Whiskey Sour

Whiskey Sour (2004)

Joe Konrath

*

WHISKEY SOUR

11/2 oz. whiskey11/2 oz. sour mix

Shake well with ice and pour into an old-fashioned glass.

Garnish with cherry and orange slice.

Chapter 1

THERE WERE FOUR BLACK AND WHITES already at the 7-Eleven when I arrived. Several people had gathered in the parking lot behind the yellow police tape, huddling close for protection against the freezing Chicago rain.

They weren't there for Slurpees.

I parked my 1986 Nova on the street and hung my star around my neck on a cord. The radio was full of chatter about "the lasagna on Monroe and Dearborn," so I knew this was going to be an ugly one. I got out of the car.

It was cold, too cold for October. I wore a three-quarter-length London Fog trench coat over my blue Armani blazer and a gray skirt. The coat was the only one I had that fit over the blazer's oversized shoulders, which left my legs exposed to the elements.

Freezing was the curse of the fashion savvy.

Detective First Class Herb Benedict hunched over a plastic tarpaulin, lifting up the side against the wind. His coat was unbuttoned, and his expansive stomach poured over the sides of his belt as he bent down. Herb's hound dog jowls were pink with cold rain, and he scratched at his salt-and-pepper mustache as I approached.

"Kind of cold for a jacket like that, Jack."

"But don't I look good?"

"Sure. Shivering suits you."

I walked to his side and squatted, peering down at the form under the tarp.

Female. Caucasian. Blonde. Twenties. Naked. Multiple stab wounds, running from her thighs to her shoulders, many of them yawning open like hungry, bloody mouths. The several around her abdomen were deep enough to see inside.

I felt my stomach becoming unhappy and turned my attention to her head. A red lesion ran around her neck, roughly the width of a pencil. Her lips were frozen in a snarl, the bloody rictus stretched wide like one of her stab wounds.

"This was stapled to her chest." Benedict handed me a plastic evidence bag. In it was a three-by-five-inch piece of paper, crinkled edges on one end indicating it had been ripped from a spiral pad. It was spotty with blood and rain, but the writing on it was clear:

I let the tarp fall and righted myself. Benedict, the mind reader, handed me a cup of coffee that had been sitting on the curb.

"Who found the body?" I asked.

"Customer. Kid named Mike Donovan."

I took a sip of coffee. It was so hot, it hurt. I took another.

"Who took the statement?"

"Robertson."

Benedict pointed at the storefront window to the thin, uniformed figure of Robertson, talking with a teenager.

"Witnesses?"

"Not yet."

"Who was behind the counter?"

"Owner. Being depoed as we speak. Didn't see anything."

I wiped some rain off my face and unbunched my shoulders as I entered the store, trying to look like the authority figure my title suggested.

The heat inside was both welcome and revolting. It warmed me considerably, but went hand in hand with the nauseating smell of hot dogs cooked way too long.

"Robertson." I nodded at the uniform. "Sorry to hear about your dad."

He shrugged. "He was seventy, and we always told him fast food would kill him."

"Heart attack?"

"He was hit by a Pizza Express truck."

I searched Robertson's face for the faintest trace of a smirk, and didn't find one. Then I turned my attention to Mike Donovan. He was no more than seventeen, brown hair long on top and shaved around the sides, wearing some baggy jeans that would have been big on Herb. Men got all the comfortable clothing trends.

"Mr. Donovan? I'm Lieutenant Daniels. Call me Jack."

Donovan cocked his head to the side, the way dogs do when they don't understand a command. Under his left armpit was a magazine with cars on the cover.

"Is your name really Jack Daniels? You're a woman."

"Thank you for noticing. I can show you my ID, if you want."

He wanted, and I slipped the badge case off my neck and opened it up, letting him see my name in official police lettering. Lieutenant Jack Daniels, CPD. It was short for Jacqueline, but only my mother called me that.

He grinned. "Name like that, I bet you really score."

I gave him a conspiratorial smirk, even though I hadn't "scored" in ages.

"Run through it," I said to Robertson.

"Mr. Donovan entered this establishment at approximately eight-fifty P.M., where he proceeded to buy the latest copy of Racing Power Magazine..."

Mr. Donovan held out the magazine in question. "It's their annual leotard issue." He opened it to a page where two surgically enhanced women in spandex straddled a Corvette.

I gave it a token look-over to keep the kid cooperative. I cared for hot rods about as much as I cared for spandex.

"Where he proceeded to buy the latest copy of Racing Power Magazine." Robertson eyed Donovan, annoyed at the interruption. "He also bought a Mounds candy bar. At approximately eight fifty-five, Mr. Donovan left the establishment, and proceeded to throw out the candy wrapper in the garbage can in front of the store. In the can was the victim, facedown, half covered in garbage."

I glanced out the storefront window and looked for the garbage can. The crowd was getting larger and the rain was falling faster, but the can was nowhere to be found.

"It went to the lab before you got here, Jack."

I glanced at Benedict, who'd sneaked up behind me.

"We didn't want things to get any wetter than they already were. But we've got the pictures and the vids."

My focus swiveled back to the scene outside. The cop with the video camera was now taping the faces in the crowd. Sometimes a nut will return to the scene and watch the action. Or so I've read in countless Ed McBain books. I gave the kid my attention again.

"Mr. Donovan, how did you notice the body if it was buried in garbage?"

"I...er, Mounds was having a contest. I forgot to check my wrapper to see if I'd won. So I reached back into the garbage to find it..."

"Did the can have a lid?"

"Yeah. One of those push lids that says "Thank you" on it."

"So you reached into the push slot..."

"Uh-huh, but I couldn't find it. So I lifted the whole lid up, and there part of her was."

"What part?"

"Her, uh, ass was sticking up."

He gave me a nervous giggle.

"Then what did you do?"

"I couldn't believe it. It was like, it wasn't real. So I went back into the 7-Eleven and told the guy. He called the police."

"Mr. Donovan, Officer Robertson is going to have to take you into the station to fill out a deposition. Do you need to call your parents?"

"My dad works nights."

"Mom?"

He shook his head.

"Do you live in the neighborhood?"

"Yeah. A few blocks down on Monroe."

"Officer Robertson will give you a ride home when you're done."

"Do you think I'll be on the news?"

On cue, a network remote truck pulled into the lot, faster than the crappy weather warranted. The rear doors opened and the obligatory female reporter, perfectly made up and steely with resolve, led her crew toward the store. Benedict walked out to meet them, halting their advancement at the police barricade, giving them the closed crime scene speech.

The medical examiner pulled up behind the truck in his familiar Plymouth minivan. Two uniforms waved him through the barricade and I nodded a good-bye to Robertson and went to meet the ME.

The cold was a shock, my calves instant gooseflesh. Maxwell Hughes knelt down next to the tarp as I approached. His expression was all business when I caught his eye, drizzle dotting his glasses and dripping down his gray goatee.

"Daniels."

"Hughes. What do you have?"

"I'd put her death at roughly three to five hours ago. Suffocation. Her windpipe is broken."

"The stab wounds?"

"Postmortem. No defense cuts on her hands or arms, and not enough blood lost to have been inflicted while she was alive. See how one edge is rough, the other smooth?" He used a latex-gloved hand to stretch one of the wounds open. "The blade had a serrated edge. Maybe a hunting knife."

"Raped?"

"Not from what I can tell. No signs of semen. No visible trauma to the vagina or anus. But this isn't an autopsy." Max was fond of adding that final caveat, though I'd yet to see an instance when the autopsy didn't corroborate every one of his observations.

"The mouth?"

"No apparent damage. Tongue intact, protruding slightly. Consistent with strangulation. No bite marks. The blood in the mouth seeped up through her throat after she died. That coincides with the pooling of blood in her face. She was stored upside down."

"She was found face-first in a garbage can."

Hughes made his mouth into a tight thin line, and then reached into his pocket for a clean handkerchief to wipe the rain from his glasses. By the time he tucked it away, the glasses were wet again.

"Looks like you've got a real psycho here."

"We'll need the report on this one right away, Max."

He opened up the yellow plastic tackle box that housed the tools of his trade and began bagging the corpse's hands. I left him to his work.

More cops and newsies and gawkers arrived, and the carnival atmosphere of an important murder got into full swing. It would offend me, if I hadn't seen it so many times.

Benedict finished his impromptu statement for the media and began selecting uniforms for the door-to-door witness search. I went to pitch in. It boosted morale for the men to see their lieut pounding pavement with them, especially since it was probably futile in this instance.

The killer had dumped a body in a public place, where it was sure to be found. But he'd done it without attracting any attention.

I had a feeling this was only the beginning.

Chapter 2

MORNING. THE STALE SWEAT THAT CLUNG to me and the sour taste of old coffee grounds were constant reminders that I hadn't slept yet.

As if I needed reminders. I have chronic insomnia. My last sound sleep was sometime during the Reagan administration, and it shows. At forty-six my auburn hair is streaked with gray that grows faster than I can dye it, the lines on my face shout age rather than character, and even two bottles of Visine a month couldn't get all the red out.

But the lack of sleep has made me pretty damn productive.

Spread out before me on my cluttered desk, a dead woman's life had been reduced to a collection of files and reports. I was combining all the information into a report of my own. It read like a test, with none of the blanks filled in.

Twelve hours had passed and we still didn't know the victim's name.

No prints or hairs or fibers on the body. No skin under the fingernails. Nothing solid in the door-to-door reports. But this lack of evidence was evidence in itself. The perp had been extremely careful.

The victim wasn't sexually assaulted, and death had resulted from suffocation induced by a broken windpipe, as Max had guessed. The lesion around her neck was six millimeters thick. It didn't leave fibers, which would indicate rope, and didn't bite into the skin, which would imply a thin wire. The assistant ME suggested an electrical cord as a possible weapon.

Ligature marks around her wrists and ankles bore traces of twine. Staking out every store in Illinois that sold twine wasn't too clever an idea, though it was mentioned.

The stab wounds were postmortem and made by a thick-bladed knife with a serrated back. There were twenty-seven wounds in all, of varying depth and size.

