The Devils Teardrop

front door. Lukas nodded toward him and explained to Fielding, “The fire truck was his idea.”
    Fielding didn’t doubt that it was.
    * * *
    Parker sat down in a chair opposite Fielding and crossed his arms. The detective—Parker couldn’t help but think of him that way still—looked older now and diminished. Parkerremembered wishing earlier that the unsub were still alive so that he could see how the man’s mind worked. One puzzle master to another. It seemed he’d gotten his wish. But now he felt no professional curiosity at all, only revulsion.
    Puzzles are always easy when you know the answer.
    They become boring too.
    Lukas asked him, “How’s it feel to know you’re going to be in an eight-by-eight cell for the next ten years—until they give you that needle?”
    Cage explained, “You wouldn’t last very long in general population. Hope you like your own company.”
    “I prefer it to most people’s,” Fielding said.
    Cage continued, as if Fielding hadn’t spoken. “They’re also going to want you in Boston and White Plains and Philadelphia too. I guess Hartford as well.”
    Fielding lifted a surprised eyebrow.
    Parker asked, “The Digger was the patient in your hospital, right? The hospital for the criminally insane? David Hughes?”
    Fielding didn’t want to seem impressed but he was. “That’s right. Funny guy, wasn’t he?” He smiled at Parker. “Sort of the boogeyman incarnate.”
    Then Parker suddenly understood something else and his heart froze.
    Boogeyman . . .
    “In the command post . . . I was talking about my son. And not long after that . . . Jesus, not long after that Robby saw somebody in the garage. That was the Digger! . . . You called him, you sent him to my house! To scare my son!”
    Fielding shrugged. “You were too good, Kincaid. I had to get you off the case for a while. When you went off to raid my safe house—finding that was very good, by the way—I stepped outside to make a call and left a messagethat my friend should go visit your little fella. I thought about killing them—well, and you too, of course—but I needed you to be at headquarters around midnight. To make my deductions about the site of the last shooting more credible.”
    Parker lunged forward and drew back his fist. Lukas caught his arm just before it crashed into Fielding’s cringing face.
    She whispered, “I understand. But it won’t do anybody any good.”
    Trembling with rage, Parker lowered his hand, stepped to the window, watching the snow. Forced himself to calm. He believed if he’d been alone with Fielding now he could kill the man. Not because of the host of deaths tonight but because he could still hear the hollow fear in Robby’s voice. Daddy . . . Daddy . . .
    Lukas touched his arm. He looked at her. She was holding a notebook. She said to Parker, “For what it’s worth, he did the same thing to me.” She flipped through the pages, tapped several entries. “My house was broken into a few months ago. He’s the one who did it. He took notes about my life.”
    Fielding said nothing.
    Lukas continued, speaking directly to the killer. “You found out all about me. You found out about Tom . . .”
    Tom? Parker wondered.
    “You cut your hair the same way as his. You said you were from outside Chicago, just like him. You read his letters to me . . .” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “‘Right as rain.’ You stole his expression! And then you told me about having a wife in a coma. Why? So I’d keep you on the team—when everybody else—me included—didn’t want you interfering with the case.”
    “I needed to get inside your defenses, Margaret. I knew what kind of adversary you’d be.”
    “You stole my past, Fielding.”
    “What’s the past for but to use?” he asked evenly.
    “But how could you kill so many people?” Lukas asked in a whisper.
    “Appalled?” Fielding asked. He seemed exasperated. “But why not? I mean, Jesus Christ, why not? Why is one death less horrifying than a million? Either you kill or you don’t. If you do, then death is just a matter of degree and if it makes sense, if it’s efficient, then you kill whom you have to kill. Anyone who doesn’t accept that is a naive fool.”
    “Who’s the guy in the morgue?” Cage asked.
    “His name is Gil Havel.”
    “Ah, the mysterious Gilbert Jones,” Parker said. “He rented the helicopter, right?”
    “I had to make you believe that I was really