You Can’t Stop Me

Chapter Twelve

At 10:45 P.M., J.C. Harrow — in front of a rambling one-story stucco home in Placida, Florida — was lit by spots mounted atop a Crime Scene! bus. Maury Hathaway had his camera on sticks with the teleprompter below the lens. Nancy Hughes stood nearby with the boom, though Harrow held a microphone with the UBC logo on it, more for show than necessity; the sound person’s headset allowed her to communicate with the crew in the production half of the semi nearby.

Next to cameraman Hathaway, perched atop the wooden box (an “apple box,” in the trade), a wide-screen monitor allowed Harrow to see himself standing there in HD glory, his gray suit crisp, his white shirt open at the throat, but despite expert make-up, he could see the tiredness in his face, and the additional white working into his dark brown hair. To him, he appeared far more than a mere year older than when the show had premiered last season.

He had already been on briefly, at the top of the hour, to give a general introduction to tonight’s show before tossing the baton to Carlos Moreno, who’d guided the first forty-five minutes of the program through four other crimes, each segment hosted by another Crime Seen! reporter. With the exception of Moreno, all of these were canned, even the segment-host wraparounds pre-recorded.

“On-air feed!” Hughes announced.

The picture on the monitor switched to a commercial in progress, followed by the familiar Crime Seen! title card, over which was suddenly stamped a severe stenciled Killer TV logo — tinny audio, piped on set, made the mysterious, synthesizer-heavy theme seem a little silly to Harrow.

Carmen Garcia’s voice, a confident contralto, spoke over the title card: “Tonight we debut Crime Seen!’s Killer TV segment...”

A publicity shot of Harrow filled the screen.

“...with host J.C. Harrow on the road in Placida, Florida...”

Helicopter shots of quiet little Placida by day rolled across the monitor.

And now Carmen filled the screen, her attractive office-worker demeanor replaced by the glamorous aura of a star worthy of a TV Guide feature article (see this week’s issue). She wore a black suit with a white silk blouse, unbuttoned just enough. Her dark hair was perfectly coiffed, and her makeup looked invisible (thank you, Hair and Makeup Department).

Positioned in front of the Crime Seen! semi-trailer, a Killer TV logo prominent to her one side, she spoke into her own UBC handheld microphone: “This quiet village was the scene of a tragedy that our forensics investigators have tied to the similarly tragic crime out of which Crime Seen! itself emerged.”

Under that had played file footage from Des Moines Channel 8 of police outside the Harrow home on that terrible night. The host glanced away as Carmen’s voice continued.

An assistant director, also with a headset, had a pointing finger held upward, like a starting gun, waiting as Carmen said, “And now, here is your host, J.C. Harrow...”

The AD’s pointing finger aimed itself at Harrow.

“For there to be a war on crime,” Harrow said, invoking the catchphrase he’d made famous on Crime Seen!, “we must all be warriors... Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.”

Last year, he had worked hard, with the help of many behind the scenes, to combine a serious, almost grave demeanor with a confident, somewhat affable vocal tone.

“I know there are a lot of expectations about what’s been happening this summer, and what we’ll be doing with our new Killer TV segment this fall.”

Looking right through the camera, Harrow said, “Public response has been mostly favorable, from snail mail to blogs to Twitter... and we thank you for that. But there’s been criticism too.”

Harrow turned left, where Arroyo’s camera (and another prompter) waited, providing a tighter shot. “I’ve been accused of exploiting the deaths of my wife and son... out of a desire for fame, or in a misguided effort to keep my loved ones ‘alive.’”

In Harrow’s earpiece, director Stu Phillips in New York whispered: “Make them wait for it, J.C.”

Finally Harrow said, “You may be right.” His smile was sad — that it was intentionally so made it no less real. “And I can guarantee my wife would be offended, if I turned this into a media circus.”

In cameraman Arroyo’s ear, director Phillips said, “Go in tighter, Leon... nice and tight...”

“On the other hand, I believe Ellen would support me — does support me — in bringing our son’s murderer to justice. She would encourage me to do everything in my power to do that — and David would feel the same, where his mom was concerned.”

His eyes were tear-filled. Though he was reading the words, words he had only co-scripted, the emotion was genuine.

“And until we have their killer or killers, I promise you this — I will not speak to you of my family again.”

Harrow turned back to Hathaway’s camera position, who was ready with an even tighter close-up.

“I understand that some of you may find what we’re doing distasteful, and if we offend you, turn us off, switch the channel... but as you do, ask yourself — would you do any less for your family?”

The monitor revealed that the director in New York had cut away to a pre-recorded wide shot of the ranch-style home at night with lovely palm trees and a full moon touched by dark smoky clouds providing a picturesque, vaguely film noir effect.

Over this image Harrow was saying, “Carmen, could you bring us up to speed?”

Back on camera at the semi-trailer, Carmen said, “Thank you, J.C. Over the summer, our Crime Seen! team has been very busy following leads.”

Dingle was waiting with hand-held to follow her up the stairs of the trailer and inside. A pan of the lab revealed bustling activity within, staged but convincing (Carmen had spent much of the previous afternoon rehearsing her forensics stars, much to their dismay).

Nearest was Michael Pall, sitting at a computer monitor. The diminutive DNA scientist wore a white lab coat with his name on the left breast over the UBC logo set within a magnifying glass (Harrow had put his foot down, and the Killer TV logo was conspicuously MIA). Under the lab coat, Pall wore a light blue button-down dress shirt and a darker blue tie with a geometric pattern.

Carmen guided Pall down a path of easy questions concerning the DNA of the corn leaf found at the Ferguson crime scene. They were not on prompter, but the exchange was very much canned.

“Does that mean we know where the killer is from?”

“No,” Pall said, “that’s too big an assumption. But we’re making progress.”

“How so?”

“We know where in Kansas that particular corn seed was sold. It will help us narrow down where the killer might have traveled.”

“Anything else?”

Pall gestured toward a table on the other side of the lab, where Billy Choi sat at a computer screen displaying two bullets side by side. Under his UBC-insignia lab coat, Choi wore a navy blue T-shirt emblazoned with a huge badge and the words NYPD HOCKEY.

After introducing Choi as the resident firearms expert, Carmen said, “What’s the story of these bullets, Billy?”

Playing to the camera, Choi said, “These two slugs represent evidence developed using NIBIN.”

“NIBIN?”

“National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.”

“Which is?”

To Harrow, the pair seemed to be competing for the camera, trading smiles, but the audience probably thought they were just flirting a little.

Choi was saying, “NIBIN’s an imaging system and database of firearms-related evidence developed by the FBI and the ATF in partnership. Each had their own ballistics imaging programs — Drugfire at the FBI and IBIS at ATF — but NIBIN allows the two to communicate, and share information.”

“What have you learned using this technology?”

Choi pointed at the bullets on the screen, and the camera moved in, Harrow’s monitor filled now with the two bullets. “The bullet on the right came out of Stella Ferguson — from a nine-millimeter automatic, a completely different type of bullet than the one used in the murders at the Harrow home.”

“Does that mean different perpetrators in these two cases?”

“No, just that a different weapon was used. May or may not be the same killer, but there are significant similarities in the crimes... Still, the weapons don’t match.”

“To the layperson,” Carmen said, “these bullets look the same.”

“Actually, they’re not.”

As Dingle’s shot widened, Choi moved to another monitor, where a picture of a third bullet was waiting. “This slug came from Ellen Harrow. It’s bigger, the striations completely different.”

Looking at a bullet pried from his wife’s chest, televised or otherwise, sent acid rushing into Harrow’s stomach, and, involuntarily, he pictured his wife and son on the floor back in their home.

What was the son of a bitch who did it thinking, if he was watching this?

“What about the bullets on the other monitor?” Carmen was asking. “You said you had a match for one in the Ferguson murders — but not the Harrow case?”

“No,” Choi said. “This is new — that comes from a double murder in Rolla, North Dakota, two years ago.”

“Where has that led you?”

“Check back next week,” Choi said, delivering a scripted line very naturally.

The show was running smoothly, and Harrow was of course pleased.

But he also knew that by serializing this investigation on live TV, he was giving the killer a tutorial on what evidence they were finding, and how close they were coming to him. Of all the risks they were taking, this was the worst — instead of closing in on the killer, they might well drive him to ground, and never track the bastard down.

Carmen turned to camera and asked, “J.C., why didn’t the police in Florida pick up on this connection?”

Back on, Harrow said, “Carmen, they did run the bullets through NIBIN, but Rolette County in North Dakota — like many rural areas — hasn’t widely participated in the program. Only recently, through the state crime lab in Bismarck, did the information get into the database. The match we found has only been available for the last few weeks.”

“J.C.,” Carmen said casually, but scripted, “I understand you interviewed the surviving member of the Ferguson household.”

“Yes,” Harrow replied, framed against the stucco home in the moonlight, “this afternoon I spoke with Placida city marshal Ray Ferguson, here in his home.”

Microphone lowered, Harrow watched the monitor.

In a two-shot, sunlight filtering in sheer-curtained windows in the background, Harrow was seated in a straight-back chair facing a sofa where Ferguson sat.

Paunchier and generally older-looking than Harrow — though possibly as much as five years younger — Ferguson wore boots, jeans, and a blue denim shirt with a gold badge embroidered over the left breast. Jowly, with empty blue eyes and a wide nose, he had thin, bloodless lips over a strong chin.

“Marshal Ferguson, we’re sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ferguson said, with a tiny nod. His baritone was soft spoken, with a touch of drawl. “I consented to this, Mr. Harrow, because I know you suffered such yourself.”

“Marshal Ferguson, would you tell us about that night, almost a year ago to the day?”

Ferguson had been expecting the questions, but the words hit him like tiny punches. His eyes glazed over.

“Marshal, I apologize for my bluntness. But I have to ask.”

He nodded. “Well, after work, I came home, and the lights weren’t on. Which surprised me, ’cause it was well after dark. Stella’s car was in the driveway, and that was when I first got spooked, really spooked. Just knew something was wrong.”

“Go on.”

“Rest of the block was quiet, but what really shook me was that the lights, in the other houses? They were all on. I’d kinda hoped that somehow it was... you know... a power outage or some damn thing.”

As he watched the monitor, Harrow winced when a close cut to the marshal’s trembling hands in his lap underscored the man’s misery. His own hands began to tremble, and he marveled that he’d been able to summon his inner cop enough to conduct this interview.

“I just ran into the house,” Ferguson was saying. “Or anyway I did after I got the door unlocked, which was another thing — Stella never locked the door when she knew I was coming home.”

Neither had Ellen.

“I suppose,” the marshal said, “he locked up after himself, to keep somebody from discovering what he’d done too soon. Of course, he’d have known I’d have a key. Do you suppose he wanted me to find them, Mr. Harrow? Did he do the same to you?”

“Please go on, sir.”

“Sorry,” Ferguson said. “Anyway, I went in, and there they were... all dead. All lying in the entryway, like they were there to... greet me. But it wasn’t... wasn’t me, was it?”

“Then you called the sheriff’s office.”

“Yes, and they arrived within minutes. Coroner told me that Stella and the kids’d only been dead for about an hour. If I’d got home earlier that night...? Maybe they would still be alive.”

“Marshal, that kind of speculation doesn’t do any good. Did you get home at your regular time?”

“Right around. Not much to marshaling in Placida, Mr. Harrow.”

“Nothing unusual that day?”

“No. On the way home, though, I did have a traffic stop. Not that that’s unusual.”

Sitting forward, Harrow asked, “Did you tell the detectives about it?”

“Oh yeah,” Ferguson said. “Perfectly routine. Guy was a salesman from Tampa, just passing through. Sheriff’s office and state patrol both did an extensive investigation into the guy. It was nothing.”

Live again, Harrow brought up his mic and said, “We interviewed Marshal Ferguson for an hour, and, thanks to his years as a trained investigator himself, he shared with us several puzzle pieces that for now we must withhold... because we know that our audience very likely includes the perpetrator of these crimes. Carmen, I understand you have more to share now, with our team...”

And as the image on the monitor showed Carmen back in the mobile crime lab, where she was introducing the rest of the superstar criminalists, Harrow lowered his mic. The show’s sign-off would follow Carmen’s last mini-segment, and would be handled by Moreno, back in LA.

But Harrow’s on-air claim of Ferguson providing puzzle pieces hadn’t been TV hype.

In the Ferguson living room, the marshal — late in the interview — had frowned and said, “You know, Mr. Harrow, there was this one thing.”

“Yes, Mr. Ferguson?”

“While I had that first guy pulled over, another vehicle, a pickup truck, was coming from the direction of my house... and it slowed way down, and the guy gave me, you know, the old hairy eyeball as he went by.”

“You made eye contact?”

“Oh, yeah. Impossible not to. He knew he’d caught my attention.”

“Did you tell the detectives about the guy eyeballing you in the pick-up?”

“No, sir, I don’t believe so. I forgot all about it till just now.”

“Did you get a plate?”

“No, damn it. Couldn’t even tell you the state. Don’t even know for sure what the make was. But it was blue — light blue.”

“Sounds like you got a look at the driver.”

“Yeah, I saw him, all right. That SOB was trying to tell me something with his eyes. Like he was sending a goddamn message. Sorry. Didn’t mean to curse on TV.”

“That’s okay. Could you recognize him?”

“You bet your ass I could. Sorry.” The marshal sighed. “You know, in my day, I wrote more than my share of traffic tickets, ran down kids for doin’ the kinda shit kids do, even investigated a burglary or two.”

“Yes, sir?”

“But this is the first homicide I was ever involved with — my own wife and kids.”

“It might have been him, your eyeball pick-up truck?”

Ferguson nodded, his mouth and chin tight. “You know, I can’t explain why I forgot about that truck till now. Goddamn it!”

“We’ll get you with an artist,” Harrow said.

“Why did he do that, Mr. Harrow?”

“These killers all have their own tortured—”

“No, not that. Why did he have to mutilate her? Why cut off her damn... her sweet... finger?”

Harrow had no answer.

The interview had wrapped, and crew were tearing down as Harrow and Ferguson sat in the kitchen where Mrs. Ferguson had been killed. The two men had coffee in Styrofoam cups provided by a production assistant.

“Everybody knows your story, Mr. Harrow. While your family got shot, you were off savin’ the life of the President of the United States.”

“Don’t tell the Secret Service,” Harrow said, “but I’d trade him for them in a heartbeat.”

The marshal smiled at this bleak humor. “You’re better off than me, amigo. I was writin’ a goddamn traffic ticket, busting the ass of some salesman for goin’ forty-two in a thirty-mile zone.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And the goddamn murderer slowed down to watch me do it.”

Chapter Thirteen

Laurene Chase liked to sit in the back of the bus.

It tweaked her sense of irony, as a black lesbian who’d managed to survive and even thrive in Waco, Texas. Right now she had the aisle seat next to Carmen Garcia by the window, with Jenny Blake and Nancy Hughes across the way, as they headed for a town in North Dakota (were there towns in North Dakota?) called Rolla.

