The Devils Teardrop

punctuation—is fed into a computer, which then analyzes the message and compares it with data in a huge “threat dictionary,” which contains more than 250,000 words, and then a standard dictionary of millions of words. An expert, working with the computer, then compares the letter to others in the database and decides if they were written by the same person.Certain characteristics of the writer can also be determined this way.
    Geller read, “‘Psycholinguistic profile of unsub 12-31A (deceased), METSHOOT. Data suggest that above-referenced unknown subject was foreign-born and had been in this country for two to three years. He was poorly educated and probably spent no more than two years in what would correspond to an American high school. Probable IQ was 100, plus or minus 11 points. Threats contained in subject document do not match any known threats in current databases. However, the language is consistent with sincere threats made in both profit and terrorist crimes.’”
    He printed out a copy and handed it to Parker.
    “Foreign,” Lukas said. “I knew it.” She held up a crime scene photo of the unsub’s body, taken at the scene where he’d been killed by the delivery truck. “Looks Middle European to me. Serb, Czech, Slovak.”
    “He called City Hall security,” Len Hardy said. “Don’t they tape incoming calls? We could see if he had an accent.”
    Parker said, “I’ll bet he used a voice synthesizer, right?”
    “That’s right,” Lukas confirmed. “It was just like the ‘You’ve got mail’ voice.”
    Geller said, “We should call IH.”
    The Bureau’s International Homicide and Terrorism Division.
    But Parker crumpled up the psycholinguistic profile sheet and tossed it into a wastebasket.
    “What—?” Lukas began.
    From C. P. Ardell’s fat throat came a sound that could only be called a guffaw.
    Parker said, “The only thing they got right is that the threat is real. But we know that, don’t we?”
    Without looking up from the extortion note he said, “I’m not saying IH shouldn’t be involved but I can say he wasn’t foreign and he definitely was smart. I’d put his IQ at over one hundred sixty.”
    “Where do you get that?” Cage asked, waving at the note. “My grandkid writes better than that.”
    “I wish he had been stupid,” Parker said. “It’d be a hell of a lot less scary.” He tapped the picture of the unsub. “Sure, European descent but probably fourth generation. He was extremely smart, well educated, probably in a private school, and I think he spent a lot of time on a computer. His permanent address was someplace out of this area; he only rented here. Oh, and he was a classic sociopath.”
    Margaret Lukas’s laugh was nearly a scoff. “Where do you get that? ”
    “It told me,” Parker said simply. Tapping the note.
    A forensic linguist, Parker had been analyzing documents without the benefit of psycholinguistic software for years—based on the phrases people chose and the sentences they constructed. Words alone can make all the difference in solving crimes. Some years ago Parker had testified at the trial of a young suspect arrested for murder. The suspect and his friend had been shoplifting beer in a convenience store when the clerk caught them and came at them with a baseball bat. The friend grabbed the bat and was threatening the clerk. The suspect—the boy on trial—had shouted, “Give it to him!” The friend had swung and killed the clerk.
    The prosecutor claimed the sentence “Give it to him” meant “Hit him.” The defense claimed the suspect hadmeant “Give the bat back.” Parker had testified that “Give it to him” had, at one point in the history of American slang, meant to do harm—to shoot, stab or hit. But that usage had fallen by the wayside—along with words like “swell” and “hip.” Parker’s opinion was that the suspect was telling his friend to return the bat. The jury had believed Parker’s testimony and though the boy was convicted of robbery he escaped the murder charge.
    “But that’s how foreigners talk,” Cage pointed out. “‘I am knowing.’ ‘Pay to me.’ Remember the Lindbergh kidnapping? From the Academy?”
    All FBI trainees at Quantico had heard the story in their forensic lectures. Before Bruno Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the Lindbergh baby abduction, document examiners in the Bureau deduced from the expressions in the ransom notes that the person who’d written