"Did he and Adam stay in touch?"
"Adam wrote," Eve said. "They would tell each other things they'd never tell us."
"Last question," said Mac. "The three men he attacked in the bar. What did he use on them?"
"His fists," said Duncan.
"And the little knife," she added.
"And the knife," Duncan concurred.
"What kind of knife?" asked Mac.
"Army Ranger knife," said Duncan. "Stainless steel, fit in the palm of his hand, opened with a flip with either hand. Keith was always fascinated by knives. I don't know why. He showed it to us. Is he dead too?"
"I don't think so," said Mac.
"Then what's the problem?"
Your son has murdered three people, Mac thought. And I think he's about to try to kill a fourth.
"Why did Adam kill himself?" Mac asked.
"Depression," said the boy's father.
"Depressed about what?"
"We don't know. The doctors didn't know. They said it was teenager stuff. Loneliness. Loss of a sense of self-worth. Humiliation by a girl. Lack of friends. There's a name for it. I don't care what the name of it is. Giving it a name won't bring Adam back. That answer your questions?"
"Yes, thanks," said Mac.
"He hurt some more people, didn't he?" Duncan asked.
"It looks that way."
"If you find him…" Eve trailed off.
"I'll have him get in touch with you," said Mac.
He could hear the woman crying softly. Someone hung up the phone.
You can't protect a person if you can't find him. By the same token, whoever was trying to kill Paul Sunderland probably couldn't find him either. Mac was reasonably sure that the someone was Keith Yunkin.
Twenty minutes later, in Sunderland's apartment, which was in the same building as his office, Mac watched the therapist throw some things together into a worn leather garment bag, including cuff links and two watches, one of them a Movado, a real one, not a knockoff you could buy for fifteen bucks from a midtown sidewalk stand.
"I could just take a train or get a flight out of town," said Sunderland. "I could stay in touch and you could tell me when you've caught Adam."
"His name is Keith," said Mac. "Adam was his brother."
"I don't understand," said Sunderland.
"He wasn't a sexual predator," said Mac. "He was pretending to be one."
"I see," said Sunderland, "but why can't I-?"
"We don't know what his resources are," said Mac. "I'd say he's very resourceful. We'd like you where you can be under police protection."
"And if I don't want to be?" asked Sunderland.
"We'll insist," said Mac.
Mac used Sunderland's computer and found a Web site that sold military knives- American, German, British, Italian, you name it. Mac named it and searched the photographs. Two fit the rough description Keith Yunkin's father had given. Mac called the number on the site. It was for an address in Queens. He ordered six knives at twelve dollars each and told the woman who took his order that he needed them sent to the crime scene lab by courier.
"I'm not sure…" the woman who took his order said. She sounded young. She sounded New York.
"I am," said Mac flatly. "I'm a police office investigating a murder and I want to stop another one."
"I'm sending it," the woman said. "Cash, check or credit card?"
He gave her a credit card number and expiration date.
Mac glanced out of the window. Even though the rain had stopped, the sky was still dark, rumbling, ominous. The black clouds moved quickly in from the ocean, threatening to release again. Water was still ankle deep or higher in the streets.
Was it a June afternoon? Was it really nine years ago? He had taken an afternoon off. They had gone to the Central Park Zoo to watch the penguins. His wife was a penguin person. He was a seal person. They had been in no hurry. People passed them as they sat eating peanuts, saying nothing, deciding without saying it that this was a special day and they should celebrate with her favorite, Thai food. And then it had rained. Suddenly. They had been caught. Soaked. No umbrella. No cabs would stop on Fifth Avenue. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and filled with frustration. They went to the apartment, stripped, made love. Eight years maybe. A June afternoon.
An hour after he had called to place his order, Mac sat in white lab coat and carefully sheared off slivers of stainless steel from the tip of an Army Ranger knife. It was painstaking, slow, absorbing in its detail.
He almost forgot about that day in June.
Jackson Street was flooded, knee-deep, like many other streets in Queens. Kids in shorts had stripped the wheels from old skateboards and were trying with little success to surf down the empty streets.
The water was overflow, sewer backup, filthy and dangerous. There were warnings on television and radio, but the kids of Queens were not paying attention. They were having fun.
Sam Delvechio screamed, "Get out of my way," and, board in hand, ran through the dark water as fast as he could. Then he plopped stomach down on the board and sailed surprisingly quickly down the middle of the street. He was going in the direction the water was flowing.
His friends Doug and Al took their turns, gulping in bacteria and laughing.
"Look," Al called out.
A fish, about a foot long and moving against the flow, swam down the street.
"Catch it," Al called.
They grabbed for the fish, but couldn't hold it.
"Hit it with the board," called Sam.
Doug swung at the fish with his board, missed. Al took a turn and hit the fish, which was just getting the idea that it wasn't safe. It sped up.
Sam took a turn, hit the fish. The fish turned on its side, still swimming. Sam was about to strike again when he stepped on something. No surprise. He was barefoot in the middle of the street.
He was about to swing again when Al said, "Hey look."
Blood curled up to the surface of the dark water in front of Sam.
Sam reached down and groped for whatever it was he had stepped on. The fish righted itself and swam away. Sam came up with something that looked like, and was, one of his toes.
"Hey, shit," said Al.
Sam looked dazed and said, "It doesn't hurt."
"Get your aunt," said Al. "They can sew it back on."
"My aunt?" asked Sam, staring at the bloody toe in his hand.
"No, Sam," said Al, whose father was a paramedic. "The hospital."
Doug stepped forward, reached down into the murky water, cautiously moved his hand along the surface of the street and touched something. He lifted it and held it up.
The open blade of the Army Ranger knife was stained with blood.
It had been dark during and before the rain, but it was even darker now. Somewhere behind the ominous clouds and rumbling sky the sun was going down. Night was coming.
"My first name's John," said Devlin as the board was eased into the pit by two other firemen.
The board was blue, plastic, two and a half feet wide and seven feet long.
"Stella," she said.
"Stella," he repeated. "I'll be right back up with your partner."
"Be careful," she said.
There was a metal coil hooked to the fireman's waist. Devlin had removed his raincoat and put on a long-sleeved plastic jacket.
Stella nodded and Devlin straddled the board. The two firemen at the surface started to ease him down by slowly releasing the coil as Devlin slid into a darkness broken only by the light mounted on his hat.
The sides of the pit bled dirt and debris around him.
Standing near the edge, Stella watched the light bob into the blackness and grow smaller as the fireman descended.
Stella turned her eyes to the taut metal line and the two men who were easing it down. The line went slack and Devlin's voice called, "I'm down."
There was little room for movement at the bottom of the pit. Hawkes was kneeling and holding Custus's head out of the water. In the light from his lamp, Devlin could see the injured man's pale face. The man wasn't dead. Not yet.