She held in her hands hard copy of material Jenny Blake had downloaded about the burg of fourteen hundred or so, which covered a scant mile and a quarter. Median income was just a shade over thirty thousand, meaning nearly twenty percent of the population lived below poverty level. One statistic stood out to Laurene: seven-tenths of 1 percent of the population was African-American.

Across the aisle Jenny was pounding at the laptop keyboard as if sending repeated SOS messages from a sinking ship. The petite blonde, hair pony-tailed back, wore jeans and a white T-shirt, the letters OMG printed on the front (the back, Laurene had previously noted, read: WTF).

Laurene asked, “How’s your math, Jen?”

Jenny reacted with her usual caught-in-the-head-lights freeze, fingers poised over the keyboard like gripping claws. “Okay.”

“Good, ’cause mine sucks. What’s seven-tenths of a percent of fourteen-hundred-seventeen?”

“About ten.”

Jenny had given up three whole words in the exchange. What did that make, in the three days they’d spent together on the bus, twenty-six words out of the cute little nerd?

Laurene settled back in the bus seat. So they were headed for a town with ten black people. Two-thirds of the populace was white, with nearly 30 percent Native American. Totals for Asians and Latinos were higher than blacks, with those listing their race as “other” outnumbering African-Americans three times over.

Suddenly, Waco seemed pretty damned progressive.

Sure as hell wouldn’t be a police force in Rolla, which meant they’d be dealing with the Rolette County sheriff, a thought that in itself made Laurene uneasy. She kept thumbing through the information, and when she read about the last sheriff being removed from office for gross misconduct, she immediately pictured a big old redneck John Madden-looking motherhumper, sweat stains in the pits of his dirt-brown uniform shirt, nose a mass of red veins below mirrored sunglasses and a campaign hat.

Then she laughed to herself, thinking, That’s me, just another progressive from Waco.

Laurene remembered what her mother had once said to her: God made us each in His own image, darling child. That’s why we are all completely different. Still wasn’t sure she understood that, but it often floated through her mind.

“Something funny?” Jenny asked, with just a little attitude.

Laurene, who’d been laughing to herself, held up a hand, like one of Rolla’s Indians saying, How.

“Not laughing at you, Jen,” Laurene said. “Just amused by my own dumb ass.”

From her window seat, where she’d been half-napping, Carmen Garcia looked over and asked, “Did I miss something, girls?”

Jenny, naturally, said nothing.

Next to her, the ponytail blonde, Nancy Hughes — who’d also been napping — came slowly awake and stretched.

“So,” Carmen said, looking over at Laurene, “spill it. What’s so funny?”

Shaking her head, Laurene said, “I was wondering how the folks in Rolla, North Dakota, are gonna react to me and Jenny here — the world’s most beautiful black Amazon, and a nearly mute blond girl wearing a T-shirt sayin’ Oh My God, What The Eff?”

Jenny looked injured, and Carmen frowned. Nancy wasn’t awake enough yet to have an opinion.

Laurene made a dismissive wave. “Jen... guys... I’m not making fun of anybody.”

Carmen said, “Kinda sounds like you are.”

“Well, maybe myself a little. The locals see my fine gay black ass, they are going to shit gold bricks, and start the gold rush all over again.”

That made Carmen laugh, Nancy too, and even Jenny managed a tiny smile.

“Hey,” Laurene said, “we’re all freaks to somebody.”

“You can’t just be figuring that out,” Nancy said.

But the other two had given all their attention over to Laurene, who not only was Harrow’s right hand, but the oldest and maybe wisest of them.

“I always lived my life the way I wanted,” she said, no laughter now. “Nobody could make me believe I was wrong — even when I was.”

That drew wry smiles out of Carmen and Nancy, though Jenny remained poker-faced.

“I really thought I was in charge of myself, if not my destiny — I mean, no cop thinks the world is anything but a random damn mine field. But I was in a relationship that was working, and I really thought I was the captain of that frickin’ ship too. Me and Patty. That was her name.”

Now it was Carmen and Nancy whose expressions had gone blank with the fear of getting too much information, while Jenny had tight eyes and a cocked head, like a dog just figuring out what those words its master had been blurting were all about.

“Since Patty died, though, I realize I wasn’t the one with the hand on the rudder. She’d been runnin’ things, all along. Made me think I was in charge. Out front, leading the way.” Laurene chuckled again, but this time there was no humor in it. “Leading the way? Hell, I lost my way.”

“We all do, time to time,” Nancy said, and Carmen nodded.

But Jenny said, bluntly, “I don’t.”

All eyes went to the petite computer guru.

“Never had a way,” she said with a shrug.

Laurene laughed. “That’s a good one, kid,” she said. “First joke I ever heard you crack.”

Jenny said, “Joke?”

Then the other three howled and, truth be told, Jenny was smiling herself, just a little.

They all rocked forward a little as the bus stopped. Looking past Carmen out the tinted window, Laurene made out a low, long building with a sign proclaiming they were parked by the Rolette County Sheriff’s Office.

In the aisle, Laurene Chase smoothed her blouse and pants with only moderate success, after ten hours on the bus, but for a couple of pee breaks. She slipped into a black Crime Seen! silk jacket, retrieved her carry-on-type bag from its perch, and headed for the front of the bus, Carmen and Nancy behind her, Jenny staying on the bus, still glued to her laptop.

They walked down the few stairs and outside into bright sunshine and a cold north wind. Behind their bus was the semi that was home to the lab and the mini production studio.

“Damn,” Laurene said, zipping up the jacket at the chill. “Wasn’t it just summer?”

“Not convinced it’s ever summer up here,” Carmen said, shivering as she stepped down, a hand trying vainly to keep her hair intact.

Blond Nancy, still wearing only a T-shirt and jeans and seemingly impervious to the windy North Dakota welcome, walked off toward the semi to collect her gear.

“Tough kid,” Laurene said, nodding toward the sound woman.

“Crew,” Carmen said with a shrug. “Different breed.”

The street was two-lane with curb parking, the buildings mostly one-story, a gas station across and down the only real sign of life, as cars pulled in and out. A parking lot to the right of the sheriff’s office revealed two cruisers and a four by four bearing the department logo.

From the semi, bulky Maury Hathaway emerged, lugging his camera, Nancy Hughes and Billy Choi tagging after. Hathaway, like Nancy, wore only a T-shirt, this one with a Phish logo, and jeans — in his fifties, he remained a teenager. Choi, his hair “Werewolves of London” perfect despite the wind, wore a black leather jacket over a black tee and black slacks.

Laurene gathered the camera crew plus Carmen and Choi trailing behind them, and left them grouped on the sidewalk like a parade that got sidetracked as she went in through the double glass doors. The meeting had been set up by Harrow via phone — all Laurene knew was the sheriff’s name, Jason Fox.

A tall, broad-shouldered Native American in uniform with sheriff’s badge loomed over a long counter. His hard brown eyes under a helmet of raven-black hair looked past Laurene at the group gathered beyond the glass doors.

So much for the redneck musclehead she’d pictured. Maybe the sheriff who got thrown out of office had looked like that.

“Sheriff Fox? Laurene Chase with Crime Seen!”

“Been expecting you.” His eyes went past her again. “Didn’t expect that kind of entourage, though.”

“Not really an entourage, Sheriff — that’s actually a very pared-down TV crew, plus a forensics expert working with us. I’m a crime scene analyst myself — on leave from the Waco P.D.”

He clearly liked the sound of that, his thin mouth even turning up at the corners enough to qualify as a smile. “Okay. You can let ’em in.”

She did, and soon they’d all shaken hands and made introductions, after which Sheriff Fox said, “Shall we move into my office? It’ll be snug, but you should all make it.”

The pebble-glass door had to be left open so that Hathaway could shoot from there. Otherwise the modest office accommodated them, but just — nothing fancy, a metal desk, computer desk next to it, file cabinet in a corner. Walls were spotted with diplomas, commendations, and some colorful outdoor pictures of sheriff and deputies in wooded areas.

The sheriff sat himself behind his desk, signaling for Laurene and Carmen to take the two seats across. Choi leaned against the file cabinet while Nancy ran the boom from the close-quarters sidelines. A file folder sat before the sheriff on the neat desk like a meal he was contemplating.

Laurene asked the sheriff for permission to start rolling and got it.

She asked, “Sheriff Fox, what can you tell us?”

Fox flipped open the file folder. “Burl Hanson was county comptroller.”

Not law enforcement, she thought, but another public servant...

“He came home from work and found something terrible.”

Chapter Fourteen

Two years before

Nola Hanson was a typical mother, convinced her daughter Katie was no typical child. And she had typically big dreams for her daughter Katie — Dr. Hanson, Katherine Hanson (Attorney at Law), Governor Hanson, Senator Hanson, even President Hanson. Ever since Hillary, all the doors were open now, weren’t they?

On the other hand, Doctor Hanson did have a real ring to it...

As for eight-year-old Katie, her biggest ambition was doing well at tomorrow night’s softball game.

“You’re sure he’ll be there?” the child asked for the fifth or sixth time.

The girl’s mother was at the stove, stirring chicken noodle soup. Patient with her blond, pigtailed interrogator, Nola said, “Your father’s working late today, so he can be sure not to miss an inning of the game tomorrow.”

Tall for her age, and slender, Katie slipped onto a diner-type stool opposite her mother at the kitchen island, and displayed a big grin made memorable by a missing front tooth, the new one about a quarter of the way in. Mother and daughter shared hair color and the same lively blue eyes. Nola, in her mid-thirties, had kept on a few pounds after giving birth to Katie, but Burl, her husband, not only never complained, he seemed fully in favor of the additional curves.

“I like my women with some meat on the bone,” he’d kidded her.

“Women?” she’d kidded back, one eyebrow arching.

“Woman,” he corrected.

“No problem. I like my men big and stupid.”

This little exchange had become a running joke with them, and seen endless repetition and variation over the years.

Burl was comptroller for Rolette County, having worked his way up from the entry-level accounting position he’d landed out of college. Nola and Burl were alumni of North Dakota State, Bisons through and through — Burl even insisted on owning a green car (the school’s colors were green and gold).

Some good-natured guff had come Nola’s way from her sorority sisters when she’d started dating the accounting major, but when she retorted, “CPAs do it with a long pencil,” the carping had turned to laughter, and maybe envy.

The couple married just after graduation. Burl took the job out here, one interstate exit past the middle of nowhere, and Nola signed on at the Rolla Public Library. At first, their lives were about as boring as Nola’s sorority sisters predicted. Slowly, however, things changed — they both earned promotions, Nola first, rising to head librarian with a speed that dismayed some of her co-workers.

And though she wasn’t exactly overseeing the Library of Congress, the Rolla branch brought its own challenges, and she took pride in having the best public collections of both fiction and non-fiction (for a town Rolla’s size) in the state.

Burl’s rise had been slower, his path blocked by more than a couple geriatric librarians. Still, his progress had been steady, and they always considered themselves both happy and blessed — at least until Katie came along and showed them what happiness was really about. The gifted little girl became the center of their universe, and her accomplishments in school gave Nola and Burl more pride than anything in their respective careers.

Everything was working out even better than Nola could ever have hoped. Both she and Burl came from broken families, and making their house a home was a shared goal. When her female friends would whine over petty arguments with their husbands, Nola (to her slight embarrassment and major pleasure) couldn’t report a single spat. She and Burl were simply on the same page, and Katie had only made life better. Nola made no apologies for her good luck.

Ladling soup into a bowl, Nola asked, “Washed your hands?”

Her daughter leaned toward the waiting bowl on the counter and said, “Smells good...”

“Don’t change the subject. Straight to the bathroom and wash them.”

Defeated, Katie climbed down and trotted off toward the first-floor bathroom.

“Soap too!” Nola called.

If getting Katie to wash up was the biggest dilemma of the day, Nola knew she didn’t have anything to complain about.

A potentially touchy subject had come up earlier — what Katie wanted for her birthday. The girl said she’d settle for nothing less than a little brother or a puppy. Katie didn’t really seem to care which, though Burl would probably be happy to hear that Katie, given a choice, was leaning toward the canine option...

Smiling to herself, setting the bowl of soup on the counter where Katie would sit, Nola was surprised to see the doorknob turning across the kitchen, on the door off the garage.

A glance up at the clock said it was only 6:45, and she didn’t expect Burl for another hour, at least. Which was why she was serving Katie her dinner now.

Pleased to have Burl home, she half turned to the door and said, “You’re early! How was your—”

She stopped mid-sentence, frozen at the sight of a strange man at the threshold of her kitchen. Middle-aged, a little chunky. Tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a blue jacket. Blue baseball cap pulled low almost over his eyes.

Pistol in his right hand.

Though physically petrified, Nola was mentally racing, thoughts streaking through her mind:

Katie was still in the bathroom, good.

Nearest knife in the block on the counter behind her.

Soup hot enough to throw at this intruder and burn him?

What then, the knife?

No getting to the phone for 911, too far away.

Duck behind the counter of the island, but what then? Fight or flight?

The presence of Katie in the house made the decision easy.

Nola shouted, “Katie — run!”

Then, snarling, she grabbed the pan of soup — maybe it wasn’t hot enough but it was metal and she could swing at him — and moved toward the intruder and the pistol barked.

Like a hard punch, it knocked Nola back, and she felt her balance slipping. The counter’s edge was right there, but when she reached for it, it seemed to move away and she found herself on the floor, tile cool against her flesh.

To her surprise, there was no pain. She knew she had been shot, from the noise echoing in the airy kitchen to the spreading warmth in her chest, but she couldn’t get over the lack of pain. Everything just felt numb. Something smelled bitter — cordite. Burl was a hunter.

She tried to yell again, for Katie to run, but nothing came. She coughed and realized she was spitting up blood. The man stood over her now, his eyes on her but unconcerned, as if he were looking at spilled milk and not a dying woman.

Nola tried to recognize him, couldn’t, then tried to understand why this stranger had just walked into her house and shot her.

Should have locked the door, a voice in her head said.

Too late now, wasn’t it?

Spilled milk.

Sending thoughts to Katie to run, to hide, to get out of the house, was all she could manage for her daughter — a sad desperate attempt at telepathy. She tried to talk, to ask this man why he had done this thing, but her efforts were only rewarded with more coughing.

She struggled to focus on his face again, but her vision blurred.

Was she about to die? Was Katie about to die? Was the price of her happy life these terrible last agonized moments?

He raised the pistol again, and the last thing she saw was the flash.

Katie’s hands were under the warm water when she heard her mother yell for her to run, but that made no sense — her mommy never wanted her to run in the house...

A moment later, she heard what sounded like one of the M-80s the bigger kids had been shooting off last summer, on the Fourth of July, when both her parents warned her about the dangers of firecrackers. They’d finally relented and let her hold a sparkler that her dad lit.

But this bang had been so loud, she jumped, water from the sink spraying the front of her when she pulled her hands back, making a mess Mommy wouldn’t like.

Katie was scared now. Something was going on in the kitchen, something not normal, something wrong, but she had no idea what. She crept closer to the open door.

