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Serial
killers don't operate in crowds, not successful ones anyway. Of course
he had problems with women. He was killing them.
    What do you expect, he thought, from bureau profilers who had
described the Beltway Sniper as a lone white man, when the shooters
proved instead to be two blacks?
    Stone found a coffeemaker on a corner table. Bitter dregs in the
bottom. He discovered cups and supplies in a cabinet, brewed a fresh
pot, and filled a flowered mug with JANICE painted on
it. He restudied
the pictures and reread the reports as he drank.
    He'd even researched the phases of the moon in search of a
ritualistic link. Nothing. The timing seemed random. He had killed on
every day of the week but Saturday.
    Head aching after his third cup of coffee, Stone felt a nagging yet
elusive hunch, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.
    He switched photographs again, to long shots from across the
victims' bedrooms. He walked by them, paused to look back at the
Paterson picture on his right, then at the Detroit photo to his left.
He set the coffee cup down harder than intended. A wave of the scalding
brew slopped over the edge and onto the counter. He didn't notice. He
was checking the bedroom shots in Cleveland, Boston, and Miami.
    "Damn. Why didn't I see that?" He reached for the telephone. "Hey,
Naz, it's me. I need you to come down here and look at something."
    "What time is it?" Nazario sounded fuzzy, as though he'd been asleep.
    "I don't know." Stone glanced impatiently at his watch. "Three
o'clock?" He sounded surprised.
    "Oh, Jesus. Where're you at?"
    "The photo lab at the station."
    "Did you go home? You still there? Up early? Out late? What the hell
are you do—"
    "How quick can you get here?"
    "That's me behind you, walking in the door."
* * *
    Nazario was wearing khakis and a rumpled white guayabera.
    Stone looked startled. "How'd you get here so fast?"
    "Not much traffic at this hour, and I floored it."
    "No doubt something chasing you again. You find the sarge's car?"
    "Yeah. Just in time. He's embarrassed, so don't broadcast it. Looks
like Connie took the FOP symbol off the tag and parked it in a loading
zone. So they were about to tow it. Hope you didn't wake me up to ask
that." He squinted at Stone. "What the hell are we doing here?"
    "Look. Look at these." Stone motioned to the photos. "Tell me if you
see what I see."
    The nine enlargements were shot from across the rooms toward the
foot of each victim's bed.
    Arms folded, Nazario studied each in turn, thick brows furrowed.
    His eyes narrowed on the third pass. "I'll be damned. I see it!
Dios
mio
!"
     

CHAPTER THREE
EARLIER THAT EVENING
    The shadows of the long driveway are cool and fragrant and I am
grateful to be home, even if it is temporary. The quiet only seems
lonely because I'm accustomed to domestic chaos, Connie, the kids,
their friends, even Max, the big, dumb sheepdog. I welcome this
solitude and time to think.
    Thank God for Nazario. Connie would not have answered a question
from me. So he called to politely inquire if she had "borrowed" my
Blazer. She said she didn't know what he was talking about. He thanked
her, said goodbye, and turned to me, his spaniel eyes sad.
    "She took it," he said.
    He then called the private number of Jennifer, the drama queen, and
only other family member old enough to drive. My daughter answered the
same question the same way. He said goodbye, and turned to me.
    "She had nothing to do with it."
    So, we deduce that unless one of Connie's girlfriends is an
accomplice with enough chutzpah to snatch a car out of the police
parking garage, my wife is most likely the lone perpetrator. She would
have driven her own car downtown. It's not easy for one person to
jockey two automobiles around. That involves some legwork, and Connie
is an unlikely pedestrian in Miami's summer heat. We might get lucky.
Maybe the Blazer isn't all that far away.
    Hotshot ace detectives like us are trained to seek justice, scoop
dangerous killers off