We were unable to pull any fingerprints from the garbage can Jane Doe was found in. Even Mike Donovan's prints had been washed away by the rain. The contents of the can were an average assortment of convenience store garbage, except for one major item.

Mixed in with the wrappers and cups was a five-inch gingerbread man cookie. It was heavily varnished, like an old loaf of lacquered French bread that gourmet restaurants use for decoration. An elite task force of two people was assigned to Chicago's hundred-plus bakeries to try and get a match. If they failed, there was an equal number of supermarkets that sold baked goods. Double that figure to include the neighboring suburbs. A huge job, all for nothing if it was homemade.

If this weren't such a somber situation, the image of two detectives flashing around the picture of the gingerbread man and asking "Have you seen him?" would be pretty funny.

I took another sip of some coffee that the Gestapo could have used for difficult interrogations, and felt it bleed into my stomach, which didn't approve. The caffeine surging through my veins left me nauseous and jittery. I gave my temples ten seconds of intense finger massage, and then went back to my report.

She was killed roughly three hours before Donovan discovered her body at 8:55. Depending on how much time the perp spent with her corpse, he could have killed her anywhere within a hundred-mile radius. That narrowed it down to about four million people. Take out women, children, the elderly, everyone with a solid alibi, and the 20 percent of the population who were left-handed, and I figured we had maybe seven hundred thousand suspects left.

So we were making progress.

Pressure from the mayor's office forced us to involve the Feebies. They were sending up two agents from Quantico, special operatives in the Behavioral Science Unit. Captain Bains played up the technical end, extolling the virtues of their nationwide crime web, which would be able to match this murder up with similar ones from around the country. But in reality he disliked the Feds as much as I did.

Cops were fiercely territorial about their jurisdictions, and hated to have them trampled on. Especially by bureaucratic robots who were more concerned with procedure than results.

I went for another sip of coffee, but the cup was mercifully empty.

Maybe one of the leads would pan out. Maybe someone would identify the Jane Doe. Maybe the Feds and their super crime-busting computer would solve the case moments after they arrived.

But a feeling in my gut that wasn't entirely coffee-related told me that before we made any real progress, the Gingerbread Man would kill again.

He'd done too much planning to make this a one-time-only event.

Herb walked into my office, carrying an aromatic cup of hot Dunkin" Donuts coffee, a dark roast by the smell of it. But the way he poured it greedily down his throat made it apparent he hadn't brought it for me.

"Got the serum tests." He dropped a report on my desk. "Traces of sodium secobarbital found in her urine."

"Seconal?"

"You've heard of it?"

I nodded. I'd researched every insomnia remedy going back to Moses. "I've read about it. Went out of vogue when Valium came around, which went out of vogue with Halcion and Ambien."

I hadn't ever tried Seconal, but had given the others a shot. The depression they caused was worse than the sleepless nights. My doctor had offered to prescribe Prozac to combat the depression, but I didn't want to go down that slippery slope.

"Needle puncture on the upper arm was the entry point. ME said two ccs would put a hundred-and-fifty-pound person under in just a few seconds."

"Is Seconal prescribed anymore?"

"Not much. But we caught a break. Only hospital pharmacies carry injectionals. Because it's a Control two class drug, every order has to be sent to the Illinois Department of Professional Regulations. I got a list of all recent orders. Only a dozen or so."

"Also check for thefts from hospitals and manufacturers."

Benedict nodded, finishing his coffee. "You look like a bowl of crap, Jack."

"That's the poet in you, fighting to get out."

"You keep pulling all-nighters and Don is going to hit the bricks."

Don. I'd forgotten to call him and tell him I was staying late. Hopefully he'd forgive me. Again.

"Why don't you go home, get some rest."

"Not a bad plan, if I could."

My partner frowned. "Then go spend some time with your gentleman friend. Bernice is constantly on me about working too much, and you're here twenty hours a week more than I am. I don't see how Don puts up with it."

I met Don in a YMCA kickboxing class about a year ago. The instructor paired us up for sparring. I knocked him down with a snap-punch, and he asked me out. After six months of dating, Don's apartment lease ran out, and I invited him to move in -- a bold move for a commitaphobe like me.

Don was the polar opposite of me in the looks department; blond, tan, with deep blue eyes and thick lips that I would kill for. I took after my mother. Not only were we both five feet six inches tall, with dark brown eyes, dark hair, and high cheekbones, but she was a retired Chicago cop.

When I was twelve, my mother taught me the two skills essential to my adult life: how to use a liner pencil to make my thin lips look fuller, and how to group my shots from forty feet away with a .38.

Unfortunately, Mom relayed very little information when it came to the care and feeding of a boyfriend.

"Don goes out a lot," I admitted. "I haven't seen him in a couple of days."

I closed my eyes, fatigue working slender fingers through my hair and down my back. Maybe going home would be a good idea. I could pick up some wine, take Don out to a nice lunch. We could try to openly communicate and work out the problems we'd been avoiding. Maybe I'd even score, as Mike Donovan had put it.

"Fine." My eyes snapped open, and I felt a surge of enthusiasm. "I'm going. You'll call if anything shakes loose?"

"Of course. When do the Feebies show?"

"Tomorrow, noonish. I'll be here."

We nodded our good-byes, and I stretched my cramped body out of my chair and went to go make a sincere effort with the man I was living with.

After all, the day could only get better.

Or so I thought.

Chapter 3

HE HAS THE WHOLE THING ON video.

It's playing right now on his forty-inch screen. The shades are drawn and the volume is maxed. He is alone in the house, sitting on the couch. Naked. The remote is clenched in a sweaty fist.

He leans forward and watches with wide eyes.

"I'm going to kill you," he says on tape.

The girl screams. She's on her back, tied to the floor, jiggling with fear. Completely his.

The light in the basement is clinically harsh; his very own operating theater. Not one freckle or mole on her nude body escapes his attention.

"Keep screaming. It turns me on."

She chews her lips, her body shaking in an effort to keep quiet. Mascara leaks down her face, leaving trails of black tears. The camera zooms in until her eyes are the size of bloodshot volleyballs.

Yummy.

The camera zooms back out, and he locks it into position on the tripod and walks over to her. He's naked and visibly aroused.

"You're all the same. You think you're hot shit. But where's all that confidence now?"

"I have money." Her voice cracks like puppy bones.

"I don't want your money. I want to see what you look like. On the inside."

She screams when he picks up the hunting knife, fighting against her bonds, her eyes bugging out like a cartoon. Nothing but an animal now, a frightened animal fearing for its life.

It's a look he's seen many times.

"Please-oh-God-no-oh-God-please..."

He kneels down next to her and wraps his free hand in her hair so she can't turn away. Then he tickles her throat with the edge of the blade.

"So pretty. I'm only giving you what you deserve. Don't you realize that? You're an example to the others. You thought you were famous before? Now you'll be even more famous. The first one."

She trembles before his power, fear radiating from her body like heat. He sets down the knife and fetches the extension cord.

This is the good part.

"Beg for your life."

More screaming and crying. Nothing coherent.

"You'll have to do better than that. Do you even remember me?"

She catches her breath and stares at him. The moment of recognition is like candy.

Sitting on his couch, he pauses the tape on the scene, eating up her terror. Fear is the ultimate turn-on, and this is the real thing. Not an actress in some fake S/M porno flick. This is the genuine article. A snuff film. His snuff film. He lets the tape play.

"You can't treat men like that. All of you think you can do that to me and get away with it."

He twists the cord around her neck, pulling it tight, getting his shoulders and back into it.

It isn't like in the movies. Strangulation isn't over in fifteen seconds.

She takes six minutes.

Her eyes bug out. Her face turns colors. She bucks and twists and makes sounds like a mewling kitten.

But slowly, sweetly, the fight goes out of her. Oxygen deprivation takes its toll, knocking her out, turning her into an unconscious blob.

He releases the cord and splashes some water on her face to wake her up.

She's even more terrified when she comes to. She fights so hard, he thinks she might break the twine. Her voice is raw and painful-sounding, but the screaming goes on and on.

Until he strangles her again.

And again.

He does it four times before something in her neck finally gives and she can't breathe even when he takes the cord off.

She writhes around on the floor, a private death dance just for him. Wiggle and twitch, gasp and moan. Her eyes roll up and her tongue sticks out and she turns colors.

He climbs on top and kisses her as she dies.

Though excited and aroused, there is still more work to do before he can fully enjoy her. He goes off screen and comes back with the plastic tarp.

This next part is messy.

He uses the hunting knife like an artist uses a paintbrush. Slowly. With care.

Then he adds his signature.

He's out of breath, slick with sweat and blood.

Satisfied.

For the moment.

"One down, three to go," he says to the television.

All in all, a successful production. Perhaps a little quick, considering the weeks of careful planning it has taken to get to this point. But that can be blamed on excitement.

With the next one he will pace himself better. Make it last. Do the cutting while she's still alive.

He'll grab the next girl tomorrow and try out some new things.

In the meantime he rewinds the videotape to watch it again.

Chapter 4

DON, I'M HOME."

I hid the wine bottle behind my back in case he was sitting in the kitchenette next to the front door.

He wasn't.

"Don?"

I did a quick tour of the place. It didn't take long, because my apartment was about the size of a Cracker Jack box. Except there was no prize inside.

But I wasn't discouraged. If he wasn't home, I could catch him at the health club. Don had vanity issues. True, he had a good body, but the amount of time he invested in it seemed disproportionate to the benefits.

I went to chill the wine, when I noticed the note on the fridge.

Jack,

I've left you for my personal trainer, Roxy. We just weren't right for each other, you were too into your stupid job, and the sex wasn't very good.

Plus your tossing and turning all night drove me crazy. Please pack up all my stuff. I'll pick it up Friday.

Thanks for fixing those parking tickets for me, and don't worry. Roxy's place is about ten times bigger than yours, so I'll have somewhere to stay.