A second M-80 exploded in the kitchen, and Katie jumped again, her hand stifling a scream. She tiptoed into the hallway, and looked out to the kitchen, where her mother’s feet were sticking out, on the floor! Rest of her hidden by the kitchen’s large island.

Standing over Mommy was a tall man who seemed to be pointing down, maybe with his hand, maybe with something in his hand; but from here, the man’s body blocked the object and Katie couldn’t see.

But she did see a stranger, and she of course understood that a stranger meant danger, and she grasped now that Mommy yelling for her to run was because this stranger meant danger...

As the man turned slowly in her direction, Katie turned and sprinted down the hall to her bedroom and ducked inside, closing the door as quietly as she could.

Had he seen her?

She looked for a place to hide — there were really only two choices: the closet and under her bed. When they played hide and seek, her mommy always looked in the closet first. Under the bed was her best choice. More than once, Mommy had failed to find her there.

She dropped to her knees, breath coming in ragged gasps now, tears running down her cheeks, though she was barely aware of that; then she shimmied under the bed, and tried not to move.

Quiet as a mouse, that was something her grandma would say. Quiet as a mouse.

She knew of better hiding places in the house, but that would mean trying to get past the stranger, and she knew if he saw her, she was in trouble.

Under the bed would have to do.

The springs her roof now, Katie prayed to God that the man wouldn’t find her, and that her daddy would come home. She hoped her mommy was all right. Mommy was on the floor and maybe the man had hit her. But Mommy would be all right. She had to be! Katie would be all right too, if she just stayed quiet as a mouse. This was as far as her mind could take her.

Daddy, she thought. Please come home... please...

When she heard the bedroom door open, she again clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the fright in. Fear gripped her now; she was shaking, nearly uncontrollably. The door was behind her, to her left. She could hear the man coming in — he was not rushing. It was the same way Daddy checked on her when he thought she was asleep, but wasn’t.

Only this wasn’t Daddy.

The closet was to her right and soon she could see the man’s black shoes under the edge of where the bedspread hung down.

He opened the louvered doors one at a time, and poked around in there, among her toys on the floor and the neat hanging clothes. When he shut the closet up, her breath caught in her throat and maybe, maybe, a tiny sound came out.

She was sure he would look under the bed next, that his stranger’s face would be inches from hers; but he didn’t. Instead, he walked around the bed, circling behind her and crossing the room to her desk and the small table where she kept her snow globe collection.

When he stopped before the table, his feet still in view under the bedspread hem, she felt something that wasn’t fear — something that, had she been older, might have been described as a sense of violation.

Her snow globe collection was her most cherished possession, and the stranger was looking at them, maybe even handling them. She felt her face redden but made herself stay silent, knowing that his finding her, and touching her, could be far worse than him touching her toys.

Please, Daddy, please come home, she prayed.

Then the stranger’s feet turned again — was he walking out of the room? Without finding her? A hopeful wave washed over her, but still she stayed quiet as a mouse. Then couldn’t see his feet, couldn’t hear him, didn’t know where he was...

Cold dry hands grabbed her ankles, and yanked.

The scream, the pure animal cry that escaped from her, seemed to echo off the walls, and engulf her whole world. She grabbed at the carpeting, but the nap gave her nothing to hold onto and anyway he was too strong, dragging her.

“Mommy!”

Once he had her out, he took her by the arm and brought her to a standing position, but the sudden force caused her to stumble and fall. He bent down close, his face a blank mask, his eyes staring right through her.

As he pulled her to her feet again, not roughly, not gently, Katie wondered if it was possible that this man wasn’t a human at all. Adults didn’t look at kids the same way they did other adults, but they did have life in their eyes, and this stranger did not.

As he swept her to her feet, Katie thrashed and kicked, but the stranger was too strong.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

Her throat burned, the tears streaming now, her breath uneven as she tried to fight and scream at the same time, the shrill sound of her cries hurting her own ears.

Then the stranger dragged her into the kitchen and set her on the floor, almost gingerly, next to her mother.

Katie saw two little holes in her mother’s chest, Mommy, with blood on her mouth, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, her eyes without life, like the stranger’s.

“Mommy!” Katie shrieked one last time, and she tried to shake her mother back to life, to no avail.

Katie looked up at the stranger, who was pointing something at her now — a gun. The ones her daddy had were bigger, but this was like the ones on TV. It looked like a big black squirt gun.

Beyond the gun, the man’s face remained blank as he aimed.

Katie’s eyes widened and her tears stopped and even her fear fled. Then she said something. She didn’t know why she said it, but she said it: “Now I lay me down to sleep...”

A flash filled her vision, and she fell backward into darkness. Her last thought — would Mommy be waiting for her, in Heaven? — ended when her head touched the floor.

It was all the Messenger could do to get out to the truck before he broke down. He was weeping as he drove away from the house where his most recent message had just been delivered.

“Got too close,” he whispered. “Got too close.”

In town, he made sure he was obeying the speed limit as he slowly scanned the darkening business district for a parking lot.

Finally, he saw a city park, down a block on a side street, which he turned onto, coming around on the far side, near a ball diamond.

No one was around.

He locked the pistol in the glove compartment, and got out of the truck. He’d walked only a few steps when he felt the bile rising in his throat. He had only a second to check for passersby before the vomiting doubled him over.

This had been bad. This had been the worst one.

The only thing that allowed him to carry out his missions was knowing that those who received his messages were just the delivery system — symbols, not people. That had gone blooey at the Hanson house. The little girl had nearly touched the inside part of him. Nearly? No, she had touched him.

He stood, wiping his mouth, and shook his head. It could never be like this again. He would have to be sharper, smarter. He couldn’t risk this sort of thing again. He might not be able to do what had to be done.

The little girl’s hysterical screaming rang in his ears, and he felt more coming up. He bent over just in time as he retched again.

Wasn’t supposed to be like this. All his work, all the time he had put in, couldn’t all be undone this easily, could it? That screaming little girl...

He looked up and down the quiet street. Nothing moved. Silence, blessed silence in this park. A block over, a dog barked. Somewhere he heard the revving of a car motor in a garage, someone obviously working on it.

His life had been like this once. Blessedly silent, boring even, until they ruined it...

He couldn’t stop delivering messages until someone made it better, until someone heard his pleas for help.

If it took delivering a hundred more messages to make the world pay attention, so be it. But he could not have another one like tonight. No more like tonight.

He was good at this, he knew that. Efficient. Not cruel. But tonight he had found out he still needed to improve, to become even more efficient.

As he climbed back into the truck, his stomach settled. On the long drive home he would lay the groundwork for the next message. He would redouble his efforts to know everything about the recipients beforehand. When he delivered the next message, and the one after that and the one after that, he would be more detached, more untouchable.

Tonight could never happen again.

The snow and the rain did not stop the postman on his appointed rounds, right? Or dogs or even screaming little girls.

Chapter Fifteen

Laurene met the sheriff’s gaze. “Mr. Hanson found something terrible, all right — his family dead.”

“Yes. Wife and daughter, both shot twice in the chest. You already know that your bullets from Florida match ours.”

“We understand Mr. Hanson took his own life.”

“Yes. Killed himself a week after the murders. Snapped. Hanged himself.”

Why, she wondered, was this killer punishing these men? Public servants coming home to slaughtered love ones? Or were fathers being punished?

She asked, “Who did the crime scene analysis at the Hanson home?”

“State BCI. We don’t have the tools for that kind of investigation.”

“What did they find?”

Fox held up a sheaf of photos. “You’ll want to look at these. Autopsy got us the bullets.”

“You think the photos should be helpful...?”

“Not my area, Ms. Chase. They’re crime scene photos, and maybe they’ll mean more to you.”

“What did you get from the photos, Sheriff? And from being on the scene?”

He thought for a moment. Then: “Guy was real careful. No fingerprints, no witnesses, and he collected the shell casings from the automatic. Only evidence they gathered were some tire tracks that didn’t match either of the Hanson vehicles.”

“Do you have those results?”

The sheriff nodded. “You take the photos and the tire marks information info too — these are dupes. When we’re finished here, I’ll request the BCI e-mail their files to you.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” Laurene said, passing the folder of pictures to Carmen, who began thumbing through. The tire mark evidence Laurene gave to Choi.

“I’ll get started on these,” Choi said, glancing at the several sheets. The tool mark and firearms expert squeezed past the cameraman in the doorway, and was gone.

Turning back to Fox, Laurene asked, “Who interviewed the neighbors?”

“I did — but ‘neighbors’ overstates it. Neighbors are few and far between out that way. Nearest one’s almost a quarter of a mile away.”

Another similarity to the Harrow case, Laurene noted.

“What time of day did the crime take place?”

She knew the answer, of course — actually, she knew a lot of the answers. This was part of the Killer TV process: getting somebody like the sheriff here to deliver the exposition. Still, she liked getting this kind of stuff from the source.

The sheriff said, “Just before seven p.m.”

“Were the not-so-next-door neighbors home?”

“Yeah, only they didn’t hear anything. You wouldn’t expect them to — windy night, even for around here. Anyway, they could have missed the sound even if they’d been closer.”

Laurene asked Carmen, “Do you have any questions?”

“Actually, yes.” Carmen withdrew two photos from the folder, showing them to Fox.

One was a picture of the daughter’s room, where nothing appeared out of place — bed made, stuffed animals piled near pillows. A small table to the right of the bed was home to a considerable collection of snow globes, Disney characters mostly, whose familiar faces and forms were turned toward the bed. A desk held a computer, and, above it, shelves displayed the spines of DVDs and books, all neatly arranged. The second picture was a closeup of the table with the snow globe collection.

Fox looked at the photos with eyes that indicated he was well beyond seeing anything in these much-viewed crime scene shots.

Carmen asked, “Did you dust that room for prints?”

“Why, no.”

“How about the state crime lab? Were you there when they processed the scene?”

“I was. They didn’t consider the bedroom part of the crime scene.”

“So they didn’t check the Winnie the Pooh snow globe for fingerprints?”

Perplexed, the sheriff said, “Nobody thought the killer went in that room — nothing was out of place.”

Carmen leaned in and tapped the closeup shot of the snow globes. “Except Winnie the Pooh,” she said.

“Be damned,” Fox said, and shook his head and grimaced, handing the closeup picture to Laurene.

Laurene looked at the photo. The snow globes all faced the same direction, except one — Winnie the Pooh had his back to the bed.

“He picked that one up,” Laurene said.

“Well, someone did,” Fox said. “We’ll see if we can find out who.”

“If the whole family has been dead for almost two years,” Laurene asked, “where’s the snow globe now?”

“No idea,” Fox admitted glumly. “But I am damned sure going to find out.”

To Carmen, Laurene said, “Hell of a catch, girl. That’s two for you. Maybe it’s time you joined the crime scene team and I took over as host.”

Carmen smiled, chagrined. “I’m happy doing what I do.”

Everyone on the Crime Seen! team was aware that all of this had been caught on camera. Funny, Laurene thought, how the knowledge that they were putting on a show as well as chasing a killer colored her perceptions.

Fox said, “I should mention there’s a new family living in the house now. You want to go out there?”

After a moment’s consideration, Laurene said, “Let us run with what you’ve given us for right now. If we need to visit the scene, we’ll go out later.”

“But you will call me if you go?”

“Absolutely, Sheriff. You’d be a big help. Hey, you’ve been a big help. Thank you.”

“No problem. Who wouldn’t want this thing cracked? Now, can I ask a question...?”

“Of course.”

“Is this the same bastard who killed J.C. Harrow’s family?”

Laurene locked eyes with the man. “Can’t be sure... but it’s very damn likely the ‘same bastard’ who took out the Ferguson mom and kids in Florida.”

Fox sighed. “You’re covering a lot of hunting ground.”

“Yes. But we are closing in. We know to a near certainty that he’s targeting only the families of civil servants.”

The dark brown eyes flared. “Why in hell?”

“Pretty soon, Sheriff... we’ll ask him.”

After their good-byes, Laurene, Carmen, and the camera crew caught up with Jenny and Choi in the lab.

Choi took the ball: “First, the tires are so worn, he coulda replaced them by now.”

Laurene just gave him a look.

“Tire size 275/70R18, is very popular for light trucks and SUVs. This particular one’s manufactured by Michelin, and is the standard tire on the Ford F-150 pickup.”

“Does that help us?”

“Oh, sure,” Choi said, his smile mirthless. “Thanks to declining sales over the last five years? Leaves us only about four million F-150s, plus whatever vehicles bought them as aftermarket tires.”

“So, then, that was sarcasm.”

“I been saying you aren’t dumb, Laurene. Ask anybody.”

She sighed. “Keep digging, Billy. See if you can do something to make this a more manageable number.”

His eyebrows went up. “For instance...?”

“Start with Kansas. That’s where our errant Florida corn leaf came from — make it Fords sold in Kansas in the last, say, ten years.”

Choi smirked. “That’s still going to be a bunch.”

“But a smaller bunch,” Laurene said. “Didn’t Marshal Ferguson say he saw a blue pickup the night his family was killed?”

Choi snapped his fingers. “Right! That will help narrow it down.”

“Go,” Laurene said.

Practically bouncing, Choi moved back to his computer, and his fingers were soon flying over the keyboard.

Jenny gave Laurene a glance, which was enough to summon the African-American crime scene analyst to the petite blonde’s side.

Looking up like a little girl about to show Mommy her latest drawing, Jenny said, “Sheriff said Mr. Hanson was the county comptroller?”

“That’s right.”

Laurene liked where this was headed already — Harrow had told her Jenny was smart; now Laurene was seeing just how quick the girl really was.

“I checked on shooting deaths involving the families of public servants in the last ten years.”

“And?”

“Ten years ago, a member of the board of supervisors in McCracken County in Kentucky found out his wife was having an affair. He shot her and their three kids, her lover, and himself.”

“Jesus,” Carmen whispered.

Laurene could only think that it must be nice, being able to still be surprised by the evil that people could visit on each other. She’d been at it long enough that such revelations rarely made an emotional blip.

Jenny was saying, “Nine years ago, zero killings of that nature. Every year ever since? At least two, sometimes three separate instances.”

Carmen gasped — Laurene hoped it wasn’t just for the camera — but this news was news worth gasping over.

Laurene said, “That’s like... twenty something.”

“Oh, you can do math.”

It did not seem to be sarcasm — Jenny was no Billy Choi.

Jenny was saying, “Twenty-two, so far.”

Carmen, still stunned, asked, “How... how is that possible?”

“Killing strangers,” Laurene said, “is easy. So is getting away with it.”

From his computer, Choi called, “You mostly get killed by people you know!”

“Eighty percent of the time,” Jenny said.

“What I want to know,” Laurene said, shaking her head, “is how in the hell this SOB could carry out twenty-two such acts, murdering... how many?”

“Fifty-three women and children,” Jenny said. “Twenty-two mothers and thirty-one children. Eighteen boys, thirteen girls.”

The lab fell silent. Only the faint mechanical hum of sound and camera and computers could be discerned.

