“And what does that tell us about the killer?”

“Well, for starters, it might explain why he removed the painted nails. Piercings.”

Patrick nodded slowly. “Shaved Helen’s hair.”

“Because it was dyed an unnatural color.”

“This is beginning to make sense. I mean, a twisted, narcissistic, antisocial, delusional kind of sense.” He thought for another moment. “But if the women in these poems represented some sort of Poe ideal-”

“They all died,” I said, thinking off the top of my head. “That’s the key. Helen was a woman he admired when he was an adolescent. Annabel Lee and Lenore were versions of his wife, Virginia, who died of tuberculosis.”

Darcy spoke. “ ‘And so, all the night-tide, I lay down by the side / Of my darling-my darling-my life and my bride…’ ”

“Exactly. Annabel Lee, Lenore, and a dozen other characters in Poe’s poems and stories. They’re all his dead wife.”

“But,” Patrick said, “what’s the point of it all?”

“I don’t know. But that quote-the last one. I think that’s the key. We have to figure out what it is. What it means.”

“And,” Patrick added, “we need to make a list of all the female names used by Poe in his stories and poems.”

“It’s going to be a long list,” I said, “but I agree. It might be useful. Maybe we can put out some kind of warning. Darcy, are you up for it?”

“Did you know that Poe wrote fifty-three poems and seventy-three short stories?”

“No, but you do, which is why you’re the best man for this job.”

“So the guy has been choosing women with these Poe names,” Patrick said, his mind still racing. “But why so young? Are they easier to control? Is the killer a repressed pedophile?”

I shook my head. “Don’t you know?”

“What?”

Even when the agent was a decent guy, knowing something the FBI didn’t was not an altogether unpleasant sensation. “That bride of Poe’s? Virginia Clemm? He married her when she was thirteen.”

Overnight, the Van Helsing Ballroom had been converted into the nerve center for Dr. Fara Spencer’s Wanted Dead or Alive operation. The room was a beehive of noise and activity, a bombinating assault on the senses. And yet, he observed, it was not chaotic. There was an almost serene order as all concerned careered from one area to the next going about their designated tasks. A dozen operatives milled through the room in straight ties, white shirts, and rolled sleeves, some of them private detectives, some retired police officers, some specialists hired to lend expertise or to screen potential informants. Security officers were posted on all doors. Interviews were conducted in private alcoves. Two rows of phone banks, with over two dozen phones, filled the length of the ballroom, and they were constantly ringing, ringing, ringing… to the tintinnabulation that so musically wells, / From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells-

He soaked up the view, smiling. The hive was running smoothly. But where was the queen bee?

Dr. Spencer did not so much walk as march into the ballroom, two men on either side of her, several behind, all talking constantly. At least one of the hangers-on was a reporter; he was not sure about the others. He knew she had a fleet of so-called behavioral experts advising her on the case, suggesting potential avenues to explore. Earlier, while posted at the front door, he had managed to overhear most of an absurd exchange between the queen and two of her minions.

“Fundamentally,” a pedant in horn-rimmed glasses had explained, “serial killers can be divided into two categories. Social and nonsocial. Organized and disorganized.”

He had to bite his lip. Even given the vagaries of modern psychiatry, it was absurd. The whole world divided into four lame labels. And these people called themselves experts.

“So which is this pervert?” Spencer had asked.

“Keep in mind that we’re working with precious little information,” the partner said, an obese man in an unseemly green tie. He was making excuses for himself in advance, as they always did. “But all indications are that he is very organized. Three crimes so far-that we know of-and he still hasn’t left behind any determinative trace evidence.”

“And we can safely assume that he has some social skills,” Horn-rims intoned. “Since he appears to have been able to capture his victims without the use of force. So far as we know.”

“All right,” Spencer said, holding up her hands. “So he’s an organized social. What does this get us?”

Despite his profound dislike of this contemptible woman, she did have a knack for cutting through the balderdash.

“Well,” Horn-rims said, “once we’ve made our diagnosis, we can get a fix on who the killer is.”

“I don’t care who he is,” Spencer shot back. “I don’t want to know his inner child. I just want the bastard to fry.”

“Right, right. So we must create a profile-”

“Forgive me for saying so, but this is starting to sound like the same bullshit I got from the police department’s so-called expert. I’m not laying out all this money to get more of the same.”

“Of course not. I’m probably not explaining myself clearly.” He licked his lips and tried again. “Once we know who the killer is-what kind of person he is-we can begin to anticipate his moves. Perhaps even trace him to his lair.”

His lair. He stifled his laughter. It was like something out of a comic book.

“Now we’re talking.” Spencer’s interest level markedly increased. “So how do we do that?”

“Well, Doctor, one salient fact we have observed is that all the victims have been women.”

Bravo, Auguste Dupin. How much was she paying these fools?

“According to the group consensus, our killer is driven by a psychosexual hatred of all women.”

Still pretending not to listen, he stifled a yawn. Wrong.

“He is physically unattractive, or at the least not handsome. Because he is unable to attract women, he came to hate them.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Every bit of it.

The partner cut in. “Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he focuses the sublimated anger he bore toward his mother figure on randomly chosen women.”

Randomly chosen? Now that was truly offensive.

“This speculation is all well and good, I suppose,” Spencer said, “but where does it get me? How do I catch him?”

“By keeping a close watch on all the places it would be easiest for an organized social to find women alone,” the partner answered. “The streets, obviously, especially downtown. Strip clubs, casinos. We’ve prepared a list.”

Spencer took the proffered paper. “I don’t see this hotel listed.”

Horn-rims nodded. “Our feeling is that he’s unlikely to strike at a place already associated with him. Plus, since organized socials tend to follow the media coverage of their crimes obsessively, he must be aware that you’ve set up shop here. He won’t come anywhere near this hotel.”

It was all he could do to keep from laughing.

Until the woman stood beside him.

“So… your name is Ernie?” Spencer said, reading his badge.

He stiffened. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Keeping an eye on things?”

He was on loan-lease from the hotel to Dr. Spencer and was currently assigned to watch one of the side doors. “Doing my best. Lot going on here.”

“Yes, there is. Try not to be distracted by it all.” She leaned in closer. “I’m probably safe here, but, still my experts say there is… some reason to believe the killer might lash out against me.”

“Surely not, ma’am.”

“I know, it seems incredible. But I’m being extra careful, just in case. There’s more than one way to skin a rabbit.”

She was so close to him. Mere inches away. In his coat pocket, he had a hypodermic, loaded and ready. In the wink of an eye he could have it in her throat.

But then there would be the difficult matter of her escorts, getting her to his truck on the other side of the casino, removing her from a ballroom teeming with people…