"Victor?" Riker slapped the table to regain the little man's attention. "What happened in that jury room? Why did you all vote not guilty?"

"Andy," said the man in the red wig. "It was his doing."

"Andy Sumpter?" Agent Hennessey was startled. "The juror?"

"The first one to die," said Victor Patchock.

Johanna Apollo continued to glance at the dark window from time to time. This had the desired effect of rattling Ian Zachary, but never for more than a few seconds. Now he relaxed into a self-satisfied smile. "You have a lot of explaining to do, Doctor."

"I know," she said. "It would be easier to understand if we start with the voir dire, the jury selection. Your lawyers dragged out the process. There was lots of time to get full background checks on everyone in the jury pool."

"Stacking the jury isn't a crime, Doctor. It's a science."

"Oh, I agree," said Johanna. "It only seemed insane at the time. Your lawyers didn't care about biases. All the physically small people, the frail ones with the most retiring personalities, they were never challenged by your defense team. And then there was me, the hunchback, the cripple – so vulnerable. Andy Sumpter was the lone exception, a man with the emotional maturity of a child and the body of a weight lifter. The prosecutor loved him, didn't he? Andy came off as such a law-and-order freak. I'm sure you coached him every step of the way."

"Now that would be a crime." Zachary's smile was unaffected by this accusation. "Let's stay with the facts for now, Dr. Apollo. We can talk about your unsupported theories later on."

"Andy slept through most of your trial. That's a fact. But when we retired to the jury room for deliberations, he was suddenly wide awake. The first round of ballots were for a guilty verdict – except for Andy's. The judge wouldn't accept a hung jury. Day after day, he kept sending us back to that little room to work it out, and every day more votes swung over to Andy's side. The first two crossover votes were easy. Those people just wanted to go home. But the rest stood firm – even while Andy sat there, glaring at them one by one and punching his fist into his hand, over and over."

Victor Patchock was off to the men's room, escorted by Detective Janos. In addition to nosebleeds, he had announced that frayed nerves also affected his bladder.

The moment the door closed, Agent Hennessey discovered that he was Mallory's new interview subject. She stood beside his chair, preferring the advantage of looking down at him. "Jury tampering," she said. "The feds were investigating before the first juror died. That's what brought Timothy Kidd to Chicago after the trial. He wasn't working the Reaper murders." Unspoken were the words You liar.

"But that can't be right," said Riker, answering for the stunned FBI agent. "Wrong department. Timothy Kidd was a profiler – murder cases."

Mallory shook her head. "Kidd was never a profiler. He was a garden-variety field agent – just like Hennessey here. And he was also a flaming nutcase."

"She's right, and she's wrong," said Hennessey, speaking only to Riker's friendlier face. "A year ago, Agent Kidd had a nervous breakdown. He was pulled from fieldwork and transferred to an office job. All he did was shuffle papers and make out reports on obscure complaints. So one day, Dr. Apollo's charge of jury tampering lands on his desk. No one else took it seriously. A hung jury might've gotten some attention, but you can't buy a whole jury, can you? The verdict was unanimous, and her claim was unsupported." He glanced up at Mallory, to say, "You were wrong about the tampering charge," then quickly looked away, not even willing to meet Riker's eyes anymore. "There was no federal case before the first juror died. But Dr. Apollo papered every agency, local, state and federal."

Riker nodded. "And crazy Timothy Kidd was the only one who believed her."

"That's right," said Hennessey. "So Agent Kidd went to Chicago for a follow-up interview, and that was on his own initiative. He was never assigned to any criminal cases. A few days later, the Reaper slaughtered the first juror. There was a message on the crime-scene wall, written in the victim's own blood. One down and eleven to go. That's what it said. We never got that detail until the second juror died. Then the Chicago bureau stepped in and placed the rest of the jury in a protection program. Agent Kidd was using sick days, commuting between D.C. and Chicago. So he did investigate the Reaper murders, but he did it on his own time."

"Argus didn't know that," said Riker. "He thought Kidd was in town to check up on his work."

Their conversation ended when the door opened. Detective Janos and his charge had returned from the men's room. Victor Patchock sat down, adjusted his wig and continued his story of the jury deliberations. "Well, Andy comes up to me one night when we're all eating dinner in a restaurant with the bailiff. On my way to the toilet, he boxes me into a corner and whispers, 'Number four Ellery Drive.' That's where I live – used to live."

"But we never had any paperwork on you," said Hennessey. "Why didn't you support Dr. Apollo's complaint?"

I was the one who went to the judge," said Johanna Apollo. "But the other jurors wouldn't back me up, no corroborating complaints. The judge asked if I might be hysterical – all the pressure of a televised murder trial. He loved the whole circus, actually used makeup in court. And he didn't want a mistrial. So the judge sent me back in there with all those frightened people."

"And Andy Sumpter," said Zachary. "So you were afraid."

"I'm not immune to intimidation," she said. "Andy was angry with me, and he let me know it. He glared at me for hours. He was so quiet – except for the sound of his fist punching into his hand, and every punch was for me. Obviously, Andy knew about the complaint, and that would've been your work."

"But I had no contact with the jurors," said Zachary. "Can you can prove otherwise? No, I didn't think so. Well, maybe the judge was right. Are you prone to hysterics, Doctor?"

"Actually, you're the one who seems on edge tonight." She turned her chair to face the dark booth, and this had the predictable effect of jumping up the man's anxiety. "I'm going public with my story because – " And here she paused to borrow a phrase from Mallory. "I can't count on living through the night."

Riker was slowly shaking his head from side to side. "Okay, Victor, let me get this straight. Jo went to the judge to save all your sorry hides, and none of you backed her up?"

"No," said Victor Patchock. "Not then. Andy was a crazy bastard. We had to deal with him eight hours a day."

"What happened after the verdict?" asked Riker. "Did anybody else come forward to back up her complaint?"

"No. When Andy got killed, I never thought anything of it. I'm sure no one else did, either. He was the type you'd expect to get his throat slit. I never heard anything about a note written in blood. Nobody told us a killer was threatening the rest of the jury, not then."

Agent Hennessey looked up from his perusal of the Bureau's Reaper file. "That call was made by the Chicago police while they still had jurisdiction. The cops had a real short list of people who wanted Andy Sumpter dead. They figured the crime was staged to look like a psycho killing – to draw attention away from his loan shark."

"So Andy needed cash," said Mallory, who loved money motives best.

Andy was your most insanely loyal fan," said Johanna. "But I'm sure he had other incentives. He wouldn't settle for a hung jury. Did you tell him the verdict had to be unanimous?"

"More accusations? Once again, you're all alone, Dr. Apollo. No support for your story. And let's not lose sight of the fact that you also voted not guilty. Would you like to explain that? Because right now you look like the prime suspect for jury tampering. Swaying an entire jury – well, that would be child's play for a psychiatrist. Andy was just an overgrown brain tumor."