Wallflower

4

Jess On the Van Wyck Expressway, peering out of Aaron Greenberg's beaten-up Chevrolet, Janek felt malice in the air. Traffic was heavy. People sat rigid and angry in their cars. Cold rain pelted the asphalt through noxious yellow fog, while all around he could hear the biting sound of horns and, in the distance, competing sirens, perhaps a fire truck and an ambulance at odds.

He touched the window. Ice-cold. The wiper slapped back and forth. The city ahead, toward which they were moving at such erratic speed, could not yet be seen, but Janek could feel it, could feel its nasty breath, its rancor.

He turned back to Aaron, who sat straight in his seat, concentrating on the road. A short, taut, wiry man with weather-beaten skin, his eyes and smile were sweet. My partner and best friend, Janek thought. Kit would gladly have sent her car, but only Aaron, he knew, would come out to Kennedy Airport on such a day to meet him and bring him in. "New York's got no gender." Aaron peered ahead curiously.

"What?" "Venice is a 'she.' New York's an 'it,"' Janek said. "Well, what do you expect, Frank? I mean, Venice is pretty. New York's not supposed to be."

Janek glanced at him. "You haven't told me anything."

Aaron continued to stare ahead. "Been waiting for you to ask."

"How bad was it?" He held his breath as he waited for the reply.

Aaron exhaled. "I don't know how to put it quite."

"Try." The floor pads in the car smelled wet and old.

"Worse than you think, Frank. Worse than you think." they rode in silence for a time; then Janek asked Aaron to give it to him straight. Never mind the niceties. Just straight, like they were starting out on a case and Aaron was filling him in.

"All I got so far is what I heard around. The detective in charge didn't get back to me yet."

"What's his name?"

"Ray Boyce."

"Never heard of him."

"Neither have I."

"Well…?"

Aaron winced. "She was done with an ice pick in Riverside Park, not far from her dorm room at Columbia. It was early evening. She went out jogging alone. That wasn't approved; but she did it a lot, and she wasn't the only one. Plenty of other kids run alone in the dark. I don't know where they think they're living. Nicetown, USA? Anyway, it was about seven. No witnesses. Nobody saw nothing. She never returned to her room. She didn't have a roommate, so she wasn't missed. In fact, well I don't know if I ought-" "Don't try and spare me, Aaron." Aaron nodded. "Understand, Frank, this is just what I heard. Seems she spent a lot of nights away. She had boyfriends. Again, she wasn't the only one. Other kids-"

"Okay, I get the picture. Go on."

"Every morning, early, the Columbia men's crew goes running as a group. they found her and called her in. Apparently nothing was taken, not that she was carrying much. But she had a watch and a Walkman. If it was a mugger, that's what you'd expect him to take."

"So it wasn't a mugger?"

"Doesn't look like it."

"Who was it then? Pack of animals on a wilding, like the ones smashed up that stockbroker a couple years back?"

"Doesn't look like that either."

"What does it look like?"

"Take it easy, Frank. You're closing in too fast. I don't know what it looks like. Like I said, Boyce didn't get back to me yet."

"Check him out?" Aaron nodded. "He's okay." "So-so's what you mean." Aaron shrugged. "they can't all be stars, Frank. Boyce got the call. So it's his."

Aaron was right, that's the way it worked, and it was a stinking system, too, because a good 20 percent of the detective force was barely so-so, and when it came to Janek's goddaughter, so-so wasn't going to be good enough.

He turned to the back of the car. Aaron had spread the tabloids across the rear seat. Janek's eyes flew across them. The headlines shrieked.

"If it wasn't a mugger or a pack on a rampage, who the hell was it?"

"Could have been a mugger," Aaron said. "He could have gotten spooked."

"Mugger with an ice pick? Where did they find it anyway?"

"What?"

"The pick."

"It was left embedded."

"Oh, Christ!" Janek moaned. Just hearing that made him hurt.

"You know how I felt about her, Aaron."

Aaron nodded, then paused a moment before he spoke.

"Tell you what I think, Frank, just based on what I heard. There wasn't any reason. It was just, you know, one of those lousy goddamn things. We get them all the time. You know-"

"Yeah. – -." Janek knew all right. He knew all about them, though they weren't the kinds of cases he ever worked. A unique phenomenon of American cities, of which New York, on account of its population, had a greater share than anyplace else, they were the homicides that were rarely solved because there was nothing about them to solve. they had no point. they were the meaningless murders committed by madmen stalking people alone at night in public parks.

There was a TV news unit with a transmitting device on its roof parked across the street from the James O'Hara Funeral Home. Aaron stopped the car; Janek ducked out into the rain, then wound his way between the waiting limos, past the cameras at the door, and into the lobby. A stand on the far wall was stuffed with wet umbrellas. A dour man in a cutaway stepped forward and asked if he was there for the Wentworth funeral. "The Foy," Janek said.

The man looked him over carefully. "You're the godfather?" Janek nodded. "they waited long as they could. They're about halfway through it now. West Chapel, up the stairs, second door on the right."

When he got there, Janek stood in the back and listened. An intense, frizzy-haired young man in ecclesiastical garments was speaking with bitter scorn of the horrors of New York. this Cultural Paradise, once so gracious, now choked with the downtrodden and the homeless. This Imperial City, once so elegant, now ridden with rape and murder. Just this past week a grandmother was dragged to her death by a purse snatcher at midday on Madison Avenue. And a brilliant young intern, with a great future before him, was shot at dusk outside New York Hospital because he refused to hand over his coat. And now our dear Jessica, beloved daughter of Laura, beloved stepdaughter of Stanton, and goddaughter of Frank, has been struck down… and we ask: What madness has been set loose in our city? Why must such a tragedy happen? For what reason? What cause? How can we allow it? What can we say? What can we do? And our voices are mute, for we have no answers…"

It was a long, narrow, overheated room, crowded mostly with younger people. Janek recognized a few: Jess's friends from high school and college, her cousins on Laura's side, and Stanton Dorance's two older sons, children from an earlier marriage. He also saw Tim Foy's mother, a thin veiled Irish woman in her sixties who now had lost both son and granddaughter to violence.

Ten or so well-dressed middle-aged men with well trimmed hair sat together in a row. Must be Stanton's law partner, Janek thought.

Laura and Stanton sat at the front in the bent, broken postures of the bereaved. There was an empty seat beside them. Janek waited until the minister paused, then crept forward to it. He hugged Laura, shook Stanton's hand, then settled back in time for the final words of the eulogy, which ended unexpectedly, not with a plea for reconciliation but on a shrill note of inexplicability and despair.

Afterward Laura grasped his arm. Even in grief she was a beautiful woman. "Thank God you made it, Frank. You know how she adored you.

And then clinging to him, sobbing: "What am I going to do without her? I can't imagine. I just can't imagine…

Outside, Janek hustled Laura into the lead limo, while Stanton walked over to the waiting press, stood stoically in the rain and addressed their microphones: "Please, ladies and gentlemen, please give us some room for our grief.

In Queens, at the cemetery, just after they left the car, Stanton motioned Janek aside. Gravestones covered the bleak wet earth as far as the eye could see. Stanton's face, always strong, sometimes arrogant, looked weak and blotchy in the rain. His gestures, normally poised, were angular and abrupt. "Find the animal who did this, Frank. Promise me you'll find him and bring him in."

Janek became aware then of a new wave of pain. It rose out of the center of his belly and spread across his chest. He thought: Just think of yourself as a detective and then maybe a little of this hurt will go away.

"I'll do my best, Stanton. But you know how these things go. "

As Stanton stared at him outraged, Janek felt ashamed; what he'd said sounded so impotent. But then Stanton nodded. He understood. to live in New York was to understand all too well the vagaries of the criminal justice system and the cheap price of young human life.

When Janek met Aaron at 6:00 P.m. in the lobby of the Two-Six Precinct, he didn't have to ask for his opinion of Detective Boyce.

Aaron offered it by seesawing his hands. "Tell you this, Frank, he ain't no Sherlock Holmes."

Aaron continued imparting his impression as they mounted the precinct house stairs. "He's pissed off. He denies it, but I can tell.

Chief Kopta told him you're the godfather, so naturally he's going to extend you every courtesy. But see, for Boyce a front-page homicide like this is a chance to make a big impression. Then the famous Janek walks in. He's afraid of you, Frank, afraid you'll steal his case."

Janek's own first impression was that Boyce wasn't so much dumb as slow.

He had a beer belly and not much hair. He'd combed a few thin brown wisps back carefully across his skull as if he thought they might cover his baldness and make him more attractive-but they didn't. The base of his face had a kind of squared-off look that reminded Janek of the bottom of a paper bag. But though his manner did not proclaim great brilliance, Janek recognized a predatory look. Aaron was right:

This was a mediocre detective inflamed by a stroke of luck. The Jessica Foy case could be just the break he'd been waiting for for twenty years,

"I understand your special relationship to the victim, Lieutenant,"

Boyce began, "but let's not start off on the wrong foot. She's your goddaughter, but she's my case. Long as that's clear, we'll get along."

Jesus! Janek thought, but he kept his anger to himself. He knew that sooner or later a man who talked like that would blunder his way into Kit Kopta's bad graces.

"What do you really know about her?"

"Me?"

"You're her godfather, so I figured-"

This time Janek didn't bother to control his temper. "N"at the fuck, Boyce! I know a million things about her. What are you looking for me to say?" "Know much about her social life?"

"What about her social life?" Now Boyce was wearing a cagey look, as if he had knowledge and it wasn't nice.

Aaron casually picked up Boyce's nameplate and tested it for strength.

"Way you're acting, Ray, someone might think you're taunting the lieutenant here. Not a good idea, Ray. Why not just tell Janek what you got?" Boyce shrugged. "I got a diary." He reached into his center drawer, pulled out a stenographer's notebook, and tossed it casually on the desk. "Read it, Janek. You may learn some things about her you didn't know." He headed for the door. "I'm going around the corner for coffee. Stick it back in the drawer when you're finished, okay?"

After Boyce left, Janek stared at the notebook, then cautiously reached for it. The sight of Jess's handwriting brought back memories of the sharp, funny postcards she'd send him whenever she traveled. He handed the notebook over to Aaron. "Sure, I'll read it, Frank," Aaron said.

Janek found Boyce hunched over a chipped Formica table in the back section of a dingy coffee shop around the corner from the precinct house. During the day the place was frequented by detectives. Now Boyce was the only cop there. Boyce didn't look up as Janek approached, which gave Janek a chance to observe him. Boyce looked older and more tired then he had in his office. Janek felt a tinge of pity. He has to wake up every morning and know he's Boyce, he thought.

"Okay, Ray," he said, sitting down uninvited, '.'I know you resent me.

You saw the miniseries and you thought it sucked. Maybe it did. Who the hell cares? Right now I'm hurting. I've lost someone I loved.

So tell me what's on your mind. Who did this to her? Tell me what you think."

When Boyce finally looked up, Janek wasn't sure he'd cut into him very deep. But he knew he'd broken skin; Boyce was ready to show a human face.

