"That shot," Stella said, pointing at one of the photographs. "Pull it up on the screen."
Aiden nodded and started hitting keys. Images raced by until she found the one Stella had indicated. "What's that on his shirt pocket?"
Aiden started to blow it up. Since the picture of the man was only a small section of a large crowd scene, the image began to lose resolution as Aiden enlarged and focused on what looked like a small gold pin.
"I think we can enhance it a little," said Aiden. "Maybe partial images on other shots, but I think I know what it is."
Stella looked at Aiden, who stared at the photograph.
"I think it's military, a unit pin. My father had one. He never wore it. I'll see what I can find, but there's not much there."
"He stands straight, military," said Stella. "Thick neck."
"He works out," said Aiden.
"Could be our killer," said Stella. "In some of the photographs, he's standing next to people who might remember him."
Aiden knew what she meant. In one of the photographs, the man in the cap was standing next to a man in black, a man with a black beard and hat, a man Stella recognized as being one of the same men she had seen in Asher Glick's congregation.
Stella wiped her nose.
"You too?" asked Aiden, who was feeling the first effects of seasonal allergies in her itchy eyes.
Stella, on the other hand, had a stuffy nose and a slight headache. It wasn't really bad and she knew it wouldn't be, but when she got home, she might have a dose of antihistamine syrup.
She looked again at the photographs of the man in the cap. She had now looked dozens of times, sensing that she had seen him before, but not knowing where. She knew enough to let it alone and hope that it came to her like the name of a movie actor or author you know well but suddenly forget.
"Let's find Flack," Stella said, standing.
Getting a search warrant for Joshua's apartment had been easy after Flack did his research. Judge Obert had signed it when Flack told him the story. The judge was well over seventy and more than ready to retire, but he had hung on through occasional lapses in which he could barely keep himself awake, even on the bench. Regular doses of Modafinil, originally used for narcolepsy, had alleviated the problem, though the judge found himself taking the pill far more often than his doctor had prescribed.
Obert had handed the warrant to Flack, saying with both contempt and resignation, "These people."
Flack didn't want to know who "these people" were. He was sure he would not like the answer.
As he opened the door to Joshua's apartment, Flack went over what he knew. He knew that Joshua was an alcoholic and had done hard time. His prison medical record, which had come to CSI about an hour ago, showed Joshua had developed lightheadedness and temporary losses of memory. He also had violent episodes and had almost beaten another inmate to death after a disagreement over something Joshua had been unable to remember. Joshua had announced his new name after the attack on the man. No one really gave a shit. Joshua had begun to seek converts, going first to prisoners who had Jewish-sounding names. The effort had almost gotten him killed.
If there were a gun hidden in the apartment, Flack was determined to find it. He knew that there was something different about his relationship to Joshua than to all the suspects he had dealt with before. Part of it was that Joshua was a true believer. Flack didn't trust true believers, especially religious ones- although the political believers and ethnic believers were probably just as dangerous.
True believers were capable of anything because they were sure their cause was just. It was this belief that gave the only meaning to their lives.
Flack knew a lot of true believers in his own family. He had no idea how he had escaped, but he had. From the time he was a boy he had kept his own peace about what he believed. What he believed was between him and God.
The man in the cap was back in the deli across from the lab. Actually, he wasn't wearing the cap at the moment. He had exchanged it for one of those tan hats you can crumple and keep in your pocket that always pop back to their original shape, waterproof, ready and with a brim wide enough to pull down over your eyes.
He had also left his glasses at home. The lenses were plain glass. His eyesight was almost perfect. He held the latest copy of Smithsonian Magazine in front of him. This would have to be his last visit here, even though he doubted if anyone would remember him, was even more sure no one would recognize him. He ate slowly, accepting two refills of decaf coffee from the waitress. She looked down at the cap on the chair. He should have left that at home too, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He was proud of it, probably the last symbol of that part of his life of which he was truly proud. The man smiled at the waitress, who walked to the next table to top off the coffee mug of a heavy-eyed young man in need of a shave and a hairbrush.
It was now three years ago, almost to the day, that the man had placed the jar on the mantel of the fireplace and stepped back to look at it among the photographs. In nearly all of the photographs on the shelf, the people, almost all dead now, were smiling, happy or pretending to be. Some of the people were painfully young. Some were old, holding on to their dignity at least for the duration of that photograph. Some of the young and old were the same people, photos of them taken decades apart.
There had been no religious ceremony, no service. He had wanted none. The grief he felt, the loss, could only be shared with some of the people, now dead, in the photographs. There were people he could talk to, but he had no intention of doing so. He would tolerate no false piety. He wanted no insincere solace nor any promise of an afterlife or eternal memory in which he did not believe. The memory of the person whose ashes lay in that jar would die with him.
He finished his third cup of coffee and looked across the street. She was coming out with that other woman, the pretty, young dark one. As she walked, Stella took a tissue from the pocket of her jacket and wiped her nose.
It wouldn't be long now.
He should have been satisfied, but he had gotten up that morning at dawn as he always did and went to the living room to touch the jar. Something had changed. Something that made him uneasy, but by no means less willing to kill Stella Bonasera.
Mac sat in a straight-backed padded armchair in the living room of the Vorhees house. He had pulled back the curtains to his left to let the sunlight in. He felt the heat on his arm and face.
Danny had finished and gone back to the lab with the knife and a page torn out of Mac's notebook. Danny's tremor was definitely less pronounced, but it was still there and he still had a slightly haunted look in his eyes. Mac had seen that look in the mirror after watching a helicopter attached to his marine unit crash less than fifty yards from where he had been standing. Mac was supposed to be on that copter with eight other marines. He had been pulled off the routine test flight by a marine sergeant who said Mac was wanted in HQ to write a not-very-important report that was due that day. The copter rose about two hundred feet in the air and crashed as Mac and the sergeant who had come for him were about to get into a waiting jeep. Mac and the sergeant ran to the burning wreckage of the mangled copter, which burned brighter as they got closer and suddenly exploded, knocking Mac and the sergeant off their feet.
The next morning Mac had looked in the mirror and seen the haunted look he would see on Danny. The other time he had seen that look in the mirror was just after his wife had died on 9/11.
At the present moment, Mac needed to be alone. To Kyle Shelton it was a deadly serious game. To Mac it was a challenge that could be dealt with by using science and logic.