Don

I read the note again, but it wasn't any nicer the second time. We'd dated for almost an entire year. He'd been living with me for six months. And now it was over, ended with a brief, indifferent letter. I didn't even warrant the standard "I hope we can still be friends" line.

I hit the freezer and took out an ice tray. Three cubes went into a rocks glass, along with a shot of whiskey and a splash of sour mix. I sat down and thought, and drank, and thought some more.

When the cocktail was finished I made another. I was wading deep in the self-pity pool, but there was little sense of loss. I hadn't loved Don. He was a warm body to hold at night and a partner for restaurants and movies and occasional sex.

The only man I'd ever loved was my ex-husband, Alan. When he left me, the pain was physical. Fifteen years later, I'm still wary about giving another person that much control over my heart again.

I eyed the half-finished drink in my hand. When Jacqueline Streng married Alan Daniels, she became Jack Daniels. Ever since, people have given me bottles of the stuff as gifts, each probably thinking they were being clever. I was forced to develop a taste for it, or else open up my own liquor store.

I gulped down the rest of the cocktail and was about to pour another, when I noticed my reflection in the door of the microwave. Seeing myself, sitting at my cheap dinette set with my sleepy red eyes and my limp hair, I looked like a finalist in the Miss Pathetic America Pageant.

Lots of cops I knew drank. They drank alone, drank on the job, drank when they woke up, and drank themselves to sleep. Law enforcement officers had a higher rate of alcoholism than any other profession. They also had the most divorces and the most suicides.

Divorce was the only statistic I cared to add to.

So I took off my blazer and my shoulder holster, replaced my skirt and blouse with a pair of jeans and a sweater, and went out to explore Chicago.

I lived on Addison and Racine, in a part of town called Wrigleyville. Rent was reasonable because it was impossible to park anywhere, especially since the Cubs started hosting night games. But I had a badge, so any fireplug or no-parking zone was fair game.

The neighborhood was loud and active, as expected. At any given time there were at least ten drinking-age college students per square foot, barhopping among the area's forty-plus watering holes. Great if you were in your twenties. But a mature woman like me was out of place in these trendy clubs, where techno music shook the foundations and drinks like "Screaming Orgasms" and "Blow Jobs" were the house specials.

Don had once dragged me into a bar called Egypto, where the only lighting in the place came from several hundred Lava lamps lining the walls. He bought me a drink called a "Slippery Dick." I told him the drink wasn't stiff enough. He didn't laugh. I should have known then.

So for a woman of my advanced years, Wrigleyville gave me only two real choices: the bar at the Westminster Hotel, or Joe's Pool Hall.

I'd only been at the Westminster once, out of curiosity. It turned out to be the kind of place where old people gather to die. The entertainment that night had been Dario, a small hairy man in suspenders with an electric accordion. He did a disco version of "When the Saints Go Marching In" while geriatrics polkaed furiously. I felt old, but not that old.

So I wound up at Joe's. They had good beer priced cheap and a dinginess that yuppies avoided. When I pushed open the door, I wasn't assaulted by industrial dance music. Just the clackety-clack of pool balls and an occasional laugh or swearword.

My kind of place.

I went up to the bar, resting my forearms on the cigarette-scarred counter and propping a foot on the brass railing. A fat bartender took my beer order, which set me back a whopping two bucks, with tip.

I pulled off the bottle and took in the surroundings, searching for an open table through the dim lighting and the cigar smoke.

All twelve were occupied, all but two with doubles action.

Of the singles, one was being worked by an elderly black man who was having a heated discussion with himself. At the other table was a bald guy in jeans and a white T-shirt. He was a few years my junior and looked vaguely familiar.

I picked up a cue from a nearby rack and walked over.

He was hunched over the table, his stick gliding on the solid bridge of his thumb and forefinger, eyeing the cue ball with intense concentration.

"This may sound like a come-on, but haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

He took the shot without looking up, banking the three ball into a side pocket. Then he righted himself and squinted at me, and I suddenly knew who he was.

"You arrested me six years ago."

That's one of the dangers of being a cop. People you think you remember from high school turn out to be felons.

"Phineas Troutt, right? Tough to forget a name like that."

He nodded.

"And your name had something to do with booze. Detective Jose Cuervo?"

His face was blank, and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"Jack Daniels. I'm a lieutenant now."

I noted his body language. His blue eyes were steady, and he held himself in a relaxed stance. I didn't feel threatened by him, but at the same time I was aware I'd left my gun at home.

"You had brown hair before," I said. "Long, in a ponytail."

"Chemo. Pancreatic cancer." He pointed his chin at my cue. "Can you use that thing, or do you hold it for some Freudian reason?"

That seemed like a challenge to me, and I was feeling a bit reckless. I recalled the bust vividly, because it had been the easiest arrest of my career. It had been an 818 -- gang fight in progress. When we arrived on the scene, Phineas dropped to his knees and laced his hands behind his head without even being asked. Strewn around him were four unconscious gang-bangers in need of medical attention. Phin claimed they jumped him, but since he was the only one without anything broken, we had to bring him in.

"Loser racks and buys the beers."

"Fair enough."

We played eight ball, calling shots, putting the eight in the last pocket called. He beat me an average of two games to one, so I wound up paying for most of the games and buying most of the drinks. We hardly talked, but the silence was companionable, and the competition was good-natured.

By the eighth game, the alcohol was starting to affect me, so I switched to diet cola. Phin, as he preferred to be called, stuck with beer, and it didn't seem to affect him at all. Even after I'd sobered up, he continued to whup my butt.

I liked it that way; it made me play better.

Day became night, and Joe's began to fill up. Lines formed at all the tables, forcing us to relinquish ours.

I thought about asking Phin if he wanted to get a cup of coffee, but it sounded too much like a date, and I didn't want to give the wrong impression. Instead, I offered my hand.

"Thanks for the games."

His grip was warm, dry.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. It's nice to have some quality competition. Maybe we'll have a chance to do this again?"

I smiled. "Damn right. Bring your wallet, because next time you'll be buying most of the beers."

He smiled, briefly, and we went our separate ways. I made a mental note to check outstanding warrants on him. If he was wanted for something, I wasn't quite sure what I would do. I liked the guy, even if he did have a rap sheet. These days it was rare for me to like anything. Could I arrest a pool buddy, especially one dying of cancer?

Unfortunately, yes.

Once home, my bed was uncomfortable, my mind refused to relax, and the clock mocked me with each passing minute.

I was tired, exhausted actually, but thoughts kept flashing through my skull and wouldn't let me be. They weren't even profound thoughts; just random flotsam.

I tried counting backward from ten thousand. I tried deep breathing and relaxation exercises. I tried to imagine myself asleep. Nothing worked.

Time marched forward, taking me with it.

By the time I was feeling the slightest bit drowsy, the sun peeked in through the blinds and I had to get up to go to work.

I sat up and stretched my tired bones, and then went into my morning exercise routine. A hundred sit-ups, with a promise to do two hundred tomorrow. Twenty push-ups, with a similar promise. Thinking about doing some barbell curls and rejecting the idea because the barbell was hidden in the closet. And then off to the shower.

I'd survived my first night without Don, and it wasn't nearly as bad as it might have been. It could only get easier with time.

Then I saw his toothbrush on the bathroom sink and was depressed the rest of the day.

Chapter 5

CUTTING OR SLICING DOESN'T WORK, because it's impossible to close it up afterward.

The way to do it is to pinch each side of the wrapper by the seam and pull gently. This is tricky -- opening the candy without ripping the package. Even the smallest tear is no good. People aren't stupid. No one will eat candy with a torn wrapper.

Working on the candy itself is the exciting part. "Fun Size!" the bag proclaims. "Dinky" was a more appropriate description. The mini candy bars are scarcely a bite each.

But one bite is all it takes.

His average is good; he only ruins four wrappers out of twenty-four. He sets the chocolate on a tray and opens up the package of sewing needles. Needles and pins work best. They don't mar the surface going in; just leave a tiny hole that is easily covered up with a dot of melted chocolate. He uses four needles per candy bar, on cross angles, so no matter where it's bitten, at least one will draw blood.

After doing ten candy bars with needles, he cracks his knuckles and feels warmed up enough for some harder work.

Fishhooks take finesse. He holds the candy lightly in a latex-gloved hand and picks up a hook with needle-nose pliers. Pushing the barb into the bottom of the candy, he inserts the hook bit by bit, angling the pliers in a curving motion so the entire fishhook disappears through the entry hole.

It is difficult work, but he's had years of practice. His personal record is eleven hooks in one small candy bar. He liked to prepare for Halloween weeks in advance, and when the big day arrived, he'd find a neighborhood house that was empty and set up his bowl full of lethal treats next to their door. Sometimes he also put a sign that said Only Take One! next to the bowl. A nice ghoulish touch.

After rigging five pieces with fishhooks, he opens a box of X-Acto knife blades and pushes several of those into the remaining bars. X-Acto blades leave a bigger entry hole, but with a cigarette lighter and an extra chocolate bar, he can hide the hole from even the most intense inspection.

After finishing all twenty candies, he places them carefully back into their wrappers. A few drops of Super Glue seal them back up. Then he puts the bars into the plastic bag they came in, one by one, through a small one-inch slit in the side. When he's done, he puts four untainted candies from a second bag into this one, so it holds the correct total of twenty-four.

Holding it in his hand, it looks like an ordinary bag of candy bars, ready to be consumed.

He plugs in a hair crimper, lets it get hot, and then carefully crimps closed the slit he's made in the bag. The crimper melts the plastic edges together somewhat unevenly, so he trims away the excess plastic with a razor blade.

Perfect.

Now it's time to see whom the treat will go to. He turns his attention to the photos on the table, flipping through them to find the two he wants.

They are both close-ups of faces. He'd taken them at the 7-Eleven the other day, while standing in the crowd and watching the stupid pigs trample around his crime scene. One is of a fat man with a mustache. The other is of a thin woman with nice legs.

One of these is the officer in charge of his case. They were the only two cops there who weren't wearing uniforms, so they had to be the top guys. But which one is the head honcho? The one who, by the luck of the draw, has become his nemesis?