Finally Laurene asked, “How did he kill fifty-three people... and no one caught on?”

Jenny shrugged. “Killings may not all be his. But to answer your question? Small jurisdictions with limited police presence, spread across the country.”

Choi left his computer. “You know, in sleepy little Davenport, Iowa, they’ve had over two dozen bank robberies in the last ten years.”

They all looked at Choi expectantly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I mean, you didn’t hear shit about twenty-one of them. Those other three though, they all happened in 2004 when George Bush and John Kerry were campaigning in town at the same time. That got the attention of the national media, made CNN and MSNBC, and still generates a kajillion hits on Google.”

“What are you saying?” Carmen asked, suddenly defensive. “That this is somehow the media’s fault?”

“No, not all,” Choi said.

Laurene said, “I think what Billy boy is saying is that this is a really big country, and it takes something completely off the charts to catch our attention... and he’s right. Our unsub has been operating below the radar. Hell, until fifteen minutes ago, we thought he was going exclusively after law enforcement... and, Carmen, before you found that leaf thing? We didn’t even know this monster was out there.”

Carmen said, “So... this guy we’re looking for... he’s killed fifty-some people?”

“Could be,” Laurene said. “Most likely not, though. We’re only reviewing the stats in the most superficial way, at this point. But we do know he’s killed three in Florida, and two in North Dakota. It’s also possible, because of the MO, that he killed Harrow’s family, as well. Which makes at least seven.” Turning to Jenny, she asked, “When was the most recent one?”

“Three days ago.”

Carmen said hollowly, “The night of our first segment on Crime Seen!..”

They all exchanged grave glances.

Laurene asked, “Where, Jen?”

“Socorro, New Mexico — family of George Reid, accountant with Socorro County. Gunned down.”

Laurene drew in a deep breath, let it out. “All right. You take Socorro, Jen — really dig in. See if the mom is missing a finger. Billy, take the truck tires. Carmen, you and I will interview the Hansons’ neighbors one more time, and maybe someone will remember something. First though, I gotta call the boss.”

Chapter Sixteen

Riding the other Crime Seen! bus, J.C. Harrow got out his cell phone by the second ring.

“It’s Laurene.”

“What have you got?” he asked. She wouldn’t be calling just to be sociable.

She filled him in on the startling discovery Jenny Blake had made — twenty-two separate attacks in the past decade that matched their killer’s MO!

He said, “We have no idea how many might be related to our cases?”

“No,” Laurene said. “But I’m betting the number isn’t zero.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. We’ll have to look into all of them. Check to see how many of the murdered mothers were missing a wedding ring.”

Laurene’s pause seemed endless to Harrow.

Finally she asked, “J.C. — with this revelation... aren’t we going to have to turn this investigation over to the Feds?”

He desperately wanted to say no, but they both knew the answer to the question. Christ knew how many lives were at stake here...

“Of course, turn over what we have... but first, make copies of everything, and tell Jenny to e-mail me the list of all the crimes.”

“So we’re not backing off?”

“Hell, no. We are, however, going to let the Feds know what we think may be going on, and they can investigate or not, their choice, their pace. In the meantime, we’re full speed ahead.”

“That is good to hear,” Laurene said. “Where do you want to start?”

“Your team will gather what you can there, and I’ll start on the Socorro killings. Makes sense, ’cause I’m just outside of town.”

“You are?” she said, surprise in her voice. She hadn’t mentioned these latest killings, specifically. “You’re on top of those killings, then? The, uh...”

“Reid family,” Harrow finished.

“What are you, J.C., a frickin’ witch? How in the hell did you know that?”

“I got a phone call late last night.”

“From?”

“Kate Pierson with the New Mexico state crime lab. Know her, Laurene?”

“No. Why’d she call you?”

“She’s an old friend.”

“No, J.C. Why did she call you?”

“Missing wedding-ring finger. And get this — gun in the Reid killings was the same three fifty-seven used at my house.”

An even longer pause from Laurene.

“We are on the right track,” she said softly.

His voice was soft but had a tremor that threatened eruption. “I’m closer than I’ve ever been.”

“You know, J.C., if you strangle him on TV, the ratings will be great, but you might find yourself hosting the San Quentin Follies next season.”

Her grim humor made him laugh.

“I take your point, Laurene, and I do apologize for not filling you in sooner.”

“Apology not accepted. I’m supposed to be your number two.”

“You are. As for now, we’ll play ball with the Feds, all right... but let’s make sure we’re the ones who find this maniac.”

“It’ll be us, all right,” she said, and they signed off.

None of that had been caught on camera, and Harrow was glad of it. This was sensitive information.

Chris Anderson, seated across the aisle from Harrow, said, “Sir? We’re pullin’ up to the sheriff’s office.”

Harrow looked at his watch — just after 10 A.M. They’d already been on the road since finishing the show on Monday, and had driven all night, after Harrow got the call from Kate Pierson.

“Good,” Harrow said. “Let’s go.”

Soon Harrow found himself standing on a bright, sunny street in front of a new two-story county administration building with old-fashioned mission styling, a facility that housed both the sheriff’s office and the county’s other departments.

Up and down the street, pedestrians passing each other smiled, spoke, waved. Modest traffic moved smoothly along, and Harrow felt he’d stepped into some sort of Southwestern Norman Rockwell time warp. Or he would have if they hadn’t been here to investigate a triple homicide by the serial killer they were chasing...

Automatic doors whispered open, and Harrow entered the modern, efficient-looking office building that hid behind the mission facade. At a round modern light-wood desk to the left of the atrium lobby, a young uniformed deputy manned a guest sign-in book.

The kid — who had a butch haircut and a well-scrubbed fresh-out-of-the-academy look — was reading something on his computer screen.

“Help you?” he asked automatically, barely glancing.

“Son,” Harrow said gently, “if you want to grow up to be a policeman, you’re going to have to learn to be more observant.”

Now the kid looked up and saw before him Harrow with his posse of Anderson, DNA expert Michael Pall, Arroyo with camera, and Ingram with boom mike.

“Here to see Sheriff Tomasa,” Harrow said.

Agape, the deputy managed a nod. Then: “May I tell him who’s calling and why?”

“J.C. Harrow and crew from Crime Seen! Called ahead.”

Before long, the sheriff was there in the lobby, coming over to them with his hand extended to Harrow.

“Mr. Harrow,” he said, and they shook hands. “Roberto Tomasa. You spoke to my secretary on the phone.”

“Yes, sir. I know this is short notice.”

Harrow made the introductions and more handshaking followed, quick, perfunctory. The sheriff was burly, about forty, with an easy smile and a steel grip. His face had more pockmarks than old cement, and his nose may have had a shape once, but not for a long time. He had a bushy, droopy, damn near bandito mustache, giving his face the impression of a frown even as he grinned at Harrow, moving everyone to a discreet corner of the lobby.

“Normally we wouldn’t have much to say to a TV crew,” Tomasa said, “especially at so early a stage of the investigation.”

“I understand,” Harrow said.

“You were a sheriff yourself, weren’t you? Retired?”

“Yes. Was at the state crime lab, after that.”

Mischief danced in the sheriff’s eyes. “Also saved the President.”

“Guilty.”

White teeth flashed under the droopy black mustache. “Tell me why I should receive you in my office,” he said — no anger or bitterness in his tone.

“Weren’t you expecting us?”

“My secretary gave me your message, you were coming. That’s not an appointment, Mr. Harrow. And it sure isn’t an invitation.”

“Kate Pierson—”

“Is with the state crime lab. Not on my payroll. Doesn’t represent the Socorro County Sheriff’s office.”

“Uh oh,” Anderson murmured.

That drew a glance from Tomasa, but Harrow spoke up, locking eyes with the man. “Sheriff, we’re not here to step on any toes.”

“Good.”

“But I do think we can help you.”

“Kind as your offer is, Mr. Harrow, we have handled murders in Socorro County before.”

Harrow kept his tone easy-going, but his rhetoric amped up. “Sheriff, you know as well as I do that if this is a serial killer, you need all the help you can get.”

“The FBI, for example.”

“Yes, but they aren’t here. We are. I am. And if we’re up against who and what I think we are, we can all use help. We now believe the same murderer may be tied to as many as fifty-some homicides over the last nine years.”

That got Tomasa’s attention. “That seems impossible...”

“I wish it were,” Harrow said. “Kate Pierson, protocol be damned, called me because the bullets from your victims match the gun the killer used at my home. Also, the mutilation of the female vic’s left hand mirrors what we believe to be the killer’s current evolving, devolving M.O.”

Tomasa held up a hand. “Mr. Harrow, I am not unsympathetic to your feelings. But because you are emotionally involved in this matter, you have taken your search to an extreme...” He gestured toward the crew. “...that exceeds any accepted law enforcement conditions or ideals.”

“I’m not working in law enforcement. But I am still, in my way, a public servant — like the men whose families this perpetrator targets.”

“I understand your sincerity, Mr. Harrow. But I am working in law enforcement.”

“Did you see the broadcast Friday night?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Then you know I’ve recruited some of the best people in their respective forensics fields in the country, if not the world. Do you have the budget to assemble a team like that?”

Frowning in thought, Tomasa said nothing.

“Another thing, Sheriff — some people in this country don’t like to talk to the police, no matter why, no matter what, no matter when.”

“That much I know,” Tomasa admitted.

Harrow gave the sheriff the kind of world-weary smile law enforcement professionals often traded. “Funny thing is — a lot of those same people can’t wait to run their mouths in front of a TV camera. Like these we have here?”

And suddenly Tomasa roared with laughter that echoed through the atrium.

“All right,” the sheriff said. “You can talk to your friend Pierson and see the bullets and whatever else you want, with my blessing... but I need from you one thing.”

“Name it.”

“You must talk to one of Reid’s neighbors.”

“Well, no problem,” Harrow said.

“You say that now,” Tomasa said slyly, the bandito quality slipping through the droopy mustache, “only because you haven’t met Archie Gershon yet.”

Chapter Seventeen

Prone in a ditch under hot sun, next to a narrow gravel lane that wound its way up to the one-story rambling white clapboard of one Archibald Gershon, Harrow understood why Sheriff Roberto Tomasa had seemed both eager and amused to have the Crime Scene! host handle interviewing the recluse.

Gershon lived on the property next to murder victims the Reids, and the sheriff had figured the old man may well have seen something.

“Archie’s known to keep track of what goes on in and around his property,” the sheriff had said.

“How do you know anything about the man, if he never steps off that parcel?”

“I didn’t say he never stepped off that parcel — he comes to town once a month. Him and me usually share a beer and some talk. No, it’s just anybody stepping foot on his parcel that’s a problem.”

They had left the sheriff’s office in two vehicles — Harrow and Tomasa in the departmental Tahoe, trailed by the Crime Seen! bus with Pall, Anderson, Arroyo, Ingram, and their driver (other staff members having been dropped at their motel).

Right now they were pulling up to the foot of the place, to large red hand-painted letters on weathered white-painted wood near the gate: TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT! SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT TWICE!

Harrow frowned. “You just let him get away with shooting at anybody who comes near his place?”

“My predecessor hauled him in, three times. But in this part of the world, people value their privacy. Not a judge or jury around here woulda gave him so much as a fine. Anyway, there haven’t been any incidents lately.”

“Nobody’s welcome?”

“The only person who’s been up here in the last ten years who didn’t draw gunfire was the Direct TV installation guy... The coot does love his TV.”

“Unless he has a dog,” Harrow said, with a dry chuckle, “it’s probably his only company.”

In the ditch now, it didn’t seem so amusing.

And Gershon was true to his word, or anyway true to his sign: when Tomasa’s SUV had pulled up to the gate, a bullet punctured a tire, and a second one took out part of the red and blue light on the roof. That’s when Tomasa shoved the Tahoe into park, and suggested they vacate the vehicle.

Harrow had rolled out the passenger side, hit the gravel hard, then continued on, dropping down into the drainage ditch next to the road. With the open driver’s side door for cover, Tomasa got to the back of the SUV, then ducked behind the Tahoe, all the while gesturing for the bus to back off.

Then, just after a third round pierced the Socorro County shield on the driver’s door, Tomasa came around the vehicle and dove into the ditch next to Harrow.

“Man of his word,” Harrow said. “Sign said he’d shoot. I’m just glad he’s as good at it as he is.”

“You picked up on that, huh?” the sheriff said with a rumpled grin. “Yeah, most people think ol’ Arch misses them. Truth is, he could pick off a gnat’s eyelash at two hundred yards.”

“Not every crazy survivalist,” Harrow said, “shoots like that.”

“He’s no survivalist,” Tomasa said. “And I wouldn’t bet on crazy, either. He just doesn’t like company.”

“Who is this character?”

“Late at night, in certain bars around town, you may hear how Archie was one of the boys on the grassy knoll.”

Harrow gave the sheriff a look.

“Just passing it along, Mr. Harrow. Don’t claim it’s gospel.”

They heard a vehicle door slam — the bus’s, out in the country road below the Tahoe at the gate — and watched as Pall and Anderson jumped out, followed by Maury Hathaway, lugging his Sony cam. Soon the three men were hunkered down in the ditch with the Crime Seen! host and the sheriff.

“What the hell are you doing?” Harrow said. “Bullets are flying. You should’ve stayed put.”

Veteran cameraman Hathaway said, “Didn’t get the memo.”

Young Anderson said, “We’re fine. That guy’s a good shot. He’s just trying to scare us.”

“Really?” Harrow asked. “What if he missed?”

Hathaway said, “We’ll stay put unless you say otherwise. I wouldn’t risk my head or my camera.”

A fourth bullet kicked up dirt by the edge of the ditch.

Tomasa yelled up toward the house: “Goddamn it, Archie, stop that! You known damn well it’s Sheriff Tomasa!”

As if the preceding bullets had been so much friendly conversation, a rough-edged voice called down, “I know who you are, Roberto!”

“I thought we were friends!” Tomasa yelled.

“We are — that’s why you’re alive... now get the hell off my property!”

“I just come to talk!”

“Be in town next week, Roberto! We can talk then.”

“I need to talk today!”

“If I wanted to talk to anybody out here, today? I wouldn’ta put up that sign. You do read English, don’t you, Roberto?”

Tomasa, sighing, turned to the little group in the ditch. “Hard-headed old bastard.” To the house, he called, “You don’t have to talk to me, Archie!”

“I know I don’t!”

“No — that’s not it! I brought someone else to talk to you!”

“Maybe you read English, but doesn’t seem like you understand the spoken word.”

The spoken word? Harrow thought. What kind of erudite hermit lived up that hill?

“Somebody come a long ways to talk to you, Arch!”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody today, Roberto. Already jawed long enough!”

Jawed long enough? Was this guy Gabby Hayes or Alistair Cooke?

Then, to punctuate his point, the old man fired a round over their heads.

“Maybe this is more trouble than it’s worth,” Tomasa said. “Chances are he didn’t see a damn thing.”