"She was an honors student." Boyce waited for Janek to nod. "And a member of the women's fencing team." Janek nodded again. "She was tops, okay? Beautiful girl, full of life, popular, ace student, competitive athlete what more could you ask? But there was a side that was unexpected. A strange unstable personal life. Boyfriends, but they weren't quite her style, she being so fastidious and all. Okay, last spring she takes up with a rich kid name of Greg Gale. And he introduces her into his crowd, where they dabble in highs-a little dope here, a mind game or two there, weird sex all the time. to get in with these kids, you have to be initiated. The initiation is you have sex blindfolded with one of them while the rest of the group watches the ceremony. Reading her diary, you get the impression she got off on it, like she wanted to roll a little in the dirt."

Janek nodded, but every word stung. Jess, blindfolded, having sex with a stranger before an audience-the image pierced his heart.

"… but then, see, over the summer, she decides to straighten out. So early this fall, she starts going to a shrink.

Then, about the same time, she breaks up with Gale. Pretty bitterly, too, it sounds like. No, I haven't talked to him. You're thinking: Why the hell not? That's the first thing I'd do. I got no answer for you, Janek, except that's not my way. Call me methodical. I like to lay the groundwork. I don't like going in asking questions till I have a pretty fair idea what the answers are going to be. A guy like Gale whose parents have bucks-I may get one crack at him before the family lawyer butts in. Understand what I'm saying?"

Janek nodded again. He understood very well.

"Thing is, Janek, people dabble in weird sex, maybe they dabble in murder, too. So this group she was going with is going to get looked at. They're going to get a very close look from me."

Janek sat back, shook his head. "I don't get it. I thought this was a random park murder." "So did I at first. Now it turns out there's oddities." "Like what?" Boyce hesitated. "Something was done to her. Afterwards." "What was done to her?" Boyce looked uncomfortable. "Let's go back to my office. I'll show you the medical examiner's report and the photographs."

Janek declined. "Just tell me about it, Ray."

Again Boyce seemed hesitant. "She was glued."

"Glued! How?"

"Guy who killed her-maybe he had a little caulking gun. After she was dead, he pumped glue into her, into an intimate area, know what I mean? It's like he was trying to, you know@lose off that part of her…

Close off! Janek felt sick to his stomach.

When they returned to Boyce's office, Aaron was waiting and Jess's notebook was back on the desk.

Janek gestured toward the notebook. "Do me a favor, Ray. I want the family protected. Make sure nothing in there gets leaked."

"Yeah," Boyce said, "but you know how it is. Stuff like that has a way of getting around."

"I'm asking you, don't let it get around."

"Sure, I'll do my best."

Aaron stared at Boyce fiercely, but Janek whispered, "Thanks." He'd used the same weak I'll-do-my-best but-you-know-how-it-is just hours before with Stanton. when they got back to Aaron's car, it had stopped raining. they compared notes as they drove downtown. Aaron confirmed that everything Boyce had said at the coffee shop was actually in the diary. There was one additional thing, probably not too significant: Lately Jess had been having bad dreams.

"This thing with the glue," Janek asked, "you didn't hear anything about it?"

Aaron shook his head. "Hard to keep something like that quiet, too.

There isn't a reporter wouldn't kill to get hold of it." "So maybe Boyce runs a tight ship."

"Isn't he a marvel! Thing is-can you trust him?"

"Hard to say. Like everyone else, he's out mostly for himself."

"Well, I'll tell you what I think, Frank. I think the guy's a schmuck," Aaron said.

Aaron stopped in front of Janek's building, a gray stone apartment house, formerly a tenement, with exterior fire escapes on West Eighty-seventh. Then he went around to the trunk, retrieved Janek's suitcase, and offered to carry it upstairs. Janek refused.

"Thanks, but you've done enough." Aaron stood by the car awkwardly, as if he didn't want to leave Janek there alone. "I've been meaning to ask you, Frank. How was your trip?"

"It was going great till I got the call. I met someone. Someone terrific."

Aaron grinned. "That's grand, Frank. Congratulations. When do I get to meet her?" "It's going to be complicated. She lives in Germany." "Oh… There was nothing Aaron could say to that.

"We'll talk tomorrow, okay?" Aaron put out his hand. Janek ignored it and embraced him.

"Thanks for sticking with me, Aaron. Thanks for everything."

"Don't worry, Frank. Whoever did this, we'll get him for sure. "

Aaron spoke with such conviction that for a full minute Janek sustained belief. But then, as he stumbled into the gloom of his apartment, the notion faded fast. it was a simply furnished place, mostly with pieces inherited from his parents, including the workbench from his father's accordion repair shop with a half dozen accordions in various states of disrepair.

When Janek entered, he turned on a couple of lights, opened a window, placed his bag on his bed, then went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. Unfortunately he splashed too fast; the water, unused for two and a half weeks, ran a nasty rusty brown.

After he unpacked, he placed Monika's wineglass on a table near his living-room window so it would catch the morning light. Then he rewound his answering machine, sat down in his easy chair, and listened to his messages.

There were the usual utilitarian calls amidst the hangups. Shoes he'd left for repair were ready for pickup. A tnend had Jets tickets if he was interested. His ex, Sarah, complained he hadn't bothered to inform her he was traveling. Then, as a familiar voice came on, Janek felt a chill.

"Hi. It's Jess. Please call me soon as you get back. There's something I want you to-can't explain it now. But it's important. Call me. Please. Okay?"

It was the last message on the tape. He rewound it and played it again. She sounded worried but still in control, as if she had something on her mind and was turning now, as she had all her life when something bothered her, to her godfather, whom she trusted above all other men.

He played her message a third time, striving to decipher each inflection. Then he played it a fourth, at high volume, listening acutely to the background noise. After that rendition he felt fairly confident that she hadn't called him hastily from a public phone. And that meant she probably hadn't called him in a panic. When he played it a fifth time, checking for subtext, he heard the same basic message he'd been hearing all along: This is Jess; I need your help.

He removed the cassette from the machine and stored it safely in a drawer.

It was only eight-thirty, but he was too exhausted to go out and eat.

And it was too late now to call Monika-past two in the morning in Europe. He'd read an article that said the best cure for jet lag was to go to bed the moment you got home. But now, with Jess's message running through his brain, he knew sleep would be impossible.

He dialed Kit's home number. There was only half a ring before she picked up.

"I've been waiting for your call, Frank. Feeling lousy?"

"Of course."

"Understandable." She paused. "I spoke to Boyce this morning.

Did you see him?"

"About half an hour ago. Maybe he's okay, I don't know yet." He hesitated. "Hate to ask for favors, Kit. You know I've been careful about that. I wasn't that keen about going to Europe. And I'm not all that anxious to be your special assistant or whatever you have in mind."

"Hey! Hold it right there!"

"Uh-uh, Kit-let me finish. People know we have a past. Or whatever they want to call it. Who cares, right? So we bend over backwards, and I'd probably bend further than you just so people wouldn't be tempted to say anything. You know how much I hate office politics and all that kind of crap. Well, this time I'm asking because I think what we got here is a set of special circumstances. I was the one headed the investigation on Tim Foy. So here you have someone just as close, in the same family, and it only seems right-know what I mean? Who'd complain?

Nobody,,except maybe Boyce, and you've got fifty cases you could assign him. And-"

"Stop it, Frank!" Her voice was sharp.

Janek shook his head. "What's the matter? Can't I even ask?"

"It's not going to happen, so you might as well forget it. No one's going on a case where they're personally involved. "

"Oh, Kit, please, I don't need a lecture on department policy."

"Not department policy, Frank. My policy-it's the way I'm running the division."

"Jesus! You sound so fucking rigid."

"Is that what you think?"

"Maybe I'm out of line. I just feel-"

"Get some rest, Frank. You're not in condition to have a rational discussion. Cool down, and in a couple days, come see me and we'll talk. Meantime, stay away from the case. I mean it. Stay away." Her voice softened. "You know I care about you. So trust me. Please. Now try and get some sleep."

But he couldn't sleep. Not after that. He took a shower, changed clothes, called Stanton, told him he was coming over. Then, downstairs, he hailed a cab and asked the driver to drop him at Park and Seventy-second.

The Dorances lived farther uptown, but Janek wanted to walk a few blocks before he saw them. The rain had stopped, but it was chilly, a raw, cold October night. The entrance to Laura and Stanton's building was guarded by a doorman with an outsize regimental-style mustache. He wore a parody of a military greatcoat embellished with silver epaulets.

The small lobby, lined in mahogany, contained four plush leather club chairs with a rare Persian rug in the center. In the elevator Janek could smell a recently extinguished cigarette. The elevator man had been smoking contrary to regulations and now had hidden the butt, probably in a box concealed beneath his uniform.

Janek got off at the sixteenth floor. The landing was decorated in a Japanese motif. Even after Janek rang the bell, the elevator man waited until Stanton opened up.

It was a magnificent apartment, a duplex with a huge sunken living room, a full dining room, and four bedroom suites on the upper floor. Stanton, who was wearing a maroon smoking jacket with silk sash and satin lapels, ushered him into a small paneled library and offered him a drink.

"Where's Laura?" Janek asked.

"She's pretty tired, Frank. I thought-"

"I want to talk to her, too, Stanton. Please ask her to come down?"

Stanton nodded and disappeared. While Janek waited, he fixed himself a scotch. Then he looked around. One bookcase was devoted to family photographs, each mounted in a different style of frame, which collectively suggested what it meant to live a life of privilege.

His eyes were drawn to the pictures of Jess. There she was in pigtails at the summer camp she'd gone to in the Adirondacks, grinning at the camera. Another photo showed her older, mountain climbing in Switzerland, and a third showed her smiling broadly the day she graduated from her expensive private school. She was a handsome girl, tall and leggy, with high cheekbones, short honey colored hair, and the confident eyes of an athlete. There were several photos of her fencing. One showed her holding up a trophy like an Olympic champion.

For some years Janek had observed the Dorance family with a sense of wonder at their numerous entitlements. Stanton's million-and-a-half-dollar duplex. His weekend place in Litchfield County. The winter vacations in the Caribbean, Christmas in Aspen, the month they spent on Martha's Vineyard in the summer. Laura had come a long way, and Janek was glad for her. He'd wanted nothing but the best for her and Jess. But he was still upset by Boyce's description of Jess's "social life." Laura had never mentioned difficulties. He had come now to find out why.

When Stanton reappeared with Laura, Janek stood to embrace her.

"You're still one gorgeous lady," he said.

"Oh, Frank…" She hugged him again.

"Sorry to descend on you so late, but I've got some real problems."

"What kind of problems?" Stanton's hands trembled slightly as he poured himself a cognac.

Janek had been dreading this conversation from the moment he'd decided he needed it. Now the only thing to do was plunge ahead.

"You know what was done to her?" Laura looked toward Stanton. "I'm talking about the glue," Janek said. they both nodded. "This afternoon we spent an hour together driving to the cemetery, but neither of you mentioned that. I want to know why."

