“No resistance, buddy,” I said, “when there are this many coincidences.”

The forensics team arrived and Pat gave them some instructions, then he sent me home. I offered to sit in on the Ryan girl’s interview, but he said no. He was still going this one alone, and I, if anybody, understood the impulse.

I had called Velda to say I’d be late. She met me at her door, hair freshly washed, all that creamy skin smelling of soap and wrapped up in a pink chiffon robe that hugged her figure in a way that made that Julie Olsen kid look sick. Of course, that kid was sick with that daddy complex of hers.

With it going on two a.m., I suggested we go down to the all-night diner for a breakfast that was either very early or really damn late; but she cooked me some eggs and bacon herself, instead. I risked a cup of coffee because I didn’t think there was enough caffeine in the world to threaten my tiredness at the end of this interminable day.

So I filled her in about the new murder—all that got was wide eyes and a shake of the head out of her—and recapped my conversation with Pat.

She sat down with her own plate of just one scrambled egg and a cup of coffee, incredibly beautiful without a bit of make-up, and said, “You really think that’s what’s going on?”

“It’s got Vincent Colby written all over it, doll. He’s gone psycho after the head injury, and he’s going after a laundry list of people who crossed him or offended him. The trouble is, unless Pat gets lucky with a witness who saw him at one of the scenes, or some other standard perp failing…each one of these murders has to be individually looked at, because the motives are singular.”

An eyebrow went up. “This doesn’t seem like a perp with many if any failings.”

“I did keep one thing from Pat.”

“Oh?”

“He doesn’t know about Chris Peters and me making that trip to Shannon’s place, or the floppy disk we found. Poor ol’ Patrick would have a cow. So my sniffing Obsession on my attacker I kept to myself, too.”

She smiled wryly over the rim of her coffee cup. “Popular cologne, Mike. Narrows your suspect list to a few hundred thousand New York males. Not your usual mystery, is it, darling?”

“What do you mean?”

She made a cute face. “No whodunit with a big surprise at the end.”

“You never know. I may come up with a big surprise for this prick yet.”

The phone rang—always a startling thing in the wee hours. She took the kitchen extension on the wall nearby.

“Yes…yes, Pat…Well, he’s right here…Oh. Oh, okay…All right, I’ll tell him.”

She hung up. Her expression was dazed.

“What?” I asked.