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When he came back he watched his mother work with her usual speed and economy, and before long Sam's parts were stacked neatly in the tub in the familiar, orderly fashion. There were cleaning agents and bottles of bleach nearby, most of them already empty.

Myrna turned the cold tap water on full blast, then reached over and worked the lever that diverted it to the showerhead. The shower hissed and spat before breaking into a steady spray.

Sherman and his mother watched the shower water run on the tub's contents for a while, then Myrna turned off the squeaky tap and said simply, "Sherman."

He knew precisely what to do.

Their system was fast and efficient. Myrna and Sherman stuffed the damp, pale body parts into the plastic bags and carried them out to the back porch. Sam had been a big man, so it took several trips, and when they were finished they were both breathing hard. Myrna stood with her hands on her hips for a few seconds, staring out at the black night. Then she sighed and turned around. She got a short bamboo rod from where it was leaning against the house and rattled it back and forth over the wooden porch spindles, the way a child would run a stick across a picket fence.

Within a few minutes, Sherman and his mother heard and saw movement in the dark swamp. The gators were conditioned to respond to the rattling sound that carried on the night through the black swamp, just as Sherman was conditioned to respond to his mother's commands.

Sherman helped his mother remove the body parts from the bags and toss them into the darkness beyond the porch rail. He tried not to cry, tried not to listen to the splashing and the grunting, grinding sounds. He knew alligators usually carried their food back to their nests in the banks to let it rot some before they ate it, and he wished these would. But some of these gators were too hungry to wait, and the swamp was theirs at night.

When all of the bags were empty, Myrna looked at her son in the faint moonlight and nodded. He watched her as she refolded the plastic bags so she could wash and reuse them. The boxes of Sam's books, and the bag containing his clothes, would remain on the porch and she would bury them in the swamp when it was daylight.

And Sam would be gone.

Like the boarders before him. Old men who didn't have long to live anyway.

But Sam was different.

Sherman's mother would never again mention his name, and Sherman knew better than to utter it even to himself.

"You go back to bed," Myrna told him. "I'll clean up."

Without a word, he turned and went back into the house, aware of his mother staring at him. Behind him the dark swamp continued to stir. Off in the distance, a night bird cried.

Sherman lay in bed thinking he'd sob himself to sleep. Only he didn't sob. And he didn't sleep. His eyes were open and dry.

He lay quietly listening to the sounds of his mother down the hall, scrubbing the bathroom. When she was finished there, she'd return to her bed, alone.

Sherman knew that if he could cry it would relieve some of the pressure in him that was making it difficult for him to breathe. And maybe his heart would stop crashing around in his chest as if it wanted to get out. If only he had Sam to talk to…

Sam was gone. But what would Sam tell him to do?

Sherman got out of bed and slipped into his stiff and damp Levi's cutoffs, then the T-shirt he'd worn that day. Moving quietly, he rummaged through his dresser drawers and pulled out what clothes he'd need, including some socks and his old joggers. He'd go barefoot for now, for silence. He stuffed the wadded socks into the shoes, then wrapped his clothes around the shoes and fastened the roll tightly with his old leather belt.

All he had to do now was remove the screen from his bedroom window and slip outside, and he could be miles away by morning.

Miles away! Free!

"Sherman."

His mother's voice was soft and neutral, almost lazy. He was too terrified even to move from where he was crouched facing the other way.

"You plannin' on leavin' me, son?"

He moved only his head, craning his neck so he could see behind him.

She was standing in the doorway, not frowning, not smiling, her dark eyes fixing him where he crouched. In her right hand she clutched the bamboo rod she used to summon the alligators. Slowly, she raised it high.

She moved fast toward Sherman, crossing the room like a tiger.

27

New York, the present

The printed note was sent to Quinn via the NYPD:

Red blood on blue tile. Fools rush in.

So do the police.

The Butcher

"It came in the mail yesterday," Renz said, seated behind his desk. He was wearing his reading glasses, and the sun piercing the blinds glinted off their lenses. The office was too warm and smelled faintly of cigar smoke again. Renz the addicted couldn't keep away from whatever cheap brand he smoked. How he must long for one of Quinn's illegal Cuban robustos. He knew damn well they weren't Venezuelan, as Quinn claimed.

Renz held up note and envelope. "Lab's already gone over it. The paper's cheap stock, sold all over the place. Same with the envelope. It's the kind people buy by the thousands to pay bills and send letters. No DNA on the flap. Nothing remotely like a fingerprint. And two handwriting experts agree the printing is almost drawn and there isn't enough of it to be distinctive or provide material for a meaningful match. The killer used a number-two lead pencil, the most common kind."

Quinn said, "You've got it pretty well covered."

Renz peeled off his glasses so he could focus long on Quinn. "Doing my job."

Quinn was seated in one of the chairs angled toward Renz's desk. Pearl and Fedderman were standing on either side and slightly behind him. "You might have told us about this yesterday," he said.

Renz shrugged. "I wanted to have something to tell, so I waited for lab and handwriting analyses." He squeezed one hand with the other, as if someone had given him a high five way too hard. "What do you think this means?"

"Can we run a computer check and see if the tile color in Marilyn Nelson's bathroom was mentioned to the press and repeated?"

"Did that," Renz said. "No matches. No mention. The note's genuine."

"The bastard's toying with us," Pearl said.

"So the profiler tells me," Renz said.

"Nothing unusual in that," Qunn said. Like many cops who'd been on the job a long time, he had little faith in profilers; they could easily head an investigation off in the wrong direction. "It's all part of what drives sickos like the Butcher. He wants to engage in a game and prove he's smarter than we are. He wants this note released to the media."

"That'd be your call," Renz said. "Why I hired you. And of course, you take the heat if it turns out to be a big mistake."

Quinn shifted a few inches in his chair so the sun wasn't in his eyes. "You asked what the note means, and I don't know the answer. But apparently it was written after Marilyn Nelson's death, and it means something. We have to figure it out. I say release it to the media. Call Cindy Sellers at City Beat, give the little rag a scoop."

"How will that help us?" Renz asked.

"We might need a favor from her someday."

"No, I meant what good will it do to release the note to the media?"

"If we don't figure out what the killer's trying to tell us, maybe somebody else will."

"You think he wants this figured out."

"Yes, but only when it's too late. In fact, if we don't figure it out, he'll tell us. But not in time to have stopped him from taking his next victim."

"Maybe the key is colors," Fedderman said. "Red and blue."