“We’re here,” Harrow said with a shrug. “My suit already needs dry cleaning, and probably some mending. So how about you let me try?”

“Up to you. Just don’t raise your head too high — he’s liable to separate you from it.”

“He could probably part my hair, if he wanted.” Then, toward the house, he yelled, “Mr. Gershon, this is J.C. Harrow! I’d like to come up and speak with you!”

Silence.

“Mr. Gershon, my name is—”

“I heard you!”

“I’m with a TV show called—”

“I know what the show’s called! And I don’t believe for an instant J.C. Harrow’s in a ditch at the bottom of my hill! I don’t think the Fonz or Sergeant. Bilko or Gil Grissom is, either!”

“...You got a scope on that rifle?”

Gershon said nothing.

“Take a look at that bus on the road outside your drive! Name of the show’s painted all over it!”

They waited several long, tense moments, peeking over the lip of the ditch like kids watching a ball game over the centerfield fence.

Finally, the door of the house opened, and a string bean in camouflage T-shirt, jeans, and tennies stepped out onto a cement stoop four steps up. Gershon was old, all right, with long, lank silver hair to prove it. He held a model 597 Remington rimfire rifle with a scope — Harrow had one at home, damn good gun.

The king of the hill sighted down through the scope.

Realizing that the man was trying to get a better look and probably not getting ready to fire, Harrow pushed himself to his feet.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tomasa demanded.

With uncharacteristic energy, from down in the ditch, Southern boy Anderson said, “Come on, sir — you know better!”

“Boss!” Pall yelled, overlapping the young chemist. “Get down—”

But Harrow stayed on his feet — his calling card was his face, the proof of his words his famous appearance. He stepped back up onto the grassy slope — the place was not fenced off, despite the gated gravel drive — and gave Gershon a good look and a clean shot... if that was what he was looking for.

“Be a son of a bitch! You are him!”

Harrow just shrugged elaborately with open arms.

“Come on up!”

“What about my crew? And the sheriff?”

“No. Just you!”

Harrow took a few steps up the slope — the grass was cut, not shaggy with weeds.

Pall whispered: “What do you want us to do, boss?”

Without turning or even halting his climb, Harrow said, “Stay out of range of that Remington. Probably ought to keep low and ease back to the bus.”

Anderson said, “What about you, sir?”

Moving upward but not quickly, looking up at the skinny figure with the rifle, Harrow said softly, “I’ll be fine. Sheriff, can I tell Mr. Gershon if he cooperates, there’ll be no charges for the gunplay?”

Tomasa said, “If you come back with your head attached, Mr. Harrow? We’ll let it slide.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Harrow went on up the hillside, cutting over and stopping in a circle of gravel in front of the well-tended, unpretentious, if weathered, house. A ’98 Chevy Silverado pickup in the turnaround was showroom clean. Still, everything about the place said stay away. Bushes with long thorns scratched at windows and crowded the narrow stoop. The front screen was closed, the inside door open, a mangy hound visible at the screen, his nose working, his growl barely audible.

So he does have a dog for a friend, Harrow thought.

Up on the stoop, Gershon held the rifle easy in his hands. The old boy wore no glasses, his gray eyes bright if suspicious, his skin leathered from life in the sun, the angles in his face suggesting an American Indian in his ancestry, the lank, silver hair lifting a little in the breeze. He was slender but hard and sharp, like boards positioned at angles on an obstacle course.

“Never miss your show,” he said, genial but low-key, rifle lowered now but ready when need be.

“Never miss a shot, either, do you?”

Gershon smiled — his teeth were mildly yellowed but his own; he was sturdy-looking for a guy his age, which was easily seventy. “If you mean, could I have hit if you if I liked? You know I could. I ain’t prone to missing.”

“You’re going to have to make up your mind, Mr. Gershon.”

“How’s that?”

“Are you a crazy old coot out of Li’l Abner, or are you a smart, seasoned veteran of wars unknown who chooses to live apart from the human race?”

“...You know why I like your show, Mr. Harrow?”

“No.”

“You ain’t no... you’re no phony. No wannabe. You and your people have helped put bad guys away, and I can admire that.”

“We try,” Harrow said.

Gershon stepped down the few concrete steps and offered a hand, which Harrow shook. The grip was firm but didn’t show off.

“How pissed off is Roberto?”

“How pissed off do you think? You shot at his vehicle. Blew out a tire, popped his cherry top, and put a hole in the door. That’ll cost the county money, and he’s got to explain it.”

“He knows who’s to blame,” Gershon grumbled. “We’re friendly, you know. No secret to Roberto that I value my privacy.”

Harrow lifted his eyebrows. “I appreciate that desire, Mr. Gershon. Public service was bad enough, but now I’m really in the fishbowl. You mind if I call you ‘Archie’?”

The breeze riffled the long wispy silver hair. “Not if I can call you ‘J.C.’ Where was it you sheriffed? Idaho? Ohio?”

“Iowa. Story County. Just north of Des Moines. Good farmland there. Good people too.”

“Not sure there is such an animal.”

“What?”

“As ‘good people.’”

Harrow shook his head. “Not all people are bad. You said yourself, you like how my show puts bad guys away. That suggests good people getting help.”

His host thought about that momentarily. “I’m going to smoke. You want one?”

“Sure.”

Gershon leaned the rifle against the stoop, fished a pack of smokes and a lighter from a pants pocket, and lit up. Then he passed the lighter and cigarettes to Harrow, who joined in.

“Sheriff Tomasa, for example,” Harrow said. “He’s one of the good people. The good guys. Don’t you think, Archie?”

“Better than most.”

“I like him too. What about your neighbor — George Reid? Was he good people?”

“That’s why you’re here, of course — the killings.”

“You know it is. Reid a good neighbor?”

Gershon grinned. “Why, you suppose if you asked him that he’d’ve said I was? No, we weren’t really neighborly. He was just the stranger who lived over there...” He pointed west. “...and did me the favor of minding his own business.”

Harrow looked toward where the sun was lowering, about to drop behind the hills for the night. “He had kids, Archie.”

“Yes, he did. They were never any trouble to me either.”

“Whoever did this killed Reid’s kids.”

“I know. World’s a shithole, and it can suck a kid down fastest of all.”

For a shithole, the world looked beautiful right now, dusk settling in on the recluse’s perch with gentle tones of blue and gray.

“Archie, you see anything that night? Hear anything?”

“If I had, don’t you think I’d’ve told Roberto?”

“No.”

“Why, because I’m a nasty old hermit? A misanthrope who’s given up on the world and everything in it?”

“No. You love that old hound dog, for instance. And he’s part of the world.”

“You think you got a bead on me, J.C.?”

“I think you’re hiding in plain sight, Archie. I think you’re waiting to see which catches up with you, first — people who come around to kill you, or just the darkness that eventually swallows us all.”

He stared a long time at Harrow, who could see the shadows of approaching night washing over the old man, and they just stood there smoking.

Finally, Archibald Gershon said, “Why don’t you come in for a beer?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

The living room was large and knotty pine, lined with built-in shelves holding volumes of as many varieties as a well-stocked college bookstore — novels, both popular and literary from many decades, non-fiction works on politics and world history, philosophy, poetry, engineering.

Where there weren’t book shelves in the living room, gun racks displayed a collection of firearms a crazy cult might envy. A very comfortable-looking, well-worn brown leather lounger on a braided rug on the bare wood floor faced a big flat-screen television, fifty-something inch easy, as if it were an altar. A table by the chair had beer cans and a fat satellite TV guide, a nine millimeter Browning, and a John D. MacDonald novel cracked open face down.

With the exception of the beer cans, however, the place was tidy, and the kitchen — which opened onto the big library/TV area — had a Formica table dating to I Love Lucy days, where they sat and had Schlitz from the can, very cold. The hound curled up under the table at its master’s feet — when Harrow came in, it hadn’t even growled, sensing Gershon’s approval of their guest.

“Breeze was out of the west that night,” Gershon said, after a particularly deep swig of Schlitz, “and carried the shots over here — it was like they were in my own yard.”

“No question it was gunshots — not a vehicle backfiring, kids playing with fireworks...?”

Gershon gave him a look. “I’ve heard plenty of guns in my lifetime, J.C.”

“Enough to identify them by sound?”

“This was a handgun. Loud. I’d say a .357.”

“You do know your guns.”

Gershon twitched a smile. “You’ve already gathered you aren’t the only one retired from public service.”

Harrow had already suspected that it wasn’t company that Gershon feared so much as The Company. As in CIA.

“When I heard those shots,” he was saying, “I already knew it was too late to do any good. I’m not heartless, J.C. — I knew there were kids over there. But there was no saving anybody.”

Harrow nodded.

“Still, I grabbed up the Remington and got outside.”

“Could you see the perp leaving? Did you take a shot at him?”

The old boy shook his head, the silver locks swinging. “I meddled in other people’s affairs a long time ago — I try not to do it anymore.”

Harrow said nothing.

“Come on, J.C. Think it through. He’d killed who he’d come to kill, by the time I heard those shots. If I’d gone over there, they’d be dead anyway. If I shot the guy, who knows who he is or he’s working for? No. I have enough on my plate just keeping my own ass alive.”

“Why do you bother, Archie? Keeping your ass alive, if the world is such a shithole?”

“Why, J.C. — if I was dead? Something terrible would happen.”

“What?”

He grinned. “I’d miss your show.”

Harrow grinned back at him. “Okay, Archie. You didn’t take a shot. But what did you see through that scope of yours?”

He swigged more beer. “You’re right — I did watch as the guy drove off.”

“What direction?”

“East.”

“So, then... he drove right by here.”

Gershon swigged again.

“What did you see, Archie?”

“Late model Ford F-150.”

Harrow tried not to show any reaction. “Color?”

“Blue — light blue.”

Another hit.

Still, Harrow remained impassive. “See the driver?”

“Not really. Probably a man. That’s about all I got.”

“What makes you say it’s a man, then?

Gershon shrugged. “Just didn’t feel like a woman. Loud gun like that mag, truck like that... No, I think it was a man, all right.”

“What else did you get, Archie?”

Gershon took another gulp of beer.

“Come on, Archie — what is it you’ve been trying to decide whether or not to share?”

“...You want the license number?”

Harrow just looked at him.

“Oklahoma plates,” he said, and gave the number to Harrow, who wrote it down in his mini-notebook.

Harrow shook his head. “You memorized the number?”

“Sometimes having a good memory comes in handy. Other times you’d trade it for being able to forget.”

“And sometimes,” Harrow said, “memory is all you have.”

“Truth in that,” the old man said.

Harrow finished his beer, then stood. “Look, Archie — I’ve got to go run this plate. You got anything else for me?”

“I don’t think so.”

But Harrow couldn’t quite let go. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? Just call your friend Roberto?”

“No phone.”

“It’s just... Archie, goddamn it — somebody might have caught this bastard, if you’d just notified the police.”

“If that’s all, J.C., I got shows to watch, and books to read.”

Harrow shook his head. “None of this means anything to you?”

“You lost your family, didn’t you?”

“...Yeah.”

“Ever want to cash it in after that?”

Harrow sighed. “I could use another smoke.”

The old man provided one, and the two went back outside where dusk had deepened to purple evening.

“I might want to cash it in,” Harrow said, “but I can’t think that way. I have to stop this son of a bitch before he does this sick thing again, and again.”

“See, that’s why I like you on TV, J.C. Why other people like you on TV.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t give a shit about being a star or having your fifteen minutes of whatever-the-hell. You’re the only person on television with an unselfish motive for being there.”

“Oh, I have a selfish motive, Archie. I want justice for my family.”

“Not revenge?”

“Semantics.”

Gershon chuckled dryly, letting smoke swirl out. “People think I’m crazier than a shithouse rat, living out here. I survived things I never should have, and that survival’s so ingrained in me, I couldn’t ever punch my own ticket. So, here I sit on this goddamned hill just waiting to die.”

“Or for someone to come kill you?”

“That’s just one way of dying.” He looked out into the gathering darkness. “What those ‘good’ people do out there to each other, that doesn’t mean squat to me anymore. Yet I’m still here. Waiting.”

Harrow stubbed out the cigarette under his heel, but before he turned to go, he asked, “Were you in Dallas in 1963, Archie?”

“...Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“I don’t,” Harrow said. “But I do pay attention.”

Bestowing his guest a tight smile, Gershon said, “I will tell you one thing — I was in the Dominican Republic in 1961.”

“Trujillo?”

“You know your history. If a man knows his history, he might keep from repeating it... not that anybody in charge of this country for the last twenty years ever got that.” The breeze blew at his hair again, and the old man shivered, possibly with the cold.

Harrow sighed. “Been a lot of blood spilled in a lot of places.”

“I said you knew your history.”

“Whoever spilled that blood next door, Archie, has got to be stopped.”

“Don’t disagree. But it’s your job, not mine.”

“It is at that... and I should get to doing it.”

“You should,” Gershon said. “But if you ever want to stop back and shoot the shit again, chances are I won’t shoot at you. And if I do, I won’t likely hit you.”

Harrow gave up a lopsided grin. “Thanks for that much. And thanks for the license plate number. That should put you in solid with your pal Roberto. And I’ll get my network to pay for the damage to his vehicle.”

“And they say TV stars are just a bunch of phonies.”

Then, laughing at his own joke, the old man turned around and went into the house and joined his hound, his TV, his lounger, his books, and his guns.

Chapter Eighteen

For tonight’s show, Carmen Garcia — chicly businesslike in black slacks and a gray silk blouse, her dark hair pulled up in a tight bun — was about to do the live segment intro. This would be followed by a long walking shot sans teleprompter — she’d memorized a full page of script — and Carmen could not remember ever feeling more nervous. She prayed it didn’t show, or else her meteoric rise might be quickly followed by the same kind of fall...

As the assistant director counted down to the second, Carmen sent herself a mixed signal: Stay calm... and energy up!

“I’m Carmen Garcia. Welcome to Killer TV on the road with Crime Seen!”

Hathaway, on Steadicam this time, followed Carmen down the institutional hallway, as did Nancy Hughes with her boom.

“We’re on our way to a conference room at the Rolla, North Dakota, sheriff’s office, where our team’s set up shop. We are investigating the two-year-old murders of Nola and Katie Hanson — wife and daughter of then — county comptroller Burl Hanson, who later took his own life, becoming the killer’s third victim.”

Hathaway followed her in as she moved along and around the big table dominating the room. Behind her, easels held bulletin boards arrayed with crime scene photos from the Hanson house (the most explicit had come down for the broadcast).

Cameraman Phil Dingle was already in the room, capturing tighter one- and two-shots of the others at the table — Laurene Chase poring over more crime scene photos, Jenny Blake hunkered over her laptop, Billy Choi sitting before a computer as well. Both Hathaway and Dingle’s shots were being uploaded by the satellite truck for director Stu Phillips back in LA to work his (and his staff’s) magic.

Carmen stopped next to Choi. “Bullets from the Ferguson home in Placida, Florida, match bullets from the Hanson murders here in Rolla. Firearms and tool mark examiner Billy Choi has been working on this evidence... Billy?”

