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“Not a bad thought-our drug theme.” He wrote: Test backpack for narcotics residue.

Case #5: Milos Ivan Covic, eighty-two-year-old man from Park Slope, Brooklyn, middle of the afternoon, plunges out of his ninth floor apartment and makes an ungodly mess on Prospect Park West, near Grand Army Plaza. His bedroom window is wide open, apartment locked, no signs of a break-in or robbery. However, several framed black-and-white photos of a young Covic with others, family presumably, are found shattered on the floor by the window. There is no suicide note. The man, a Croatian immigrant who had worked for fifty years as a cobbler, had no living relatives and was so reclusive there was no one who could attest to his mental state. The apartment was covered in only one set of fingerprints: his.

Will leafed through the stack of vintage photographs. “And there’s no ID on any of these people?”

“None,” Nancy replied. “His neighbors were all interviewed, we put out feelers among the Croatian-American community, but nobody knew him. I don’t know where to go. Any ideas?”

He pointed his palms toward the heavens. “I got nothing on this one.”

Case #6: Marco Antonio Napolitano, eighteen-year-old, recent high school graduate. Lived with his parents and sister in Little Italy. His mother found the postcard in his room and the coffin image sent her into hysterics. His family looked for him unsuccessfully all day. Police found his body later in the evening in the boiler room of their tenement with a needle in his arm and heroin works and tourniquet beside him. Autopsy showed an overdose but the family and his closest friends insisted he wasn’t a user, which was borne out by the absence of needle tracks on his body. The kid had a couple of juvies, shoplifting, that sort of thing, but this wasn’t a major bad guy. The syringe had two different DNAs, his and an unidentified male’s, suggesting someone else had shot up with him using the same works. There were also two sets of fingerprints on the syringe and the spoon, his and another’s, which they ran through IAFIS and came up empty, ruling out about fifty million people in the database.

“Okay,” Will said. “This one’s got possible linkers.”

Nancy saw them too, perked up and said, “Yeah, how about this? The killer’s an addict who murders Elizabeth, trying to knock off her Duane Reade for narcotics. He’s got a gripe against Marco and overloads a syringe, and a score to settle with Myles, who’s his supplier.”

“What about David?”

“He’s more like a mugging for cash, which also fits with an addict.”

Will shook his head with an exasperated smile. “Pretty damned soft,” he said, writing: Possibly an Addict??? “Okay, home stretch. Our man takes a two-week break then starts up again on June eleventh. Why the pause? Is he tired? Busy with something else in his life? Out of town? Back in Vegas?”

Rhetorical questions. She studied Will’s face as his mind churned.

“We’ve run down all the eastbound moving violations issued on major routes between Vegas and New York during the intervals between the postmarked dates on the cards and the dates of the murders and we’ve got nothing of interest, correct?”

“Correct,” she replied.

“And we’ve got passenger manifests for all direct and connecting flights between Vegas and metropolitan New York for the relevant dates, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And what have we learned from that?”

“Nothing yet. We’ve got several thousand names that we’re rerunning every few days against all the names in our victims’ databases. So far, no hits.”

“And we’ve done state and federal criminal background checks on all the passengers?”

“Will, you’ve asked me that a dozen times!”

He wasn’t going to apologize. “Because it’s important! And get me a printout of all the passengers with Hispanic surnames.” He pointed toward a stack of files on the floor near the window. “Pass me that one. This is where I came in.”

Case #7: Ida Gabriela Santiago, seventy-eight-year-old killed by an intruder in her bedroom with a. 22 caliber bullet through her ear. As Will suspected, she hadn’t been raped, and aside from the victim and her immediate family, there were no unaccounted fingerprints anywhere. Her purse had indeed been stolen and remained unrecovered. A footprint from the earth below her kitchen window showed a size twelve distinctive waffle pattern that matched a popular basketball sneaker, Reebok DMX 10. Given the depth of the print and the moisture content of the soil, the lab techs estimated the suspect weighed about 170, roughly the same weight as the Park Avenue suspect. They had searched for connections, especially with the Lopez case, but there were no recognizable intersects between the lives of the two Hispanic women.

That left Case #8: Lucius Jefferson Robertson, the man who was literally scared to death. There wasn’t much more to say about him, was there? “That’s it, I’m fried,” Will announced. “Why don’t you sum it up, partner?”

Nancy earnestly flipped through her fresh notes and glanced at his Key Observations. “I guess I’d have to say that our suspect is a five-ten, 170-pound Hispanic male who’s a drug addict and a sex offender, who drives a blue car, has a knife, a. 22 caliber and a. 38 caliber gun, shuttles back and forth to Las Vegas either by car or air, and prefers to kill people on weekdays so he can kick back on weekends.”

“One heck of a profile,” Will said, finally cracking a smile. “Okay, so bring it all home. How does he pick his victims and what’s with the fucking postcards?”

“Don’t swear!” she said, playfully swatting her notebook in his direction. “Maybe the victims are connected and maybe they’re not. Each crime is different. It’s almost like they’re deliberately random. Maybe he chooses the victims randomly too. He sends postcards to let us know the crimes are connected and that he’s the one who decides if someone’s going to die. He reads about the Doomsday Killer in the papers, watches the wall-to-wall cable coverage, it’s a real power trip for him. He’s very clever and very twisted. That’s our man.”

She waited for his approbation, but instead he stuck a pin in her balloon.

“Well, you’re a real hotshot, Special Agent Lipinski, aren’t you?” He stood up and marveled how fine it was to have a clear head and a stomach that could take food. “There’s only one thing wrong with your synthesis,” he said. “I don’t believe a word of it. The only archcriminal I know who’s capable of all this evil brilliance is Lex Luthor, and last time I checked, he was in a comic book. Take a break for lunch. Come get me for the press conference.”

He shooed her away with a wink and studied her as she retreated. She’s definitely looking better, he thought.

As the case dragged into the summer, the Doomsday press updates had been stretched to weekly. Originally there were daily briefings, but that level of newsworthiness was not sustainable. Yet, the story had legs, strong legs, and was proving to be a bigger ratings draw than O.J., Jon Benet, and Anna Nicole put together. Every night on cable the case was dissected down to a molecular level by talking heads and a legion of ex-FBI and law enforcement officers, lawyers, and pundits who weighed in breathlessly with their pet theories. Of late, a common theme was emerging: The FBI was not making progress, ergo the FBI was inept.

The news conference was in the New York Hilton ballroom. By the time Will and Nancy took their positions near a service entrance, the room was three-quarters full with press and photographers and the bigwigs were settling in up on the dais. On signal, the TV lights switched on and the live feed went out.

The mayor, a natty and imperturbable man, took the podium. “We are six weeks into this investigation,” he began. “On a positive note, there have been no new victims in ten days. While there have been no arrests at this time, law enforcement professionals from New York City, New York State, and federal agencies have been working diligently, and I believe productively, in running down multiple leads and theories. However, we cannot deny that there have been eight related murders in this city, and our citizens will not feel entirely safe until the perpetrator is caught and brought to justice. Benjamin Wright, Assistant in Charge of the New York Office of the FBI, will take your questions.”