One Cold Night

white figure of John Childress standing over a gap in the earth that was his legacy, thinking about his own lost children; thinking about his eldest son and lamenting the restiveness that had taken him so far, far away. How much had John Childress understood in that moment that Dave was just now figuring out?
    Detectives at the Eight-four had already pieced some of it together. Starting two years ago, Theo Childress had sat in his therapist’s office for twenty-three documented hours, talking. What had they talked about? Dave recalled an article he had once read about a case of reverse transference in which a doctor had fallen in love with his patient instead of the other way around, which was more usual. Love, Dave thought; what was love? Identification, certainly. Need. Habit. Imagination. Something must have triggered a longing in Peter’s mind. A longing for Lisa, Dave supposed, combined with some basic instruction on how to abduct a child and a few tips on how to stalk her and where to hide her. Unmedicated, Peter’s unique blend of schizophrenia and bipolar illness had provided fertile ground for Theo’s evil seeds.
    The first crime, against Becky, was to have been Theo’s tour de force — possibly in a career of killing; other states were now revisiting unsolved murders, pulling evidence to compare with the new treasuretrove of Theo’s DNA — only he mistakenly victimized the wrong girl. The second crime, against Lisa, had been Peter’s muddled replica of a mentor’s master plan. Theo Childress had appeared in Dumbo to share in the pleasure and add the touches of detail — the call to Marie and the letter — that were his signature. It was what these people did. Together, they had left a trail of crumbs that would lead Dave hundreds of miles away, creating an opportunity for Theo to get Susan alone, denying Dave the chance to save her and catch him. Two birds with one stone. It had been a complex, brilliant, truly malevolent plan.
    Dave felt the night air hard against his skin and pressed his hands into his pants pockets. He stood to the side of the clearing, thinking, as the local forensics team got to work. After a while Bruno came up next to him and slung a heavy arm over his shoulders. He felt he would sink, then stiffened himself and accepted the gesture.
    “I’m going now,” Bruno said.
    Dave nodded. “Okay.”
    Bruno was on his way back to the city to begin the paperwork with Lupe Ramos; they were a strange but heroic team, and Dave had never seen better. While they sorted out the pieces in Brooklyn, Dave would stay in Gardiner overnight, here and also at the hospital with Lisa, who, for the time being, was sound asleep. Susan was on her way, shaken but determined to be there when Lisa woke up. After he left, tomorrow, officers Andrews and Braithwaite would work alongside Detective Jacob Goldman, who had caught the upstate pieces of the puzzle; it was now a matter of fitting them all together.
    Goldman — a heavyset man, on the short side, withbright red cheeks — walked up briskly to join Dave and Bruno.
    “Call as soon as you get the dirty,” Bruno said to Dave, meaning the dirt, meaning the forensics on the body and the gun.
    “I’ll talk to you later tonight.” Dave patted Bruno on his massive leathered shoulder.
    Bruno enclosed Dave in a bear hug, giving him the full aromatic experience, then released him. “I never doubted you, my friend.”
    “Thanks,” Dave answered, keeping it simple.
    “Chinzup.”
    Dave lifted his chin to indicate he understood and appreciated Bruno’s meaning. Then he watched as this surprising man crunched his way through the clearing and was absorbed into a sea of trees.
    “He was an engineer back in Russia, apparently,” Dave told Goldman.
    “Well, I’m open-minded.”
    Dave believed Bruno really could have been an engineer in his homeland, making sturdy but flamboyant bridges and buildings that reached and sprawled. He was tempted to learn Russian just for the chance to hear Alexei Bruno speak in his native tongue, free of malapropisms and retro slang. Walking alongside Goldman to the patrol car — Braithwaite was giving him a ride back to the hospital — Dave realized this was his wish for himself: to slip into the perfect context, to be effortlessly defined without need of explanation or any chance of misunderstanding. He had always felt strangely unwelcome in a world that couldn’t quite peg him. There was only one place he felt