"We didn't want to upset you," Stanton said.

"Excuse me," said Janek, "but could anything have made me feel worse?

I'm asking you again: Why didn't you say anything?"

"We were told-" Laura started to speak, but Stanton interrupted.

"We were asked to keep that to ourselves. Chief Kopta told us not to get you excited, because she said you couldn't go on the case. I don't know how the Police Department works, Frank, but when the Chief of Detectives tells us not to talk about something, I don't see that we have a choice."

"Well, that's just fine, Stanton. But at the cemetery you made me promise to hunt down her killer."

"Yes…

Janek shook his head. "You can't have it both ways. was that rhetoric or for real?"

"I meant it. Jesus, of course, I meant it."

"Good." Janek nodded. "Now let's see how far you're willing to go." He turned to Laura. "What do you know about a young man named Greg Gale?"

Laura looked confused. "Just that Jess was dating him. Then she broke it off."

"Ever meet him?"

"I think we saw him a couple of times," Stanton said. "Maybe for a minute or two when he came by to pick her up. Why do you ask? Is he mixed up in this?"

Janek ignored Stanton's question. He'd decided to concentrate on Laura. She was softer, more vulnerable, more likely to talk.

"Know anything about Gale's friends and how Jess was involved with them?"

"A little."

"Pretty fast bunch of kids from what I hear."

"Goddamn it, Frank!" Stanton smacked down his drink. "What're you trying to do? We just buried our daughter.

Surely there's a better time."

"I'm a detective, Stanton. Good enough for you to ask for my help.

But then you don't bother to tell me what was done to her or that she was moving with a fast bunch of kids who did drugs and played mind games and had group sex and I don't know what else. Better listen now:

The girl was sexually mutilated. Doesn't take a genius to figure out she may have been killed by someone she knew. But you don't tell me anything, just leave me thinking she was a victim of a random park killer, and isn't that just awful! Isn't New York a terrible place! Why do we all live in this hellhole? Oh, dear! Oh, God!

Oh, shit!" Janek steadied himself "You've got two choices, Stanton.

Tell me everything you know or withdraw your request. Because if you ever hold back anything from me again, I'm out of it. Forever.

Understand?"

"Chief Kopta?" "Never mind her. She's my problem, not yours."

Laura was crying now, softly into a handkerchief Stanton stood beside her chair, one hand on her shoulder.

"All right, Frank. The hell with it! I don't know what we were thinking. Look, we didn't know exactly what was going on between Jess and Gale, but we got a few hints we didn't like. She was always boy-crazy. We assumed she, you know-fooled around. But we tried not to think too hard about it. What the kids do now, it isn't the same as in our day. If you're a parent, you can't do anything about it so you ignore it, maybe hope it goes away. I guess that's what we did."

Laura, obviously embarrassed, was staring at the rug. "Go on," Janek said. "Let's hear it all."

"There isn't much to tell. Early this fall, when Jess went back to school, she told us she wanted to break it off. We didn't question her. We just tried to be supportive. When she said she wanted to see a shrink, I told her to find a good one and not to worry about the fees. And that's just what she did. This Dr. Archer she started going to, a reputable woman, a clinical psychologist, seemed to help her a lot. As for not keeping you abreast of the details of her personal life, there were just some things we felt Jess wouldn't have wanted us to share."

Laura looked up. "She was a wonderful girl, Frank. But she wasn't perfect. No child is. She loved you very much, and she knew how much you adored her. More than anything she wanted your respect. I think she'd rather have died than disappoint you."

Janek shook his head. "Laura, Laura-she's gone now. We're past the time when you have to worry about my being disappointed." "Yes, Frank. I know. Of course… they both looked as if they felt they'd been awful and stupid. He didn't want to leave them feeling that way, so he decided to share the contents of their daughter's call.

"When I got home tonight, there was a message from Jess. She didn't leave the date or time, but it was the last call I got, so I know she made it no earlier than two days before she was killed. She sounded worried, said she wanted to talk to me, said it was important, urged me to call her as soon as I got back. What was it? What did she want? Think hard, because this is important. The girl's upset; then she's killed and mutilated. Maybe she felt she was in danger."

Laura stared at him. "I can't imagine."

"Could have been about her father," Stanton said.

Laura nodded. "It could." She turned to Janek. "A few weeks ago she started asking me questions about Tim. I was surprised. We'd barely talked about him in years. I thought, well, it probably came up in her therapy. I suggested she talk to you. I told her you knew Tim in a completely different way. She seemed pleased with that. She loved talking to you, Frank. So maybe that's why she called."

Janek thought about it. Did wanting to talk to him about Tim fit the tone of her message? Not likely. "Well, maybe so," he said. He wound up the discussion, kissed Laura on the cheek, and started for the door. Stanton escorted him out to the hallway and stood beside him as he rang for the elevator.

"Well?"

"Well-what, Stanton?"

"I want you to promise me you'll hunt her killer down."

"I thought I already did."

"I want to hear you say it."

Janek looked at him. Stanton's eyes gleamed with a lust for vengeance.

"Yeah, I promise," Janek said. "I promise I'll hunt him to the ends of the earth. How's that?" Stanton nodded. "Fine. That's fine, Frank. It feels good to hear you say the words."

The elevator arrived. Janek got in. The cigarette smoke was even more pungent than before.

"We'll stay in touch. Won't we?"

"Yeah, we'll stay in touch," Janek said to the closing door.

He was dreaming when, at six the following morning, his ringing telephone woke him up. As he groped for the receiver, he tried to recapture his dream, but the details were instantly lost to him, leaving him with nothing but a vague sense of dread.

It was Monika, and the fine clarity of her voice quickly drove away his demons.

"I was worried, Frank. You didn't call."

"Sorry. I got back too late. I figured you'd be asleep."

"I've been thinking about you, imagining what you've been going through.

I wish I could be there with you now."

Wasn't she fabulous! Perhaps Venice had been more than a dream.

"I love the glass," he said.

"I hoped you would."

"I put it by my window. I want to look at it every day, to remind myself of Venice and how I met you there and what we found together." He pulled himself short. "Hey! I better shut up. This is getting sentimental."

"Don't be afraid of sentiment, Frank." "No, Monika. But sometimes I'm wary." And then he poured out to her everything that was bothering him: the way Jess was stabbed, the gluing, the decadent boyfriend, and finally the diary.

"I couldn't bear to read it. I don't know why. First I thought it was her handwriting; then I realized I was afraid of what I'd have to read. Boyce almost leered when he offered it to me. I guess I didn't want… what? Disillusionment. Then, when he told me about her, that gang she was running with, having sex wearing a blindfold while the other kids watched… I don't know. I've seen a lot, maybe as bad as it gets, but I never connected Jess with anything sordid. Of course, it wasn't necessarily ugly. It all depends on how she approached it. She was a grown woman. She had every right to live her life. But still, I can't seem to come to grips with it. It's as if there was a part of her I didn't know."

Monika told him she thought that if he just looked at it in a certain way, he wouldn't feel so confused. As for Jess's secrecy, she assured him that that was not at all uncommon in a young person, especially with an older person the youngster loves.

"I think she knew that to you she would always seem a perfect little girl. And I think it's a sign of her love for you that she didn't want to disturb your illusion."

"Okay," he said, "that makes sense. But this sex thing-"

"Don't dwell on it, Frank. She sounds to me like a fairly normal young woman, fully entitled to her secrets, insecurities, struggles, her groping expressions of sexuality. No one is obliged to be a moral paragon. And there's so much in her diary that sounds positive. The fact that she broke off with the rotten boyfriend and started seeing a therapist is an excellent sign. And the fact that she tried to reach you when she felt she was in trouble@at alone should tell you how much you meant to her. I hope you don't love her any the less for what you've found out."

"Nothing in the world could make me love her less," Janek said. Then he started to choke. "God! I don't want to break down again."

"Please don't be embarrassed with me." He smiled. "I just hate the clichd. You know: toughNew-York-cop-with-feelings." "I never thought of you as tough."

"How did you think of me?"

"You were the big American I kept running into all the time, whom I lured into following me."

He smiled. She really was the best thing to happen to him in years.

There was a tremendous amount of mail waiting for him at the post office, so much that the clerk suggested he borrow a mail sack to carry it home. Junk mail, bills, magazines, and then, among the letters, one that didn't look right. He picked it out of the multitude and examined it carefully. It bore no return address. His name was handwritten in block letters on the envelope: 11 LIEUTENANT FRANK JANEK." The postmark, dated the day after Jess's killing, told him it had been mailed from Green kill Prison. He ripped it open, read it quickly, then threw it down with disgust. The text,

unsigned, was short and to the point: "JANEK, I SLEEP BETTER KNOWING YOUR GODDAUGHTER IS IN THE GROUND."

The road into Green kill is as stark as the old red-brick buildings that comprise its campus. The complex looms upon a hill. Beneath its walls cows graze fields, a pastoral touch which, though meant to calm the inmates, only enrages them by mocking their confinement. Below the fields there is a moat, and below that interlocking rolls of razor wire. That October day, beneath stone gray clouds, Green kill had a brooding presence. As Janek entered, he felt the screaming silence of the place and the stem essence of its gloom. But most of all, he felt the weight of unserved time.

He showed his badge, parked in the visitors' lot, then waited in the reception area until his visit was cleared by the warden's office. He checked his gun and ammo with the property clerk, was frisked by a gate guard, passed through the electronic barriers without setting off any alarms. Then he was escorted to a small plain attorney's room.

Rusty Glickman, dressed in blue denim, was waiting for him in a cheap plastic chair set up before a battered wooden table.

"Pleasure, Janek," he said. But as he sat down, Janek responded only with a look. It had been fifteen years since he'd last seen Glickman. Now he wasn't certain he'd recognize him if he passed him on the street. Glickman's tight black hair had mostly fallen out, replaced by a grayish fringe. His taut, lean body had gone to fat, and his breath stank of tobacco-not surprising since lung cancer, caused by excessive smoking of cigarettes, was the most frequent killer of lifers. But as Janek studied Glickman, he recognized the expression around his mouth. Even fifteen years of incarceration had not extinguished the sneer that said, "Whoever you may think you are, to me you're a total piece of shit."

"What brings you around? Social call? It's been what? Fifteen years?"

Again Janek didn't bother to answer. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the letter, and placed it flat on the table. Glickman glanced at it. "So?" "You wrote it."

"So what?"

"Why?" Glickman shrugged. "Why not?" He smirked.

Janek slowly moved his head in close, deliberately invading Glickman's space.

"I know you re slime. But what could you possibly have against Tim Foy's daughter?"

"I got nothing against her. I didn't even remember he had a daughter till I read about her in the papers."

"So why?"

"You, the big shot detective from New York, got the balls to come up here and ask me that? I thought you were supposed to be smart, Janek." Glickman's voice was loaded with scorn. "I saw this shitty miniseries where this actor-what's his name, he's a lot better-looking than you-where he struts around making like he's so fucking brilliant. Lieutenant Frank Janek the character was called.

What a pile of shit."

