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"I don't know anything about it," she said "Maybe-"

"Yes?"

"Maybe she shattered a wine bottle"

To Durkin I said, "A friend of Ki And there's Sunny Hendryx's suicide note" I got out my notebook, flipped it open I read, " 'There's no way off theand it turned her finger green Nobody's going to buy me e Dakkinen, I suppose," he said "There'sto save nant and neither was Hendryx, so what's this shit about babies? And neither one of them had her life saved" He closed the book with a snap, handed it across the desk to o with this," he said "It doesn't look toyou can take to the bank Who knohen Hendryx wrote this? Maybe after the booze and the pills started working, and who can say where she was co from?"

Behind us, twowhite kid in the holding cage A desk away, a sullen black wo questions I picked up the top photo on the stack and looked at Kim Dakkinen's butchered body Durkin switched on the razor and finished shaving

"What I don't understand," he said, "is what you think you got You think she had a boyfriend and the boyfriend gave her the ring Okay You also figured she had a boyfriend and he gave her the fur jacket, and you traced that and it looks as though you were right, but the jacket won't lead to the boyfriend because he kept his name out of it If you can't trace hiot, how can you trace hi? You see what I mean?"

"I see what youthat didn't bark, hat you got is a ring that isn't there, and what does it prove?"

"It's gone"

"Right"

"Where'd it go?"

"Sa drain How do I knohere it went?"

"It disappeared"

"So? Either it walked away or someone took it"

"Who?"

"How do I knoho?"

"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? Soer?"

"No," he said "Nobody'd do that There's people who'll take cash if it's loose, we both know that, but a ring off a er?" He shook his head "Besides, nobody was alone with her It's so"

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

"Jesus, no way I questioned the poor wo and she'd still be screaot her close enough to Dakkinen to touch her with a ?"

"Assuht"

"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 "

"He left a few hundred dollars in her purse, Joe"

"Maybe he didn't have ti"

"He had tio through her bag In fact, we don't know that he didn't go through her bag We just know he didn't take theHe had tier"

"Maybe it ca fit"

"Why'd he take it?"

"He wanted it for his sister"

"Got any better reasons?"

"No," he said "No, godda at? He took it because it could be traced to him?"

"Why not?"

"Then why didn't he take the fur? We fucking 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 fucking pubic hair behind, but he left the fur And now you say he took the ring Where did this ring coot to hear about this ring tonight when I never heard of it once in the past two and a half weeks?"