Jonathan Kellerman - Dr. Death

"How good is he?" I said.

"Better than average. I took some photos. It's all in there. But don't hold me to any specific guess, look at the overall picture. I've done hundreds of profiles, most of the time I miss something."

"What you've done with Burke goes beyond profiling," I said.

He stared at me. "Meaning what?"

"Sounds as if you've made him your project."

"Part of my current job description is depth research on cold cases." To Milo: "You'd know something about that."

Milo uncoiled the string and opened the file. Inside were three black folders, labeled I, II, and III. He removed the first, opened it to a page containing five photocopied head shots.

In the upper left: a color school photo of ten-year-old T-shirted Grant Huie Rushton. Button nose, blond crew cut, Norman Rockwell cute, except this kid hadn't smiled for the camera. Had looked away from it, set his mouth in a horizontal line that should've been merely noncommittal, but wasn't.

Anger. Cool anger, backed by… wariness? Emotional unsteadiness? Furtive, wounded eyes. Norman Rockwell meets Diane Arbus. Or was I interpreting because of what Fusco had told me?

Next: a high-school graduation shot. At eighteen, Grant Rushton looked more relaxed. Pleasant-looking young man wearing a plaid shirt, face broadened by puberty, the features symmetrical, tending a bit toward pug. Clear complexion but for sprinkles of pimples in the folds between nostril and cheek. Strong, square chin, mouth shut tight but uplifted at the corners. Teenage Grant's hair was several shades darker but still fair, worn to his shoulders with thick bangs. This time, he confronted the lens, full-face-confident-more than that: brash. By then, Fusco claimed, Rushton had murdered and gotten away with it.

Below the childhood shots was Huey Mitchell's bearded face on a Great Lakes Security badge. The beard was thick, spade-shaped, a mink brown that contrasted with Mitchell's dirty-blond head hair. Running from atop the cheekbones to his first shirt button in an uninterrupted swath broken only by a mouth slit, it rendered any comparison to the other photos useless. Mitchell wore his hair even longer, drawn back tight into a ponytail that dangled over his right shoulder.

The pale eyes narrower, harder. My flash impression would have been blue-collar resentment. Vital statistics: five-ten, one eighty, blond hair, blue eyes.

The bottom row featured two pictures of Michael Burke, MD. In the first, taken from a New York driver's license, the beard remained, this time clipped and bar-bered to an inch of dark pelt that served the now powerful-looking head well. So did Burke's haircut- razor-layered, blow-dried, worn just above the ears. By his early thirties, Burke's face had begun to reveal the advent of middle age: thinner hair, wrinkles around the mouth, puffiness under the eyes. Overall, a pleasant-looking man, wholly unremarkable.

This time the stats said five-nine, one sixty-five.

"He shrank an inch and lost fifteen pounds?" I said.

"Or lied about it to Motor Vehicles," said Fusco. "Doesn't everyone?"

"People reduce their weight, but they don't generally claim to be shorter."

"Michael isn't people," said Fusco. "You'll also notice that the license says brown eyes. His true color's green-blue. Obviously, Burke jerked them around-either because he was hiding something or just having fun. On his Unitas I.D., he's back to blue."

I examined the last photo.

Michael R Burke, MD, Dept. of Emergency Medicine.

Clean-shaven. Square-jawed, even fuller, the hair thinner but worn slightly longer, flatter. Burke had been content with a decent comb-over.

I compared the last shot with Grant Rushton's high-school photo, searching for some commonality. Similar bone structure, I supposed. The eyes were the same shape, but even there, gravity had tugged sufficiently to prevent immediate identification. Huey Mitchell's beard obscured everything. Rushton's bang-shadowed brow and Burke's clear forehead gave the rest of their faces entirely different appearances.

Five faces. I'd never have linked any of them.

Milo shut the folder and placed it back in the file. Fusco had been waiting for some kind of response and now he looked unhappy, curled his fingers around his glass.

"Anything else?" said Milo.

Fusco shook his head. Unfolding a paper napkin, he wrapped the half-eaten brisket sandwich and stashed it in a pocket of his sport coat.

"You bunked down at the Federal Building?" said Milo.

"Officially," said Fusco, "but mostly I'm on the road. I wrote down a number in there that routes automatically to my beeper. My fax runs twenty-four hours a day. Feel free, anytime."

"On the road where?"

"Wherever the job takes me. As I said, I've got projects other than Michael Burke, though Michael does tend to occupy my thoughts. Tonight, I'll be flying up to Seattle, see if I can get U. Wash to be a bit more forthcoming. Also, to look into those unsolveds, which is a mite touchy. With all the publicity about the Pacific Northwest being the serial-killer capital of the world and no resolution on Green River, they don't like being reminded of loose ends."

Milo said, "Bon voyage."

Fusco slid out of the booth. No briefcase. His jacket bulged where he'd stuffed the sandwich. Not a tall man, after all. Five-eight, tops, with a big torso riding stumpy, bowed legs. His jacket hung open and I saw several black pens lined up in his shirt pocket, the beeper and a cell phone hitched to his belt. No visible weapon. Fingering his white hair, he left the restaurant, limping. Looking like a tired old salesman who'd just failed to make his quota.

MILO AND I stayed in the booth.

The waitress was leaning protectively over the old woman. He waved for her. She held up a finger.

He said, "Just like the Feds-we get stuck for the check."

"He liked the brisket, but didn't eat much of it," I said. "Maybe his gut's full of something else."

"Like what?"

"Frustration. He's been on this for a while-got a bit touchy when I called Burke his project. Sometimes that can lead to tunnel vision. On the other hand, there's a lot that seems to match."

"What-'geometry'?"

"A killer with a medical background and artistic interests, the combination of 'euthanasia' and lust-murder. And he was awfully close when he described the details of Mate's murder, down to the blitz attack and the cleanup."

"That he could've gotten from a departmental leak."

The waitress came over. "It's been taken care of, sir. The white-haired gentleman."

"And a gentleman he is." Milo handed her a ten.

"The tip's also been taken care of," she said.

"Now it's been taken care of twice."

She beamed. "Thanks."

When she was gone, I said, "See, you judged him too harshly."

"Force of habit… Okay, so some of my income tax came back to me… Yeah, there are similarities, there often are with psycho killers, right? Limited repertoire: you bludgeon, you shoot, you cut. But it's far from a perfect match. Starting with the basics: Mate's not a young girl and he wasn't tied against a tree. Fusco can fudge all he wants, but, PhD or not, in the end it comes down to his feelings. And where does making Burke a suspect lead me? Trying to chase down some phantom the Bureau hasn't been able to snag for three years? I've already got prospects close to home."

His hand grazed the file folder. "If I don't cooperate eventually, he'll call the brass and I'll be stuck with task-force bullshit. For the moment, he's trying cop-to-cop."

A couple of multiple-pierced kids dressed in black entered the deli and took a booth at the front. Lots of laughter. I heard the word "pastrami" used as if it was a punch line.

"Nitrites for the night crawlers," Milo muttered. "Wanna do me a big favor? One that won't put you in conflict of interest?" Tapping the file. "Go over this for me. You come up with something juicy, I take it more seriously… Artistic. Burke draws, he doesn't paint. We've already got a good idea who did that masterpiece… So, you mind?"