Janek stared at him. "Once a psychopath always a psychopath." He stood. "I don't need your abuse." He moved toward the door to call the guard.

"'Cause of you, I gotta spend the rest of my life in a rathole while you get to run around in New York playing Great Detective. You ask why I wrote you about the girl. I wrote you so you'd come up here and I could look into your eyes and see your pain. That's all I wanted.

Now I'm satisfied. I've seen it. It looks pretty good to me. I like seeing you in pain, Janek. Like I said, it's a real pleasure."

"Guard!" Janek shouted, then waited facing the door. No matter what Glickman said to him, he vowed not to react. But Glickman was on a roll. He had only a few more seconds and nothing to lose.

"You call me slime. You're the slime, Janek. You and your buddy-what's his name?-Foy. And his little cunt of a daughter, too.

That's what she was, wasn't she? A little cunt, a slut, running around, twitching her horny little ass in the park. Know something?

I'm glad she's dead!

The guard had arrived, was working his key in the lock, but Janek didn't care. Even as he yielded to his anger, he knew he was making a mistake. But fuck it! he thought. He turned, raised his foot against the leg of the table, and shoved as hard as he could, propelling the table straight toward Glickman, knocking him off his chair and onto the floor.

"See that!" Glickman shouted to the guard. "See what he did!

Struck a prisoner! You saw it! He struck a fucking prisoner!

That's grounds for a lawsuit! A big lawsuit! You're really fucked now, asshole! Probably cost you your fucking pension!"

Glickman was laughing, a sneering, bullying laughter, the kind you'd expect from a slimeball who'd order a bomb planted in another man's car.

But Janek was already out the door. As he walked down the corridor, he could hear Glickman's laughter resound against the walls. By the time he reached the security gate he knew that he himself was now walking on a knife's edge of sanity.

That night, when he got back to New York, the craziness was really cooking in him. But being conscious of it and wanting to give it up were two different things. I may be strung out, he thought, but I've still got control Though emotionally exhausted, thoroughly jet-lagged, fatigued from his journey to Green kill, he was nonetheless ready to do what Boyce was not: corner Greg Gale and squeeze him till he bled.

He called the number Aaron had provided and got a taped answer off a machine. He didn't like the sound of Gale's voice, a snotty prep school whine.

Angry but composed, Janek taxied to a block on West Ninety-eighth between Broadway and West End. He found Gale's building easily enough, a subdivided gray stone town house. He rang the buzzer to be sure Gale wasn't in, then walked over to the garage across the street. Yes, indeed, the night manager said, he knew young Mr.

Gale. He kept his car there, but it wasn't there now. He'd taken it out earlier that evening. Janek tipped him in return for permission to wait in the office until young Mr. Gale returned.

Then he settled back into a beaten-up swivel chair and tried to get some sleep.

Two hours later he felt a light touch on his shoulder. The manager, hovering, gestured toward the garage drive. A well-polished red Porsche was angled in the entrance, and a lean young male, dressed in a trench coat, was making his way across the street.

"Thanks," Janek whispered, then hurried out. He reached the vestibule of the town house just as Gale was unlocking the inner hallway door.

"Greg?" Greg turned. He had light, wavy hair verging on blond and the smooth, symmetrical features of a secondary lead in a soap opera.

The only striking thing about him was his pallor; he looked like the kind of person who ventured out only at night.

Janek flashed his shield.

"This must be about Jess." Janek nodded. "Got time to talk?"

Gale glanced around. He seemed reluctant. Janek tried to make himself vulnerable. "Been waiting quite a while, Greg. Pretty cold out there." He rubbed his hands together as he spoke. Gale nodded. "Well, okay. Shall we talk down here?"

"Up to you." Janek rubbed his hands again to emphasize the chill.

The young man shrugged. "Let's go upstairs." He grinned. "I gotta take a leak." He was poised and he was handsome and the thought of Jess in his arms filled Janek with disgust. But he played along and smiled and followed Gale up the stairs, enjoying the thought of how the little jerk was shortly going to be sorry he'd invited him into his place.

Inside the apartment Gale excused himself, leaving Janek alone to look around. It seemed pretty lush for a college student, but then so did a red Porsche. There was black leather upholstery furniture, a sleek stereo, a top-grade TV with matching VCR, big collections of CDs and videotapes, a shelf of mystery novels, and, most striking, a large photograph hanging over the fireplace. Beautifully framed, it showed a muscular naked black male posed on one knee before a standing young woman. Dressed in white equestrian garb, she peered down at the black with a disdainful lascivious smile.

When Gale reappeared, Janek gestured toward the picture. "Interesting," he said. Gale showed his teeth. "Like that, do you?" "I didn't say I liked it. I said it was interesting." "I took it." "You're a photographer?"

"I fool around with it a little, yeah." Though the kid obviously wanted to sound self-deprecating, he came off as shallow and arrogant.

"Ever take any pictures of Jess?"

Gale ran his tongue across his lips. "A few. Want to see them?"

If they were anything like the kinky picture over the fireplace, Janek didn't think he did. He stared at Gale.

"I'll ask the questions, Greg. You'll answer them. Let's start off easy. What did you do to her in the park?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Hey! Are you for real? I want you out of here. Now!"

When Janek smiled, Gale looked confused. A slight vibrato in his upper lip showed that he was feeling fear.

"I know who you are. You're the detective she was always talking about."

Janek offered no response.

"Okay," Gale said, quickly adjusting his manner to eager-to-please, "you want answers. I don't know anything about the park. I didn't lay eyes on her the last seven weeks. We quarreled, and she kicked me out of her life. Naturally I feel real bad about what happened, but I don't know anything about it. That's all I'm going to say."

Real bad-shit! "Not good enough, Greggy boy." "I want you to go."

Janek shook his head. "Not till I'm satisfied." "Don't try to bully me, Detective!" "Think this is bullying?" Janek laughed. they stared at each other. Then Gale made a move toward his phone.

"I'm calling the police."

He picked up the receiver, but his trembling betrayed his fear. Janek walked over to him and casually held out his hand. Gale paused, then surrendered the receiver. Janek set it down. He lightly pushed Gale into a black wooden chair bearing Columbia University's coat of arms. He pulled up a matching chair and sat down close, so close he could see a quiver in the young man's eyes.

"All right," he said, "here's how it's going down. We're going to have a polite conversation in which I ask the questions and you give me truthful answers. The alternative is you get mad and try to punch me out. That's an attack on a law officer, felonious assault, which yields your basic five-year sentence. Not to mention the fact that then I'd have to hit you back, which would probably cost you your teeth.

If I had a pretty face like yours, I don't think I'd like that very much. Your choice. I can handle it either way. See, I'm mad. My goddaughter was murdered. So basically I don't give a shit."

Gale lowered his eyes. "I told you-I don't know anything.

"Let's get more specific. Jess rejected you?" Gale nodded.

"You resented her for that?"

"I don't know if I'd say 'resent.' I admit I was pretty upset. But-"

"Yeah, yeah-you don't know anything. Now tell me about the sex club?"

Gale screwed up his face to convey perplexity. "What are you talking about?"

Greggy's not too good an actor, Janek thought as he tutted and shook his finger. "No questions, just answers."

"I don't know anything about any sex club."

"Your little clique. The ones who watch while the new kid fucks blindfolded." "You know about that?"

Janek reached forward and slapped Gale lightly across the face. "I ask. You answer. Last warning. Okay?"

"Okay, okay. But it's not a club. It's more like… a group of friends." "How many 'friends'?" "Nine or ten, depending on who wants in or out." "Percentage of women?" "Half and half." "Who started it?" "My idea originally." "You recruit new people?" "Sort of. But it isn't exactly-" "You brought in Jess?" "Yeah. But-"

"You planned to bring her into the group from the moment you started dating her. You weren't interested in her as a girlfriend. You just wanted another body, right?" Gale shook his head. "I want a straight answer."

"Well, maybe that is what I had in mind."

"Damn straight it was. From the start, right? But you never told her, did you? You waited till you thought she was ready. Then you proposed it, in a slippery kind of way like 'I know this great group of kids, they're really far-out, but I think you'll find them interesting."'

Greg lowered his eyes, resigned. "Maybe that's what I did." Then he looked up. "But she was a big girl. And she went for it.

Believe me, she enjoyed it. The moment I broached it to her, her eyes lit up. Probably hard for you to hear this, but Jess liked sex. I mean she liked it. And there's nothing wrong with that.

We played safe, took precautions, used condoms. That's why we formed the group in the first place, so we could have some variety and still play safe. The whole idea was to make it fun. Not nasty like you're trying to make it seem."

"Did I call it nasty?"

"It's your tone. Your whole approach. You want to make me feel like a worm."

That much was true, but Janek wanted to define his own attitude. "I don't think sex is nasty. But I think someone who uses the guise of romantic involvement to entice a girl into that kind of thing is fairly low-grade slime."

Gale twisted in his chair. He couldn't take contempt. "That's pretty close to what she told me, too," he whispered. Janek was grateful to hear that. "She dumped on you?" "I already told you." "You must have resented her." "I'm human. Wouldn't you?" "Resented her so much you stalked her, stabbed her, and after you killed her, you attacked the part of her that mocked you the most, that mocked your manhood."

Gale jumped up. "What're you talking about. What part of her?

Jesus!"

"The part you couldn't satisfy. The part that made you feel inadequate."

"I don't understand." He paused. "You mean, my cock? Is that what you're talking about?" Janek smiled. "Not your lousy little cock, asshole. A part of her. Jess!" Gale was still confused. "What part of her?" "You tell me." "Are you saying she was-that someone did some thing to her? God! I didn't know! It wasn't in the papers. Jesus!"

Gale sat back down, then began to sob. At first Janek was certain he was faking. But as the sobbing turned to gagging and then to heaving, he began to believe it was for real.

He helped Gale into the bathroom, then stood beside him as he fell to his knees and retched into the toilet.

"It's okay, son," he said. "Don't hold back. Let it out, let it out."

When finally Gale was finished and turned to him with a grateful smile, Janek knew he had broken through. The bond was forged. The interrogator had become the friend. And now the truth would emerge.

"I was crazy about her, Janek. I swear to you." they were back in the living room in the university chairs, but Janek sat farther away this time. No need to sit close and apply more stress. All he had to do now was listen with sympathy as Gale, impelled to talk, regaled him with his story.

"… you got it right, I recruited her. Just like I recruited the others. And it was always a kind of victory for me, too. I'd pick a girl out, walking across the quadrangle, or sitting alone in a lecture hall, or jogging, or laughing, or coming out of one of the dorms. I'd pick her because she looked good, had a great body, moved a certain way, had a well-packaged butt, her lips were sexy, or there was something, you know, about the way she laughed, her mouth, her tits, whatever. Then it became a game. Get her name. Get a date with her. Kiss her. Get her into the sack. After that it was usually pretty easy to lead them to the point where, you know, they thought it was their idea. Then came the victory part: putting the blindfold on them, leading them into the room, telling them to strip while everybody watched. We never told anybody who they were going to do it with. That was the game. Everyone liked it.

