Mistress

Okay, there goes my good mood. Normally, that would be a compliment, because normally he’d be talking about my Triumph, which is a nice bike. But the Triumph is in a parking garage in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. Now I’m riding a real bike-a bicycle-specifically, a used Rockhopper I picked up at City Bikes. It’s more suited to trails than city riding, but I may have to make some acrobatic moves with it one day, and I want something that can handle some quick turns and rough riding.

Anyway, I’m not too happy about it. I already miss my motorcycle. But the Triumph made me visible. With the Rockhopper, plus a helmet and a fluorescent Windbreaker, I look like one of those bike couriers who risk life and limb weaving through traffic all around the capital.

“You’re the Ben Casper who runs that newspaper?” he asks.

“I am.” Checking out my appearance, he probably thinks I’m a guy who delivers newspapers. “And I’m short on time,” I say.

He doesn’t respond to that. I’m guessing this guy used to be a cop, and judging from his speech patterns, I’m guessing Chicago cop. Last I checked, they have a few Irish people out that way.

They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue! Sean Connery may be Scottish, but he killed as the Irish cop in

The Untouchables. Killed.

“I was hired by the Jacobs family,” he says. “They live in a suburb of Chicago. Their daughter Nina went missing here over a week ago.”

Nina…Jacobs. I know that-

“Diana’s friend,” I spit out. I met Nina once at a club. She was tall, like Diana, the same lithe, shapely frame, but not blond like Diana. Nina was a brun-

Oh, shit. Nina was a brunette.

And I’ll bet she didn’t have a butterfly tattoo above her left ankle.

“Diana…Hotchkiss, you mean,” Riley says, flipping over a pad of paper.

I take a breath and recall Nina. A beauty in her own right-not the perfect features of Diana’s face, but quite attractive. A bit younger than Diana. Up close, you wouldn’t confuse one for the other, but from a distance, they might be indistinguishable. Especially if Nina was wearing Diana’s clothes.

And especially if Diana dyed her hair Nina’s color, which she did a month ago.

I remember that night at the club, and thinking that Nina looked up to Diana, patterned herself after her. How ironic, in hindsight.

Sean Patrick Riley is looking for a dead woman.

“I’m down to remote acquaintances at this point,” says Riley. “I’ve talked to everyone she knows well, and I’m hitting a dead end. Anyway, she had your business card in her Rolodex. So I’m wondering if you can think of anything that might help me. Any chance you have an idea what might have happened to her?”

Her parents must be in sheer agony right now. I’ll help them find justice for their daughter. I won’t let this go. I’ll tell them everything that happened to their daughter.

But not yet.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve put together so far?” I say. “And maybe something will trigger a thought.”

Chapter 69

“A week before she disappeared,” says Sean Patrick Riley, “Nina Jacobs had her mail held at the post office for a seven-day period, and she told the Washington Post not to deliver her newspaper for seven days. She also had the lights in her home set on timers. Why would she do all that?

“She’d do that,” he continues, answering his own question, “if she were going on vacation for a week, and she didn’t want her mail to pile up or her newspapers to accumulate on her front porch. And she’d put her lights on timers so it would look like she was home, not on vacation, to ward off burglars.

“The thing is, Nina didn’t go on vacation. She was at work every day. She worked at the Public Face, a PR firm over on Seventeenth Street. She didn’t miss a day that week.” Riley opens his hands. “So she was in town, but living somewhere else.”

“Maybe she was watching a friend’s house,” I suggest.

“Right. That’s the best I can figure. But I don’t know whose. She has a ring of three or four friends she spends a lot of time with. I’ve talked to all of them. They were all in town, and Nina wasn’t watching their homes. I’ve talked to all of them, I should say, except Diana Hotchkiss. Don’t know if you heard, but she’s dead.”

“I heard,” I say. “Are you working with the local police on this?”

He lets out a grunt. “The feds,” he said. “They’ve scooped it from the locals. Which means in terms of cooperation, I’m getting a whole lotta nothing.”

I don’t know what to make of all this. Nina Jacobs was set up. Set up to play the role of Diana Hotchkiss-living at her apartment, wearing her clothes, and ultimately being thrown off a balcony. But set up by whom?

Diana? Was Diana capable of something like that?

“Who in Nina’s circle of friends have you spoken to?” I ask.

“Oh, let’s see.” He flips to another page in his small notepad. “Lucy Arangold, Heather Bilandic, and Anne Brennan.”

“What did Anne say?”