“My wife was very distressed that the subject came up in our home, with guests on the point of arriving.”

“I realize that. I apologize again for the inconvenience.” You schmuck.

“I hardly see why my name should be on any sort of a list merely because I may have some writing paper in my possession.”

She lowered her eyes. “It’s the only lead I have. The killer has taunted me with these notes. It’s very upsetting. But that doesn’t excuse my disturbing your wife at home. Please convey my apologies toMrs.Renquist.”

He smiled now, thinly. “I will do so. However, Lieutenant, I have the impression that you wouldn’t be here, offering this apology, had your superiors not insisted you do so.”

She lifted her gaze, met his, and let a hint of the resentment show through. “I was doing my job as best I know how. I don’t play politics well. I’m just a cop. And I follow orders,Mr.Renquist.”

He nodded. “I can respect someone who follows orders, and give some leeway to a public servant who allows her zeal for duty to cloud her judgment somewhat. I hope you weren’t reprimanded too harshly.”

“No more than my actions warranted.”

“And you remain as primary in this investigation?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Then I’ll wish you luck with it.” He rose and offered a hand. “And hope that you identify and arrest the person responsible quickly.”

“Thank you.”Eve took his hand, held it and his eyes. “I intend to put him into a cage, personally, very soon.”

He cocked his head. “Confidence, Lieutenant, or arrogance?”

“Whatever works. Thank you again, sir, for your time and your understanding.”

– -«»--«»--«»--

“I take it back,”Peabody said when they were clear of the building. “You’re good. Frustrated apology, with just a hint of resentment. The foot soldier who’d tried to do her job, and got shafted by her superiors. Forced to eat that crow, and swallowing it down stoically. You really sold it.”

“Wasn’t that far off. He could turn up a lot of heat under the department. He’s got both political and media connections. Nobody ordered me to apologize, but nobody’s going to be sorry I did, either. Fucking politics.”

“You make rank, you’ve got to play them sometimes.”

Evemerely shrugged and climbed back into the car. “Don’t have to like it. Don’t have to like him, either. In fact, every time I see him, I like him less.”

“It’s the snooty factor,”Peabody explained. “It’s really hard to like somebody who has a high snooty factor, and his is top of the scale.”

She looked back at the glossy white building, the shining tower, the waving flags. “I guess dealing with diplomats and ambassadors and heads of state every day makes a high snooty factor a prerequisite.”

“Diplomats, ambassadors, and heads of state are supposed to represent the people, which makes them no different than us. Renquist can take his snooty factor and shove it.”

She drove away from the white walls and flags, toward the heart of the city. “Wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit if it turns out to be him. I’m going to lock the cage on this son of a bitch personally. I meant that. And I wouldn’t mind seeing Renquist’s snotty face on the other side of the bars when I do.”

– -«»--«»--«»--

She hunkered down at Central and used the exercise of clearing her desk to let her thoughts brew. She forwarded a dozen messages and demands from reporters to the media liaison, and happily forgot about them. She imagined there was a press conference in her future, but she didn’t have to think about it now.

She caught up on paperwork as much as she ever caught up on paperwork, then made some calls of her own.

She took out the notes, reread them, searching for a rhythm, phrasing, word uses, anything that clicked with the speech patterns of the people on her list.

It wasn’t his voice, she thought again. Deliberately not his voice. He assumes and mimics and becomes. Who did he become when he wrote the notes?

Her desk ‘link signaled an incoming, and wanting to avoid reporters she waited for the transmission location to flash on. When she read Feeney,CaptainRyan, EDD, she answered.

“You work fast,” she said.

“Kid, I’m a frigging rocket. Got a pop might be your guy. Case is cold.Vic was a fifty-three-year-old female. Schoolteacher. Found strangled in her apartment by a sister. Cooked for a few days first. Raped with a piece of statuary, which he also used to bash her over the head. Strangled with a pair of those pantyhose you people wear. Tied in a bow under the chin.”

“Bingo. How cold and where?”

“Went downJune of last year,Boston. I’ll send you all the particulars. No note with this one, and he smashed her head and face pretty good with the statue. ME report says she was already on the way out when he strangled her.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“Could be. I got another with enough clicks to make me wonder. Six months beforeBoston, out in New L.A. Fifty-six-year-oldvic. This one was a squatter though, and that doesn’t fit. But somebody did her in her flop, raped her with a ball bat, smashed her up with it before he strangled her with her own scarf. Got a bow there, too, which is what pulled it.”

“Follows, doesn’t it? A squatter’s an easy hit. Not tough to get to, and nobody cares too much. It’d be a good place to perfect your technique.”

“My thinking. I’ll send these to you. Haven’t got any hits on the mutilation. Plenty of slash and gash in the good old U.S. of A., but nothing that hums along with your guy. I’m widening to international.”

“Thanks, Feeney. You got some vacation time coming, don’t you?”

His mournful face drooped. “Wife’s nagging my ass red about putting in for a week. Frigging holiday brochures all over the damn house. Thinks we should rent some big beach house or some shit, take the whole damn family. Kids, grandkids.”

“How about Bimini?”

“Who?”

“Where, Feeney.”

“Oh. Bimini. What about it?”

“Roarke’s got a place there, big house, staffed. Beach, waterfall, blah blah. I can clear it with him, have your whole damn family fly down on one of his transports. Interested?”

“Jesus Christ, I go home and tell the wife we’re taking the whole herd to Bimini for a week, she’ll keel over. Shit, yeah, I’m interested, but we don’t have to play payback.”

“I’m not playing. Place is just sitting there. He flipped a deal toPeabody and McNab a while back, so I figure I can flip one to you. Especially since I’m going to ask you to keep an eye on things when I do some out-of-town work.”

“Sounds like I’m getting the shiny end of the deal. Data coming through.”

She read it through, and felt that quick little buzz in the blood. A cop buzz. She was looking at his work. Practice strokes. Not that sort of thing that merited a signature, she thought, but a building of style and skill he preferred not to add to his credits.

He’d have been sloppier, less cautious. There’d have been mistakes, and though the trail was cold, she might still find a shadow of them.

She took the time to organize the data before taking it toWhitney for her pitch.

With her commander’s go-ahead under her belt, she made tracks back to Homicide, already formulating her next pitch in her head. She breezed through the bullpen, givingBaxter a with-me signal when he called out her name.

“So, you get a look at the guy she’s boinking on the side?”

“She’s not boinking a guy on the side.”

The rushEve was still riding on drained. “Gotta be. Damn it,Baxter, she had big, secret affair written all over her. I could almost smell the sex.”

“Please, you’re giving me a woody. I’m just going to have some of your coffee and calm myself down.”

“If you couldn’t keep a tail on her-”

“I kept a tail on her.” He ordered up an enormous mug, two sugars, splash of cream. Taking it, he leaned back against her filing cabinet to enjoy the first jolt. “Goddamn, this is coffee. Speaking of tails, which you were, the blonde had a superior one.”