Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

"Nothing about him either," Lukas said. "He had no ID on him. Fingerprints were negative."

"Would you… Would it be all right if I took a look at the body? Is it in the morgue?"

Cage shook his head.

Lukas said, "Sorry. It's against the regs."

"Please?" There was almost a desperation to the request.

Lukas, though, was unmoved. She said shortly, "No."

"A picture maybe," Czisman persisted.

Lukas hesitated then opened the file and took out the photo of the unsub at the accident site near City Hall and handed it to him. His sweaty fingers left fat prints on the glossy surface.

Czisman stared for a long moment. He nodded. "Can I keep this?"

"After the investigation."

"Sure." He handed it back. "I'd like to do a ride-along."

Where a reporter accompanies police on an investigation.

But Lukas shook her head. "Sorry. I'll have to say no to that."

"I could help," he said. "I might have some insights. I might have some thoughts that'd help."

"No," Cage said firmly.

With another look at the picture Czisman rose. He shook their hands and said, "I'm staying at the Renaissance-the one downtown. I'll be interviewing witnesses. If I find something helpful I'll let you know."

Lukas thanked him and they walked him back to the guard station.

"One thing," Czisman said, "I don't know what kind of deadlines he"-Czisman nodded toward Lukas's file, meaning the unsub-"came up with. But now that he's gone there's no one to control the Butcher… the Digger. You understand what that means, don't you?"

"What?" she asked.

"That he might just keep on killing. Even after the last deadline."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because it's the one thing he does well. Killing. And everybody loves to do what they do well. That's a rule of life now, isn't it?"

They huddled once more in the surveillance room, in a cluster around Tobe Geller and his computer.

Lukas said into the speakerphone, "How 'bout the other crimes he mentioned?"

Susan Nance responded, "Couldn't get any of the case agents in Boston, White Plains or Philly. But the on-duty personnel confirmed the cases are all open. Nobody heard of the name Butcher, though."

"Forensics?" Parker asked, just as Lukas started to ask, "Foren-?"

"Nothing. No prints, no trace. And the witnesses… well, the ones who lived said they never really saw either the unsub or the Digger-if it was the Digger. I've put in requests for more info on the shootings. They're calling case agents and detectives at home."

"Thanks, Susan," Lukas said.

She hung up.

Geller said, "I'm getting the other analysis…" He looked at the screen. "Okay… Voice stress and ret scans-normal readings. Stress is awfully low, especially for somebody being cross-examined by three feds. But I'd give him a clean bill of health. Nothing consistent with major deception. But then, with practice you can beat most polygraphs with a Valium and a daydream about your favorite actress."

Lukas's phone rang. She listened. Looked up. "It's security. He's almost out of primary surveillance range. We let him go?"

Parker said, "I'd say yes."

"Agreed," Cage said.

Lukas nodded. She said into her phone. "No detention for subject." She hung up then glanced at her watch. "The shrink? The guy from Georgetown?"

"He's on his way," Cage said.

Now Geller's phone rang. He answered and spoke for a moment. After he hung up he announced, "Com-Tech. They've found a hundred and sixty-seven working Web sites that have information about packing silencers and full-auto machine-pistol conversions. Guess what? Not one of 'em'll hand over e-mail addresses. They don't seem inclined to help out the federal government."

"Dead end," Lukas said.

"Wouldn't do us much good anyway," Geller noted. "Com-Tech added up the hit counter totals from about a hundred of the sites. More than twenty-five thousand people've logged on in the last two months."

"Fucked-up world out there," Cage muttered.

The door opened. Len Hardy walked inside.

"How's Moss?" Lukas asked.

"He's okay. There were two hang-ups on his voice mail at home and he thought they might've been death threats."

Lukas said, "We should have Communications-"

Hardy, eyes on the elaborate control panels, interrupted. "I asked one of your people to check ' em out. One call was from Moss's brother. The other was a telemarketer from Iowa. I called 'em both back and verified them."

Lukas said, "That's just what I was going to ask, Detective."

"Figured it was."

"Thanks."

"District of Columbia at your service," he said.

Parker thought the irony in his voice was fairly subdued; Lukas didn't seem to notice it at all.

Parker asked, "What're we doing about that map? We've got to analyze the trace."

Geller said, "The best one I can think of is in the Topographic Archives."

"The Archives?" Cage asked, shaking his head. "There's no way we can get in there."

Parker could only imagine the difficulty of finding civil servants willing to open up a government facility on a holiday night.

Lukas flipped open her phone.

Cage said, "No way."

"Ah," she said, "you don't have the corner on miracles, you know."

The brass clock.

It meant so much to him.

Mayor Jerry Kennedy looked at it now, resting prominently on his desk in City Hall.

The gift was from students at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, a school square in the war zone of Ward 8, Southeast D.C. Kennedy had been very touched by the gesture. No one took Washington the City seriously. Washington the political hub, Washington the federal government, Washington the site of scandal-oh, that was what captured everyone's attention. But no one knew, or cared, how the city itself ran or who was in charge.

The children of Thurgood Marshall had cared, however. He'd spoken to them about honor and working hard and staying off drugs. Platitudes, sure. But a few of them, sitting in the pungent, damp auditorium (itself a victim of the school board scandal), had gazed up at him with the look of sweet admiration on their faces. Then they'd given him the clock in appreciation of his talk.

Kennedy touched it now. Looked at the face: 4:50.

So, the FBI had come close to stopping the madman. But they hadn't. Some deaths, some injuries. And more and more panic around the city. Hysteria. There'd already been three accidental shootings-by people carrying illegal pistols for protection. They thought they'd seen the Digger on the street or in their backyards and had just started shooting, like feuding neighbors in West Virginia.

And then there were the press reports berating Kennedy and the District police for not being up to the challenge of a criminal like this. For being soft on crime and for hiding out. One report even suggested that Kennedy had been unavailable-on the phone trying to get tickets to one of his beloved football games-while the theater shooting was going on. The reviews of his TV appearance were not good either. One interviewee, a political commentator, had actually echoed Congressman Lanier's phrase, "kowtowing to terrorists." He'd also worked the word "cowardly" into his commentary. Twice.

The phone rang. Wendell Jefferies, sitting across from the mayor, grabbed the receiver first. "Uh-huh. Okay…" He closed his eyes, then shook his head. He listened some more. He hung up.

"Well?"

"They've scoured the entire theater and can't find an iota of evidence. No fingerprints. No witnesses-no reliable ones anyway."

"Jesus, what is this guy, invisible?"

"They've got some leads from this former agent."

"Former agent?" Kennedy asked uncertainly.