Eden watched Thackrey’s crossed leg jiggling up and down as it had earlier that morning. “Someone’ll find the evidence.”

Thackrey looked up at the ceiling, his eyes studying something there. “That’s just it. There is none. Since you enjoy puzzles, I’ll tell you this one. I hired a gypsy cab in the Mission District. A Honduran national named Javier Griffin. Señor Griffin was a great admirer of cash. I paid him a thousand dollars to call the residence of Tyler Morris and pick up Reggie. She and her boyfriend were so strung out on smack, they didn’t question a cab showing up. Griffin brought her to me, asleep in the back seat. I paid him another thirty thousand dollars to disappear.”

“We’ll find him,” Eden said.

“Good luck with that. After he left, I injected Reggie’s bony ass with a veterinary tranquilizer called xylazine. Like putting a cat down. I weighted her body and sank it in the bay. Then I donated Griffin’s cab to a salvage yard in Fremont, where it was crushed and sold as scrap. Poof. Gone. Why does anyone think murder’s so difficult?” Thackrey picked up his wineglass and sipped, his eyes dark.

Eden watched him drink the wine that held her memories. Her anger rose. The image of Reggie Semple floated across Eden’s mind. She saw the dead woman’s dress pulled up in the back seat of the gypsy cab. She suddenly felt furious. “Elise was different from other women, wasn’t she?” Eden said. “She was smarter than the party girls and, like you, she was a risk-taker. She had a wild streak, an exuberance, that showed in her art, without the cushion of your money and the fear that lived in the back of your own soul.”

“Elise was flat-out crazy.”

“Oh, sure, but you couldn’t kill her right away, could you? You had to, but some feeling got in the way. You needed to talk yourself into it. Reggie was easy, but Elise—”

“And where do you fit into all this, Detective Somers?” His voice was cold now.

“I’m the cop you saw coming, the one you’re taking all that speed for.”

Thackrey stood and pulled Eden up beside him. “Come on. Let’s do this right.”

Thackrey took Eden’s hand and led her to an open space in the living room. Eden tried to pull away from him, but he held her hand tightly. When he put his arm around her, the gun pressed against her lower back.

Eden saw his eyes nervously following her.

Thackrey pressed Eden’s body close to him. “Tell me, Detective Somers, in your nightmare, how do you see yourself killed? Strangled like the girls in the park, choking on your last breath? Or another way?” He tapped his gun against her shoulder. “A bullet? The American way?”