Everyone wore the blindfold. The guys, too. Including me. That was the fun of it, to wear the blindfold, to strip and stand there until the selected person came forward, stood before you till you could hardly stand it anymore, then slowly reached forward and made contact. Fear and anticipation and the idea you were on display. Wondering who the person was, trying to guess, but preferring not to know because it was easier to let yourself go if you didn't. Plenty of time later to find out who and laugh about who you thought it was. to perform like that, be the object of so much attention-I loved it. Everybody did.

Jess, too. You gotta believe me when I say this, Janek. She found it incredibly exciting.

"But, see, there was the problem, because when I watched her play with the others, a funny thing started to happen. It bothered me. I didn't like it. And I'd never felt like that before. So I said to her: 'Let's not do this anymore. Let's just go out as a couple.'

She laughed, called me jealous, made fun of me 'cause I couldn't take it. 'You got me into this, Greggy,' she said. 'You created a monster. Now you'll have to live with it.' "Over the summer we went separate ways. I had a half-ass job at my father's brokerage firm and was out in the Hamptons most weekends. Jess was with her folks up on Martha's Vineyard, so we didn't see each other at all. I called her a lot. She never called me. The few times I managed to catch her home she told me she didn't feel like talking.

Then in August she went to Italy to some special fencing school. I wrote her, but she didn't answer. So okay, I figured when college started up again, we'd see each other and have a chance to talk. But come September she had a whole new attitude. Now all she wanted was to fence. She had ambitions, wanted to become an Olympic competitor. Her Italian coach had told her she had the potential for it but she'd have to give it everything she had. 'That's what I want,' she told me. 'I want to go all the way. I don't want to waste my energy anymore, dating people I don't care about or smoking pot and playing games with your chums.' 'Well, okay,' I said, 'that's fine.

I'll go along with that. Let's start over, just the two of us.' But that didn't interest her either.

"We had a big fight. She told me she didn't care if she ever saw me again. She called me all kinds of stuff. 'Shallow.' 'Spoiled.' 'No backbone.' 'No integrity.' 'User.' 'Pimp.' And she was right. Maybe that's why it hurt so much. She saw through me clearer than anyone ever had. She saw me for what I really am, which is just what you're looking at now, Janek. Yeah, I think you see me pretty much the way she did. As a jerk. A zero." And with that he gave out with a forlorn little whelp and then a droopy self-pitying smile.

A nicely executed mea culpa, Janek thought, but he still had to be sure Gale hadn't gone after Jess in revenge.

"Okay, Greg. Pick yourself up. No law says you gotta be slime.

That's a choice you don't have to make."

As Gale peered at him, searched his eyes for sympathy, suddenly Janek was sick of him. He was tired of people who made their confessions, then looked to him for solutions to their lives. What had he said to Monika that night in Venice? That he did what he did to gain wisdom, to comprehend the numerous varieties of human evil. But Greg Gale wasn't evil, at least not to a degree that mattered. He was smailtime-fuckedup-rich kid spoiled, and who gave a shit anyway? But somehow, some way this kid's life had touched Jess's, so no matter how sickening Janek found him, he still had to play out the string.

"You see yourself as decadent, but underneath you're pretty soft. "

In return, as he expected, Gale gave him the wann, grateful, amazed look-the one Janek always got at this point in an interrogation-the look that said: "Thank you for understanding me so well." "So you were hurt by her. She was a great kid, but she was capable of hurting. You don't decide to become an Olympic-class fencer if you haven't got some pretty hard stuff inside. In my experience women are tougher than men. Easy to forget that when they cry. But they can ream you out and backwards when they feel like it. Isn't that the truth?"

Still caught up by Janek's magical insights, Greg nodded solemnly.

"You were angry. It's okay, Greg. Admit it."

"Well, sure. Those things she said-"

"Made you feel like a wortn. Pretty hard to take a beating like that without getting mad about it, wanting to hit the girl back."

Gale shrugged. "I didn't want to hit her. All I wanted was for us to, you know, hold each other."

"She rejected you, made you feel awful."

"Yeah…" The spell was still holding; Gale was in a kind of dazed, suspended state.

"If she wouldn't go out with you, who would she go out with? You were jealous of what she did with the group. How about people you didn't know, sex you wouldn't be able to watch?"

"I didn't want to think about that."

"Of course not. You'd go crazy if you did. But how could you be sure? Unless there was some way to… close her off. Prevent anyone else from getting what you couldn't get. That's when you thought of it, right?"

He looked into Gale's eyes, but all he could see there was confusion. No anger, no rage, no word forming to come out or being throttled so it wouldn't. This boy didn't know anything about glue; of that Janek was certain. Greg Gale hadn't stabbed Jess, and he hadn't mutilated her. He was lost in a reverie of his inadequacy as a man, not in a fantasy of stabbing and gluing up a woman.

Janek stood. "I don't know what to say to you. You messed around with my goddaughter's head. I'd like to think you couldn't help yourself, but still, it's hard to forgive. I'm not going to try. I think you've been honest with me. I appreciate that. No need to get up. I'll let myself out."

But then, before he could turn, Gale stood up. He wanted to show Janek his photographs of Jess. Janek dreaded looking at them; he didn't want sordid images of her etched upon his mind. But he waited anyway while Gale dug the pictures out, and then he was surprised.

Gale's photos were not posed tableaux like the mistress/slave picture over the fireplace. Rather, they were superb black-and-white action shots of Jess fencing in tournaments, ongarde, thrusting, making parries and ripostes and lunge attacks against her opponents.

He looked at them all carefully, admiring Gale's abilities as a photographer. Then he came upon a shot of Jess so fine, so powerful, he could not tear his eyes away. Gale had caught her just at the moment of a victory. Having scored, ripped off her mask, she met the gaze of his camera with a great broad, beaming grin of triumph.

Gale watched him as he examined this picture. "Like it?" he asked. Janek nodded. "Take it. No, I mean it. I want you to have it." And before Janek could protest, Gale placed the print in a protective cover and presented it to him as a gift.

Clutching this image of Jess as he rode back to his apartment, Janek knew', no matter what anyone said, that he would have to find out who had killed her. The little girl he had nurtured had grown into the magnificent women in the photograph-and now she was dead. The wound this time was not just upon society, nor was it only upon Laura and Stanton. It was also upon himself, and it would not be closed for him until he had hunted her killer down.

Oh, Jess, he thought. Jess.

That night, his second since his return from Europe, Janek finally got a full ration of sleep. But it was total exhaustion, not peace of mind, that closed his eyes. His last thought, before falling off, was that Jess seemed to have been at a crisis point at just the time she was killed. was that significant or merely a coincidence? He posed the question, then collapsed into a spiral of fatigue.

It was Laura Dorance who set up his appointment the following morning with Jess's shrink.

Janek arrived before the first-floor office entrance of a converted two-story carriage house on East Eighty-first. He pressed the bell, gave his name to a disembodied voice, and was buzzed in. He found himself in a hall. Through an archway to his left there was a sparsely furnished waiting room. He entered, took a seat, thumbed through an old copy of Psychology today, while a small radio, tuned at low volume to a classical station, yielded a gentle flow of Mozart.

At precisely eleven o'clock Dr. Beverly Archer appeared in the doorway. A very short, fortyish butterball of a woman, she welcomed Janek with a sympathetic smile. Warm and friendly eyes, slightly rouged cheeks, curly, dull reddish hair, she had the kind of bland features one often associates with people in the mental health field.

But her voice gave her away; it was throaty, low-pitched, intense.

"Please come in, Lieutenant. I have forty minutes before my next appointment."

He followed her into a comfortable consultation room. A desk, two easy chairs, an analyst's couch, and bookcases filled with psychiatric texts.

On one wall hung a reproduction of van Gogh's sunflowers; on the other, a cluster of diplomas.

"Now what can I do for you?" Dr. Archer asked with a formal smile, after motioning him to one of the chairs.

"I'm sure Mrs. Dorance told you-"

"She said you were Jessica's godfather and that you're a New York City detective. But I must tell you from the start I'm most reluctant to discuss the contents of Jessica's sessions. Many people don't realize this, but the confidentiality of the therapist's office transcends even the patient's death."

Janek paused. The woman was more authoritative than he expected. He understood he would have to tread gently if he was going to get any information.

"Yeah, I've heard that, Dr. Archer, but her mother, her legal heir, has given consent."

Dr. Archer nodded. "So she told me. But you have to understand, there's a principle involved. If I make an exception, violate my pledge of confidentiality, then where do I draw the line?"

She smiled. "My oath binds me to silence. Unless, of course, I learn that someone is about to commit an act of violence. And that I'm afraid, is not the case here."

Oh, shit! A real hard-ass! "I notice you call her Jessica," he said. "That was her name."

"We all called her Jess." "So did 1, Lieutenant. But I'm not speaking to her now. I'm speaking about her, and as you can probably tell, I'm feeling just a little uncomfortable about that."

Dr. Archer, Janek noticed, pursed her lips into a little smile at the end of every sentence. It was a nervous habit, not unattractive or disconcerting, but he found it slowed him down.

"If it will make it any easier for you, Doctor, I already know a lot. We have her diary. We know about the sex group. I've already spoken with Greg Gale, and he's confirmed everything she wrote. If it's a question of protecting Jess's reputation, please believe that's foremost in my mind. I'm not going to repeat anything you tell me, and her diary won't be leaked. I guess what I'm saying is I hope you'll reconsider. My first priority, which I'm sure you share, is to find the person who killed her."

As he spoke, Dr. Archer nodded along. "Yes, yes, that's true, that's certainly true. And I shall certainly think the matter over." She paused, smiled. "Now why don't we start by talking a little about your own relationship with Jessica? I think that would help me to better understand your interest."

She was such a nice woman, so clearly attuned to listening, that even though Janek was not in the mood to unburden himself, he soon found himself speaking of his sense of loss. He spoke, too, of his discomfort with thoughts of Jess's sex life, his overreaction when Glickman called her names, and the tight control he had had to exert upon himself with Greg Gale the night before. "It's as if suddenly I have to deal with a side of Jess I never thought about before." Janek realized he was speaking to this woman much as he had on the telephone to Monika.

Dr. Archer nodded. Indeed, she understood. But then she wondered if it was really necessary for Janek to deal with that side of Jess at all.

"I think it is," he said. "That's why I'm here. I need to know everything she did."

"Do you really need to, Lieutenant?"

"I think so. I'm surprised you'd even ask."

Dr. Archer settled back. "You're saying that to pursue her killer, you must delve into every aspect of her character. I question whether that's true. My suggestion, and I make it with timidity and respect, is that you ask yourself why you're so disturbed by the intimate material you've so far uncovered. Is it Jessica you want to understand, or are you really seeking to understand yourself9"

Janek stared at her. It was an interesting suggestion, but he'd come for information, not therapy or analysis.