A simple phone call to the police will reveal who heads the case, but he doesn't want to call from his home phone. The pigs can trace phone calls instantly, and he doesn't want it to lead back to him somewhere down the line.

Nothing will lead back to him.

His plan is flawless. Perfect. Every last detail has been worked out. Stalk. Abduct. Destroy. Dispose. Repeat. He has the perfect cover, has their schedules down pat, even has a contingency plan if the police ever find him. Not that they will, but it pays to plan ahead.

So he takes a walk to the nearest pay phone, on the outside of a Mini-Mart, and calls Information to find out what police station is nearest to Monroe and Washington -- the corner where he dumped the first whore.

Armed with the district number, he calls the officer on duty and identifies himself as a reporter from the Herald.

"Can you spell out the name of the detective in charge?"

"Daniels, first name Jack."

"Jack Daniels? For real?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is he on the heavy side, has a mustache?"

"No, that's Detective Benedict. He's Daniels's partner. Jack is a woman. Short for Jacqueline, I think. She's a lieutenant."

"Thanks."

Hanging up, he feels excitement crackle through his body like electricity. He rushes back home to his pictures, leafing through them until he finds one of Daniels leaving the scene in her crappy Chevy Nova.

"I know who you are." The Gingerbread Man rubs his finger over her face. "And I know what you drive. But I'll know more. Much more."

He smiles. Chicago thinks a simple bitch like that can catch him?

Think again.

He checks his watch. Nine in the morning. He isn't going to grab the second girl for another two hours. What time does the good lieutenant go to work? Is she there right now?

He decides to check. Picking up the bag of candy with pliers to avoid leaving fingerprints, he carries the gift to his truck and takes a meandering path to the 26th District.

It looks like any other building in Chicago, except this one houses cops rather than offices or apartments. There is a parking lot next to it with a big sign that reads "Police Vehicles Only." On his third trip around the lot, he spies Jack's Nova, near the back, between two patrol cars.

"Hey, buddy!"

A cop flags him down. He almost hits the gas in panic, but when the pig approaches, it's obvious what he wants.

"It's on me, Officer." The Gingerbread Man smiles, handing the cop his selection. "I appreciate you keeping the city safe."

The pig doesn't even thank him, waddling off down the street, letting the biggest arrest of his life drive away.

The Gingerbread Man parks in front of a meter and puts on some leather gloves. Cradling the bag of goodies in his jacket, he walks briskly back to the police station and enters the parking lot as if he belongs there. Two uniformed patrolmen give him a glance, and he nods a hello, confident and at ease. They return the nod and walk on.

Adrenaline threatening to make his heart explode, he approaches Jack's car and pulls the slim-jim out of his pants leg. It's a long strip of thin metal with a forked end. He forces it between the driver's-side window and the weather stripping, and jams it down into the inner workings of the car door. By feel, he finds the lock mechanism and pushes down.

Up pops the button, in about the same amount of time it would have taken to open it with a key.

The interior smells faintly of perfume. Even though he's in a hurry, he climbs behind the wheel and savors the moment.

Violation is such a rush.

"I'm in your car, Jack."

He sniffs the steering wheel. Hand cream and hair spray.

It tastes salty.

On the floor is an empty cardboard coffee cup. He picks it up and licks the smudge of lipstick on the rim.

His eyes close, and he can see Jack, tied up in his basement, naked and bloody and screaming.

Such an excellent idea.

Another look around proves the parking lot is still empty. He places the package on the passenger seat and searches through the glove compartment for the lieutenant's vehicle registration. He memorizes the address, grinning at how easy this is.

"I'll be seeing you, Jack."

His lingering has put him a few minutes behind schedule. He doesn't want to be late grabbing the second whore. He has a bunch of new things he's just aching to try out with her.

He makes sure no one is watching, then he gets out of the car and strolls back to his truck, a spring in his step.

What a day this is turning out to be.

Chapter 6

I WAS FINISHING MY THIRD CUP of coffee when the FBI walked in.

They didn't immediately announce themselves as Feebies when they entered my office, without knocking. But both wore tailored gray suits, Harvard ties, spit-shined shoes, and crew cuts. Who else could they be -- yearbook committee?

"Lieutenant Daniels?" The one on the right continued before I acknowledged him. "I'm Special Agent George Dailey. This is Special Agent Jim Coursey."

Special Agent Coursey nodded at me.

"We're from the Bureau," Special Agent Coursey said.

Special Agent Dailey nodded at me.

Dailey was slightly taller, and his hair a shade lighter, but that minimal difference was negligible. They could have been clones. And knowing our government, they might have been.

"We're both ViCAT operatives of the BSU."

"The Violent Criminal Apprehension Team of the Behavioral Science Unit."

"We've done a profile of the perpetrator, and we have a printout of possible related cases with percentile rankings of same suspect likelihood."

"Are we going too fast for you?"

I said, "You're early."

They looked at each other, then back at me.

"The sooner we give your people an idea of what we're looking for, the sooner we catch him," Dailey said.

Coursey dropped his briefcase onto my desk and snapped it open, pulling out a packet of neatly stacked paper. He handed me the top sheet.

"Are you familiar with profiling?"

I nodded.

"Profiling of repeat and recreational killers is done with the ViCAT computer at Quantico." Dailey had apparently missed my nod. "We enter specific details about the murder, including but not limited to the condition of the corpse, location it was found, method of demise, signs of ritualism, physical evidence, witness testimony, and any beforehand information about the deceased. The computer analyzes the data and gives us a rough description of the suspect."

"For example," Coursey took over, "our suspect is a male Caucasian, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-nine. He's right-handed, and owns a station wagon or truck. He's blue collar, probably a factory worker, possibly in the textiles industry. He is an alcoholic, and prone to violent rages. He frequents western bars and enjoys line dancing."

"Line dancing," I said.

"He also wears women's underwear," Dailey added. "Possibly his mother's."

I felt a headache coming on.

"As a juvenile he set fires and committed relations with animals."

"With animals," I said.

"There's a high probability he's been arrested before. Possibly for assault or rape, probably on elderly women."

"But he's impotent now."

"He may also be gay."

I lifted my coffee cup to my lips and found it was empty. I lowered it again.

"He hears voices."

"Or maybe just one voice."

"It could be the voice of his mother, telling him to kill."

"Maybe she just wants her underwear back," I offered.

"He may be disfigured or disabled. He might have severe acne scars, or scoliosis."

"That's a curvature of the spine," Dailey added.

"Is that a hunch?" I asked.

"Just an educated guess."

I thought about explaining the joke to them, but it would be wasted.

"He may have been dropped on his head as a child," Coursey said.

He probably wasn't the only one.

"Gentlemen." I wasn't sure where to begin, but I gave it a try. "Call me a skeptic, but I don't see how any of this is going to help us catch him."

"First of all, you should start staking out western bars."

"And local textile factories that have hired someone with a criminal record within the last six months."

"I could stake out the zoo too," I said. "He may be sneaking in at night and committing relations with animals."

"I doubt it." Coursey furrowed his brow. "The profile says he's impotent now."

I rubbed my eyes. When I finished, the two of them were still there.

"Of course, the profile may change slightly as more data becomes available," Dailey said.

"If he kills again."

"When he kills again."

They looked at each other and nodded smartly.

I wondered, in all seriousness, what would happen if I pulled my revolver and shot one of them. Would the other one arrest me, or would he wait to see if my profile showed the proper aptitude for the crime?

"Here's the statement we're releasing to the press." Coursey handed me another piece of paper. "Now that we're assigned to the case."

"We still have jurisdiction." I let some irritation show. "No state borders have been crossed."

"Not yet. Until then, we're just consultants."

"Simply a tool for you to use."

"To help make things run smoother."

There's a laugh for you.

"This" -- Dailey handed me more papers -- "is a list of reasons why we've pegged the murderer as organized rather than disorganized. You're familiar with the concept of grouping serial criminals as either O or DO?"

I nodded. He went on, paying me no heed. I had a feeling this entire meeting could have been conducted without my presence.

"DO, or disorganized criminals, usually have little or no planning stage. Their crimes are spur of the moment, either lust-or rage-induced. Signs of guilt or remorse can usually be found at the scene, such as something covering the victim's face; an indication the killer doesn't like the accusation of a staring pair of eyes. Clues in the form of physical and circumstantial evidence abound, because the DO type doesn't stop to cover them up, or only does as an afterthought."

"I'm familiar with the labels." I stated it, distinctly, precisely.

"The organized type," he went on. Perhaps I hadn't been clear enough. "Usually spends a lot of time on the planning stage. The perp may spend days beforehand fantasizing about the murder, plotting out every detail. He won't leave evidence intentionally, and usually the victim bears no sign of savage, uncontrollable violence. The injuries, while they can be sadistic, are more focused and controlled."

"We've come up with one hundred and fifteen reasons why we believe this killer is the organized type," Coursey said. "And we'd like to take an hour or so to go over them with you."

I was ready to fake a heart attack to get them to leave, when Benedict walked into my office, saving me the trouble.

"Jack, we got a lead on that Seconal. Sixty milliliters were purchased by a Charles Smith on August tenth of this year at the Mercy Hospital pharmacy."

"Have we found him?"

"He gave a fake address. There are seventeen Charles Smiths in Chicago and twelve more in the rest of Illinois, but it looks like the name is fake too."

"What about the doctor?"

"That's how we nailed it down. The doctor's name was Reginald Booster."

The name was familiar.

"The unsolved murder from Palatine a couple months back?"

"That's him. He was killed at his home on August ninth. I had the file faxed to us and I've called his daughter. We're meeting her at the house at one."

"Let's go." I stood up and grabbed my jacket, thrilled to be actually doing something on this case.

"We'll go over this when you get back," Dailey said.

It sounded more like a threat than a promise. I left without acknowledging them, but felt no moral victory in being rude.

They hadn't noticed.

Chapter 7

HE KNOWS WHERE SHE LIVES.

