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he'd pushed something aside. He felt shaky now. Deep breath. Let it out. His arm muscles were bunched, and he pressed with his elbows against the arms of the chair.
    "My mother always used to say that," he said.
    The shrink nodded.

CHAPTER 8

     
    The next woman was a schoolteacher, killed in her own apartment on Park Drive overlooking The Fenway. It was Saturday, lunchtime. Quirk and Belson and I looked at the murder scene again. It was as before. The rope. The tape. The blood. One of the precinct detectives was reading aloud from a notebook to Belson.
    "Name's Emmeline Washburn," he said. "Teaches at the Luther Burbank Middle School. Seventh grade. Fortythree years old, separated from her husband, lives alone. Husband's over there." He nodded to a black man sitting motionless on an uncomfortable red couch, staring at nothing.
    "Emmeline went to the movies with a friend, lives on Gainsborough Street, Deirdre Simmons. She left Deirdre at about ten-fifteen at her place, and intended to walk home. Husband came by this morning to have lunch with her and found her. He hasn't been able to say much.
    ME hasn't established time of death yet. But she's in rigor. MO seems just like the other four.
    Quirk said, "You establish an alibi on the husband yet?"
    The detective shook his head. "He's in bad shape, Lieutenant. All I got so far is, he found her." Quirk said, "I'll talk to him," and walked over to where the man was sitting. "I'm Martin Quirk," he said. "I'm in charge of homicide."
    "Washburn," the husband said, "Raymond Washburn."
    He didn't look up at Quirk. He didn't look down at the dead woman. He simply fixed on the middle distance.
    "I'm sorry," Quirk said.
    Washburn nodded. "We were going to put it back together," he said.
    "We'd been separated a year and we'd been seeing a counselor and it was working and we were going to put it back together."
    As he spoke, his body suddenly went limp and he began slowly to lean forward on the couch. Quirk dropped to one knee and caught him as Washburn pitched off the couch. Washburn looked to weigh maybe 190 pounds, and Quirk had to steady himself a moment as he caught the dead weight. Then without apparent effort he stood, his arms around Washburn. Washburn wasn't out. As Quirk straightened I could see him staring blankly over Quirk's shoulder. Then he began to cry. It sounded like the sobs were being twisted out of him. Quirk held Washburn and let him cry until he stopped. Then Quirk eased him back on the couch. Washburn slumped when Quirk let go of him, as if there were no strength in him. His eyes were swollen and his face was wet.
    Quirk looked at one of the EMTs that had come with the ambulance. "He'll need help," Quirk said.
    "We'll take him down to City," the EMT said, "let one of the doctors talk with him."
    Quirk nodded. He looked at me.
    "You got any thoughts?" he said.
    "No."
    "Belson?"
    "No."
    "Me either," Quirk said. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
    We went to my office. I sat at my desk. Quirk sat across, and Belson stood, as he almost always did, leaning against the wall. The office had a closed-up smell. I opened the window and the sparse weekend traffic noise drifted up.
    "Could be a copycat," Belson said. "Guy wants to do his wife in, covers it up by making it look like Red Rose, except there's no semen."
    "Scene looked authentic," Quirk said, "otherwise."
    "It's all been in the papers," Belson said.
    "Takes a special guy," I said. "To murder his wife and then deposit semen stains on the rug."
    Belson shrugged.
    "He was grief-stricken," Quirk said, "but that doesn't mean he didn't do it."
    "Got the name of the counselor?" I said.
    "Yeah, woman in the South End," Belson said, "Rebecca Stimpson, MSW."
    "I'll ask Susan to call her," I said.
    "Frank," Quirk said, "go over the crime scene, everything, compare it with the other killings."
    Belson nodded.
    "And we should get a report on the media coverage. See exactly what it's possible to know about Red Rose from the