Page 34 of Already Lost

And yet, she couldn’t bring herself totalk about the vision of Chris stabbing Zach. About how she was avoiding them.Better to let him think she was just having an argument with Chris orsomething, which was what Laura would have assumed if Nate was rejecting callsfrom his girlfriend. And better to let him assume rather than saying the lieoutright.

She didn’t know what to do about all ofit. Nate was pulling into the precinct and Laura felt like she would ratherhave been going anywhere else in the world – anywhere she didn’t have to thinkabout this stupid case.

Not even the singer who’d sung it wantedto think about the damn song anymore, and that just about summed the wholething up.

Laura sat up in her seat. “I’ve got anidea,” she said, her words rushing out in one go, full of excitement.

“Really?” Nate asked, pulling into theprecinct parking lot. “About the case?”

“Yes,” Laura said, full of a newdetermination, getting her second wind. “I know who we need to look into next.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Okay,” Laura said, leading Nate down thestairs towards the basement. “So. We know that the victims don’t really meanmuch, right? There’s no link between them that we can see. In terms of thecase, they’re basically useless to us.”

“Right,” Nate said, though he sounded alittle uncomfortable declaring the victims to be useless.

“So, what does that leave? We’ve got thecrime scene, with its careful staging, the method of murder, and…”

“The song,” Nate said. “That’s why wetalked to that Jack Flora guy just now. It didn’t get us anywhere.”

“But it’s not just a clue about the song,is it?” Laura said. They pushed their way through the doors to the evidenceroom. “He could have just left us a copy of the record to find. Or played it onan MP3 device – you can get those cheaper than you can gramophones. Somethingabout uslisteningto the song is important.”

“So, what’s your idea?” Nate asked.

“My idea is to listen to the song,” Laurasaid. She leaned on the desk, smiling at the officer in charge of the evidencelocker. “Hi. Can we go in and play one of the records on one of thegramophones?”

“Sure,” he said, passing her the registerto sign. “Might be nice to have some music in here.”

“The music that was played over the corpseof several young women as they lay dead from a stab wound?” Nate asked, with araised eyebrow.

Laura shook her head at him and rolled hereyes. “Stop ruining the man’s day,” she told him, heading for the cage thatcontained all the evidence. She felt excited, almost giddy. This was something.She knew this was something.

“Here we go,” she said, walking over toone of the gramophones which had been stacked in the corner. She carefully puton a pair of gloves, as she knew she would be expected to, and set thegramophone up to play. Maybe hearing the music, feeling the vibration of itfrom close by, would be enough to set off a vision. She set it going and thenrested, leaning on the table to get as much contact with the music as shecould, and listened.

He was my man, and we were so happy

Two fools in love, how now it may seem

Now when I think of how I was happy

I don't recall was it nightmare or dream

Laura grabbed her notebook out of herpocket and uncapped her pen, starting to write the lyrics down as she heardthem. The start of the song was kind of generic, in terms of the storyline. Asong about a broken relationship. That was pretty normal for music from alltime periods, wasn’t it?

She came along, with a rose in her hair

Pretty and young, with a smile likesunshine

How could I know that he'd put it there?

Or that she'd taken the man that was mine?

Laura looked at the lines she’d writtendown. Pretty and young – didn’t that kind of sound like all three of thevictims? Even though they were actually different ages, they weren’t old. Andthey were all pretty women. Then again, maybe that was just a coincidence.

He was so fine, I thought I was lucky

A husband, a child, the future I saw

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