped it back in my palm. 'We don't know she wore the ring to the hotel,' he reminded me. 'We just said so for the sake of argument.'

'I know.'

'Maybe she left it at the apartment. Maybe someone took it from there.'

'Who?'

'The boyfriend. Let's say he didn't kill her, let's say it was an EDP like I said from the beginning - '

'You really use that expression?'

'You get so you use the expressions they want you to use, you know how it works. Let's say the psycho killed her and the boyfriend's worried he'll be tied into it. So he goes to the apartment, he's got a key, and he takes the ring. Maybe he bought her other presents and he took them, too. He would've taken the fur, too, but it was in the hotel. Why isn't that theory just as good as the killer yanking the ring off her finger?'

Because it wasn't a psycho, I thought. Because a psycho killer wouldn't be sending men in lumber jackets to warn me off, wouldn't be pa.s.sing messages to me through Danny Boy Bell. Because a psycho wouldn't have worried about handwriting or fingerprints or towels.

Unless he was some sort of Jack the Ripper type, a psycho who planned and took precautions. But that wasn't it, that couldn't be it, and the ring had to be significant. I dropped the piece of gla.s.s back into my pocket. It meant something, it had to mean something.

Durkin's phone rang. He picked it up, said 'Joe Durkin' and 'Yeah, right, right.' He listened, grunting acknowledgment from time to time, darting a pointed look in my direction, making notes on a memo pad.

I went over to the coffee machine and got us both coffee. I couldn't remember what he took in his coffee, then remembered how bad the coffee was out of that machine and added cream and sugar to both cups.

He was still on the phone when I got back to the desk. He took the coffee, nodded his thanks, sipped it, lit a fresh cigarette to go with it. I drank some of my own coffee and made my way through Kim's file, hoping something I saw might bridge a gap for me. I thought of my conversation with Donna. What was wrong with the word sparkle? Hadn't the ring sparkled on Kim's finger? I remembered how it had looked with the light striking it. Or was I just fabricating the memory to reinforce my own theory? And did I even have a theory? I had a missing ring and no hard evidence that the ring had even existed. A poem, a suicide note, and my own remark about eight million stories in the Emerald City. Had the ring triggered that subconsciously? Or was I just identifying with the crew on the Yellow Brick Road, wishing I had a brain and a heart and a dose of courage?

Durkin said, 'Yeah, it's a p.i.s.ser, all right. Don't go 'way, okay? I'll be right out.'