"What I'm saying," Dr. Archer continued, "and I emphasize I do so without making any kind of value judgment, is that you possibly were and perhaps still are overly involved with your goddaughter. Perhaps you had unconscious fantasies about her. Perhaps you longed for her in some way you don't fully understand. And now that she's been so tragically killed, you use that as an excuse to delve into the most intimate aspects of her life. I suppose what I'm really asking, Lieutenant, is whether you're the right person to be handling this investigation. I certainly don't presume to know the answer. I merely raise the question."

A maddening, if fascinating, forty minutes, Janek thought as he emerged, somewhat shaken, on the street. Dr. Archer could not be faulted. She had acted professionally and shown herself protective of her patient.

But instead of behaving in a cooperative manner, as is normally the case when a doctor is questioned by a detective, she had smoothly, even tenderly turned the interview around, with the result that it was not the victim but the investigator who had become its subject.

He knew he would return, and he had no doubt he would eventually persuade her to cooperate. In the meantime, he was captivated by her insights. was what she'd said true? was Kit right? was he, Janek, too personally involved? Did he have to know everything? And how would the psychologist react when she discovered that his investigation was unauthorized?

Arriving at Kit Kopta's office suite, on the nineteenth floor of the police building, Janek did not receive the usual warm reception. The crusty redheaded sergeant, who kept Kit's appointments and supervised her secretaries, treated him with a correct but cool distance. The chief, he was told, was busy in a meeting; he was to take a seat and wait. Janek sat and waited for nearly an hour, watching people come and go through the inner office doors. Finally the sergeant deigned to notice him again. "Okay, Lieutenant, the chief'll see you now," he said without bothering to meet Janek's eyes.

Kit was seated behind her desk in a no-nonsense posture. She watched him closely as he walked in.

Her scrutiny made him feel awkward. "Am I in trouble?" he asked.

"What makes you think so?"

"Making me wait an hour. I can read the undertones."

"Screw the undertones, Frank. You've been working the Foy case after I ordered you to stay away from it, even after I begged you as a friend. You went up to Green kill and kicked a table at a convict?

You've got to know how stupid that was! Then you intimidated some snotty college kid whose dad's got City Hall connections. A few minutes ago my sergeant got a complaint from Ray Boyce. What the hell are you doing seeing the girl's shrink without clearing it first?"

She took a deep breath; clearly she was uncomfortable with her anger.

"So to answer your question, yeah, Frank, you are in trouble. And not just with those other people. You're in trouble with me." "What am I supposed to say?" "Stop carrying on, Frank. Stay away from this case." "You're serious." Kit flushed. "Damn right I am."

"Boyce is a mediocrity." "He's a competent detective." "He's too slow."

"A lot of people think you're way too fast."

Janek peered at her. "Are you telling me there isn't a chance you'll turn it over to me?"

"Not a chance in hell, Frank. If there ever was, there sure isn't now."

Janek nodded. He hadn't anticipated this, but he'd prepared for it nonetheless. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his badge, and slid it quietly across Kit's desk.

She stared at it as if it were a piece of stale cake. "Is that supposed to mean you resign?" Janek nodded. She shook her head. "Cut the drama, Frank. What the hell's the matter?"

"What's the matter? Laura and Stanton ask me to get the guy who killed their daughter. I tell them I'll do my best. Then it hits me I have to get him not just for them but for me. A girl I loved, a girl I helped bring up from the time she was a little kid, was savagely killed and mutilated. I'm an investigator. I know how to track down the kind of people who do such things. That's my trade. If you won't let me practice it as a police officer, I'm perfectly prepared to do it privately on my own."

She studied him. "You were always convincing, Frank." She paused. "Know who you sound like?"

"Who?" "Sam Spade." She grinned and, when he didn't return her smile, reclined back in her chair, her sharp Greek eyes fixing him. they stared at each other, two people who'd known each other for twenty years. Then Janek remembered that tough as Kit was, she was no rigid disciplinarian. "Something you're not telling me," he said quietly. She peered at him noncommittally. "You're much too adamant, Kit. Why ask the Dorances not to tell me about the glue? There's more here than you don't want me working on a case because it's, quote, personal. Better level with me now. Sooner or later I'll find out anyway."

She stared across the room, as if weighing his suggestion. Then she focused on him again.

"You're right about Boyce. He's slow and mediocre. Two things you're not, Frank. If I put you on Foy, there'll be a serious investigation. And at this point that's not what we want."

Janek leaned forward. His heart was pounding. "Boyce's investigation isn't serious?"

Kit shrugged. "Boyce doesn't know it, of course. But his investigation's bound to be a sham." Janek started to rise. "Blow up at the end if you want to, Frank. But first hear me out." He sat back down. "We're fairly certain we know who killed Jess. We don't know his name, but we know his work. He's done the same thing before. The FBI's been tracking him for a year."

As she talked, Janek tried to concentrate. He didn't want to miss a word. But as hard as he tried, he couldn't shake off his fury. If he'd done as Kit had requested, played docile, stayed away from Glickman and Gale and Archer, he'd still be thinking about a random park killer.

She was talking now about a crack FBI team led by a specialist in serial murder cases, an inspector named Harry Sullivan. Sullivan believed the Jess Foy homicide fitted the pattern of his Happy Families killer, so named because several of the victims were apparently happy families killed together in their homes.

"they were all stabbed with ice picks. The stabbing's very specific. And the genitals of all the victims were glued," Kit said. "I mean all the victims, Frank. Men, women, and children. Obviously we're talking about a psycho. So far the FBI's kept it quiet. You know how these sex killers like publicity.

Fortunately no reporter's put it together yet."

Janek could barely control himself. "You weren't going to tell me?"

"Of course I was. After you cooled down. I didn't want you working on it, Frank. You were way too angry. You should be angry.

But we both know an angry cop is usually not a very effective one."

He was angry all right. For him the worst thing in the world was to be unknowledgeable. He never expected that Kit would deliberately keep him in the dark.

But now she was speaking pensively, as if she were having second thoughts.

"… okay, that's conventional wisdom. But sometimes anger can generate creativity. Maybe I was wrong." She looked at him. "I've known you a long time. You've never been one for the empty gesture. When you tell me you're willing to resign-well, I know you're serious. I can't put you over Boyce. Not now, not after what you've done. But I can probably assign you as liaison to Sullivan."

Janek frowned. "I run investigations. I don't do liaison."

"It's their investigation, Frank. You can only do what they'll allow." "You know that's shit!"

"It doesn't have to be. And please don't give me the old line about how you hate the feds. Right now the case belongs to the FBI. If you want to work it, and I mean Happy Families, not just Jess, the only way is to work it with them." "On what basis?"

"Why don't you go down to Quantico tomorrow, have a talk with Sullivan?

If the two of you get along, I'm sure he'll find you a niche."

"And if we don't get along?"

Kit shrugged. "Boyce spins his wheels and Sullivan digs in. That's okay. We've had double investigations before. But a triple!

Forget it, Frank. A triple's too arcane even for me."

"So it's take it or leave it-that's what you're saying?"

"Something like that." She paused. "I know you don't like it, but it's the best I can do."

He thought it over. "All right," he said. "I'll see Sullivan.

But I want Aaron with me."

Kit gave that some thought, then agreed to it.

"So," she asked, "have we got a deal?" they stood, shook hands; then she hugged him tight. "I'm sorry, Frank.

It was a close call. I did what I thought was best."

The morning he and Aaron flew down to D.C. the blue of the sky was so intense it made Janek's heart ache for Venice. they rented a sporty Pontiac out of National Airport, then drove south for an hour until they reached the military base at Quantico; then they crossed through the reservation and entered the grounds of the FBI Academy. Here an oversize, rigorously designed glass and stone building was neatly set on a campus of perfectly manicured grass. they were expected. The guard at the reception desk had their passes. While they waited for their escort, Aaron peered around the atrium.

"Sure all this is for law enforcement, Frank? Looks more like IBM."

Janek nodded. No crummy typewriters on rotten desks in roach- and rat-infested offices here. No drunks wandering in here off the street. This, he recognized, was law enforcement U.S. government style, practiced by men and women wearing dark suits and necklace badges working efficiently at computer stations. In this orderly temple of police science the windows were always washed and the floors were always shined and, when you needed something, you didn't have to beg; all you did was put through a requisition. Here, too, was the finest forensic crime lab in the world.

The Behavioral Science Unit, where Sullivan was headquartered, was a rabbit warren of windowless offices. When Janek and Aaron arrived, they were told Sullivan was in a meeting, but one of his staff assistants, a Nordic muscleman named Hansen whose shirt collar bit into his neck, had been delegated to take them on a tour.

Hansen led them down endless corridors, stopping from time to time to open a door and show them something dazzling: the director's paneled dining room; an Olympic-size swimming pool where agents were trained to swim while holding weapons; the world's largest, most efficient underground firing range. After an hour of this Janek grew impatient.

"Look," he said to Hansen, "I don't mean to be rude, but I think we've seen enough."

"There's a lot more, Lieutenant," Hansen said. "Inspector Sullivan especially wanted you to see Hogan's Alley." "What's that?"

"It's where we train police officers from all over the country in criminal apprehension."

"I think we can skip that," Janek said. "Please tell the inspector we've come a long way and now we're ready to work."

Hansen's face fell. He stared at Janek with unconcealed hurt, then dodged into a nearby office to use the phone. Janek watched from the corridor as, once connected, Hansen cupped his hand over the receiver.

"Probably telling Sullivan what uncouth louts we are," Aaron said.

Janek shook his head. He didn't like the setup. The tour had been laid on to intimidate. Sullivan wanted to soften them up, make them feel outclassed.

"All righty, Lieutenant," Hansen said, rejoining them in the corridor.

"We're to go straight up to room two-oh-one."

Another march along endless windowed corridors, then up a stairs, around a corner, past hundreds of doors leading into hundreds of little offices until, finally, they reached the briefing room.

Sullivan was waiting for them. He was a stocky man about Janek's age, with an affable smile, beautifully coiffed iron gray hair, pink, well-shaven cheeks, and tiny, twinkling ice blue eyes. Though he spoke slowly with a slight drawl, this was no Ray Boyce. His gestures were sharp, his little eyes were quick, and he came off as shrewd and sawy.

But there was a cockiness about him that inspired in Janek a nearly instant dislike. He hadn't wanted to detest Sullivan. He'd come with the expectation that they would treat each other with respect.

But the way the man stood, his back just a little too straight, his head angled upward, his chin stuck out just a little more than necessary, reminded Janek of a ' prison warden trying unsuccessfully to conceal his swagger.

He only hoped this first impression would be belied.

The briefing room was state-of-the-art with the latest in audiovisual aids. There was a polished white marble conference table with glasses, water pitcher, yellow legal pads, and sharpened pencils arranged like place settings for a banquet. Two tabbed briefing books, with Janek's and Aaron's names embossed on the covers, were centered perfectly before two deep upholstered swivel chairs with electronic gear built into the armrests. When Janek sat in his, he felt like a millionaire ready to deep-sea fish off the back of a yacht.

"Gentlemen," Sullivan announced, in a sonorous airline pilot's voice, "I thought the best approach would be to have members of my staff brief you on particular aspects of HF. Then, when you've got a handle on the cases, I'll rejoin you for the overview."

