“Such as?”

“We know that Fix-It Mate coffee sucks ass.”

They both laughed. As they drank the wretched brew, young, dark-haired Stan Schultz, assistant manager, wandered into the break room. He wore a blue Fix-It Mate shirt and navy blue slacks. The slightly taller, middle-aged man who followed him in wore khaki shorts and a white Cubs T-shirt. He had brown hair, pale skin, horn-rimmed glasses and a small beer belly under the shirt.

Schultz said, “Officers, this is Alan Bellamy, our store manager—he’s come in on his day off.”

Introductions were made and hands were shaken all around.

Then Bellamy said, “Bobby was a good employee— hell, everybodyliked him. How can we help?”

Lorenzon listed what they had already done at Fix-It Mate.

Bellamy’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t know what else I can add. Kinda hoped, comin’ in like this, I could do Bobby’s cause some good.”

“Maybe you still can. We’ve talked to people about how he got along with his fellow employees—how did he get along with customers?”

Bellamy didn’t hesitate. “In the store, he was great. First-rate people skills, that kid—surprising, since he was on the quiet side, kept to himself. Far as customers go in the store, I never heard a complaint about him.”

“You said, ‘in the store’ twice,” Morgan said. “Does that mean there were complaints outsidethe store?”

Bellamy shrugged. “Bobby was part of our installation staff—part of the team that does everything from layin’ carpet to building garages. He’d been doing that for us, oh, hell, ever since he graduated from high school, for maybe two… two and a half years? I mean, every team had complaints. Some customers are… hard to please.”

“Were any of these complaints in writing?”

“Sure.”

“May we see them?”

Bellamy’s smile was a frozen thing that just hung there for a while.

Finally he said, “Normally, we keep those to ourselves. We dispose of the letters, and any phone message and such, but we do keep a list of customers who’ve said they were dissatisfied with a team’s work, with a little write-up of their specific complaint or complaints.”

“It might help, as you said, Bobby’s cause.”

“Well, if it can help you find the son of a bitch who did this thing, hell—we’re glad to help any way we can, here at Fix-It Mate.”

That little commercial made Morgan smile, but he merely said, “Much appreciated, Mr. Bellamy.”

Bellamy led them up to his office, printed off the list and, ten minutes later, the agent and the detective were back in the car. Lorenzon pulled out of the parking lot as Morgan snapped on his seat belt and glanced over the list of only eight names. Nothing familiar stood out.

“Anything good?” Lorenzon asked as he wove through traffic, headed back toward the expressway.

“Eight names,” Morgan said. “Abbott, Benavides, Denson…"

“Wait a minute,” Lorenzon interrupted. “ Denson?”

“Yeah.”

“ JakeDenson?”

“There’s a Jacob Denson. You know him?”

“He’s the Wauconda detective who didn’t want you guys helping him. I was with Hotchner when we visited the PD up there. The guy’s a complete and utter asshole.”

Morgan felt a chill. “He’s more than that, Tate.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s a complete and utter asshole with a connection to at least three of the victims.”

Morgan’s first call was to Hotchner to tell the SAIC what they had learned. Hotchner ordered them to Wauconda to talk to Denson. His second call was to Garcia.

“Office of Omnipotence,” she said.

“Love of my life,” Morgan said, “I need some help.”

“Do I have to say you’ve come to the right place?”

He grinned at the phone. “No. Hey, I need you to find out all you can about a Wauconda, Illinois, detective named Jake Denson.”

“Checking up on one of the good guys?”

“Checking to see if he isa good guy.”

“Gotcha,” she said.

“Catch you later, sweetheart.”

He clicked off.

Lorenzon, behind the wheel, glanced over at Morgan. “Was that intelligence you called, or your latest girl friend?”

“Best computer tech on the planet. We’re just friends. We kid around.”

“That kind of kidding around gets you written up where I come from.”

Morgan gave him a look. “Tate, this serial killer is an aberration in your life, right? Not saying you don’t face tough stuff, day in and day out, but this is off the rails, wouldn’t you say?”

“Way off.”

“Well, that brilliant and gentle soul I was just talking to? She needs a little TLC sometimes, to take the edge off the horrific garbage we face day in and day out."

Silence.

“So, then, she’s just a friend?” Lorenzon asked lightly.

Morgan and Lorenzon had been needling each other since they were kids.

“She’s a good friend.”

Lorenzon grinned. “Damn, if I had a nickel for every time I heard you say that over the years…”

“Hey, hey, I picked that up from you, baby.”

The detective’s eyebrows shot up. “When did Iever tell you some woman of mine was just a friend?”

“How about… every woman I ever saw you with?”

Lorenzon laughed. “You know, come to think of it? That’s right. That’s right.…”

Traffic being what traffic always was in Chicago, the better part of an hour dragged by before they got to the Wauconda PD HQ.

Morgan had spent the time reading the Fix-It Mate report of the complaint Denson had made against Bobby Edels’s construction team. The complaint had no allegations against Edels per se, but Denson had claimed that the team, at his house to construct a two-car garage, had practiced shoddy workmanship and left behind a mess in his yard. Not the sort of thing that would normally draw a red flag, but in a city of over three million, one detective having ties to three of five murder victims in different jurisdictions certainly was. Flags did not come much redder.…

After he parked the car, Lorenzon led the way into the police department, where Morgan felt he’d stepped through some sort of time warp.

Police stations just didn’t look like this anymore. Hotch and JJ had both commented on the place as a security nightmare and were they right: no bulletproof glass, three officers within sight of the front door, making easy targets. A female officer, who had probably stood on her tiptoes to meet the height requirement, paused on the other side of the counter from them.

“May I help you?” she asked.

Before either man could say a word, a door to their right swung open and a tall man in jeans and a blue work shirt sauntered in. He had a shaved head and dark eyes that clouded with anger when he spotted Lorenzon.

“What the hell,” he said, his voice carrying through the nearly empty room, “are you doing back here, Lorenzon? Don’t they give you any crimes to solve in Chicago?” He moved through the swinging gate.

Unshaken, Lorenzon turned to Morgan. “Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan, meet Detective Jake Denson, Wauconda PD.”

“ Anothergoddamn fed?” Denson asked, making no effort to shake hands as he drew closer.

Morgan grinned, refusing to rise to the bait. “Yeah, I know you must feel invaded. But we need to talk to you.…”

“What about?” Denson demanded, really putting on a show for his buddies now.

“…in private.”

Morgan removed his grin and gave Denson a hard stare.

“You strut in here and tell mewhat to do?” Denson said. “Suppose I don’t feel like talkingto you?”

Morgan took a half step closer and dropped his voice so only the detective could hear. “That’s cool. Then I’ll have the supreme pleasure of disarming you, cuffing you, and, with the help of my friend Lorenzon here, dragging your ass out in front of all your pals, and all the way down to the FBI field office to question you there. If that’s how you want this to play out, hey, it’s your call.”