She stepped back to reassess him. He should definitely lose that stupid red wig. It was too long for the boy, even a weird boy. It was a girl's wig, for Christ's sake. Where the hell did this pansy come from? Puffed up with great xenophobic pride, she decided that he could not be a native of her New York. And it was on her mind to tell the boy that he should change the sign on his neck to say that he was crazy as well as stupid. But, having already done her bit for community service, she moved on down the sidewalk with her cart and never looked back. She never saw him raise his eyes to stare at Riker's second-floor window.

Papers covered every stained inch of the carpet, and this created the illusion of an improvement in Riker's front room. His deli sandwich disappeared in absentminded nibbles as he read another page of Dr. Johanna Apollo's neat handwriting.

Among the personal notes was a journal logging every meeting with Bunny, the homeless homicide victim, noting signs of physical and mental deterioration. The last entry was Bunny's message from the late Timothy Kidd, and a note on the use of a hapless vagrant as a living telephone for a serial killer. Riker marked this final entry with a paper clip, then put the journal to one side. One day it might be used as evidence in a trial.

Next he read the transcripts of several interviews with the Chicago police, all the details and conversation that Jo could recall. The case detective had hammered her so hard, accusing her of withholding evidence. Another group of interviews had been conducted by FBI agents and would be better described as debriefings. Curiously, the murder of their own man was never mentioned – only the dead man's theories about a serial killer. Agent Kidd had made contact with the Reaper. In Jo's words, "He saw the Reaper in a liquor store." Following an interruption from her interrogator, she admitted that "Yes, paranoia was at the heart of Timothy's theory."

Riker paused in his reading to digest the fact that the murdered agent was always Timothy to Jo. Only her FBI interrogators called the murder victim Agent Kidd.

He read the rest of her story: "Timothy entered the liquor store as another customer was leaving with a bottle of wine. This was a man he'd never met, yet the customer was obviously surprised to see him – a total stranger. Timothy gave the man a few seconds' head start, then followed him back into the street. But the man was gone. There was no sound of a car starting its engine. He must have run at top speed to get clear of that block so fast."

The FBI agent had returned to the store to interview the clerk. All he learned was that the departed customer had been overjoyed to see one particular wine in stock. In the clerk's words, "He thought he'd already bought the last bottle on the planet." According to Jo's best recall of Kidd's conversation with her, "Timothy said it was an oddball wine you'd never see in a food critic's column, though it was surprisingly good." And then Jo reminded her interrogators that the body of a dead juror had been found in that area on the following day.

Riker looked up from his reading. If Agent Kidd knew the taste of that wine, then he had gone to some trouble to track down another bottle of a scarce vintage. Though Jo's notes provided no such detail, Riker could name the wine and even the year. The bottom drawer in Johanna's armoire was stocked with ten bottles, all the same label, same vintage, but different store stickers and prices. He reached into a pile of bills from distributors and liquor stores in distant states. One reiterated the details of Jo's reward of a hundred dollars over retail cost. She had also been collecting this particular vintage, and the FBI only had her version of a man as the stranger in the liquor store.

He placed the receipts in another pile that he had mentally labeled with the query To burn or not to burn?

At the conclusion of her last interview, the FBI had dismissed her with thanks, then placed her in the Federal Witness Protection Program. By Jo's account, the feds had disregarded Timothy Kidd's Reaper sighting, for who would believe an insane story like that one?

Riker would. No one was more paranoid than a cop with the scars of four bullet wounds. He studied Jo's map of Chicago. Red circles marked the sites of three homicides, and one was four blocks away from the liquor store. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and played out the murdered FBI man's scenario on that blank white screen. Agent Timothy Kidd walked into a liquor store, and his mere presence startled another customer, a man he had never met. Most Chicagoans would be strangers to the Washington-based agent. Why, Kidd wonders, why does this customer appear to know him on sight? According to Jo's interview, the agent had visited only one crime scene in Chicago, and that one had belonged to the Reaper's second victim. Freaks sometimes returned to the sites of their murders to watch the ongoing show of cop cars and meat wagons, lights and cameras. Who but a haunter of crime scenes would have recognized Timothy Kidd as the law? And who but a guilty man would panic and run?

This was thin support for the identification of a prime suspect, but if it had been the Reaper in the liquor store that night, the most serious mistake he made was that flicker of recognition for an FBI agent who was also a world-class paranoid.

Good job, Timothy. Score one for the neurotics.

Riker had no conceit that the Bureau had not arrived at the same conclusion, so why was a serial killer still at large? Nowhere in Jo's files was there any mention of the suspect's name, nor even a description, and he was not surprised by that. It was the kind of thing that a smart cop, even a fed, would not confide in a civilian. Yet Agent Kidd had told her the name of the wine.

Unaware of time passing, crossing over from day into night, Riker did not recall turning on the lights so that he could continue to read every scrap of text, every news clipping and note. Before his alarm clock sounded, he was well versed on the Reaper murders, and it was time for Ian Zachary's show.

He turned on the radio, the source of the game clues.

You crazy bitch!"

The sound engineer looked up from her computer screen. "Pick your words carefully, jerk-off, or I'll wipe all your calls."

Did she know they were still on the air? Yes, she did. Somewhat impressed, Ian Zachary lowered his voice as he spoke to his radio audience. "Crazy Bitch will take the next call after this word from our sponsor."

He pressed the button for the security lock. At the sound of the buzzer, a delivery boy entered the studio bearing a gift from a fan, Randy of SoHo. After the messenger had left the room, Zack continued his involuntary habit of checking the dark window of the producer's booth, looking for signs of movement within. Might Needleman be looking in on him tonight?

Zachary considered the possibility that the producer was not shy, but brilliant, and playing a nervous game within the game. However, the more plausible theory was that his mysterious producer was a spy from the Federal Communications Commission. A federal court was still in the process of defining that fine line between entertainment and conspiracy to murder via public airways. The issue had been further complicated by all the newspapers and major television networks following the lead of Ian Zachary and his fans, reiterating every crackpot theory and juror sighting. The defense attorneys had argued that the Reaper had multiple sources for the same information, thus clouding the issue of cause and effect.

Upon ripping open the envelope from the local fan, he discovered that last night's caller had indeed snapped the picture of a surviving juror. Zachary glanced at the clock, then flipped the switch to open a line to the sound booth. "Oh, Crazy Bitch?"