"HF-can you believe they call it that?" Aaron whispered.

Janek believed. The FBI was notorious for its abbreviations and acronyms. But he preferred HF to Happy Families, which smacked of a headline in one of the national tabloids: HAPPY FAMILIES

KILLER STRIKES AGAIN.

The briefing that commenced, part lecture, part slide show, consisted of a procession of crisp, well-rehearsed young forensic analysts, each with his own area of expertise, doing his stint with pointer and easel, then yielding to the next. they were shown detailed color slides of the five Happy Families crime scenes. People with stiffened limbs and ice picks protruding from their ears, eyes, and throats lay at odd angles in domestic settings.

All were naked from the waist down, having been stripped in order to be glued. Janek found himself turning his head, then looking at the pictures obliquely with only one eye. He wasn't certain why he did this; it was a habit he'd acquired over the years. Perhaps, he thought, if only one eye were,exposed, the gruesome images would be less deeply engraved upon his memory.

The agents used staccato tones to describe each set of victims along with details of the abuses each had suffered:

Miss Bertha Parce, an elderly retired school teacher, found murdered in her bed in a single room-occupancy hotel in Miami Beach, Florida Cynthia Morse, a wealthy divorc6e, killed over Memorial Day weekend, with her two visiting grown daughters, in her luxury condominium in Seattle, Washington James and Stuart MacDonald, two aging playboy-type brothers, slain in their shared weekend house in Kent, Connecticut The Robert Wexler family (husband, wife, three children) killed in their suburban ranch-style home in Fort Worth, Texas The Anthony Scotto family (husband, wife, and two teenage sons) slaughtered in their Cape Cod style home just outside Providence, Rhode Island There was also a homeless man who didn't seem to fit the pattern, though he, too, had been stabbed and glued, then left in an alley in the Alphabet City section of Manhattan.

The presentation notably did not include anything about Jess. Janek wondered whether this was because the team was being considerate of his feelings or because it simply hadn't worked up that part of the briefing yet.

At exactly twelve-thirty a break was called, and Janek and Aaron were invited to join the analysts for a working lunch in the staff cafeteria.

But as it turned out, the conversation there had little to do with the case. Rather, the agents solicited war stories from New York, for which they exchanged no personal revelations, only other war stories they'd heard from other visiting investigators.

Later, in the men's room, Aaron asked Janek what he thought was going on.

"They're looking to see if we're team players. Teamwork's what the FBI's all about."

Aaron laughed. "We're hotshots, ain't we, Frank?" Then, more seriously: "I feel out of place. Maybe it's the clothes. they all dress so nice. Even some of the ladies wear ties."

The afternoon session concluded the presentation of cases, after which their tour guide, Hansen, reappeared with another muscle-bound assistant to demonstrate the stabbing method. The men acted it out several times at normal speed and then in slow motion: a violent thrust with an ice pick from under the chin through the roof of the mouth, the ear hole, or the eye socket and then into the brain. The fact that the pick was always left embedded was, according to Hansen, "classic commando technique."

The star speaker of the afternoon was Dr. David Chun, brought in to explicate the killer profile. Janek had heard of him. The brilliant young Asian-American was not an FBI employee but a forensic psychiatrist on the faculty at Harvard Law School, who had testified at numerous high-profile criminal trials around the country. From the flattering way Sullivan introduced him, it was clear he considered Chun a major asset.

The moment the doctor began to speak, Janek understood why he was usually so successful with juries. He had the kind of deep, authoritative voice that compels attention and belief. But there was something canny, perhaps even vain in his presentation, that fitted with the subtle swagger Janek had observed in Sullivan and the entire HF team. The way these people behaved spoke of arrogant pride. they saw themselves as the best of the best. And they'd made it clear at lunch that if the two shaggy, scruffily dressed detectives from New York wanted in, they would have to prove they had the stuff.

Dr. Chun stated his belief that the organized crime scenes and ethnic background of the victims indicated a white male killer most likely in his late twenties or early thirties. Further, he believed the neatness of the gluing suggested excellent hand-eye coordination, as well as a certain protective concern for the victims' "bodily integrity."

"Various facts," he continued, "such as the forced entries, clean escapes, and the killer's ability to take on multiple victims, suggest a particularly confident individual, probably one with a high level of martial arts training. The stabbing technique raises the possibility of a military background. The psychopathology is sexualsadistic; I would surmise that the killer possesses a large collection of sadomasochistic pornography. The gluings and lack of semen at the crime scenes speak of sexual fear indicative of a loner type. But the most striking ,7 characteristic is the killer's lack of gender differentiation."

The psychiatrist paused. Though his features remained composed, Janek picked up on something in his eyes. It's almost as if he's afraid, he thought as Chun continued in the same authoritative style.

"He glues up the genitals of men and women with equal thoroughness.

Children, too, and, in the case of Fort Worth, even the family dog and cat. But beyond the genitals, all orifices seem to be fair game.

With the Miami woman and the brothers in Connecticut we find mouths and anuses glued. In the case of Providence the wife's fingertips were glued together in a praying-type position. In the other cases fingers and toes were glued at random as if to create a webbed hand or foot effect. We call these variations subpatterns. they speak of something beyond conventional categories of sexual assault. In this case concepts such as straight and gay are useless, virtually irrelevant. We appear to be dealing with a man who engages in symbolic negation of any and all forms of human sexuality. One may surmise he has a disturbed relationship with a mother, who is possibly deceased. Finally, the killer is most likely sexually dysfunctional."

This time, when Dr. Chun paused, his breathing quickened, and he screwed up his eyes. When he resumed speaking, Janek was certain.

Something about this definitely frightens him, he thought.

"… there is one very unusual aspect. This killer chooses what we call difficult victims. With the exception of the homeless man and the young woman jogger in New York, the people he chose were not easy to get at, not easy at all. Most serial killers take an easy path, preying on hitchhikers and prostitutes. But not this one.

He set's himself extremely tough challenges. From this we must infer intelligence, a capacity for careful planning, and a streak of competitiveness rarely demonstrated in this category of crimes."

After Chun was finished, he stared down at the floor, then raised his head as if he had something to add. He opened his mouth, then abruptly clamped it shut. "Lieutenant Janek, Sergeant Greenberg-I thank you for your patience." Then he almost seemed to flee the room.

After Chun left, a full minute passed, during which Janek made out a short bit of conversation from the other side of the door. He strained to listen. It was between Sullivan and the psychiatrist.

Chun sounded deeply upset: щ.. doesn't fit… diabolical щ.. overworked. Get some rest. We'll talk.

When Sullivan reentered the room, Janek was impressed by his sangfroid.

He picked up the briefing just where Chun had left it off, dealing head-on with the issue of easy versus difficult.

"The homeless man was first and the Foy girl last," Sullivan began.

"Both easy prey, both hit-and-run homicides committed outside at night in New York, and both glued quick and sloppy in the crotch. As you've heard, we find much more elaborate gluing when the killings are committed indoors. The killer goes in like a stabbing machine. But then he's careful, very, very careful with the glue. Squirts it in just right, makes sure everything's sealed up."

Sullivan paused for effect.

"All right, you know all that. We acknowledge the inconsistencies.

In our discussions we've theorized a possible second killer, an outdoor killer, who murdered the homeless man and the jogger, as opposed to an indoor killer, who murdered the families. But the theory doesn't hold because there's another aspect to the signature. In all seven cases we find the weed."

Aaron shook his head. "You talking about pot?" "Not pot, Sergeant, I'm talking about a literal weed. We didn't pick up on it at first. Then our forensic people noticed that there was always some wild plant left at the scene, a dandelion or a dried-up field daisy, a junk flower like you'd find in a vacant lot. This isn't a mystery novel. No rose or carnation or orchid here. Just a weed. A crummy weed."

Sullivan turned to Janek. "There was a weed left near your goddaughter's body, too. they finally did get to see Hogan's Alley. Sullivan insisted on it.

Color-coded students (red T-shirts for FBI; blue for police) ran around what looked like a movie set playing cops and robbers. The inspector watched, extremely proud, but Janek found it tiresome. These FBI people, he thought, live in a world of their own, where technology and profiling and games are ends in themselves. Meantime, city detectives like Aaron and himself worked sleazy cases out of dirty offices. He had no doubt as to which of them had a better feel for the criminal mind.

Janek arranged to meet Sullivan that night at a D.C. restaurant, then drove Aaron back to National Airport.

"I want to get him alone," Janek explained. "Really piss him off."

"I thought we were supposed to make nice." "You want to work with him?"

"Be pretty tough," Aaron admitted. "But I'll give it a shot if you want me to."

"Maybe it won't be necessary," Janek said.

He dropped Aaron off at the Pan Am Shuttle, then drove into D.C. Though it was only five o'clock, the sky was already darkening.

Affluent-looking joggers were running all over the place, and the rush-hour traffic was starting to build. He parked his car in a garage at the Watergate complex, then set out to walk. After a while he felt himself drawn to a center of energy. It was the Vietnam War Memorial. He knew it from pictures but had always wanted to see it for himself.

When he arrived, he felt no disappointment. The wall was everything he'd imagined. And it evoked in him a strong feeling, a bittersweet nostalgia for his own tour out there when, in 1968, he'd worked narcotics with Army CID in Da Nang. But as he stood in the shadows with the other visitors, staring at the black granite while the last light slowly faded from the sky, he felt a strong, sad anger for the awful waste of that war and the young American lives that had been lost fighting it.

The restaurant Sullivan had chosen, small, elegant, and expensive, was situated on the lower level of the Watergate Hotel. Even as Janek entered, he felt Sullivan's intention, The inspector knew he wasn't wearing the right clothes for such a place, so again he was trying to make him feel uncomfortable. Janek waited a full fifteen minutes before he realized that, too, was part of the plan. And then he found Sullivan pathetic. The manipulation was so unimaginative, an exact duplication of the method used that morning at the academy. Sullivan had proven himself to have a small-time bureaucrat's mentality. Such a man would solve a major case only by luck.

By the time the inspector did arrive, smiling, solicitous, excessive with profuse apologies, Janek had decided to play the first part of their dinner at his most collegial.

"Here's how we see it," Sullivan said, after coaching Janek patiently through the menu. "The five indoor family killings were very difficult to bring off. The two outdoor single killings were relatively easy. But in all seven cases we see the same thrust, same brand of ice pick, same basic mutilation of the genitals and the weed. So what we're thinking-"

Janek interrupted. "You're thinking the homeless man was for practice. After him the killer went after desired prey."

"You're good, Frank. I'm impressed. So tell me what else do we think?"

"You think Jess Foy was for practice, too. You think the killer lives in New York because that's where he practices. You think when he wants to kill a family, he travels outside the city until he finds one that attracts him." Sullivan grinned. "You've pretty much got it."

"So tell me," Janek said, "if he likes happy families so much and has so much positive experience with them, what does he need another round of practice for?"

