The Devils Teardrop

decided that she was not the perfume sort. It was probably scented soap.
    “We’ve got a couple of indentations,” Parker said. “The unsub wrote something on a piece of paper that was on top of the envelope.”
    Parker held the electrostatic sheet in both hands and moved it around to make the writing more visible. “Okay, somebody write this down. First word. Lowercase c-l-e , then a space. Uppercase M, lowercase e. Nothing after that.”
    Cage wrote the letters on a yellow pad and looked at it. “What’s it mean?” The agent gave a perplexed shrug.
    C. P. tugged a pierced earlobe and said, “Don’t have a clue.”
    Geller: “If it’s not bits and bytes I’m helpless.”
    Lukas too shook her head.
    But Parker took one look at the letters and knew immediately. He was surprised no one else could see it.
    “It’s the first crime scene.”
    “What do you mean?” Jerry Baker asked.
    “Sure,” Lukas said. “Dupont C-i-r-c-l-e, capital M— Metro.”
    “Of course,” Hardy whispered.
    Puzzles are always easy when you know the answer.
    “The first site,” Parker mused. “But there’s something written below it. Can you see it? Can you read it?” He jockeyed the sheet again, holding it out to Lukas. “Jesus, it’s hard to see.”
    She leaned forward and read. “Just three letters. That’s all I can make out. Lowercase t-e-l. ”
    “Anything else?” Hardy asked.
    Parker squinted. “No, nothing.”
    “ t-e-l ,” Lukas pondered.
    “Telephone, telephone company, telecommunications?” Cage asked. “Television?”
    C. P. offered, “Maybe he’s going to hit one of the studios—during a broadcast.”
    “No, no,” Parker said. “Look at the position of the letters in relation to the c-l-e M-e. If he’s writing in fairly consistent columns then the t-e-l comes at the end of the word.” Then Parker caught on. He said, “It’s a—”
    Lukas blurted, “Hotel. The second target’s a hotel.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Or motel,” Hardy suggested.
    “No,” Parker said. “I don’t think so. He’s going for crowds. Motels don’t have big facilities. All the events tonight will be in hotel banquet rooms.”
    “And,” Lukas added, “he’s probably sticking to foot or public transportation. Motels’re in outlying areas. Traffic’s too bad tonight to rely on a car.”
    “Great,” Cage said then pointed out, “but there must be two hundred hotels in town.”
    “How do we narrow it down?” Baker asked.
    “I’d say go for the bigger hotels. . . .” Parker nodded toward Lukas. “You’re right—probably near public transportation and high population centers.”
    With a loud bang Baker dropped the Yellow Pages on the table. “D.C. only?” He flipped them open. C. P. Ardell walked over to the table and began looking over the tactical agent’s shoulder.
    Parker considered the question. “It’s the District he’s extorting, not Virginia or Maryland. I’d stick to D.C.”
    “Agreed,” Lukas said. “Also we should eliminate any place with ‘Hotel’ first in the name, like ‘Hotel NewYork.’ Because of the placement of the letters on the envelope. And no ‘Inns’ or ‘Lodges.’”
    Cage and Hardy joined C. P. and Baker. They all bent over the phone book. They started circling possibilities, discussing whether this choice or that was logical.
    After ten minutes they had a list of twenty-two hotels. Cage jotted them down in his own precise handwriting and handed the list to Jerry Baker.
    Parker suggested, “Before you send anybody there, call and find out if any of the functions tonight are for diplomats or politicians. We can eliminate those.”
    “Why?” Baker asked.
    Lukas responded, “Armed bodyguards, right?”
    Parker nodded. “And Secret Service. The unsub would’ve avoided those.”
    “Right,” Baker said and hurried out of the room, opening his cell phone.
    But even eliminating those, how many locations would remain? Parker wondered.
    A lot. Too many.
    Too many possible solutions . . .
    Three hawks have been killing a farmer’s chickens. . . .

7
    My fellow citizens . . .
    They powdered his forehead, they stuck a plug in his ear, they turned on the blinding lights.
    Through the glare, Mayor Jerry Kennedy could just make out a few faces in the blackness of the WPLT newsroom, located just off Dupont Circle.
    There was his wife, Claire. There was his press secretary. There was Wendell Jefferies.
    My fellow citizens, Kennedy rehearsed in his