Free Ikon by Graham Masterton Page B

‘Not exactly. But I guess you could say that it’s close enough.’
    ‘So I can say that you’re looking for a piano-wielding sex-magic madman with a neurosis about being believed by his employers?’
    ‘Miss Forbes -‘ burst out Chief Ruse. But Berridge raised his hand to quiet him down, and laughed. ‘Come on, chief, she’s deliberately goading you. You should know that. Miss Forbes, I have to congratulate you on your technique.’
    ‘Lieutenant Berridge is married, by the way, said Chief Ruse, hitching up his belt again, and sniffing.
    ‘Maybe we’d better go through to the kitchen, suggested Berridge. ‘It’s kind of gory right here.’
    He took Kathy’s arm and guided her through to Margot Schneider’s neat wood-panelled kitchen. ‘You won’t touch anything, will you?’ he told her. ‘The forensic boys
    have finished in the murder room, but they have to go over the whole house.’
    On the kitchen wall, next to the icebox, was a memo pad with the legend, ‘Don’t forget brocc! also bank I’s check!’ A half-finished cup of coffee had been left on the worktop, still impressed with the pink lipstick of a woman who now had no head. Lieutenant Berridge thrust his hands in his pockets and looked around, and said, ‘Pretty strange, isn’t it? The last person who came into this kitchen is dead.’
    Chief Ruse followed them in, and folded his arms over his belly. ‘I don’t want to rush you, Miss Forbes, but I’m going to rush you. Three questions and then that’s it. I have a duty to all of the Phoenix media, not just to The Flag.’
    ‘Oh, sure, I understand,’ said Kathy. Tell me - do you happen to have any photographs of the victim - anything that we could publish?’
    Chief Ruse glanced at Lieutenant Berridge uneasily. The question of photographs was one which he would have preferred to hold over until tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow. The truth of the matter was that they had found no photographs of the murdered woman at all, not even amongst the framed pictures of her family on the sitting-room table. If there were any photograph albums in the house, they hadn’t located them yet; and even when they had sent a sergeant around to Luke Air Force Base this afternoon to check on any photographs the Air Force might have on file of social gatherings and parties, they had found no identifiable picture of Margot Schneider in any of them. Plenty of Major Rudolph Schneider, smiling and holding up glasses of champagne. Even one tantalizing picture showing him waltzing with Mrs Schneider - she with her back to the camera. But that was the only one, and it was impossible to make a positive identification from that. It seemed, oddly, as if Margot Schneider had never in her life been photographed. Even her Social Security card was missing. ‘Er, we have some pictures, but we have to show them
    to her next-of-kin first,’ Lieutenant Berridge extemporized. ‘You understand how it is.’ ‘May I see one?’
    Chief Ruse shook his head. ‘Not at this time. And not ahead of any of the other media.’
    ‘Well, suit yourself,’ said Kathy. ‘But I have to tell you that Mrs Margot Schneider seems to have been the world’s least-photographed human being. None of her neighbours have pictures of her. The Arizona Biltmore doesn’t have any pictures of her, despite the fact she often used to go to dinners and social functions there. And, of course, we can’t even photograph her dead.’
    ‘Right,’ nodded Lieutenant Berridge. ‘No head.’ It sounded like a comic oneline.
    Kathy said, ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that the murderer might have cut her head off simply to prevent you from finding out who she was?’
    ‘She was Margot Schneider,’ said Lieutenant Berridge. ‘All the papers prove it. She had pension papers, letters from friends. She was wearing one slipper when she died and that slipper was bought from the Scottsdale Shopping Mall nine weeks ago by Margot M. Schneider. She used her