The firearms expert with the perfect hair wore the now-familiar Crime Seen! lab coat over an open-collar blue shirt and navy slacks.

“Carmen, using NIBIN...” A pop-up defined NIBIN for new viewers. “...we’d already matched the bullets from the two crime scenes. But look at the slides of the two — the striations are a perfect match. These bullets were fired from a vintage Browning nine-millimeter automatic.”

“You can be certain of the make of the weapon?”

“Oh yes — the striations are made by the rifling in the barrel. Glocks, Sig Sauers, and the like have barrels struck on a mandrel, with no rifling. The Browning’s rifling gives us a way to identify it. The killer may have picked up the shell casings... but we can still get a match through the bullets themselves.”

“But this is a different gun than the one used in the murders at the Harrow home?”

“It is,” Choi admitted. “The Harrow murders and, we now know, at least one other set of murders were committed with a .357 revolver.”

“And what’s next?”

“Because of Jenny’s discovery, I’ll be looking for matches among several other gun attacks across the United States.”

“Thank you, Billy.”

Carmen turned to Jenny and asked, “What was the discovery you made?”

Her name and area of expertise superimposed at the bottom of the screen, Jenny wore not her usual T-shirt and jeans, but dress slacks and a silky blouse, her blonde hair tied back in a loose ponytail. In real life, she rarely wore makeup, but this was television and she was mildly glamorized, still looking painfully shy... but steady.

By punching some keys on her computer, Jenny brought up a map of the United States with red stars scattered around. “These mark different towns where attacks may be related to those we’ve been investigating.”

Dingle got in close on the map, showing the audience the twenty-two different towns where attacks on the families of civil servants had occurred over the last nine years.

Jenny and Carmen went on explaining the theory, as scripted, while halfway across the country, in the office of Sheriff Roberto Tomasa, the rest of the team — Harrow, Pall, and Anderson — sat before a monitor studying the map as they waited for Carmen to throw the show to them.

Till now, these attacks had been a list of names, addresses, and dates on a page. Now, displayed on a map, they started to carry weight, graphically indicating the possible extent of the killer’s carnage, and his travels. Texas, Nevada, California, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio — the red stars seemed to be everywhere. All this, plus the Iowa, Florida, North Dakota, and New Mexico murders.

Chris Anderson could only shake his head in frustration that these statistics made feeling the true weight of the tragedy so elusive.

At twenty-seven, the blond, boy-band handsome chemist had himself pegged as the youngest member of the team, with the possible exception of computer cutie Jenny Blake, and perhaps segment host Carmen Garcia (although she wasn’t, technically, a member of the team).

Turning to Pall, Anderson asked, “We could use a print-out of that map, don’tcha think, Michael?”

“I do,” the short, muscular Pall said.

“Sheriff?” Anderson said, turning to Sheriff Tomasa, who stood off to one side, waiting for Harrow to interview him during the upcoming segment.

“Yes, son?”

“Can you get someone to get me a fold-out map of the United States?”

Tomasa glanced at Harrow, to see if he had time to honor this request, and the host nodded. Then the sheriff made a quick cell phone call to one of his deputies.

Harrow called over to Anderson: “What is it, Chris?”

“I don’t know yet, sir, not for sure,” Anderson said, voice lazy, eyes alert. “There’s somethin’ about all those towns, but I can’t quite put it together...”

Sound man Ingram was counting down, and they all turned their attention to the show at hand.

Harrow introduced a short segment that included, from the bottom of the gravel drive, pieces of his encounter with Archie Gershon. The audio from Hathaway’s camera hadn’t picked up anything worth using, so Harrow had prerecorded a voiceover explanation, saying that the recluse had given them a significant lead — the license number of the perp’s vehicle.

Back on camera, Harrow said, “Meet Michael Pall, one of the premier scientists in law enforcement.”

Pall’s thick black comma of hair hung Superman-style, his black glasses giving him the right professorial look, a white shirt and dark tie peaking from beneath his Crime Seen! lab coat. The sleeves of the white jacket seemed stretched to the limit by the compact man’s muscles.

Pall was, Anderson knew, a zealot about his workouts. Even with their hours mostly spent on the bus, in the semi-situated lab or in a motel, Pall always seemed to find a place and the time to lift weights. The guy was a good twenty years older than Anderson, but had more energy than a crate of Red Bull and no apparent need for sleep.

“So, Dr. Pall,” Harrow was saying, “what can you tell us about the license number Mr. Gershon gave us?”

Looking at Harrow and not the camera — as he’d been taught in the crash course in TV technique the network had provided — Pall said, “Oklahoma plate registered to a Honda Accord owned by a seventy-year-old woman in a little town called Clinton.”

“Probably not our suspect,” Harrow said.

“No, but when the Oklahoma Highway Patrol got to her house, they found the license plate on her Fusion was actually a Kansas plate, and the woman hadn’t noticed the switch.”

“She hadn’t noticed that her car had a license plate from a different state?”

Pall shrugged. “The OHP discovered that the only plate that had been switched was the rear, and it had just escaped her attention.”

“Was that the plate from the truck Gershon saw?”

“No — the Kansas plate was registered to a Dodge van belonging to an out-of-work female bartender in Pratt.”

“And the license plate on that van?”

“We haven’t found it yet,” Pall said. “The bartender’s ex-boyfriend said she packed up her stuff and hit the road to find work. No forwarding address, no nothing.”

Off-camera, a deputy came in and handed Anderson a fold-out map of the country. The chemist continued to listen while he quietly unfolded the map and compared it to the list of crime scenes.

Harrow was asking Pall, “But she was driving the van when she left?”

“She was.”

Anderson got a Sharpie out of his pocket, then started marking the different towns around the country where attacks had occurred.

Harrow said, “Mr. Gershon said our suspect was likely a man.”

Pall nodded. “We have two puzzle pieces. That they don’t fit together doesn’t mean that we’re not closer to solving the puzzle.”

Anderson looked up at the boss. Even though Harrow knew all this before they went on the air, and the dialogue had been loosely scripted (no prompter, but essentially canned), the host still looked gravely disappointed.

Was that just good acting? Anderson wondered.

Turning to the young chemist, who rose from his chair, Harrow introduced him to the viewing audience.

Anderson tried to keep his breathing even as he did his best to ignore the black hole in the center of the camera. He was also conscious of the hovering boom mike, but managed not to look up at it.

“Chris, have we had any luck matching the tire marks from this crime to the ones Billy Choi sent you from North Dakota?”

“They don’t match — at least not completely.”

Harrow appeared confused (for the sake of the TV audience, anyway). “What do you mean, ‘not completely’? Either they match or they don’t, right?”

Harrow had set this up for Anderson to look good, and the young man appreciated it.

“The tires in North Dakota were nearly bald, Mr. Harrow. Though the tires here in New Mexico show some wear, they’re nowhere near the same age as the Dakota tires.”

“So they don’t match.”

“That’s right, sir — they have the same tread design, which means they’re the same brand, Michelin, and they’re the same size, 275/70R18. It’s possible that the suspect has changed out the old tires for new ones on the same vehicle.”

“Are there other possibilities?”

“Sure. There could be two separate suspects, who both own light pickups that have the same brand tires — one worn, one fairly new. But if you believe that... and remember we have two separate gun matches... then the killer in North Dakota killed a public servant’s family in Florida, and a different killer murdered the families of George Reid here... and yours, Mr. Harrow, in Iowa.”

“That would make one hell of a coincidence.”

“Yes, sir, it would. Particularly since forensics evidence indicates the same gardening implement was used in the removal of the wedding-ring fingers of both Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. Reid. Distinctive characteristics of one garden-shear blade, and plant DNA, make that conclusive.”

“Thanks, Chris,” Harrow said, moving slightly to let Arroyo get the sheriff into the shot, so the boss could interview him.

With his part finished, Anderson dropped back into the chair, Sharpie in hand, as he went back to the list and the map.

He had something — he didn’t know what — but he had something.

Chapter Nineteen

In his dreary, dusty living room, sitting on the edge of his seat, the Messenger watched Crime Seen! intently. When it had gone off the air with J.C. Harrow’s familiar “war on crime” homily, the man of the house kicked back in the aged Barcalounger and smiled.

Finally!

After years of planning and delivering his messages, and fearing that these fools could never stop him, he finally had someone’s ear — someone who could make everything all right.

Despite a slow start, J.C. Harrow seemed to be the one who could and would put the pieces together... though it did take plenty of help. No matter by what process, however, at last the Messenger’s signals were coming through. Maybe the help Harrow was receiving from his much-vaunted team was the key to making sure the world eventually understood completely.

He had watched the young woman who co-hosted with special interest. What was her name? Carmen Something. He would rewind the tape and get it.

She might prove just the one to help him deliver his next and, he hoped, final message.

His sighed and allowed himself a relieved smile. After all these years, the end was in sight. He had to clean the house, and there was planning to do, one more trip to make, one more message to deliver...

After all, company was coming.

Chapter Twenty

The Crime Seen! viewer tip line had received calls about every single blue Ford F-150 in the United States — or at least so it seemed to Jenny Blake.

As the team’s computer expert, she was the beneficiary of this sort of grunt work, tracking down the vehicles in tips and running checks on them. Funny how they’d all been hired as “superstar” forensics experts, with the media playing that up, the Internet too. But none of the Killer TV team had any underlings to pass off work to.

The chemist, Chris Anderson, had said it best: “We got a great starting line-up, but no bench!”

Still, she wasn’t complaining, though the tip line stuff tended to come to her, and while the team was obviously making progress, she was feeling a very small part of that. She wanted to do more.

Her drive to succeed, to please, and her loyalty to Harrow and his cause, kept her going. The Wyoming crime lab had provided her plenty of tough cases, but never a challenge this great.

At least being with new people gave her a new chance to overcome her shyness. So far she hadn’t been able to take much advantage of the new start; if anything, she felt more isolated, living on the road with strangers.

The rest of the team, though they all seemed nice enough, were obviously out of their comfort zones as well. Everybody seemed vaguely on edge, not only because of the life on the road — motel, work, eat, ride the bus, motel, work, eat, ride the bus — but because of the complicated job at hand.

And not the least of the complications was having the leader of the team so emotionally vested in the case, not that Harrow had slipped up in any way or shown the emotions that must have been churning beneath the surface.

Jenny knew all about such emotions.

With the bus rolling south now, heading for Pratt, Kansas, where the halved team could reunite, she had a little quiet time in the back by herself. Today, she wore a PETA T-shirt and her usual jeans with canvas tennis shoes, her normal work clothes at both the Wyoming crime lab and on the bus. The only time she wore anything else was on those painful Friday broadcast nights, when they dressed her up like a Barbie doll.

This bus was set up with only a dozen regular seats up front, six rows of two seats on either side, and another half dozen in back, beyond the restroom. Behind the front seats was a work area with a pair of compact desks and bolted chairs. Before you got to the bathroom were two facing chaise lounges, windows blacked out, the lounges mostly used for catching naps. They were equipped with seat belts, but Jenny didn’t have hers on as she sat back there in the dark, her computer on her lap providing the necessary light.

She knew she shouldn’t be bitching. The tip line stuff was culled before she got it — PAs back in LA were battling under Everest-sized piles of mail, e-mail, text messages, and phone calls, an onslaught that had begun right after the first show.

When Crime Seen! made the connection that Harrow was former law enforcement and Ferguson current — implying the families of lawmen might be targets — the tip lines exploded with everything from actual leads to communiqués insisting the Killer TV team investigate the death of all family members of every former or current law enforcement official that had not died in their sleep at 101 or over, and in the sight of a dozen eyewitnesses.

After the second show, when the victimology moved from strictly law enforcement to public servants in general, the deaths of every federal, state, and local government employee and their families going back a quarter century seemed to have been dredged up.

Those tips joined the sea of information flowing into the show. The show’s staff, from showrunner Nicole Strickland to the lowliest PA, believed that everyone in America knew someone whose death could somehow be tied to the murders of the families of Harrow and Ray Ferguson.

Six degrees of J.C. Harrow, Billy Choi put it.

The vehicle tips had been forwarded to Jenny in the field, because she was right on the front lines, if she got a hit. Tons of other messages and questions were being sifted through thoroughly at UBC in LA.

As for the rest of the team, Billy Choi and the cameraman Maury Hathaway were riding in the trailer of the semi behind them, Choi working in the lab, Hathaway picking up “B roll” of Billy, whatever that was. Billy roll, maybe?

On the bus, in the rows beyond the restroom, Carmen Garcia was going over notes from the previous show while lanky Laurene Chase sat across the aisle, her overhead light out, arms folded, catching a nap. Way in back, Nancy Hughes was in a little puddle of illumination, lost in a sudoku puzzle.

Jenny continued running down dead leads on the pickup, knowing that once she got through them, next up would be running down the tips on the missing bartender’s van.

That van was the reason they were headed for Pratt, Kansas. Though the trail was a week old, this would be the closest they’d been to the killer. The missing van had generated nearly as many viewer tips as the myriad F-150s. Police departments in Oklahoma, Kansas, and surrounding states were searching for both vehicles, but no one was having any luck finding either.

Feeling overwhelmed, Jenny yawned, set her laptop aside, rose, and went into the bathroom. She locked the door and looked at her face in the tiny mirror over the minuscule sink. The toilet was normal size, seeming an oversized fixture in this tiny closet — a full-sized chair in a dollhouse.

She had to rest a knee on the stool’s lid just to study her face in the postage-stamp mirror, which was just large enough to show her how limp her blonde hair was looking. She had scrubbed the yucky makeup off after the show and not worn any since, making it easy (she knew) to see the black circles under her red-filigreed eyes. Not normally a vain person, she nonetheless recoiled from her image — she looked like a homeless person with the flu.

She grabbed the rim of the stainless steel sink and tried to wrestle it free of its mooring as she yelled, “Goddamn son of a bitch shit!”

The string of epithets, which included various forms of the fabled F bomb, continued for a good ten to fifteen seconds, after which — muscles sore, chest heaving, a sheen of sweat on her forehead and upper lip — she stood staring at the sick homeless person in the mirror for a good minute more, trembling.

After taking in a deep breath through her nose, she let it out through her mouth. She repeated the action three more times, splashed a little cool water on her face, and used a paper towel to dry off. Feeling much better, she stepped out of the bathroom, into the aisle of the bus at her agape co-workers.

Jenny gulped. “I, uh, figured the engine noise would cover that.”

Still wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the trio shook their heads in unintended unison.

She forced a smile. “Hey, girl’s gotta let off steam sometime, right?”

Laurene said, “If you want to borrow my Midol, just say so, sugar.”

That made Jenny and the other two women laugh, and the computer expert returned to the chaise lounge area, where Carmen, Laurene, and Nancy joined her.

Perching across from Jenny, sitting Indian-style, Laurene said, “We have been going at it a little hard.”

Next to Jenny, Carmen said, “You think? Trying to stop a serial killer while putting on a weekly network show?”

