‘Cleaning crews came into the building both nights and left again later when they finished their work,’ said Fraser.

‘Here’s the lobby just before the cleaners arrived Thursday,’ said Starbucks. There were two video monitors mounted side by side on a shelf just above Starbucks’s head. He directed their eyes to the one on the left. ‘As you can see, the camera has a wide-angle lens and is shooting down from a height of ten-point-five feet.’ The time code read 12/22/06. 6:05:40 PM. The lobby’s revolving door and two sets of regular doors on either side were all clearly visible. So was the steel door Randall Jackson said led down to the lawyers’ private garage. Starbucks hit play, and McCabe watched a cluster of people enter the door on the left. Because of the angle, he was looking more at the tops of heads than at faces. They walked about eight feet into the lobby and then turned in a group like a school of guppies and exited through the garage door. ‘Where are they going?’ asked McCabe.

‘There’s a supply room downstairs where the cleaning stuff is stored. There’s also a small locker room where they stow their coats and bags while they work, and a unisex toilet.’

‘The entrance to the lawyers’ garage is there, too, right?’

‘Yeah. I went down and looked around,’ said Fraser. ‘You go down one flight of stairs to a short corridor, turn left for the supply room and locker room. Go straight ahead for the restroom. Turn right for the garage. There’s also a freight elevator at the end of the corridor that takes the cleaning and maintenance crews to any floor in the building. Also an emergency exit to the street. Locked from the outside. Sets off an alarm if you open it from inside.’

‘So theoretically our killer could have walked through that lobby door down to the basement and ended up anywhere in the building?’

‘Yeah,’ said Fraser. ‘The question is how he got out again. I checked the alarm on the emergency exit. It was on and working. The only other ways out are up through the lobby or out through the lawyers’ garage. You need a key card to open the gate in the garage.’ Ogden, of course, had a key card. So did Lainie. So did every other lawyer at Palmer Milliken, all 192 of them. If they descended to the garage level via the freight elevator, they wouldn’t have shown up on the videos. He asked Maggie if Jacobi had found Goff’s key card in her car. He hadn’t. ‘Watch the rest of the video,’ said Fraser. ‘Starbucks picked up on something I didn’t notice first time through.’

‘Here are the cleaners arriving twenty-four hours later, on Friday night,’ said Starbucks. On the right-hand monitor McCabe and Maggie watched a virtual replay of Thursday night’s action. The cluster of people arrived at 6:08 instead of 6:05. Everything else was the same. They came in through the same entrance. Turned right at the same point and left the lobby through the same steel door.

‘See the difference?’ asked Fraser.

‘No.’ If there was something different, McCabe wasn’t sure what it was. Not the first time through, anyway. ‘Play Thursday again,’ he requested. Starbucks did. ‘Okay, freeze it right . . . there.’ Starbucks stopped the video just as the cleaning crew cluster stretched out to pass through the steel door. ‘Okay, now roll Friday and freeze at the same point.’

This time he caught it. The extra man. At least he thought it was a man, based on size and the way the figure moved. Bundled up in a long dark coat with a hood, you couldn’t tell for sure. On Thursday six cleaners went through the door. What appeared to be three men and three women. On Friday there were seven. The seventh was pretty well hidden while the group was bunched up, shielded from the camera, practically invisible. Even as number seven filed through the door he kept his head down and turned away from the camera. He had one hand raised and blocking his face from the camera like a starlet avoiding the paparazzi. No question. He knew it was there. ‘Gotcha, you bastard,’ McCabe muttered. ‘You check with the cleaning company?’ he asked Fraser.

‘Yup. Joe Maguire of Capitol Maintenance Corp. told me six cleaners were assigned to the building both nights. The same six. Maguire’s son, Joe junior, dropped them off at Ten Monument Square in a company van, which is why they all arrived together. He also picked them up at the end of the shift. He said there were only six going each way each night. That’s all the van holds, not counting the driver.’

‘So the bad guy waits outside until the cleaners arrive and sneaks in with them?’

‘Looks that way,’ said Fraser. ‘Maguire gave us names and contact info for all six cleaners. Sturgis is out tracking them down now. See if they remember the extra guy coming in with them.’

‘How about the security guard? Name’s Randall Jackson. He might have seen the guy’s face.’

‘Spoke to him already. He never noticed anyone extra at all. Just the cleaners.’

McCabe sighed. He wasn’t sure how much they were going to get out of this. ‘Can you show me the video of the cleaners leaving Friday?’

Starbucks fast-forwarded to the early morning hours. The steel door opens, the six cleaners file into the lobby and leave the building. No number seven. Lainie Goff’s probable killer checked in, but he didn’t check out. The time code read 12/24/05. 2:04:32 AM.

‘Nobody else left after that?’

‘Nope.’

‘So he kidnaps her, and they both leave in her car.’

‘Looks that way.’

‘Let’s find our best shot of the guy.’

Starbucks rolled back to where the cleaners entered the building. Then he advanced the video frame by frame, until he settled on the best view they had of cleaner number seven. It wasn’t great. His head was down. His hand was hiding the side of his face. The hood hiding the hair. A small patch of white chin was all that could be seen. Starbucks tightened the frame to a close-up of the head. That made it too blurry to see much of anything. All you could tell was that the person was Caucasian and taller than the other cleaners. The heavy hooded coat hid everything else. Normal enough in this weather. McCabe stared at the frozen image. Assuming this was the killer – and that was still an assumption – it was further evidence that Hank Ogden wasn’t their guy. No need for Ogden to be sneaking into his own building when he was already upstairs in the Palmer Milliken offices both earlier in the day and later that night. He supposed it could all be a deliberate trail of disinformation designed to lead the cops away from Ogden as the killer. Maybe that was what all that other stuff was, too. The Bible notes. The trip to Harts. The body left on the pier. Maybe it was all a setup to divert suspicion. But McCabe didn’t think so. If at 6:08 on that Friday night Ogden was still sitting in the partners’ meeting and not sneaking into his own building, well, that’d pretty well settle the issue. Assuming, of course, that cleaner number seven was, in fact, the killer.

Twenty

Dr Richard Wolfe returned McCabe’s call a little after seven. ‘You said it was urgent. What’s up? Is it the dreams again? Are they coming back?’

‘No, it’s not the dreams,’ McCabe said. ‘In fact, it’s not about me at all. I’m calling as a cop. I need to talk to you about one of your patients.’

‘Really?’ Wolfe paused to consider that. ‘Well, that could be a problem. You do understand professional ethics forbid me to reveal private information about any of my patients. To you or anyone else.’

‘Yes, I understand that. But there are circumstances under which you would be able to talk, aren’t there?’

‘Yes. If I have knowledge that the patient has committed a crime. Or is about to commit one. Or if you can document that the patient or someone else will be put in danger by my failing to speak.’

‘Then I don’t think you’ll have any ethical issues here. One of your patients has been involved in a crime and may be in serious danger. We need your help.’