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chair in the family room.
    “I’ll get it. It’s probably for me,” I called out.
    “Maybe it’s Christine. You never know,” Jannie teased, then darted away into the kitchen. Both of the kids adored Christine,
     in spite of the fact that she was the principal at their school.
    I knew exactly who was out on the porch. I had been expecting four homicide detectives from the First District—Jerome Thurman,
     Rakeem Powell, Shawn Moore, and Sampson.
    Three of the detectives were standing out on the porch. Rosie the cat and I let them inside. Sampson arrived about five minutes
     later, and we all gathered in the backyard. What we were doing at the house wasn’t illegal, but it wouldn’t make us a lot
     of friends in high places in the police department.
    We sat on lawn chairs, and I set out beer and low-fat pretzels that two-hundred-seventy-pound Jerome scoffed at. “Beer and
     low-fat pretzels. Give me a
break
, Alex. You lost your mind? Hey, you having an affair with my wife? You must have got this bad idea from Claudette.”
    “I bought these especially for you, big man. I’m trying to give your heart a break,” I told him, and the others guffawed loudly.
     We all pick on Jerome.
    The five of us had been getting together informally for a couple of weeks. We were beginning to work on the Jane Does, as
     we called them. Homicide had no official investigation going on; it wasn’t trying to link the murders to a serial killer.
     I’d tried to start one and been turned down by Chief Pittman. He claimed that I hadn’t discovered a pattern linking any of
     the murders, and besides that, he didn’t have any extra detectives for duty in Southeast.
    “I suppose you’ve all heard about Nina Childs by now?” Sampson asked the other detectives. All of them had known Nina, and
     of course Jerome had been at the murder scene with us.
    “The good die young.” Rakeem Powell frowned severely and shook his head. Rakeem is smart and tough and could go all the way
     in the department. “Least they do in Southeast.” His eyes went cold and hard.
    I told them what I knew, especially that Nina had been found with no I.D. I mentioned everything else I had noticed at the
     tenement crime scene. I also took the occasion to talk some more about the rash of unsolved murders in Southeast. I went over
     the devastating stats I had compiled, mostly in my free time.
    “Statistic like that in Georgetown or the Capitol district, people in this city be enraged. Going ballistic. Be
Washington Post
headlines every day. The president himself be involved. Money no object. National tragedy!” Jerome Thurman railed on and
     waved his arms around like signal flags.
    “Well, we are here to do something about it,” I said in a calmer voice. “Money
is
no object with us. Neither is time. Let me tell you what I feel about this killer,” I continued. “I think I know a few things
     about him.”
    “How’d you come up with the profile?” Shawn Moore asked. “How can you stand thinking about these kinky bastards as much as
     you do?”
    I shrugged. “It’s what I do best. I’ve analyzed all the Jane Does,” I said. “It took me weeks working on my own. Just me and
     the kinky bastard.”
    “Plus, he studies rodent droppings,” said Sampson. “I saw him bagging the little turds. That’s his real secret.”
    I grinned and told them what I had so far. “I think one male is responsible for at least some of the killings. Maybe as many
     as a dozen murders. I don’t think he’s a brilliant killer, like Gary Soneji or Mr. Smith, but he’s clever enough not to be
     caught. He’s organized, reasonably careful. I don’t think we’ll find he has any prior record. He probably has a decent job.
     Maybe even a family. My FBI friends at Quantico agree with that.
    “He’s almost definitely caught up in an escalating fantasy cycle. I think he’s into his fantasies big-time. Maybe he’s in
     the process of becoming someone or something new.