"Thirty-six."

"Ha. And his core feeling would be chronic rage."

There was very little traffic, and Mike sped up Third Avenue. Jason still felt the high.

"He must have been cooking for a long time. These murders are the act of someone who's been building up to it. I'd say he's been able to contain his rage at his position, both at the university and in life, because of a profound feeling of superiority that he's developed from his karate and his identification with the powerful and successful father who rejected him long ago."

"And then a new president came in," April said.

"Yes, a new dad to please. And some good luck for a change. Some of the alums he actually knew had a dramatic change in fortune. B and B. Here's your coincidence, April. Bernardino and Birdie unexpectedly came into money. Frayme finally had his chance. He acted like a long-lost friend to them, called them frequently until they rejected him. This happens to be a repetition of the story of his life. No one thinks he's important. No one takes him seriously. I wonder if he's hurt anyone in the past."

The three of them were silent for a moment.

"And of course the murders were displacement of his rage against his siblings, who were born and took his place after his father remarried. When B and B held out on the cash and love that he needed to move up with the wealthy people he identified with, he did to them what he never had a chance to do to his real brother and sister. He throttled them."

"Transference is all," April murmured.

"And he's a narcissist. He doesn't think anyone exists except as his friend or his enemy. You noticed that he projected his own paranoia onto Devereaux," Jason added.

"He thinks Devereaux told on him. That pissed him off."

"It's his need to be in control of people that consistently alienates them. When his charm fails to win people, he has to annihilate them. In the past he just did it in his head. Now he's moving on to killing. He's a mission killer. Rich people."

"Did you hear him complain about the Asian students?" April murmured.

"Yes. He didn't recognize you because you all look alike to him."

"I wondered," April said.

Mike took Seventy-ninth Street across town. It was a beautiful night. The trees in Central Park were fully dressed for summer, turning the street into a leafy bower. The perfume of spring was heavy in the night. On the West Side he came out on Eightieth and Central Park West, only a hop away from the Twentieth Precinct, where they all had met. The cross street changed direction at Columbus. Mike had to go south on Columbus to get farther west.

"Two things bother me," Jason said as they rejoined Seventy-ninth Street and cruised closer to his home on Riverside Drive.

"Only two?" Mike said.

"How good are Frayme's fighting skills?"

"He took Bernardino with no trouble at all, and Bernie was a big guy," April said.

"What about you?"

"And he took me," she said quietly.

"About Marty, he said what was a win if no one saw it. I think you're right that he has a fighting partner. He kept saying he'd learned. I think what he learned was how to channel rage into fighting power. He's very organized, very tied to his work. I'm sure he isn't traveling far. Convenience matters to him; the gym would have to be close."

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. What's the other thing?"

"It's related to your theory, April. He's a careful guy. How did he know that no one would come along and stop him?"

"Are you thinking his friend might actually have lured Birdie into the square?" Mike mused.

"Maybe. The more I think about it the surer I am that he didn't act alone."

Mike drew up in front of Jason's lovely prewar building on Riverside Drive. "April?"

"Good night, Jason. Thanks for everything," April said.

Jason grunted and got out. "Keep me informed," he said.

Forty-nine

April's heart was racing. "We need to talk to Hammermill again," she said excitedly as soon as Jason was out of the car. "If we could just nail the dog down, we'd have something solid. If the dog I saw on the street when Bernardino was killed and the dog Hammermill saw when Birdie was killed are the same dog, we have that accomplice. This is coming together."

"Maybe if we showed him some photos it would help," Mike suggested.

"He told me it was a brown dog."

"There are a lot of big brown dogs, querida. Labs, all the sheepdogs and shepherds, retrievers. Weimaraner. Dozens."

"Weimaraners are gray," she said, "and I know it wasn't a German shepherd or a Doberman or a rottweiler. But photos would help me, too." She plucked her phone out of her purse and dialed a number, then put the cell on speakerphone so Mike could hear. "Woody, it's me," she said. "Get me some flip charts on dogs."

"And hello to you, Sergeant. It's one in the morning; where am I going to get that kind of thing now?"

Mike shook his head.

"Not now. In the a.m., Woody."

They heard him sigh. "Okay. What do you need?"

"I need dog pictures."

"Can you narrow that down?"

"All the big brown ones."

"Yes, sir. And Sergeant, Frayme was at the funeral."

"Bernardino's?"

"Yeah, his picture came up several times in the crowds. He was at the cemetery."

"Thanks, Woody." She hung up and turned to Mike. He was talking softly on his phone while she dialed another number. Now they were cooking.

"Jack, am I waking you up?" she asked.

"Who is it?" came a sleepy voice.

"April Woo."

"Oh, Jesus, April. What time is it?"

"Sorry to bother you so late. This dog question is still really bothering me. Did you give any thought to other dogs when you were walking Sheba in the square that night?"

"Jesus, there are always other dogs."

"I know, but we have to nail this down. Sheba was barking. What was going on before you became aware of me?"

"Gee, do I have to do this now, April?"

"It's important."

"Yeah, there was somebody with a big dog. The dog barked at Sheba, but I got distracted when I saw you. Listen, Al called me a while ago. What's going on?"

"What did he say?"

"He said you interrogated him all day, and he's helping you with the investigation. Is he cleared?"

"Did he say anything else?"

"He was upset that I told you about the karate thing. He said he'd told me about it in confidence. It caused trouble for him, but it's all cleared up now, and everything is fine. Is that true?"

"Did he say anything else?"

"No, he was very open about the whole thing. He told me he was treated like a suspect, everything but the fingerprints and the lie-detector test."

April snorted-another stupid criminal. They got the fingerprints and the DNA (should they need it) from his water bottle. Only the molds of his handprints were left to do, and they wouldn't do it until the ME told them they had a mark on the body they might be able to match with it. "Was he disappointed about that?" she said.

"No. Completely secure in his innocence. He was excited. He wanted to make a lunch date to tell me all about it."

"What, at midnight?"

"He sounded a little high, April."

"Interesting."

"It was a little creepy. He didn't seem to mind being a suspected murderer."

"Well, people like attention," April told him. "What did you say about the lunch?"

"I don't know where you're going with this, but I can't be sure he didn't break my arm, so I said no to the lunch. I told him I was going out of town for a couple of weeks."

"Good. I'm going to want you to look at some dog photos in the morning. See if you recognize any of them from the neighborhood. What time are you leaving?"

"Noon. Can I go to bed now?"