Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

Lukas said to Geller, "Call Scottsdale P. D. and see if there's anything on them."

The agent made the call.

Evans's eyes carefully studied the equipment in the van, pausing on the morgue photo of the unsub. He looked up. "Now, the only reference to the Digger, singular, is a man in England in the 1930s. John Barnstall. He was a nobleman-a viscount or something like that. Lived in Devon. He claimed he had a family but he seemed to live alone. Turned out Barnstall'd killed his wife and children and two or three local farmers. He'd dug a series of tunnels under his mansion and kept the bodies down there. He embalmed them."

"Gross," Hardy muttered.

"So the press called him the Digger-because of the tunnels. A London gang in the seventies took the name from him but they were strictly small change."

"Any chance," Lukas asked, "that either the unsub or the Digger himself had heard about Barnstall? Used him as a sort of role model."

"I can't really tell at this point. I need more information. We'd have to identify patterns in their behavior."

Patterns, Parker reflected. Discovering consistent patterns in questioned documents was the only way to detect forgeries: the angle of the slant in constructing letters, penstroke starts and lifts, the shape of the descenders on lower case y, g and q, the degree of tremble. You could never judge a forgery in isolation. He told Evans, "One thing you should know-this might not be the first time the Digger and his accomplice have done this."

Lukas said, "A free-lance writer contacted us. He's convinced the shootings're part of a pattern of similar crimes."

"Where?"

"Boston, the New York suburbs and Philadelphia. Always the same-larceny or extortion were the main crimes with tactical murders to support them."

Evans asked, "He was after money?"

"Right," Parker said. "Well, jewelry once."

"Then it doesn't sound like there's any connection with Barnstall. His diagnosis was probably paranoid schizophrenia, not generalized antisocial behavior-like your perpetrator here. But I'd like to know more about the crimes in the other cities. And find out some more about his MO today."

Hardy said, "What we're doing here is trying to find his safe house. It could have a lot of information in it."

Lukas shook her head, disappointed. "I was hoping the name Digger meant something. I thought it might be the key."

Evans said, "Oh, it still might-if we get more data. The good news is that the name isn't more common. If the accomplice-the dead man-came up with the name Digger, that tells us something about him. If it was the Digger's nickname for himself then that tells us something about him. See, naming-designating-is very important in arriving at psych profiling."

He looked at Parker. "For instance, when you and I describe ourselves as 'consultants' there're some psychological implications to that. We're saying that we're willing to abdicate some control over the situation in exchange for a certain insulation from responsibility and risk."

That's one hundred percent right, Parker thought.

"You know," Evans said, "I'd be happy to hang around for a while." He laughed again, nodded at the morgue picture. "I've never analyzed a corpse before. It'll be quite a challenge."

"We could sure use the help," Lukas said. "I'd appreciate it."

Evans opened his backpack and took out a very large metal thermos. He opened the lid and poured black coffee into the lid cup. "I'm addicted," he said. Then he smiled. "Something a psychologist shouldn't admit, I suppose. Anybody want some?"

They all declined and Evans put the thermos away. The doctor pulled out his cell phone and called his wife to let her know he'd be working late.

Which reminded Parker of the Whos and he took out his own phone and called home.

"Hello?" Mrs. Cavanaugh's grandmotherly voice asked when she answered the phone.

"It's me," Parker said. "How's the fort?"

"They're driving me into bankruptcy. And all this Star Wars money. I can't figure out what it is. They're keeping me confused on purpose." Her laugh included the children, who would be nearby.

"How's Robby doing?" Parker asked. "Is he still upset?"

Her voice lowered. "He got sort of moody a few times but Stephie and I pulled him out of it. They'd love for you to be home by midnight."

"I'm trying. Has Joan called?"

"No." Mrs. Cavanaugh laughed. "And funny thing, Parker… But if she were to call and I happened to see her name on the caller ID, I might be too busy to answer. And she might think you were all at a movie or Ruby Tuesday for the salad bar. How would you feel about that?"

"I'd feel really good about that, Mrs. Cavanaugh."

"I thought you might. That caller ID is a great invention, isn't it?"

"Wish I had the patent," he told her. "I'll call later."

They hung up.

Cage had overheard. He asked, "Your boy? He okay?"

Parker sighed. "He's fine. Just having some bad memories from… you know, a few years ago."

Evans lifted an eyebrow and Parker said to him, "When I was working for the Bureau a suspect broke into our house." He noticed Lukas was listening too.

"Your boy saw him?" Evans asked.

Parker said, "It was Robby's window the perp tried to break into."

"Jesus," C. P. muttered. "I hate bad stuff when it happens to kids. I fucking hate that."

"PTSD?" Lukas asked.

Posttraumatic stress disorder. Parker had been worried that the boy would suffer from the condition and had taken him to a specialist. The doctor, though, had reassured him that because Robby had been very young and hadn't actually been injured by the Boatman he probably wasn't suffering from PTSD.

Parker explained this and added, "But the incident happened just before Christmas. So this time of year he has more memories than otherwise. I mean, he's come through it fine. But…"

Evans said, "But you'd've given anything for it not to have happened."

"Exactly," Parker said softly, looking at Lukas's troubled face and wondering why she was familiar with the disorder.

The therapist asked, "He's all right, though. Tonight?"

"He's fine. Just got a little spooked earlier."

"I've got kids of my own," Evans said. He looked at Lukas, "You have children?"

"No," she said. "I'm not married."

Evans said to her, "It's as if you lose a part of your mind when you have children. They steal it and you never get it back. You're always worried that they're upset, they're lost, they're sad. Sometimes I'm amazed that parents can function at all."

"Is that right?" she asked, distracted once more.

Evans returned to the note and there was a long moment of silence. Geller typed on his keyboard. Cage bent over a map. Lukas toyed with a strand of her blond hair. The gesture would have been coy and appealing except for her stony eyes. She was someplace else.

Geller sat up slightly as his screen flashed. "Report back from Scottsdale…" He read the screen. "Okay, okay… P. D. knew about the gang, the Gravediggers, but they have no contact with anybody who was in it. Most of'em are retired. Family men now."

Yet another dead end, Parker thought.

Evans noticed another sheet of paper and pulled it toward him. The Major Crimes Bulletin-about Gary Moss and the firebombing of his house.

"He's the witness, right?" Evans asked. "In that school construction scandal."

Lukas nodded.

Evans shook his head as he read. "The killers didn't care if they murdered his children too… Terrible." He glanced at Lukas. "Hope they're being well looked after," the doctor said.

"Moss is in protective custody at headquarters and his family's out of state," Cage told him.

"Killing children," the psychologist muttered and pushed the memo away.

Then the case began to move. Parker remembered this from his law enforcement days. Hours and hours-sometimes days-of waiting; then all at once the leads begin to pay off. A sheet of paper flowed out of the fax machine. Hardy read it. "It's from Building Permits. Demolition and construction sites in Gravesend."