He knows where all of them live, but this one was easier to find than the others. It was just a matter of looking her up in the phone book. T. Metcalf. Did women really think they were fooling anyone by only allowing the first initial of their name to be published? Who else but women did that?

He watches her apartment from his truck. Theresa Metcalf. The second whore to die. He's parked across the street, binoculars aimed at her window, peering through her open blinds. There's movement in the apartment. He knows it's her, getting ready for work.

He has her schedule down better than she does. As usual, she's running late. When she finally hits the street, it will be in a rush. But she never runs, and she never calls a cab. Work is five blocks away. She always walks the same route. Human beings are creatures of habit. He's counting on that.

He looks at his watch again. She's later than normal today. His palms are sweating. It's been a thrilling morning so far; preparing the candy, leaving it for Jack, getting her address. Now comes uncertainty.

The Gingerbread Man leaves very little up to chance, but grabbing a person has too many variables to account for them all. He'd originally intended for Theresa to be the first, but when the day came to snatch her, she'd uncharacteristically walked to work with her roommate.

Potential witnesses, the weather, traffic, and unpredictable human nature all conspire to make an abduction very delicate and tricky. He doesn't know if she carries Mace. He doesn't know if she has a black belt in karate. He doesn't know if she will scream and attract attention. All he can do is plan as best he can, and hope for luck.

He watches the blinds close in the window. Good. She'll be coming down the stairs in a few minutes.

"You open?"

He quickly drops the binoculars and looks to his right. A boy, no more than ten, is staring in at him. Black kid, big head, wide eyes.

It had been a long time since he'd killed a child. Almost another life. Before prison. The last one was a little girl. She'd been playing in front of her house. He grabbed her on impulse. She was so fragile and small. Screamed like an angel.

"What do you want?"

"Bomb Pop."

He reaches into the cooler behind him and pulls out a Bomb Pop. First sale of the day, not including the freebie he'd given that cop earlier. It sells for two dollars. He pays a dime wholesale. Since he works independently and the truck is his, the only overhead is gasoline. Not only does he have the perfect urban camouflage, but he's even making a profit.

The kid pays him in change, counting it carefully. Little shit has no clue how close to death he is. Just a quick tug on the shirt, and the boy could be his. He scans down the street for witnesses and sees nary a soul.

But not today. Today he has other plans.

The kid lopes off, licking his ice cream.

The front door to the apartment opens, and the whore strides out. He runs through the grab one more time in his head. Pull out in front of her. Jump out. Stick her with the needle and haul her in back. Shouldn't take more than ten seconds. Then he'll have her for his use, for as long as he can keep her alive.

Tapping his foot, impatient, he lets her get a block ahead of him before he starts the truck. His hands are sweating and he has a sudden attack of the giggles. The syringe is in his pocket, filled with fifty milligrams of Seconal. Not much, but a little goes a long way. He'll pump it straight into her arm, and it'll begin to take effect within five seconds.

First she'll become drowsy and disoriented. Then she'll begin losing muscle control. It takes about five full minutes before she will be under completely, but until then he should be able to handle her without difficulty. Seconal has a soothing effect, and so far everyone he's used it on has remained compliant, if not downright helpful.

He practiced on winos when he'd first gotten the Seconal. There are plenty littering the streets of Chicago, begging for handouts. The first one he gave six ccs, killing him almost instantly. He halved the dosage, and the next one never woke up. One to 1.5 milliliters turned out to be the right dose for women, depending on how chunky they were. These whores aren't chunky. They're racehorses. Whorses. He giggles.

The alley is coming up. He pulls into it ahead of her, taking in everything. There's no one nearby. Perfect. She approaches the truck without even noticing it.

Wait! She's crossing the street! He's watched her walk to work almost a dozen times, and she's never crossed until she reaches the intersection. His mind races. Call it off, or improvise?

"Theresa?"

He's out of the truck, coming at her on an angle, syringe palmed in his right hand.

"Theresa?"

She stops and looks at him. He smiles brightly. Smiles disarm people. His pace is fast, but he puts some bounce in his step and tries to look in a hurry rather than threatening.

"I thought it was you. Charles, remember?"

He says it at normal speaking level, which is too low for the twenty-foot distance between them.

"Pardon me?"

She cranes her neck forward a bit. Her posture isn't defensive, but her expression is confused. She isn't sure if she recognizes him or not.

He takes two more steps. "I'm sorry, you don't remember me, do you? I'm Charles."

Her eyes narrow slightly, trying to place him. "Sorry, I..." She shrugs.

"You mean you don't even remember the truck?" He takes three more steps and makes a grand sweeping gesture toward his ice cream truck. "I thought you'd remember the truck."

"Look -- I'm late for work..."

"At Montezuma's. That's where you work, right?"

"Have I served you before?"

"No." The Gingerbread Man grins. The smile is genuine now. "But you will."

The girl doesn't like his leer and subconsciously shifts her weight away from his approaching form. He detects the subtle change, and knows that if she bolts or screams, he won't get a second chance.

"Here, let me..." Reaching into his pockets, he pulls out a handful of quarters. Trying to look clumsy, he lets the change spill from his hand and all over the curb.

"Aw...my boss is gonna kill me!"

He kneels down and begins picking up coins, hoping he looks really pathetic.

He must, because she only watches for a few seconds before coming over to help.

"Thanks. This is a whole morning's work here."

She crouches down, picking up a quarter. "What did you say your name was?"

He checks for witnesses. A guy on the end of the street, walking past, not paying attention.

"Charles."

"And where do I know you from?"

She reaches out to hand him some coins. He snatches her wrist and yanks her to him, jabbing the needle home, hugging her close so to any casual observer it looks like an embrace.

She tries to twist, but he has sixty pounds on her and his hold has taken away her leverage. Leaving the syringe still sticking in her arm, he brings his hand up to the back of her head and crushes her face to his, drowning out the cry welling up inside her with a kiss.

He tastes fear. She has the nerve to try to bite him, and that gets him excited. He likes to bite too. He sinks his teeth into her lower lip, and then her body begins to relax.

Half pulling, half carrying, he gets her over to the truck. A cab rolls past, but doesn't slow down. Once she's in back, he handcuffs her to the metal bar he's bolted to his freezer. Then he removes the needle from her arm and puts it back in his pocket.

Theresa Metcalf shakes her head, as if she is trying to clear it. When she notices the handcuffs, she screams.

In the driver's seat, Charles flips on the music. A recorded pipe organ version of "The Candyman" trumpets through the speakers at full volume. He checks his mirrors and carefully backs out of the alley. She screams again, but he's confident that he's her only audience.

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream." He giggles.

Quite a day. Quite a day indeed. And quite a night it will be as well.

He's bought three new videotapes. He's planning on filling them all.

"Wait till we get back to my place," he tells T. Metcalf. "Then you'll have something to scream about."

She is too drowsy to hear him.

Chapter 8

HOW DID YOU KNOW," HERB SAID, smacking his lips, "that I was in the mood for candy?"

I glanced over at Benedict. He was clutching a bag of chocolate, eyes twinkling.

"Do you keep an emergency supply in your jacket?" I asked.

"Me? These are yours. They were on the seat."

"Where?"

"In your car here, on the passenger seat."

I started the Nova and frowned, puzzled.

"They're not mine. Was there a note?"

"Nope. Just candy. Maybe it was Don."

I shook my head and pulled out of the parking lot.

"Don left."

Benedict mulled it over, cradling the candy in his hand. "How do you feel about it?"

"I don't know."

"Did you love him?"

"I don't know."

"Do you miss him?"

"I don't know. Yes. Maybe. I'm not sure. No."

"Remind me never to get romantically involved with you."

I turned left on Jackson and headed toward Mercy Hospital, where Herb had traced the Seconal prescription and where the late Dr. Booster had kept an office until the ninth of August. The Booster case was still listed as open, even though the investigation had gone cold. The detective in charge was a Palatine cop named Evens. Herb had left him a message, telling him to get in touch.

"So who gave you the candy?"

I shrugged. "Haven't the slightest. Maybe someone put it in my car by accident."

"Accidents like that never happen to me."

"Have you checked your car? Maybe you have a bag too. Maybe your entire backseat is crammed full of chocolate products."

"Stop it. You're getting me excited."

I tried to think it through. My car was unlocked when we got in. Had I left it unlocked? I must have. How likely was it that someone broke into my car just to leave me candy? Especially in a police parking lot.

"Mind if I...?"

"Go right ahead."

Benedict ripped open the plastic bag and withdrew a mini bar, holding it up to his nose.

"Smells okay. I don't think they're laced with arsenic."

"Would that even matter to you?"

"Probably not."

My partner opened up the candy and popped the entire bar into his mouth. He chewed for almost a full minute, making cooing noises.

"Maybe it was Bill, in Evidence." Benedict's mouth was still half full. "He's always been sweet on you. This could be his way of expressing his love."

"Bill is almost seventy."

"Beggars can't be choosers, Jack. Want one?"

"I'll pass. But feel free."

He grunted a thanks and opened another.

"There's no one you know who would give you candy?"

"Nobody. I'm all alone in this big cruel world."

"Geez, Jack. That's really sad."

"If there were an award for the world's biggest loser, I wouldn't even win that."

"At least you don't dwell on it."

I hit the gas and cruised through an intersection just as a yellow light was turning red. It was an unnecessary risk, but I didn't get to be a lieutenant in the male-dominated world of Chicago law enforcement without taking chances.

"You could try Lunch Mates," Herb said.

"What?"

"It's a dating service."

"Jesus."

"I'm serious." He took a bite of the candy, smacking appreciatively. "You make an appointment to meet with an agent and answer questions about yourself. Then they arrange for you to meet for lunch with a compatible man. It's all prearranged so there's no pressure."

"I could also meet men by putting on some hot pants and walking along Twenty-third and Stony. At least I'd be the payee instead of the payer."

Benedict popped the rest of the chocolate into his mouth.

"I just read an article about it in the Chicago Reader. It seems like a good idea."

"Only weirdos meet people like that."

"Not at all. Just people with full-time careers who are sick of the bar scene."

