“Right, right.” She pulled a notepad out of her back pocket. “Do you know if she filed a report?”

“I told her she should, and I assumed she would.”

“But she didn’t. The creep must’ve gotten her before she had a chance.”

“It would appear that way. If only I’d realized. I thought he was gone for good. I never imagined he might come back and try for her again. He must’ve really wanted the woman’s purse.”

Susan shook her head slowly. “I don’t know what this guy is, but he’s not a purse snatcher.”

Indeed? He remained silent.

“I don’t think he was after her money. And I don’t think it was a random selection. It was… considered. I think he’d been watching her, investigating her, and she met… some kind of criteria.” She paused. “I think he chose her.”

It was all he could do to keep from kissing her. She was brilliant. Instinctively brilliant. “But how can you know?”

“I can’t know. Not exactly. I just… get stuff. About people.” She frowned. “It’s hard to explain. It’s more a feeling than anything else. A sense of what fits and what doesn’t.”

His first impression, even as he had observed her from afar, had been correct. She was a very special woman, this Lieutenant Pulaski. Her intuitive powers were great, possibly even equal to his own. She would be a worthy opponent.

Or better yet, a partner.

“And you’re sure this was the same girl we found at the airport?”

“Positive. I talked with her for some time.”

“But she didn’t give you her name?”

“No.”

“Did she tell you where she was staying?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

“Well, we’ll check the records at the Tropicana. Mention any friends, family?”

Should he tell her about Warren? Of perhaps even the girl’s mother? That would be a bold move, wouldn’t it? But too fraught with risk. Lieutenant Pulaski might not have much data to work with at the moment, but she was not stupid. Far from it. He couldn’t know too much.

“I’m afraid we never talked about anything other than the incident.”

“Sure. I was just hoping.” She scrutinized the notes she had scribbled onto her pad in a hand far too tiny and slovenly for him to read. “Can you give me a description of the assailant?”

“I can try. He was a big man-strong, obviously.”

“Height?”

“Almost six feet.”

“Hair?”

“Blond. With lots of curls. And he had a beard.”

Her head tilted to one side. She was considering, he realized, running the description through her mental database. And it didn’t fit. Because it wasn’t true. But she couldn’t know that for a fact. Not yet.

“I wish we could be sure the man you saw was the killer. But…” Her voice drifted.

They had rounded a complete city block and returned to the street on which they had started. “I suppose it’s possible this guy had nothing to do with her murder,” Susan said, closing her notebook. “But it’s still worth checking out.” She extended her hand. “Thank you for coming forward, Ethan.” She paused, not in front of headquarters, but across the street from a place called The Golden Bear. A bar and grill. “Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

“Lieutenant?” He took her hand.

“Yes?”

He glanced across the street. “That is not what you need.”

“Excuse me?”

“A little early, don’t you think?” He smiled. “If you start drinking now, you’ll be useless for the rest of the day. Then you’ll become angry at yourself for drinking and being useless. Wouldn’t it be smarter not to start?”

“You’re pretty damned impertinent, Ethan.” He thought she would be mad, but the steam never rose. The corner of her lips turned up. “But you’re right. I guess I needed to hear someone say it.” She checked her watch. “Anyway, I’ve got an appointment with an old friend. Thanks again.”

He hesitated. “I… wouldn’t mind seeing you again sometime, Lieutenant.”

She grinned. “Call me Susan.”

He watched as she made her way up the steps and away from him. He would see her again. He knew it. But there was much work to be done in the meantime. Another offering to be secured-according to the prophet, a trinity was necessary to bring about the holy objective.

And he had to find an axe.

His plan would move forward. And Susan Pulaski would be a part of it. Onward unto glory, now and forever.

I was still thinking about that distinctly decent-looking witness when I arrived-perhaps I should say descended-into Colin’s office.

He peered across his cluttered desk at me, one hand still on the computer keyboard. Was he umbilically attached to the thing?

“You want to consult with me? On a murder case?”

“If you’re willing.”

“Well, sure, yeah. I mean, I guess.” He rubbed his hand through tousled hair that looked as if it hadn’t been combed for days. “But why me?”

“Because of all David’s friends, you were the…” Nerdiest? “The best at solving puzzles.”

“And you think that’s what these are?” He took the photocopies of the two messages left at each of the crime scenes. “Anyone else working on this?”

“Chief O’Bannon has assigned his best and brightest, but I don’t think they have any real expertise in this field. He also faxed copies to the professional code breakers at the FBI and even cryptanalysts at the CIA-but so far, they got nothing. He’s talking about running the messages in the newspaper, a prospect I really dread.”

“Why?”

“Because the press will eat this up with a spoon. They’ve already gone big with the photos of the victims. These coded messages will take the story right into comic book land. The press will glamorize them and hype them and make it all the more difficult to conduct a serious investigation.”

“It may just be delusional psychotic ranting.”

“I’m hoping not.”

“Why?”

“If it’s gibberish, as my superior suspects, it’s not going to be any help to me. But if it’s a message, something the killer so desperately wanted to say that he left behind a potentially incriminating note… well, that could tell me a great deal.”

Colin laid the copies flat on his desk and stared at them. He was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, mismatched, but he worked at home and I suppose if you know you’re not going anywhere you don’t have to dress for it. His posture recalled a vulture, his neck craned over the desk, his glasses so thick he could probably perform microsurgery without additional instrumentation. David had met Colin in college and they’d stayed in touch after, right up until David’s death. They weren’t best friends-their tastes were worlds apart, Colin being more cerebral-but they were close enough that I knew him, and I knew what he did for a living, too.

He created puzzles. Crosswords, mostly, but also acrostics and word searches and this godawful impossible wordplay-infused variant of traditional crosswords called cryptics, clearly the products of demented brains. Best of all, I knew he considered himself an expert on cryptograms. An entire shelf on the wall behind him was dedicated to codes and ciphers.

“Well, if it is a code, it isn’t a simple substitution code, I can promise you that,” he said about a minute later.

“Simple substitution code?”

“Yeah. One letter representing another. Like the cryptograms in the newspaper. Easily solved by reference to letter frequency and patterns of orthography.”

“Orthography?”

He grinned. “That’s what the nonpuzzling world calls spelling.”

“And how do you know it isn’t one of those… simple substitution codes?”

“Because if it was, I would’ve solved it already.” He continued staring at the pages. “There are more than twenty-six characters in use here, which also rules out a simple substitution. Some of these symbols aren’t letters at all. Decoding is also complicated by the fact that there do not appear to be any breaks for sentences or words. The symbols are grouped in large blocks, and I rather suspect that the blocks may not be in the proper order. Looks like it may contain some decoy characters, too.”