Sullivan clicked his teeth. "Who the hell knows? These sociopaths have their own twisted logic. Some of it we understand; some we don't. Maybe the guy's losing his nerve. Maybe he's just sharpening his skills." Janek was not charmed by that little witticism.

And he wasn't sure which notion he disliked more: Jess as random victim or used as a practice target by a serial killer.

Sullivan sat back, his pink cheeks puffed out. "I feel something in all this, Frank. Something that goes beyond cases I've worked before. It's like, I don't know, it's a…Great Crime."

Janek stared at him. "What does that mean, Harry? A 'Great Crime'-what the hell is that?"

"Like that big case of yours. That Switched Heads thing. A great criminal conception. A killer playing a dangerous game, taunting us while he weaves his pattern. He sees himself as an artist. to catch him, we have to understand his art. In the end that'll tell us who he is. Decipher the pattern." Sullivan held up his hand. "Then he's ours." He shut his fist to stimulate a trap.

"Any way you see me fitting into this?"

Sullivan smiled. "We stayed late, talked it over after you left.

The boys think you could be a real asset."

"What about Aaron?"

"Not so clear. Don't misunderstand, Frank. I'm sure he's a terrific cop."

But with him on the team I'd have an ally, and you don't want that, Janek thought.

Sullivan leaned forward. He wanted to speak in confidence.

"I know it's tough. I know how cops feel. I know we're not the most popular guys around. But we've got the expertise, Frank. On a case like this we're the only game in town. Not just because we can coordinate on a national level but because we've been studying these guys, profiling them for years. After a while you get a feel for them. This one's tough, but I know there's a soft spot. There always is. With your help I think we can find it. I'd be truly honored, Frank, if you'd agree to join my team."

When the main courses arrived, they dropped discussion of the case. As they ate, Sullivan spoke casually of his ambition to write.

"It's what I've always wanted to do," he said. "Think about it-all the fiction writers out there who'd give their left ball for the kind of material we deal with every day." He took a bite from his plate.

"Ever hear of Grey Scopetta?"

"No."

"A film director. Does these true crime things on TV. I figured with your miniseries and all you'd have heard of him."

"It wasn't my miniseries, Harry. I was just the police adviser."

Sullivan winked at him. "Don't be so modest." He gulped some wine. "Anyway, about Scopetta-he's been in touch with me about HF."

Janek put down his fork. "I thought the point was to keep it quiet."

"From reporters, sure. But the bureau likes filmmakers. Some way, we don't know how, Scopetta heard about the case and put through a request for a briefing. So we gave him one. Nothing like what you got. The smaller, simpler version. And nothing about the weed.

Nobody knows about that, not even detectives in cities where the families were killed. Anyway, the two of us stayed in touch. So one day we're talking and he mentions I'm the guy maybe ought to write the script. I figured what the hell, why not give it a shot? So this past summer I flew out to L.A., took a crash course in screenwriting, one of those five-hundred-bucks-per weekend seminar deals. Now in my free time, evenings and weekends, I've been writing away." Again Sullivan lowered his voice.

"Look, this is the kind of case that when it's solved, there's sure to be a movie, So I figured why shouldn't 1, the guy who's going to solve it, get a piece of the action? Somebody's gotta write it. Why not me? That way, soon as there's an indictment, the script's ready to go. Nothing wrong with what I'm doing; I checked with our ethics guys. I'm not showing my script to anyone. Just getting it ready, that's all. See, Scopetta explained it to me: Screenwriting is structure. So that's what I'm working on, the structure of the thing. And lately I've had this idea that working on the structure of the script is going to help me solve HF. Because HF's got a structure, too. Know what I mean? Solve it as a story and I may solve it as a case. Anyway, it's an idea…

Jesus, what an asshole! Janek thought.

With dessert, they resumed discussion of Happy Families. Having trusted Janek with his writing ambitions, Sullivan was finally ready to expose the most sensitive aspects of the case.

"Okay," Sullivan said, "you know what we've got. After a year of work, incredibly little. No prints. No fibers. No tissue cells.

No DNA. The ice picks are common, sold all over the country, and the weeds are obviously untraceable. We believe the gluings were done with a standard caulking gun, the kind you can buy in any hardware store. He rams it into them, then shoots in potent animal glue. Now there was one thing we didn't get to in the briefing. Connections between the victims. Believe me, we searched for them. We have a powerful computer program designed to make that kind of search.

So far all it's come up with is a city, Cleveland, which ties together only two of the families. The brothers in Connecticut were from there, and the old lady in Florida school there before she retired.

Coincidence? taught Probably. If it was a small town in southern Ohio, I might feet different. A serial killer fixated on Cleveland-I just don't see a story line there…

Janek cleared his throat. Time now to rattle him, he thought. "Maybe it's not a serial case, Harry. Ever think of that?" "You kidding? This is a classic. Of course it's a serial case." "I'm not so sure."

Sullivan's pink cheeks began to redden. "What the hell're you talking about?"

Janek shrugged. "Call it a gut feeling." Sullivan snorted. Then he turned sarcastic. "What else does your 'gut' tell you?"

"Now don't act offended, Harry." "I am offended. You're questioning the premise of my '?" investigation. What's bugging you.

"No victimology."

Sullivan stared at him. Then he smiled. "Okay, you're good, you picked up on that. But see, even with the best software, the computer isn't perfect." "Forget the computer. I'm talking about David Chun."

"David's upset about a couple things. But-"

"He talked about everything except what the killer found attractive, what he saw in his 'difficult victims' that made him decide to go after them. And that's the key, isn't it'? if you've got that many victims and they don't tell you why they were attacked, well, then, what have you got? Far as I can see, nothing. Except"-he sneered-"'Happy Families."' "You're mocking that?"

"I don't mock homicide victims, Harry, But tell me, between the two of us, what was so goddamn happy about all those people?"

"Oh, come off it! That's just the name we use.

"Sure. That's how it started. Because you couldn't read the common element, But now it's like the name's defining the case. 'Happy Families'-how do you know they were happy? Because they lived in nice houses, nice neighborhoods, Dad coached Little League, Mom baked apple pies, and kids were on the honor roll? Because their friends and neighbors told you they were? See, Harry, I never worked a case where I didn't hear the victims were just the greatest people, the finest, happiest people. And half the time it turned out they were just like everybody else, happy and unhappy, capable of hurting each other, even capable of killing each other if the stress got bad enough.

I'm not saying your families weren't happy. I'm just asking how YOU know they were. Because I don't buy Happy Families. It's too vague. Show me a victim list of pretty blondes with hoop earrings or old ladies with hairy chins, then maybe I'll go along. But you don't have that. I think this goes deeper. I think these killings were victim-specific. I think there's an invisible thread connecting all these people and you and your team just haven't found it yet."

"After a year of work we haven't found it, the best serial killer team ever assembled. But you're going to find it? Great! Maybe you'll even find it tonight!"

Janek sat back. Sullivan's sarcasm didn't bother him. it only made him want to push the needle farther in.

"Know what I think, Harry?'l think working out of Behavioral Science has got you overinvested in the seri killer idea. I think you're so wrapped up in that you can't see beyond it to anything else.

Now Sullivan was staring at him, trying to push him with a hard cop Is stare. "Man, you've got some kind of balls," he whispered. "If I w ere you, I'd watch my step. Someone just might come along and cut 'em off. Know what I mean, Frank?"

Janek smiled. He'd forced Sullivan to resort to vulgar, tough guy talk. When a cop started talking about cutting off another cop's balls, he was aroused to a highly competitive state.

"I've heard about you," Sullivan continued, not bothering to conceal his bitterness. "I saw the way they played you on TV. This genius cop who didn't need a team, didn't need backup, didn't need nothing except his brain, which we're supposed to think is so powerful it should be registered as a dangerous weapon." Sullivan grinned. His cheeks were quivering. His little ice blue eyes were sparkling with envy. "So here we sit, end of our first day together. I lay my case out for you, a year's worth of work, and now you slip to me you got a theory of your own."

"Yeah, I guess that's about it," Janek agreed.

"I think it's a crock of shit."

"Maybe it is. But the question is, Harry, how're we going to find out?" Sullivan glared at him. "Suppose you tell me, Frank." "My suggestion is since you're so sure it's a serial case, you and your team continue working the way you are. Meantime, let Aaron and me follow up on my idea. We can set up a little two-man office in New York, in a precinct back room somewhere. Of course, we'll share what we find, but other than that, we'll stay out of your way."

Sullivan chewed on that for a moment. "Nice concept. Only trouble is… I don't see what's in it for me."

"Come on, Harry! There's plenty in it for you. You get the chance to compete."

"Compete?"

"FBI versus NYPD, you versus me. Whoever solves the case gets the glory: the book, the TV movie, the whole enchilada. Right now you've got the manpower and a year's head start. Pretty good odds."

Janek smiled as he appealed to Sullivan's weakness. "You look like a sport, Harry. What do you say?"

"I'll have to think about it."

"Do that." Janek pushed away his coffee, tossed two fifty-dollar bills onto the table, and stood up. "That's for the dinner. I'm going to try and catch the last shuttle. Call me when you decide.

But don't take too long, okay?"

New York was fogged in, so the late shuttle was diverted to Newark.

Janek exited the airport terminal into a light and soothing swirl of softly falling rain. He shared a taxi into town with a businessman from Taiwan who admitted this was his first visit to the States.

As their cab approached the Lincoln Tunnel, the city was suddenly revealed, a million lights in the towers of midtown burning through the fog. It was a great romantic vision of Manhattan, and the Taiwanese gentleman peered at it, amazed.,you must be very strong survive in a place like this," he muttered. must be strong. And even Janek nodded. Yeah, you then you may not survive.

He dropped the visitor off at the Waldorf-Astoria, then asked the driver to take him through Central Park. There the fog clung strangely to the statues and hugged the glow of the sodium lamps.

When he finally got back to his apartment, he phoned Aaron at home, told him about his proposed competition with Sullivan. Aaron was surprised. On what basis, he wanted to know, had Janek come up with "victimspecific"? "On no basis, except my feeling Chun had doubts and work under Sullivan. So I did there was no way we could w the only thing that would shake the asshole up. Whatever he said, I said the opposite." "But it is a serial case. I mean-isn't it, Frank?"

"Could be. I honestly don't know."

"Those guys seem so sure."

"Yeah, they're sure. But I wasn't builshitting Sullivan. My true gut reaction is that they're all wrong." He paused. "Did you notice how bored they were? A year of grinding work, and they got nothing."

"Just a bunch of charts and a freaked-out psychiatrist. Still, if it is a serial deal "Let me tell you something about serial deals, Aaron. When they're solved, if they are solved, it's usually because one night some hick town rookie pulls some guy over for a speeding ticket and happens to see a bloody knife on the seat. I say screw that."

"Fine, Frank. Fine. But where do we start-assuming Sullivan buys your deal and Chief Kopta approves?"

"We'll concentrate on Jess. She left me a worried message. Assume she knew she was in danger and was looking to me to help. If that's true, then the first question we've got to ask ourselves is: What was Jess afraid of."'