"They'd match me with some weirdo."

"I think that both parties have to agree to meet before the lunch takes place. What have you got to lose?"

"My dignity, my self-respect..."

"Bullshit. You don't have any dignity or self-respect."

"Jesus."

I hung a left and swung into the parking lot of Mercy, where I parked in a loading zone. As Benedict and I extracted ourselves from the less-than-spacious confines of my beater, a parking lot attendant sauntered over, oozing attitude. I flashed my badge. Instant respect.

We strolled up to the doctors' building, a large oppressive brick edifice that competed for the ugly award with the equally oppressive hospital. They stood side by side, large and brown, with crumbling brickwork and rusty fire escapes. Chicago was a city filled with great architecture, but every garden had a few weeds.

"I see you couldn't leave your compulsion behind," I said to Herb, indicating the candy in his hands.

"I was thinking about passing it around the children's ward. That is, if you don't mind."

"Not at all. I must say I'm touched by your unselfish nature."

"Bernice says if I gain any more weight, she's cutting off the nookie."

"The No Nookie Diet."

It was a welcome shock to find the interior of the doctors' building both brightly lit and pleasant. After consulting the front desk, we were directed to the fifth floor.

Dr. Booster had been a general practitioner. He shared an office with Dr. Emilia Kuzdorff and Dr. Ralph Potts, an OB-GYN and a pediatrician, respectively. We got into the elevator with an attractive blond woman and her sniffling daughter. Watching the child sniffle made me aware that I had a slight runny nose as well. Serves me right for not dressing properly.

I searched my pocket for a Kleenex -- while on the job, I didn't carry a purse. Too cumbersome. That's why I favored blazers with big pockets. Today I was wearing a gray Donna Karan and a matching skirt, with a blue blouse and black flats. Heels were another hindrance to the job.

Sadly, my pockets were without any tissue. I briefly considered using Benedict's tie, which was a green-and-orange-striped monstrosity that was too wide by at least thirty years. It was also covered with chocolate stains. Herb may be out of style, but he's messy to make up for it.

Benedict must have guessed my intent, because he produced a pack of tissue from his pocket for me.

We located office 514 with no major difficulties. Dr. Booster's name was still on the plaque next to the door. The waiting room was full of screaming children and frustrated mothers. I approached the front desk and got the attention of a nurse.

"I'm Lieutenant Daniels. This is Detective Benedict. We have a few questions concerning Dr. Booster."

She looked up at me with the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. It took me a moment to realize they must be contacts.

"Have you caught him?"

"No, ma'am. Not yet. You knew Dr. Booster?"

"I worked for him for seven years. He was a good doctor. He didn't deserve that."

"Can I get your name, ma'am?" Benedict had his notepad already in hand.

"Rastitch. Maria Rastitch."

The phone rang. She picked it up, said a few words, and transferred the call.

"We're hoping to look at a patient list."

"We already supplied that other officer with a list."

Which we'd seen. There was no Charles Smith. No one even had Charles as a first name.

"We wanted to see a list that cross-referenced names with prescriptions. Dr. Booster wrote out a prescription for a large amount of Seconal before he died. Were any of his patients taking Seconal?"

She frowned and swiveled her chair over to the computer. After a few seconds of punching keys she shook her head.

"Nope. No Seconal."

Benedict said, "How about patients of Dr. Kuzdorff and Dr. Potts?"

"This includes them. There's no one. Years ago we used Seconal for sleep disorders, but flurazepam is the preferred method of treatment now."

"Do you have copies of all Dr. Booster's prescriptions?"

"The ones he fills out here, yes. It would be on the computer. Our database lets us pull information by patient name, social security number, illness, visitation date, appointment date, and prescription."

"Is it possible that the doctor wrote a prescription after office hours?"

"For Seconal? It would be odd. It's a Control two drug. I don't see why he would prescribe it at all, in the office or out of it."

"But it's possible?"

"Sure. All he'd need is the prescription paper."

"Doesn't the pharmacy call here to confirm prescriptions?"

"Sometimes. But if it's after office hours, they may fill it without calling. The hospital pharmacy never calls. The pharmacists there know all of the doctors."

I handed her my card.

"Thank you, Ms. Rastitch. Please call if you think of anything that may help. If it isn't too inconvenient, we'd like to speak to a few other employees."

"Not at all. I'll announce you."

Herb and I spent another hour talking to Booster's staff and fellow doctors. They all echoed what the green-eyed nurse had said. No one knew why Booster would write a prescription for Seconal, and no one knew any patient who took it.

But Booster had written the prescription, as confirmed by the Illinois Department of Regulations, and someone calling himself Charles Smith had filled it and presumably used it in the abduction of our Jane Doe. If no one in Booster's office remembered him, maybe the pharmacist who filled the prescription would.

Benedict and I left the doctors' building, walking over to its ugly twin, where the hospital pharmacy lay in wait. There was a line. But one of the many perks of having a badge was the ability to bypass lines. This seemed toirritate the dozen people we cut in front of, but you can't please all the people all the time.

The pharmacist looked like I'd picture a pharmacist to look: balding, fortyish, WASP, with glasses and a white coat. His name was Steve, and he informed us he'd been working there for three years.

"Were you working here last August tenth?"

He double-checked his schedule and informed us that yes, he was indeed working that day.

"Do you remember filling out a prescription for sixty milliliters of liquid Seconal on that date?"

His brown eyes lit up. "Yes. Yes, I do. It practically depleted our stock."

"Could you describe what the individual looked like?"

He furrowed his brow. "It was a man, I remember that much. But what he looked like? I'm drawing a blank. I fill hundreds of prescriptions a day, and that was two months ago."

"Was there anything unusual about his appearance? Very tall or short, old or young, skin color, eyes?" Herb asked.

"I think he was white. Not old or young. But I'm not sure."

"Was he a hunchback?" I asked, bringing up the FBI's profile.

Benedict shot me a glance, but honored my rank by not questioning me in front of a civilian.

"You mean like Quasimodo?" Steve asked.

I felt silly, but nodded.

"No, I would have remembered it if he was."

"Did he also get syringes with the Seconal?"

"I'm not sure. Let me check."

He went to his computer and hit a few keys.

"Here's the prescription." Steve pointed at his screen. "Under the name Charles Smith. He isn't listed anywhere else in our computer. No needles, either. All he got from us was the Seconal."

"Do you have the original handwritten prescription?"

"Nope. We throw them away at the end of the week."

"How do you know if a prescription is real or faked?"

"I suppose it's possible to counterfeit prescriptions, but who else but a doctor would know how many mgs of tetracycline are used to fight a respiratory infection? As for the Class B and C drugs, the ones that could be sold on the street, we call on them."

"Did you call for this one?"

"No. I remembered considering it, but it was eight in the evening and Dr. Booster's office was closed. I also recognized Dr. Booster's signature. Even though the amount was strange, it seemed authentic."

I sniffled, puzzling it over.

"Catching a cold?" Steve asked.

"Not on purpose."

"I'd suggest an over-the-counter antihistamine. Stay away from nasal sprays. They're addictive."

"I'll keep that in mind." I handed him my card. "If it's convenient I'd like you to come in after work today and sit down with a police artist. See if we can get a picture of this guy."

"I really don't remember him."

"Our artist is good at helping people remember. This is extremely important, Steve. This Charles Smith has been linked to the brutal murders of two people. Anything at all you can give us is more than we had before."

He nodded, promising to stop by. Herb and I left to the sour looks of the people we'd cut in front of. One old woman in particular gave me a sneer that could curdle milk. I considered sneering back, but that would be petty. We left the hospital without incident.

"What about the candy?" I asked Benedict when we got into my car. "What happened to giving it to sick kids?"

"I decided that candy is bad for the teeth and generally all-around unhealthy. Not something sick kids should be exposed to."

"How gallant of you, bearing that unhealthy burden all yourself."

"Want one?"

"Yeah. If you can part with it."

"Just one. I'm looking out for your health, Jack."

He handed me a candy bar and I pulled out of the parking lot. Keeping one hand on the wheel, I tore the wrapper off with my teeth and was about to pop it into my mouth when Herb yelped.

At first I thought he was vomiting.

But it wasn't vomit.

It was a lot of blood.

Chapter 9

HERB GOT ELEVEN STITCHES IN THE mouth. A shot of Novocain made it painless, but watching the curved needle stitch in and out of his squirming tongue was torture to see. I could have waited by the emergency room entrance, but I wanted to witness what some sick bastard had done to my friend.

"Thanth." Benedict nodded at the doctor when the last knot was tied.

I eyed the bloody candy bar in the metal tray next to Herb's bed. The edge of an X-Acto knife peeked out through the caramel, shining in the fluorescent light.

"One more favor, Doc. I know this is unorthodox, but I don't have access to an X-ray machine at the station."

I explained my request and he agreed, sending me and Herb out into the waiting room. While Benedict filled out forms, I went through my mental files of all the enemies I'd made throughout my life.

There were more than I'd care to mention. Anyone I'd ever busted from my patrol days up until now could have nursed a grudge. I've also pissed off a few people in my personal life. But I couldn't think of anyone, even murderers I'd put away who swore they'd break out and kill me, who would leave me such a horrible gift.

It could have been just bad luck. Some random freak I never met decides to express his hatred for cops by dropping off treats in the police parking lot. But an earlier call to the district killed that theory. No one else seemed to have gotten candy. I faced the disturbing truth that it was meant for me specifically.

"How about rethent catheth?" Herb asked.

"Recent cases?"

He nodded. Herb's lower lip had swelled up from the stitches, causing him to pout. His tongue was also swollen, making him look like his mouth was full. But a full mouth was the normal look for Herb, so it didn't detract too much.

"The only cases we've had in the last few weeks are gang deaths and suicides. Except the Gingerbread Man case. But how would he even know who I am?"

"Newth?"

"I don't think I've been mentioned in the news."

He shrugged. A line of drool was running down his chin; Herb was still too numb to feel it. I made the universal wiping motion on my own face, and he got the hint and cleaned himself off.

