Mister X

60

New York, the present

Norton Nyler was the computer nerd from the NYPD. He'd brought his laptop to the office on West Seventy-ninth to demonstrate the program he'd developed to narrow the list of C and C clients who might have met with Lilly Branston and then killed her.

He was a short, chubby guy in his twenties, with a scraggly little mustache and an errant lock of dark hair that made him look like an obese actor portraying young Adolf Hitler.

"I'll download all this to your computers when I'm done demonstrating it," he said. His voice was surprisingly screechy. Quinn and his detectives gathered round and exchanged uneasy glances. Pearl was the only one of them who possessed better than basic computer skills. Of course, she wasn't in the same league as young Hitler.

"You do have your computers networked, don't you?" Nyler asked.

Quinn shrugged. "I, uh-"

"We don't think so," Pearl said.

Nyler looked at her strangely, then must have seen something in her eyes and looked away. "No matter. I can check after I'm done here and we can deal with it." He grinned hugely, and Hitler disappeared. "Whatever issues you might have, we can deal with them."

Quinn wondered if anyone had problems anymore instead of issues.

With what looked like a surgeon's pale fingers, Nyler worked his laptop's cursor and keyboard, and up popped thumbnail shots of about twenty male C and C clients. "I used certain protocols to zero in on the clients most likely to get in touch with the victim; then I further honed the list by pinpointing those clients the victim herself might have initially contacted in hopes of a prospective romance."

Pearl thought, You little old matchmaker.

"To hone the list even more, we factored in geography," Nyler said. "Then came the hard part. It was tedious and time consuming, but we obtained most of the remaining clients' addresses. Sometimes we had to rely on Homeland Security; sometimes the names and addresses were simply in the phone book."

"You should have been a detective," Fedderman said.

Nyler glanced over at him. "I am."

My God, Pearl thought, the new breed.

Nyler brushed back his fuehrer lock of dark hair from his forehead and got back to business. "I overlaid a city map marked with the addresses and sites where the murders occurred." He right-clicked his computer's mouse, and a detailed map of Manhattan came on screen. The image grew larger as he zoomed in to Midtown and South Manhattan.

"There are seven suspect C and C clients living in near juxtaposition to the murder sites," he said. The cursor danced and blinked over one flagged address after another, and information, names, and addresses of seven men came on the screen.

"Are you saying one of these men is probably the Carver?" Quinn asked.

"No. I'm saying that of the C and C clients on the final list, the circumstances of personality, compatibility with the victim, appearance, age, and geography make these men the most logical for you to contact first."

"Does it make sense that they'd kill close to home?" Pearl asked.

"Close, no. But it also doesn't make sense that they'd kill farther from home than necessary. Everyone, even serial killers, tends to fall into patterns. Even a cautious killer will leave their house or apartment and turn either right or left most often, take a subway or cab or bus or not. Eat and shop at some of the same places. If they're driving, they'll avoid certain one-way or narrow streets, heavy traffic, or predictable long-term construction delays. In short, we all unconsciously choose the easiest route to wherever we're going. We seldom unnecessarily go out of our way, even while going somewhere to commit murder." He looked at each of his listeners in turn. "Remember, we're only discussing probabilities here."

"Possibilities," Pearl said.

"Okay," Nyler said. Again the un-Hitler smile that made him look like a mischievous child. Had the real Hitler smiled like that? "Odds," he said.

"We don't even know for sure it was a C and C client who killed Branston," Quinn said.

"Well, it's an imperfect world," Nyler said. "And difficult to predict. I'm just trying to chart you the easiest possible way to get where you want to be."

"Like the killer choosing a victim," Fedderman said.

"Or the victim moving toward her killer. Starting at any of those seven addresses, and the victim's address, my computerized victim and killer should think and act somewhat in conjunction, whether they know it or not."

"And you came to this conclusion by starting at the crime scenes and working backward," Pearl said.

"Er, not exactly. But yes, that's pretty much how it works."

"That's how we work," Quinn said.

"There you go," Nyler said.

"Whaddya think?" Pearl asked when Nyler had gone.

"I think it's mostly bullshit," Quinn said, "but we oughta go to those seven addresses and talk to those seven guys."

"Funny if they turn out to be seven brothers looking for brides," Fedderman said. "Or three feet tall, like in Snow White. Hey, maybe I'll get Dopey."

"I get him all the time," Pearl said.

Quinn gave her his warning look.

"If they have something else in common," Pearl said, "it'll give me more confidence in Nyler and his computer program." She gave Quinn a look to let him know she was dubious about this turn in the case. "It seems to me this is a good job for Vitali and Mishkin."

"No," Quinn said, "I'd rather have them looking for the real Chrissie Keller. Besides, you're the closest thing we've got to Snow White."