“I don’t think he is,” she said. “And even if he is-it’s up to the police. I don’t investigate homicides.”

“But you were investigating homicides. Or so you insisted when I made the same point two weeks ago.”

“I was hired to examine the police work on five-well, four-open homicides. I did that. Game over.”

“You think of it as a game?”

“That’s just an expression. From video games, you know? You play for ten or fifteen minutes-or, in my case, more like ninety seconds- and then that’s what it says on the screen: GAME OVER.”

“Are you angry at Carl?”

She sighed. “That word’s never far from us, is it?”

“It’s the reason we’re here.”

“No, I’m not angry, although he undermined me when he didn’t tell me everything he knew. I feel sorry for him. He did the best he could. He had his reasons. They were the reasons of a damaged man, who can’t think things through very well, but they were reasons. I’m sad about Carl. I liked him. I liked working with him. I didn’t want him to be a nut.”

“So someone who spends a few weeks in a mental hospital as the result of a situational trauma is a nut? Or is it the fact of Carl’s obsession that makes him-again, I’ll use your term-a nut?”

“Sorry.” Except she wasn’t. She liked mocking his work, liked being politically incorrect about mental illness.

“Whether he is right or wrong, Carl believes the killer is still at large. What if he’s right?”

“He’s not.”

“But imagine if he were. In his mind, he was in a position to try and prevent another woman’s death. How do you think you’d feel if another woman died now?”

“No one’s going to die. The killer’s dead. Are you saying Carl was right?”

“I’m not saying who’s right or who’s wrong. I’m asking you to show some empathy for this man you claim to like so much. Even if the supposition is false-or even somewhat self-aggrandizing-how would you feel if you thought there was even a chance you could have saved someone’s life if you had done something differently?”

Dr. Armistead’s deep, rumbling voice was extremely mild. He was learning, Tess realized, that she was quick to take offense if he was too sharp, too pointed. Tyner Gray hadn’t mastered that trick, despite knowing her for almost a decade.

“I would feel awful,” she said, “but I would get over it.”

“The same way you got over the death of your boyfriend, Jonathan Ross?”

“How do you know about that?”

“You mentioned it, at one point.”

Had she? She couldn’t remember. She thought she had kept Jonathan to herself, even here.

“I wasn’t at fault in Jonathan’s death. I didn’t cause it, I couldn’t stop it.”

“Did that keep you from feeling guilty?”

“No.”

“So imagine if you were at fault. How would you feel? That’s all I’m asking, Tess. Imagine how you would feel if you believed someone’s death was on your hands, as we used to say.”

“There are no deaths after Lucy Fancher’s. So Carl doesn’t have to feel guilty about anything.”

“Then maybe he feels incomplete.”

“If you use the word closure I’m going to get up and walk out.”

“You can’t walk out,” Dr. Armistead said serenely. “You’re here under court orders. You’re mine for five more months. Do you realize today marks our first-month anniversary?”

The syntax bothered her. It bothered her quite a bit. You’re mine for five more months.

“I’m not yours,” Tess said. “I’m not anyone’s.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. All I’m trying to do is get you to be more empathetic. You say you liked this man, Carl Dewitt. Why can’t you see he may have had reasons to do what he did? Why can’t you try and understand him?”

“You’re saying that, even if he’s wrong, his conviction that the killer is still at large would explain why he did what he did.”

“Something like that. I don’t know anything about Carl other than what you’ve told me. But it seems to me that a man who couldn’t solve one woman’s murder might feel better about himself if he could at least bring the man to justice. He’s been denied that. And imagine how he would feel-how you would feel-if someone else were to die now?”

The various minute hands of the various clocks made their way back to twelve and Tess went on her way, her stamped card a reminder this was, in fact, probation, a punishment. Five more months. She’d make it. She was sure of that much.

She was also sure she had no use for the doctor’s theoretical questions. How would you feel if someone else were to die now? It was just the usual psychoanalytic, hypothetical, hyperbolic crap, she told herself.

And so it was, and so it remained-for the next twenty-four hours.

Things are not going according to plan. He is not used to that. Everything always goes according to his plans. He has been so thorough, so careful, ever since-well, since he had to be. And now, to be undone by a single man, a stupid man. He knows it must be that stupid Barney Fife’s fault. How did this happen? He’s not sure, he can’t be sure, he can’t get close enough to be sure.

But the fact remains, she is no longer going to Pikesville every day. She is barely leaving the house, as best as he can tell. And yet there has been nothing in the papers, no announcement of any discoveries. He wonders if the men are cutting her out. Yes, of course. He has once again underestimated the perfidy of his own sex. He has been spending so much time with women-thinking about women, listening to women, catering to women-that he has forgotten how men operate. Their methods are clumsy, barbarous, even-but effective. He wishes he could teach those state cops a thing or two. But he has to hold himself in check, stay in control. It’s all about control. Ego must be held in check.

Tonight, for example. He has to be precise yet restrained and remember the objective. A lesser man would be tempted to make some sort of grand flourish, to call attention to himself. But he has always prided himself on his subtlety, his modesty, his ability to keep souvenirs without attracting attention.

He pulls his van into the alley and waits. The city’s grid of criminal activity has shifted slightly in the time since he last roamed these neighborhoods in search of her. The cops closed down the old markets, but new ones have opened just a few blocks away. God, junkies have so little imagination. They use all their ingenuity to procure the substance they need to destroy themselves. He knows she’ll be here because it’s Friday night, and she likes to score on Friday night. Besides, he left a little message on her pager, one guaranteed to bring her here. He knows what she wants.

True, he doesn’t know her as well as he knew the others. He didn’t have the time to study her. But he knows her tastes, her weaknesses, what motivates her. He knows she is lazy and sly, in equal measure.

But the main thing he knows about her is she fooled him. He can never quite forgive her for that. When he left, he told himself he was done with her. Yet in the back of his mind he must have always suspected this wasn’t true. Even before this unexpected contingency arose, he had a score to settle with her. He doesn’t like being played.

It’s nine o’clock and the spring night should be completely dark by now, but it’s never truly dark in the city’s worst neighborhoods. She pulls her car into an alley and walks out to the street, where the touts wait, singing the praises of their poisons. She’s no crackhead; her taste runs to methamphetamine and heroin. And she won’t make a buy on the street, she’ll visit the rowhouse where a dealer waits, happy to resell the heroin he bought just that afternoon. Why not, if there’s money in it? If the cops gave a rat’s ass, they could make her six blocks away, and not just because she’s white. She’s so small, so obviously out of place. Once she’s gone down the block, he rolls his van into the alley behind her car, blocking it in. Now all he has to do is wait.