Nancy, next to Laurene now, said, “Goes way beyond ‘let’s put on a show in the barn.’”

“All righty, then,” Laurene said, doing a Jim Carrey impression so dated Jenny barely understood it. “Time for a girl’s night out!”

“You wish,” Carmen said.

Laurene patted the air. “No, no, for real. We’ll get to Pratt fairly early, right?”

Nobody argued the point. They had, in fact, left Rolla yesterday and driven ten hours to Omaha, Nebraska, where they’d spent the night. That left today’s trip of about six hours. They would meet up with Harrow’s group, compare notes, then call it a day.

“Once we finish work,” Laurene said, “look out Pratt!”

Carmen and Nancy whooped and clapped, but Jenny sat silently.

Finally Laurene asked her, “Are you in?”

“I’m pretty swamped. All these tip-line... tips.”

“Don’t you know girls just want to have fun?”

This, too, was a reference that only rang distantly for Jenny. “We can do that?”

“What?”

“Have fun?”

“Hell yeah!”

“...In Pratt, Kansas?”

This got some unintended laughs, though Jenny nonetheless felt like she’d been vindicated, and Laurene had the expression of a wiseass who’d just been topped.

Laurene leaned forward, looking straight at Jenny. “I suppose you’ve got something else planned tonight. And I don’t mean tip-line tips.”

“Well...”

“Got a date, maybe? With that cute chemist with the nice buns, maybe? Or our well-seasoned firearms man with the guns.” Laurene made like a muscle man.

“No!” Jenny’s cheeks were burning.

“Didn’t think so. You know what I think? I think it’s time we got that bony ass of yours out of them jeans and into a dress.”

Jenny shook her head, nervous now, fear rising. “No! I don’t even own a dress.”

Next to Jenny, Carmen said, “You know, I’ve got the cutest little black dress — you would look so hot in it.”

“I don’t think so.”

Nancy said, “We’ve all seen the looks our Southern-fried Beach Boy sneaks at you.”

“What? Who?”

Laurene said, “The cute chemist. Talk about chemistry! I don’t even dig men, but he’s worth looking at, coming and going.”

“He was never looking at me,” Jenny insisted.

“He sneaks peeks all the time, sugar.”

“Why would he do that?”

Carmen said, “Looking to hook up.”

“Hook up what? I’m wireless.”

The laughter of the other girls took a while to die down, before Jenny removed her blank expression and let a smile form.

“Got you,” she said. “I’m quiet, not... inexperienced.”

She guessed they didn’t know she used to fish for child molesters online, and that she knew a lot more than she let on, much of it disgusting and revolting.

They sat and chatted the rest of the way to Pratt, Jenny feeling more at home with these strangers — these new acquaintances — than she had with her co-workers back in Wyoming.

Maybe here, on this bus, with these women, she could find the freedom to be herself, not the Jenny that she was always expected to be back home. Out here, she was Jenny Blake, computer guru.

Whoever the hell that was.

Chapter Twenty-one

Now they were on his trail for real.

Still, he’d had to practically spoon-feed them, to get them this close. Using the same gun in New Mexico that he’d used at Harrow’s seemed at the time heavy-handed, too obvious a clue; but the so-called superstar Killer TV team had proved only slightly better at deciphering his messages than the myriad police departments and state police around the country, where he’d made deliveries over the years.

The gun had told them it was him. Trading license plates along his route gave them the road map they needed to get close. That damn female bartender in Pratt driving off into the night threw a slight monkey wrench into his plans.

But they would have to figure that one out for themselves. He could deliver messages to help them understand, but he could not simply hand himself over on a silver platter — they had to earn it.

Didn’t they know nothing was free in this life?

The license plate he’d placed on the bartender’s van in exchange for the original was from his hometown, but most certainly wasn’t his own plate. Hell, it didn’t even belong to the monster who’d turned him into the Messenger!

No, it came from the dark blue Ford F-150 of that yahoo down the street with the dog that wouldn’t shut its yap. He’d asked the guy to keep his dog quiet, but the thoughtless asshole had laughed at him and told him to buzz off.

Would have been sweet to see how the yahoo liked it when the Crime Seen! team, the Kansas State Police, the FBI, and God only knew what other law enforcement agencies crawled up his hiney, thinking he was the one delivering messages. Would have been a hoot to watch, from just up the street. He’d have been laughing his ass off at how close they’d come to him while striking out.

If he’d been feeling really cocky, he’d have driven to the grocery store for a quart of milk while all those cops were right on his block tearing the yahoo’s house to hell and gone. Could have driven right through all the cars, parked haphazardly on the street, their lights blinking, so consumed with the yahoo that they’d never have even seen the real Messenger among them.

Parked in his own F-150 now, eyes closed as he leaned back, daydreaming about getting even with the yahoo with the dog, the Messenger felt the thing between his legs quiver.

The thing had been dead for so long, he barely recognized the sensation. The feeling was both familiar and wonderful and gave him a second or two of hope before he came back to reality.

The bartender with the van had disappeared — a message that never got properly delivered, and if the stupid bitch turned up within the three and a half days until the show, maybe the asshole and his dog would still get their due.

Otherwise, it was just another dashed hope, just like every other goddamned hope he’d ever clung to in his life.

Hope — sometimes he thought he hated that word more than any other. Hope represented not only everything that he could never have, now or in the future, but also the loss of his dreams for the futures of those he’d loved most.

The mere thought turned his knuckles white as he caught himself practically strangling the steering wheel. He fought back the rage, though it still coursed through him, barely controlled. His hope (that word again) was that he’d keep the rage in check, at least until his target arrived.

He figured the Crime Seen! team would be spending most of their time this week in the place where the trail went cold — that meant Pratt, Kansas, which was where he was now. Pratt, known as “The Gateway to the Great Plains,” was famous for having two water towers that didn’t feature the town’s name, instead bearing the legends HOT and COLD. Ha ha.

The Killer TV team wasn’t here yet, but they’d be on their way. He and his Ford were in a corner of the parking lot of one of Pratt’s seven motels, which — along with the police department — were all he had to cover. Sooner or later, Harrow and his cronies would show up in their big obnoxious tour buses plus that semi-trailer rig, not only advertising the show, but pinpointing their location.

This team was so accustomed to being the hunters, never occurred to them that they might be the prey. That gave him a huge advantage. They’d be so busy searching for him, they wouldn’t see him right in front of them. Like a snake in the rocks, he would strike before they even knew he was there.

And there’d be no rattle of warning, either...

The Messenger was at the police department when, an hour later, the first Crime Seen! bus arrived. He was right there, coming out the glass double doors of the brick police department when the big stupid vehicle rolled up and parked right in front. Having gone inside, just another citizen using a public bathroom, he’d come out at the perfect time. He stood frozen, mesmerized by his good fortune, staring as the door of the bus swung slowly open.

J.C. Harrow himself stepped down, jeans, navy blue sports coat, white button-down shirt open at the throat. He had dark glasses on against the afternoon sun as he crossed the sidewalk, as square-jawed and ruggedly handsome as the hero in an old western.

Breaking out his first genuine smile in a long while, the Messenger held the PD station’s door open as Harrow passed him and went on into the building, the reality show host even granting the Messenger a nod of thanks.

Thinks he’s the star of this show, the Messenger thought with inner glee.

As Harrow strode to the front desk, the Messenger watched through the glass and savored the moment. Then he held the door for the blond pretty-boy chemist and the muscle-bound dwarf DNA “expert” too. The chemist thanked him in a cornpone drawl; the dwarf relinquished a crisp nod. After that, some crew members were coming from the bus, and they could open their own goddamn door.

He strolled back to his truck, whistling, a long-abandoned habit from his old life, back when he was still alive.

Would have been nice to see her — his next message — but there was no reason to push his luck. Harrow had given him a nod, and the Messenger would replay that moment at least once an hour for every hour of every day of the rest of his life.

Chapter Twenty-two

Following Anderson and the boss into the Pratt PD, Michael Pall had to wonder if the guy who’d held the door for them had been giving him the hairy eyeball. This was not an uncommon thought for him, and wouldn’t have been even before his face and form had been broadcast all across the nation on a top-ten TV show.

He was a handsome guy, in his own considered opinion, and physically fit just didn’t cover it. So gay guys gave him looks, and straight guys envious glances. But also sons of bitches who thought he was short. They gave him looks too, and laughed to themselves, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, except break them apart in his mind.

The attractive fortyish blonde woman in uniform behind the bulletproof glass of her booth gave them a big goofy smile as the trio trooped in, Arroyo and Ingram trailing, capturing the whole entrance on camera and boom. The only way into the PD proper was through a single door to the right of the booth where the receptionist oversaw the compact lobby.

A phone was the only way to communicate with the booth, and the boss picked it up and said, “Good afternoon.”

The woman, who wore a headset, said something only Harrow could pick up, and he replied, “Yes, ma’am. We’re here to see Chief Walker, that’s right.”

She made a call they couldn’t hear, then said something to Harrow that took a while.

“Sure,” he said into the phone. He turned to Pall and Anderson. “Chief’s expecting us. But before she buzzes us through, there’s an admission price to pay.”

Anderson frowned. “What’s that, sir?”

“She wants our autographs.”

The reception officer, who had a nice smile, passed a torn-off half sheet of report paper with a pen clipped on through the small slot under her window. Her name was Sandra, and they all signed the thing with the felt-tip Harrow carried for such occasions.

Pall wondered for a moment if she’d only asked Harrow for his autograph, and the boss was just being nice to him and Chris, to make them feel important too.

Not that Pall didn’t already have people coming up wanting autographs. Though he’d only been on camera twice, Pall seemed to spend half his days now, signing napkins in restaurants, magazines in drugstores, even a towel in a motel swimming pool when a fan had interrupted him doing laps a couple of days ago.

Whole thing felt weird to Pall, but for now he just followed Harrow’s lead and was always polite, tried to remember to smile, and never talked down to the fans. Seemed to be working.

He was unaware that the scientist side of him was at war with the bodybuilder — the scientist preferring to keep to himself and his colleagues, the bodybuilder wanting to look good and attract admiration, particularly from strangers. What he did know was this: being thrust into the public eye sometimes made him feel like an ant on the sidewalk looking up to see a kid with a magnifying glass.

Police Chief Alton Walker was a lanky fifty or so, with a hawk face and short white hair gone bald at the crown; he stood ramrod straight, and had a steel grip handshake, eye contact, and a smile ready for every introduction. Pall at once liked the man. The chief wore the same dark blue uniform as his officers, except for polished gold stars riding both shoulders, as if to say Walker might be chief, but was still a working cop.

Harrow had just finished the introductions when the phone buzzed and the chief excused himself, and was on for only a moment. When he hung up, he told Harrow, “Looks like the rest of your team’s arrived.”

Soon Garcia, Blake, Chase, and Choi were tramping in with their camera crew, and a second round of introductions was made. Walker wanted to get a uniform to bring in more chairs, but his quarters were cramped enough and — except for Harrow and his second-in-command, Laurene — everyone else stood.

“Been watching the show,” Walker said, behind his desk in his chair now.

“Thanks,” Harrow said.

“Don’t jump the gun, J.C. — I didn’t say I liked it.”

Harrow just smiled. “No, sir, you didn’t. But you have agreed to cooperate, and that’s all that counts.”

Before an uncomfortable silence could settle in, Walker grinned and raised a hand, admitting, “That was just a bad joke. The wife and me watch the show religiously.”

Choi said, “You mean you TiVo it till Sunday morning?”

The chief laughed at that, and so did everybody else, a little. Harrow glanced back at his resident smart-ass as if to say, You got away with that, but don’t push it.

Pall wasn’t surprised the chief had something “funny” prepared to offer, since the police they contacted all knew they’d be on camera and human nature made them want to look clever and smart for the show. Usually this meant a little awkwardness at the top of an interview, but that soon went away and everybody — sometimes even the team itself — forgot they were being recorded for Friday night, if not posterity.

Walker got his long frame adjusted in the chair, and his attitude shifted as well. “Hell of a thing you’ve uncovered. If this fella is a serial killer of the proportions you say, this one goes in the history books.”

“We want him to be history,” Harrow said. “The books can wait.”

“I hear you,” Walker said with a grave nod. “What kind of progress are you making... and how can we help?”

Pall listened as the boss brought the chief up to speed. He glanced over to see Anderson still studying a section of the folded U.S. map he’d been poring over since the show last week, like a frat boy studying a centerfold. Actually, this was about the fourth map the kid had attacked with a Sharpie. Pall hoped Anderson was at least halfway paying attention...

Harrow was saying, “We followed the trail of license plates from Socorro, up the road to Albuquerque, then east on I-forty to Clinton, Oklahoma, then north on one eighty-three to two eighty-one to, well, here.”

Walker nodded. “Trail’s end of that hunt. Let’s hope it’s the whole damn deal.”

“Would be nice,” Harrow said, nodding. “Of course, no one has had any luck with the bartender—”

“Valerie Jenkins,” Walker supplied.

“Yes, Valerie Jenkins. Your department talked to her ex-boyfriend, I understand.”

“We did. Fact, I accompanied the detective who took the interview.”

“Anything come of it?”

“Nothing much,” the chief said. “The guy she dumped, Clayton Marxsen, is devastated. Said she left him cold. He never saw it coming, though others say it was her MO with guys, to up and leave.”

“She isn’t buried in Marxsen’s backyard, is she?”

“I’ve been at this thirty years, Mr. Harrow—”

“J.C.”

“Thirty years, J.C. You did this job — how’s your bullshit detector?”

“Still working just fine. But I’ve run into some good actors along the way... long before I moved to California.”

The chief smiled at that, then said, “If Marxsen is faking, he’s the best I’ve seen. Guy looks like hell. He’s let the apartment go to shit, there’s pizza boxes around, more fast-food wrappers than a dumpster back of Mickey Dee’s, bottles, ashtrays full of butts. Guy looks like the real miserable run-out-on deal to me.”

“You said he wasn’t her first ride at the rodeo.”

“No, but there’s no other guy in the picture right now that we’ve been able to find. We interviewed Valerie’s friends and co-workers at the bar where she got let go, and no one said anything about her fooling around, despite her rep from past days. Fact, to a man and woman, they were all surprised that Val left Clayton. I couldn’t even find anybody who had any idea where she might have been thinking of splitting.”

Laurene said, “This isn’t the kind of case where a disappearance doesn’t get an investigator thinking.”

“No, ma’am, it isn’t,” the chief said.

“Like... maybe our suspect took her out.”

“On a date?” Choi asked. “Or just out?”

Silence draped the room briefly.

“Either way,” Walker said, “we haven’t found the van.”

“Doesn’t feel right,” Harrow said. “He switched other plates and didn’t have any contact with the owners at all — why her?”

“Maybe,” Laurene said, “she caught him in the act.”

Pall said, “He’s too careful to get caught like that. He’s committed murders all over the country, for nearly a decade, and you could fit all the evidence we have in a drinking glass. He’s not going to get caught switching license plates.”

