"Usually about ten or fifteen minutes after the taverns close at one o'clock. I always stay up that long to wait for him. If he isn't home by—oh, about one twenty—I figure he probably got into a poker game or something and go to sleep. Then he has to knock loud enough to wake me—but that's not too hard; I'm a light sleeper."
"That would give the psycho a full hour, from midnight till one, most nights. Some nights longer, if he's been casing your husband too and happens to know he's going to be later. Ruth, I don't like that phone call at all. To be honest about it, it worries the bejesus out of me."
"You're scaring me too, George. I guess you want to, so I'll be careful. And I will. I told you about the special knock Ray uses when he gets home late. I wouldn't open the door except to that knock. But isn't it enough of a precaution?"
"I suppose so, unless Ray's told someone about it. Suppose he got talking to a friend in a tavern—but with the psycho in hearing distance—and told him about it. There's plenty of talk about the psycho, including in taverns. If the subject came up naturally, mightn't he tell what precaution you and he are using, if he knew and thought he could trust whoever he was talking to."
"Well—he might mention that we use a code knock. But he surely wouldn't tell just what the code knock is. There'd be no reason for him to tell that—unless he deliberately wanted to get me murdered. And he's not that bad, George."
George Mikos sighed. "I suppose you're right there. But don't you see that, code knock or no, you can be in danger? That you are in danger if friend psycho is checking up on you and has you on his little list, even as a possibility?"
"I realize that—but still, if I don't open the door—"
"Wait, I hadn't finished. If he's even intelligent enough to read the newspapers he knows by now that women alone just aren't opening doors these days, not unless they have chain bolts on them anyway. He knows he's going to have to vary his procedure if he's going to succeed again. And what simpler variation would there be than for him to find a woman who went home alone, late, and be waiting for her inside her house or flat when she gets there?
"Let me make a hypothetical case to show you how that could be. Let's say he picked you out a week ago. Maybe he eats here; maybe you've talked to him and he got to know your name. Let's say the first night he followed you home and knows where you live.
"Let's say he's been checking up on you ever since. It wouldn't be hard for him to learn that you're married, but only you and your husband live in that flat."