"Do you want to keep our appointment with Dr. Booster's daughter, or call it a day?"

"Bootherth daubder."

I nodded, glancing to the right as Benedict's doctor approached. In one gloved hand was the bag of candy bars. In the other was a manila folder.

"This may sound callous," he said, handing us the folder, "but you got very lucky. Not only could it have been much worse, but it might have been fatal. I've never seen anything like this."

I opened the folder, taking a look at an X ray of the twenty-one remaining candy bars, including the one I'd almost bitten into.

"Jethuth," Herb said.

"We counted over forty needles, thirty fishhooks, and ten X-Acto blades." The doctor shook his head. "Only one candy out of the bunch was untampered with. If a hook or a blade got lodged in the throat, it might have easily severed an artery."

I stared mutely at the X ray, feeling myself grow very cold. Someone had spent a long time doctoring up this candy. Hours. I tried to imagine that person, hunched over a table, inserting fishhooks into chocolate bars. All this trouble, hoping I'd eat just one. Or maybe hoping I'd pass them out to people. I thought about Herb, almost dropping off the candy at the children's ward. Both my hands clenched.

"So, Doctor"--I tried to keep a lid on my rage -- "if we find the person who did this, in your professional opinion, could we charge him or her with attempted murder?"

"Lieutenant, there's no question in my mind. I would say that you'd have a better chance of surviving a gunshot than one of these candy bars."

I thanked him, making sure I got his card in case we needed to talk again. Herb and I walked out to the parking lot in silence, leaving Mercy Hospital for the second time that day.

"Lunch?" I asked.

Benedict nodded. Eleven stitches in the mouth weren't nearly enough to stop him from eating.

Before we ate, we stopped at Herb's house so he could get cleaned up. I waited in the car. I liked Bernice, his wife, but her idea of small talk was asking dozens of personal questions, none of which I felt like answering at the moment.

When Herb came out, his bloody shirt had been replaced and he wore a new tie, this one too thin by at least twenty years.

We went to a sub place, where I got a meatball sandwich and Herb got a hoagie with double meat and cheese.

"How is it?" I asked.

Benedict shrugged. "I can't tathte anything. But it smellth great."

After feeding ourselves, we headed for Reginald Booster's house in Northwest suburban Palatine. To do that we had to get on Interstate 90 going west. It was also called the Kennedy. The other big expressways in Chicago were the Edens, the Eisenhower, and the Dan Ryan. Naming them after politicians didn't make them any more endearing.

The Kennedy had been under construction for the last two years, so the normally awful traffic was twice as bad. But then there has never been a time when at least one expressway wasn't being repaired. "Expressway" was a misnomer.

Even with my cherry on the roof and the siren wailing, I couldn't get past the single-lane traffic. Driving up on the median was another perk of being a cop, but the medians were swarming with construction workers and yellow machines. I beared it, but I didn't grin.

Benedict went over the file with me as we drove, his lisp improving as he practiced his enunciation. On August 9, a person or persons unknown broke into Dr. Reginald Booster's house at 175 Elm Avenue in Palatine. Booster lived there alone, his wife having passed away three years earlier in a car accident. The perp tied up Dr. Booster and slit his throat. Before death, he was stabbed in the chest and abdomen area twelve times, not deeply enough to kill.

The reason I'd recalled Booster's name was that he was all over the news as the "Palatine Torture-Murder." The media loves a torture-murder.

Booster's body was discovered the next day by a weekly maid. There was no sign of anything stolen. No suspects, no witnesses, no apparent motive.

"What was he tied up with?" I asked Benedict.

He flipped through the report. "Twine."

Twine fibers were found embedded in Jane Doe's wrists and ankles. A possible link.

"Was the weapon serrated?"

"No. The wounds were smooth. But they weren't as deep as the girl's."

I thought about this. "The jagged edge on a hunting knife, it doesn't start until a few inches up on the blade. At the tip, it's like a double-edged knife."

"So it could be the same knife."

"How did he get in?"

"Means of entry unknown. Place was locked when the maid arrived. She had a key."

"Did they run that angle?"

"To death. The maid, no pun intended, was clean. In her deposition, she mentioned Booster sometimes kept his patio door open at night to let the breeze in."

That struck me as odd, but I was a city girl. Suburbanites didn't have a lock-and-key mentality. Pay half a million for a house in a nice neighborhood and you figure crime will never happen to you.

"No prints at the scene, right?"

"No. But a few smudges on his body that could indicate latex gloves."

"Does the daughter live there now?"

"Nope. She lives in Hoffman Estates. She's a kindergarten teacher."

"Brave woman," I said, recalling all of the screaming children back at the doctor's office.

"So what was that bit with Quasimodo at the pharmacy?"

"Oh. That was Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber."

"The Feebies?"

"They're profiling again."

Herb shook his head. He'd had some run-ins with the Federales last year on a murder case. Sixteen-year-old girl shot in the head, the same MO as another murder in Michigan. The FBI BSU ViCAT profile predicted the killer was a sixty-year-old white male truck driver, former enlisted man, bearded, and a bed-wetter.

The perp turned out to be two clean-shaven black gang members under eighteen, with no military experience between them, both untroubled by enuresis. Neither Herb nor I had much faith in profiling. In fact, neither of us had much faith in the FBI.

"So they profiled the Gingerbread Man with a curved spine."

"It's just a hunch," I said.

Herb didn't laugh at the joke either, but at least he got it.

"Well, maybe we'll get an ID now," Herb said. "People are bound to recognize the name Quasimodo."

"Why is that?"

"Because he rings a bell."

I winced.

"That one actually hurt."

"Well, Hugo your way, and I'll go mine."

"Let's not talk for a while."

We came to a toll booth and I found forty cents in change in my ashtray. State troopers didn't have to pay tolls, but us lowly city cops weren't immune. Yet another reason to avoid the suburbs.

The Kennedy intersected Route 53 with the usual cloverleaf, and I took the leaf going north toward Rolling Meadows. Finally out of construction traffic, I released some pent-up tension and gunned the engine. It didn't startle Herb too much. Probably because the acceleration on my Nova was comparable to pushing a boulder up a hill.

Palatine Road going west took us off the expressway and into the heart of middle-American suburbia. I drove past housing developments, and strip malls, and shopping centers, and more housing developments, and a strip mall development, and finally found Elm Street without difficulty.

It was a little before two o'clock when we pulled into Dr. Booster's driveway, sandwiched between two mature spruces. The house was two stories and brown, partially obscured by an overgrowth of trees and bushes that needed trimming. The unkempt lawn was covered with brown leaves, and they crunched underfoot as we walked up to the front door.

Melissa Booster answered after the first knock, apparently having seen our approach. She was robust -- add a hundred pounds to Rubenesque and you'd have her figure. I suppose the PC term would be glandularly imbalanced or calorically challenged. She wore a red housedress that hung on her like a set of drapes. Her makeup was simple and expertly applied, and her brown eyes crinkled at us through the layers of doughy skin that made up her face. Her three chins waggled in a cheerful smile and she invited us in.

"Sorry we're late." I offered my hand. "I'm Lieutenant Daniels, this is Detective Benedict."

"No apologies needed, Lieutenant. It's been a while since the police have contacted me. I'm happy to know the search is still on."

She spoke in the singsong voice that people used when reading to children. I suppose that being around five-year-olds all the time made it hard to switch off. We followed her to the living room, where she sat us on a sofa in front of a dusty table and waddled off to the kitchen, insisting on getting us coffee.

Herb nudged me quietly. "That's a whole lot of woman."

"Spoken by a man with a forty-six-inch waist."

"Are you referring to my washboard stomach?"

"Don't you mean washtub stomach? Shh, she's bringing doughnuts."

Melissa Booster returned, carrying two mugs of coffee on top of a Dunkin" Donuts box.

"I hope I'm not offending you." She handed me a cup.

"Miss?"

"With the cop/doughnut thing. I don't want to play on a stereotype."

"No offense at all." I smiled.

"Got any jellies?" Benedict reached for the box. He fished out something sticky and emitted a satisfied grunt. Other people would be wary of food after taking a bite out of an X-Acto knife blade, but not Herb.

"I'm sorry about the house." Melissa plopped her bulk down on the love seat opposite us. The framework screamed in protest. "The maid never came back after finding Dad dead, and things have gotten dusty. This is the first time I've been back myself. I guess enough time has passed, but I've kept putting it off. Any new news?"

"Possibly. We're following a lead on another case that may be related. Did your father ever fill out prescriptions off duty?"

"Sure. Whenever there was a family get-together he brought his prescription pad with him. Half the hypochondriacs in Illinois are related to me. That's probably why Dad became a doctor."

"What did he prescribe for family members?"

"The usual. Painkillers, sleeping pills, laxatives, cold medication, acne cream, birth control, all the standards. The current hot ones were Propecia and Viagra. He didn't seem to mind the family doing it to him. Both my grandmothers thought he was a saint."

Benedict finished enough of his doughnut to aid in the inquiries.

"Did he ever prescribe injectionals?"

"You mean like for diabetics?"

"Any at all."

"Not to my family. Most of my relatives would faint at the thought of getting a shot."

I sneezed thoughtfully, if such a thing is possible.

"How about Seconal?" I asked. "It's a powerful sedative, like Valium."

"Not to our family. Not that I know of."

"We believe your father may have written a very large prescription for Seconal the night he died, possibly for someone who knew him. Do you know anyone named Charles or Chuck?"

"Sorry, no."

"Any relative with that name, or friend of your father's?"

"No. Not that I know of."

"Ms. Booster..."

"Melissa."

"Melissa, this is a hard question, but do you think there was any chance that your dad may have been selling prescriptions?"

She shook her head, as if saying no to a child. "Dad? No way. Look around you. It's a nice house, but not extravagant. My father made good money, but it's all accounted for. He lived within his means. Besides, Dad just wasn't like that. I had it drilled into my head from a baby on that medication and drugs were very serious and dangerous."

She reached into the doughnut box and removed a powdered, biting into it gently.

"Would he have had a prescription pad in the house?"