Laurene cocked an eyebrow and asked Pall, “You trying to profile this son of a bitch?”

Like all of them, Laurene believed in evidence, hard science — that was the team Harrow had put together, which notably lacked a profiler. The forensic sciences were Pall’s mantra as well — fingerprints, footprints, tire tracks, tool marks, DNA, chemistry, computer forensics, and firearms examining, these were the tools of their trade.

“I understand your desire to catch this guy with hard science,” Pall said, choosing his words carefully, Laurene being his other boss, and the camera rolling. “But, Laurene, we have to use all the tools we have at our disposal... and profiling is one of them.”

“All right,” she conceded. “But have you had the training?”

“Yes,” Pall said flatly. “It’s not a specialty, but what I said about using all the tools also goes for acquiring as many as I can. I’ve taken seminars with the best in the field.”

“Okay,” Harrow said. “Take a run at our man.”

“He’s a loner,” Pall said.

Laurene rolled her eyes. “He was a quiet loner,” she said.

“I know, I know,” Pall said, patting the air. “But this guy really is. They’re not all loners, you know. Look at BTK. He was married for thirty-three years, had two kids and killed ten people without anybody even considering him a suspect. John Wayne Gacy was active with the Chamber of Commerce — in Waterloo, Iowa, boss.”

He had Harrow’s attention. All of their attention.

“This guy though? He travels extensively, probably days at a time, in the case of the Placida murders. These are not targets of convenience — he’s picked them out and planned them. The victims are family members of a male civil servant. He didn’t just happen to be in Florida and open a phone book. He struck when the male wasn’t home in every case. That tells us several things.”

Carmen asked, “For instance?”

But it was Laurene who quickly answered: “Males weren’t the targets.”

Pall said, “Good.”

“He maintained surveillance on them,” Harrow added. “Somehow he’s chosen these particular families and scouted them well enough to know when he could expect to not run into the male.”

“Exactly,” Pall said.

Wincing in thought, Choi said, “It’s not just that the male isn’t the target — the killer wants to avoid that confrontation. He’s a chickenshit.” He looked at the camera. “If you don’t want to bleep that, I’ll start over... He’s a coward. He doesn’t think hecan take the male, no matter who that male might be, so avoids him.”

Pall said, “That’s my theory as well.”

Harrow asked, “Then, why the families of civil servants?”

Glances were passed around the chief’s office like a game of keep-away.

Carmen said, “He hates the government?”

“Join the club,” Choi said.

Chief Walker pitched in: “Then why not just kill the civil servant?”

Carmen mulled that momentarily. “Like Billy said, he’s a coward.”

“I’m not so sure,” Laurene said, shaking her head. “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t... but even if he is afraid of the male, it’s more than that. He wants his victims to suffer.”

Jenny Blake spoke up, surprising everyone, including herself: “The victims don’t suffer. He takes them out with killing shots.”

“But they aren’t his real victims,” Laurene said with an awful smile. “His real victims, his primary intended victims, are the males. The survivors. That suicide in the Hanson case? It may represent our killer’s greatest triumph.”

The chief asked, “What kind of sick shit is this?”

They all considered the crude, profound question for several seconds.

Finally, Harrow — who had reason to know — tapped his own chest and said, “He wants us to suffer. Like he suffers.”

“He’s suffering?” Jenny asked.

Grabbing onto this new insight, Harrow said, “Somehow he feels the government has made him suffer... and he wants the ‘government’ to suffer just as deeply. An individual like me represents the government — stands in for the government.”

The chief asked, “What could make him feel like he’s suffering as much as people who have lost their wives and children?”

“Maybe he lost his,” Harrow said.

The room fell silent and still.

Then Harrow said, “He’s someone who thinks the government took away his own wife and family.” He looked around at his people, one at a time. “We need to start looking for someone who fits that profile.”

Glancing up from his map, Anderson said, “Someone who fits that profile... and who probably lives in Kansas.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Laurene said, pointing to the floor. “The trail ran out in Kansas.”

Anderson moved to the chief’s desk and spread the map of the United States out on it, big black dots from the Sharpie showing the scattering of towns where attacks on families of civil servants had occurred.

“What do you see?” the blond chemist asked.

They all stood over the map looking down.

“Easy,” Choi said. “Bunch of black dots.”

“Try connecting them,” Anderson said.

His voice soft and dry, Harrow asked, “If you do... what picture does it make?”

“Several, sir. I tried spokes, I tried grids, I tried all kinds of stuff — then I got it.”

They watched as he drew a big circle that connected dots in California, Texas, Placida, Florida, Pennsylvania, the upper peninsula of Michigan, Rolla, North Dakota, and Montana.

Laurene squinted, then widened her eyes. “What the hell...?”

Anderson drew another circle, this one smaller. It connected dots in Utah, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Texas.

“Oh,” Pall said. “I get it.”

Garcia was frowning. “Well, I wish you’d tell me, then...”

The next smaller circle included Harrow’s town, South Dakota, Colorado, Oklahoma, and southern Illinois.

The next circle included Lincoln, Nebraska; Blue Rapids, Kansas; Garden City, Kansas; and North Platte, Nebraska.

“Chris, you earned your pay today,” Harrow said, then asked the others, “Does anyone remember Luke John Helder?”

Pall said, “The dippy Minnesota kid with the pipe bombs.”

“Right,” Harrow said.

“I’ve heard of that,” Laurene said. “I just don’t remember the details.”

Pall explicated: “Kid was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. He planted eighteen pipe bombs in the Midwest in the spring of 2002. When he was caught, he confessed he’d set the bombs to make the pattern of a smiley face across a map of the United States.”

“Right,” Harrow said. “Only this son of a bitch is making a target.”

“That’s what I believe,” Anderson said, bobbing his blond head.

“Okay,” Jenny said. “Then where’s the bull’s-eye?”

Anderson said, “Could be anywhere within this...” He traced the last loop, which still left them with a 250-mile-by-250-mile circle. It wasn’t perfectly symmetrical like some of the other circles. They had a considerable area to deal with.

Laurene asked, “You think that’s where he lives, somewhere in that circle?”

“Might be,” Harrow said. “Might be where the people are he holds responsible for his suffering. Could be both. Either way, we need to find him. Jenny, forget the vehicle stuff — concentrate on this. Find out where the center of the bull’s-eye is.”

“Right away,” she said.

“Rest of us need to find any clues we can that’ll lead us to that center point.” Harrow took a deep breath. He let it out. “We’re getting close, people. Our subject doesn’t think we can stop him. Let’s track him down and prove him wrong.”

Choi asked, “Has it occurred to anybody that we’re in the bull’s-eye right now? Not dead-center maybe, but inside it, anyway?”

Harrow said, “Yes it has, Billy.”

“Okay, then,” Choi said. “So before we break our arms patting Chris on the back, could we keep in mind we’re in the middle of serial killer’s target?”

Chapter Twenty-three

“Girls Night Out” had been cancelled, or anyway postponed, after Chris Anderson’s “target” breakthrough; but Carmen Garcia nonetheless did not get back to her motel room till after midnight. The team had worked through the afternoon and well into the evening — coming up with nothing worth bragging about — followed by a long dinner break at a Mexican restaurant recommended by Chief Walker, who seemed to be J.C.’s new best friend.

The Tex-Mex turned out to be delicious, though Carmen didn’t dare eat nearly as much as she’d have liked. Now that she was on-air talent, Carmen waged a never-ending, round-the-clock battle against gaining an ounce. She was spending far more time working out now, trailing Pall and mimicking the weightlifter’s regimen to some extent. Extra effort was spent on grooming, as well, and she occasionally rode in the hair/makeup Winnebago so that the girls could experiment and refine her look.

No longer a T-shirt and jeans girl in the public, Carmen — who attracted almost as many autograph seekers these days as Harrow himself — was careful to always wear a nice blouse and slacks or a skirt. Her Visa card might be taking a beating, but everyone seemed to look at her with admiring eyes now, even the boss, and she dug it. No longer the lowly PA, the “girl” with an office job, she was a woman with a career.

Even the seating chart at dinner seemed to reflect her newly exalted status. Harrow, of course, took the head of the table, Laurene Chase at the opposite end, the mommy and daddy chairs at the long table. Carmen, however, had gained the favored-nation status of sitting at Harrow’s right hand, Chief Walker across from her. With the crew thrown in too, that made eleven.

Everybody had chatted amiably while they waited for their dinner. Carmen listened to Harrow and the chief trade war stories, which was pretty fascinating stuff, but her eyes kept shifting down the table to where Jenny Blake and Chris Anderson were seated side by side.

Normally, Carmen might have considered this a random occurrence — only after their talk on the bus today, she wondered if Jenny hadn’t quietly orchestrated the arrangement. Still waters running deep and all.

While Anderson did 90 percent of the talking, Jenny was actually engaged in conversation with him, instead of merely staring at her plate, as she so often had in the past.

After dinner, the team trooped back to the Pratt police station and spent another four hours trying to discern whether the killer himself might be the bull’s-eye’s center... or would it be his ultimate quarry? Or was the target an entirely obscure message, so twisted in the unsub’s mind that using logic or psychology to unravel its meaning was a hopeless task?

They had been at it for a while, seemingly gaining only inches at a time, when Laurene Chase floated the notion that the bull’s-eye might mean nothing more than that the killer was targeting the whole country.

“Remember our ever-loving smiley face in the Helder case,” she said. “Turned out it didn’t mean shit, except to Helder and his sick sense of humor.”

Harrow lifted his eyebrows and then set them down, as if they were a heavy load. “You have a point, Laurene — we’ve been trying to assign a meaning to the bull’s-eye when what it means to the killer is the key.”

“I think,” Pall said, “he’s trying to tell us something — or, at least, show us something.”

Harrow’s eyes slitted. “Go on.”

“We have twenty-some crimes here. If we assume the ones that fit Anderson’s theory and line up roughly with the circles of the bull’s-eye, that’s still a lot of crimes... and a lot of time.”

Pall had their attention now. Nobody, not even Laurene, was quibbling about the efficacy of profiling.

“So much time,” he was saying, “so much planning — I can’t buy that there isn’t something behind it all. Something important to the unsub, anyway — something he’s trying to get across.”

“Helder took time,” Laurene said, “and planned. And his ‘message’ was just a big goofy smile.”

“Granted, but Helder’s crimes were a spree. He set eighteen bombs in Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. The last few weren’t even rigged to explode. The crazier he got, the more focus he lost. Our killer has never lost focus — he’s plotted and carried out maybe as many as four dozen murders over the course of almost a decade, and never really slipped, never started leaving clues he didn’t intend to leave.”

“Except,” Laurene said, “for the corn leaf.”

“Even that may have been intentional,” Pall said with a shrug.

“No clues he didn’t intend to leave,” Harrow echoed, like a mantra. “That means he’s used the same gun in Rolla, North Dakota, and Socorro, New Mexico, because he wanted us to know it was him. Why?”

Anderson said, “He’s filling in the bull’s-eye, sir. Finishing up. And he wants someone to recognize his work. Goin’ out of his way to make his message more clear.”

“Whatever the hell it is,” Laurene muttered.

“Meaning no joke, Chris, you might be on target,” Pall said. “What’s the point of going to all the trouble of creating this great big target, if no one recognizes it? It’s a ten-year performance art piece, remember... and if there’s no audience, why do it?”

The group stared at the broad-shouldered scientist.

“Granted it’s a psychotic performance art piece,” he said, offering an open palm.

Choi said, “Performance art’s by definition psychotic.”

Laurene said, “The Manhattan Art Council’s opinion heard.”

That got a chuckle from the entire team, even Choi.

Harrow, smiling, pushed his chair back and rose. “We’re getting punchy. Been a long day. Nothing wrong with our thinking that some sleep won’t cure.”

On the bus ride back to the motel, Carmen sat with Jenny Blake. The cute little computer guru smiled when Carmen joined her — the kid was starting to loosen up. A little.

“So — you and Chris,” Carmen said, as the bus door closed and the driver slipped the vehicle into gear. “What’s the story?”

Even in the near dark of the bus interior, Carmen could see Jenny’s smile had faded.

“Story?”

“At dinner. You two were talking.”

“So?”

“So... I want to hear everything — and don’t tell me you were talking business.”

Jenny glanced around. Choi and cameraman Hathaway were in back on the chaise lounges. Audio gal Nancy Hughes was in her usual seat near the front, apparently asleep. Laurene sat across the aisle and — even though Jenny didn’t seem to notice — Carmen was sure Harrow’s number two was only resting, and not asleep.

“We just talked,” Jenny said. “You know.”

“I don’t know.”

Jenny shrugged. “Stuff about where he grew up. Some stuff about where I grew up.”

“He seemed to be doing most of the talking.”

She nodded. “I like to listen to him.”

“Really?”

Another nod. “Like the sound of his voice. He’s quiet, and I’m kind of quiet, too...”

“No kidding.”

“...and he’s got that lilt, you know — that Southern thing?”

“Also big blue eyes.”

Jenny smiled again. She might have been blushing, but it was hard to tell in the dim lighting.

“Also big blue eyes,” she admitted.

Their parting words, as they stepped down off the bus, covered Carmen inviting Jenny to come over to her room, if she wanted to talk some more. Jenny had been noncommital, saying she’d probably just hit the sack, but her shrug said she might be considering the offer.

Now, alone in her hotel room, Carmen let down her hair, stripped off her jacket, and plopped onto the bed, where it was all she could do to not fall asleep atop the covers.

Still things to do though. She propped herself on an elbow and set the alarm for 6 A.M. — they were leaving for the police station just before eight tomorrow, but she needed time to get ready first, both personal and work prep.

She climbed off the bed, tugged her cell phone out of the pocket of the jacket she’d removed, then attached the charger cord and plugged it into an outlet in the bathroom.

Some people washed the day off, some people showered before facing the world come the morning, some did both. Carmen fell into the middle group, but she did scrub off her makeup and comb out her hair before bed.

She also kicked off the clothes from a very long day and snuggled into the Ozomatli T-shirt and gym shorts that she slept in. She’d just turned the bed back and was getting ready to slide in between cool sheets when she heard a knock on the door.

A smile tickled her lips.

So Jenny had changed her mind!

Tired as she was, Carmen considered herself the little blonde’s (self-appointed) fairy godmother, and she was eager to talk with Jenny... if Jenny wanted to talk to her.

So certain was she that it was Jenny knocking, Carmen didn’t think to check the peephole before jerking the door open.

When the portal was filled with a middle-aged man in a blue baseball cap, a Kansas Jayhawks sweatshirt, and jeans, Carmen was too stunned to move. But she noticed right away that he held something in his right hand.

He was smiling at her and neither spoke for an endless second, then Carmen knew the thing in his hand was a Taser. Before she could slam the door or scream or even think, the two little metal javelins fired, and she felt their sting as they bit into her chest.

She had only enough time to grunt from shock before her body rocked spasmodically and she melted to the floor in a puddle, aware only that he’d stepped over her and shut them in together before everything in her world spun wildly into a black vortex that sucked her in too.