“No one? Any steady boyfriends at all since her divorce?”
Elizabeth gathered herself enough to lift her head and give him a shaky, wintry smile. “Sure.” The one word was bitter. “She had a twelve-year affair with one of the attorneys in the firm. He told her they’d be married when he divorced his wife, but the time wasn’t right while he was building his career. Then the time was right, he got his divorce, and promptly married a twenty-three-year-old trophy wife. Jackie was devastated, but she’d been with the firm for a long time and couldn’t afford to start over. He wanted to continue the affair, but Jackie broke it off, very quietly. At least he didn’t try to get her fired, but I don’t guess there was any reason for it. Their affair wasn’t a secret; everyone in the office knew about it.”
“When was this?”
“Let’s see. About four years ago, I guess.”
“Who has she dated since then?”
“I don’t know that she’s dated at all. Maybe once or twice, right after the affair ended, but I know she hasn’t gone out with anyone for at least a year. She started having health problems, and she didn’t feel well enough for the dating scene. We would eat dinner out every week or so; it helped keep her spirits up.”
“What kind of health problems?”
“Several things. She had really bad endometriosis, and about a year ago finally had a hysterectomy. A stomach ulcer, high blood pressure. Nothing life-threatening, but everything seemed to hit at once, and it made her depressed. Lately she’d fainted a couple of times. That was why I was so worried when she didn’t show up at the restaurant on time.”
They had hit a dead end on ex-boyfriends, but Dane hadn’t really expected anything different. He was just covering all the bases. “Had she mentioned anyone she’d met recently? Did she get into an argument with anyone, or had she mentioned anyone following her?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No, Jackie was very eventempered, got along with everyone. She didn’t even lose her temper when David married his little bimbo. Actually, the closest she came to getting angry recently was when a new silk blouse came apart at the seams the first time she washed it. Jackie loved clothes, and was very particular about them.”
“Did she go any place regularly, where she might have met someone?”
“Not unless it was the grocery store.”
“Everyone has a routine,” Dane insisted gently. They had to discover how the killer picked his victims. Nadine Vinick and Jackie Sheets had had something in common, something that had brought them to the killer’s attention. They had lived in different neighborhoods, so it had to be something else, and putting his finger on that something else was vital. “Did she have her hair done regularly, go to the library, anything like that?”
“Jackie had beautiful red hair. She got it trimmed every few weeks, at a little salon close to the office. The Hairport. The stylist’s name is Kathy, I think. Maybe Kathleen, or Katherine. Something like that. The library? No, Jackie wasn’t much of a reader. She loved movies; she rented a lot of movies.”
“Where did she rent them?”
“At the supermarket. She said they have a nice video selection, and it saved making an extra stop.”
“Which supermarket did she shop at?”
“Phillips, about a mile from here.”
A neighborhood market, not one where Nadine Vinick would have shopped. But Dane made notes of everything; they wouldn’t know exactly what they had until they had compared every detail with the Vinick case.
“What about you?” he asked. “Are you married?”
“Widowed. Seven years ago. Jackie helped me through a rough time, and that’s when we became close friends. We were friendly before that, you know, working in the same office for as long as we had, but that’s when I really got to know her. She was—she was a really great friend.” Tears slipped down Elizabeth’s cheeks.
Dane patted her some more, aware of and ignoring Trammell’s enigmatic gaze. Trammell hadn’t spoken once, leaving all the questioning to him. Occasionally he did that, when for some reason he decided Dane would have better luck getting answers.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said, still weeping. “I know I haven’t been able to help.”
“But you did,” Dane assured her. “You helped us eliminate several things, so we know where to concentrate and won’t waste our time on dead ends.” Basically it was a lie; all they had was dead ends. But she needed all the comfort she could get, lie or not.
“Do I need to come down to the station or anything? Funny,” she said, wiping her eyes and trying a pathetic smile. “I know how law works on the finished end, the courthouse end, but nothing about the raw stages.”
“No, there’s no need for you to come to the station,” he said, soothing her. “Does Detective Brown have your address and phone number?”
“I think so. Yes, I remember telling her.”
“Then I don’t see why you can’t go home, if you like. Do you want me to have someone drive you? Or call someone, a friend or relative, to stay with you tonight?”
She looked around vaguely. “I can’t leave my car here.”
“If you want someone to drive you, I’ll get a patrolman to drive your car and another one to follow, to bring him back. Okay?”
But she didn’t seem able to make a decision, still too stunned and devastated to think clearly. Dane made the decision for her, getting her to her feet, calling a patrolman over and arranging for her to be taken home, giving instructions for her to call a friend or neighbor to stay with her that night. She nodded as docilely as a child taking homework instructions.