"Probably. His desk is in the den. Would you like to see it?"

"Please."

Melissa placed the doughnut on the table and rocked twice on the sofa, pulling up her considerable body on the third try. We followed as she waddled to the den, down a hallway, and into a room the size of a large closet.

"Actually, this is just a large closet," Melissa said. "Dad put a desk in here and it became the den."

She didn't enter, probably because if she did, she wouldn't have room to turn around. I thanked her and went in alone, leaving Herb behind to small talk.

The desk was old and bore the traits of many years of faithful use. It was a rolltop, with five drawers and half a dozen cubbyholes to squirrel away bills or mail. I gave it a quick toss, finding a lot of junk for my efforts, but no prescription pad.

"A prescription pad wasn't listed as items in evidence taken during the original investigation, was it?"

Benedict glanced at me and shook his head, then resumed his conversation with Melissa. They were talking, go figure, about food.

I went to the file cabinet next to the desk and commenced a once-over, finding tax forms, a few medical charts, and a smattering of appliance instruction manuals. No prescription pad.

"Pardon me." I interrupted an argument about stuffed pizza. "But which room was your father's body found in?"

"In the master bedroom. It's down the hall and up the stairs to the right. If you don't mind, I really don't want to go in there."

"I understand."

Herb gave me a look, but I shook my head, indicating he didn't have to tag along. I found the bedroom without difficulty. It was large, with two picture windows, a king-size four-poster bed, and a matching armoire and dresser. The curtains, bedding, and carpeting were all color coordinated, tan and dark brown.

The bed was unmade. Next to it was a chair, part of the bedroom set where Mrs. Booster would sit and do her makeup, and where Dr. Booster was bound and murdered. The Palatine PD had taken the twine used to tie him, but the chair remained, still stained with blood. The carpet under it was equally stained, brown and splotchy.

If Booster was found here, chances were good this was where he wrote the prescription. I checked the top dresser drawer.

Sitting on top of some underwear, waiting for me, was a prescription pad and a pen. Using a pair of tweezers I keep in my jacket for this purpose, I picked up the pen and placed it in a plastic bag, which I also keep in my jacket. Then I tweezed the prescription pad, holding it up to the light. The top sheet had indentations on it, left over from the pressure of the pen used to write the previous prescription.

If I wanted to play Sherlock Holmes, I could lightly rub a pencil over the paper. The lead would fall into the depressions, giving me a readable impression of the missing sheet above it.

But the lab boys would have fits if I did that. These days, infrared do-hickies and other complex stuff could read it without getting graphite all over everything. I bagged the pad and went through the rest of the drawers, searching for other clues. I came up empty, but the little optimistic knot in my belly refused to go away.

Downstairs, Herb and Melissa were in a heated discussion about where to get the best chili dogs. I butted in, sharing my discovery and promptly giving Melissa a receipt for the items I took.

"So he was killed for a lousy prescription?" Her eyes glassed over and she began to sob. Two months wasn't enough time to get over the death of a parent. Some people never get over it.

Benedict, having shared his thoughts on food, now shared a hug with the young woman. She calmed some, and even managed a watery smile in the middle of her tears.

"Please find the man who killed my daddy."

I could have said "We'll do our best" or "We'll stay in touch." But instead, I nodded and replied, "We will."

Then Benedict and I got back into my car and began the long and tedious trip back to Chicago.

Chapter 10

AT 2:35 THAT AFTERNOON THERESA METCALF regains consciousness.

Then he begins.

He tries many new things.

By 5:15 she can't scream anymore.

By 6:45 she's finally dead.

Chapter 11

THE FBI WAS WAITING TO SHOW me more paperwork when we got back to the station. Benedict had deserted me, electing to bring both the lethal candy and the pad and pen to the lab. Occupying my office without permission was annoying enough, but Special Agents Heckle and Jeckle had also appropriated my desk.

"Good news, Lieutenant," Dailey said. "The ViCAT computer has given us a list of possible suspects."

I frowned. "That's my desk."

They looked at each other, then back at me. I wondered if they practiced that move at home.

"There isn't any other place to put all of this data."

I knew a place they could put it, but I played nice and resisted the urge to tell them.

"I need some coffee." I turned around, intending to leave. There was an excellent coffee place on the other side of town.

"Got some." Dailey opened his briefcase, on my desk, and took out two polished aluminum canisters. "Regular or unleaded?"

Both Coursey and Dailey chuckled. Exactly three chuckles each, and then they stopped simultaneously. Eerie.

"Regular." I sighed, sitting in the chair opposite of mine.

Dailey took a Styrofoam cup from his briefcase and filled it with the steaming contents of container number one.

"Cream or sugar?"

I shook my head and forced a polite smile.

"Let's begin." Coursey cleared his throat, preparing for lecture mode. "There have been several terminal occurrences over the past ten --"

I had to interrupt. "Terminal occurrences?"

"Murders."

Jesus.

"As I was saying, there have been several terminal occurrences over the past ten years in the United States that may have possible connections to the Jane Doe found here two days ago."

Dailey jumped in. "Serial or recreational killers usually have distinct patterns and modus operandi that make it possible, with the help of Vicky --"

"Vicky?" I asked.

"The ViCAT computer."

"Ah."

"That make it possible, with Vicky's help, to find links between victims."

"You mean terminal occurrences," I corrected.

"Exactly."

I sipped my coffee, and noted with annoyance that it was very good.

"You read through our report on why we believe the perp is organized rather than unorganized, correct?"

"Absolutely." I recalled dropping it in the garbage on the way to my car.

"Here's another report, a list of related crimes that Vicky has linked with the pattern established by our RK here."

"RK?"

"Recreational Killer."

"Ah."

I wondered if there was a special branch of the FBI whose sole function was to make up acronyms.

"Vicky has also listed probability percentile rankings."

Dailey nodded smartly, as if waiting for a cookie or a pat on the head. They must have taken my silence for deep thought, because they waited patiently for me to say something before they went on.

"Mmm," I said.

They went on.

"There are seven possible connections on this list."

"We'll give them to you in ascending order of probability."

"First, on May first in 1976 in Hackensack, New Jersey, there was a double shotgun homicide where the suspect was unknown."

I wouldn't be baited.

"What's the connection, you're thinking?" Dailey asked.

Actually, I was thinking that once, when I was younger, I had actually considered joining the FBI. We're all entitled to moments of stupidity, I suppose.

"The connection is that after the murders, the bodies were mutilated," Coursey said.

"With a fork," Dailey added.

"Six point three percent probability it's the same guy." Coursey nodded smartly. I think they practiced nodding smartly in the mirror.

I rubbed my eyes, getting some eyeliner on my fingers. For what I paid for eyeliner, it shouldn't come off that easily.

"Gentlemen, I have a lot of work to do. If you'll just leave the paperwork, I'll go over it as soon as I can."

"Your captain assured us that you'd give us your full cooperation, Lieutenant."

"And I intend to, Agent Dailey."

"I'm Coursey."

"I intend to, Agent Coursey. But my captain also expects me to have all of my reports done on time. I have a backlog of six cases I still haven't transferred, and there were two more shooting deaths in my district last night that need to be attended to."

"Were those shotgun deaths?" Coursey raised his eyebrows.

"No. Now thanks for your help, but right now I've got other things to do."

I stood up. Dailey and Coursey did their looking at each other thing, and then got to their feet as well.

"I just hope we treat you with greater courtesy when the jurisdiction for this case is turned over to us." Dailey nodded curtly.

Coursey added a curt nod of his own.

"I'm sure you will." I walked around my desk and sat down in my chair, which was unpleasantly warm. They gathered up their respective papers and headed for the door, but a lingering thought made me stop them.

"Guys -- your computer, Vicky, does it handle more than just terminal occurrences?"

"Yes. It is also a nationwide database for felonies such as rape, arson, and bank robberies."

"How about poisoning? Product tampering?"

They nodded as one. I told them about the package I'd gotten earlier, ending the story by showing them the lethal X ray.

"Would your computer be able to locate other tamperings like this one?"

"I believe so. Can we keep this?"

I nodded, giving them directions to the lab so they could check out the goods themselves. Maybe, for the first time, the FBI would help out rather than get in the way. Hope springs eternal.

I wasn't lying about the backlog of cases, and after making a few calls and filling out a few reports, I transferred them all so I could devote my full attention to the Jane Doe murder. Going over the case again from the beginning didn't yield any new information, but it helped me organize the info I did have.

Lab report pending, I was 99 percent sure that Dr. Booster and our Jane Doe had been killed by the same perp. He was calling himself the Gingerbread Man, and after forcing Booster to write him a prescription for Seconal, he used it to abduct Jane Doe.

The note and the cookie were messages to the police, and there was a good indication that there would be more deaths. Sixty mls of Seconal was enough to knock out twenty to thirty people. Why ask for that much if he didn't intend to use it?

I scribbled a note to myself to call the DEA and check to see if they had any stats on Seconal ODs. I also wanted to call up Vice and see if Seconal had been used in any recent rapes. Jane Doe may be the first murder, but she may not be the first person our perp used Seconal on.

I picked up the packet of pictures from the crime scene and looked through them for the hundredth time. Something in my subconscious made me linger on a photo of the girl in the garbage can, her rear end sticking out. I studied it further. There was garbage covering almost the whole body, except for the buttocks. But why so much garbage, if it hadn't been in the can for more than an hour or two?

Maybe he arranged the garbage like that. Almost as if he were saying that he threw away a piece of ass. The FBI called it posing, and I was surprised I hadn't received a lecture on that as well. Positioning the body like this was the perp's way of showing how clever he was, and how much contempt he had for the victim. So did he take the time to do this in plain sight, or...

I picked up the report with the itemized list of all the garbage found in the can with the body. Mixed in with the cans and bags and wrappers and bottles were twelve receipts. The prices on the receipts were noted on the list, but not what I was after.

I picked up the phone and called Evidence.

"Bill? Jack Daniels."

Bill had been caretaker of the evidence room since I was a rookie. He was older than God.