The Devils Teardrop

one of the unsub’s elaborate mazes go up in flames.
    It was the yellow pad. In a split-second decision Tobe Geller had forgone his computer disks and grabbed the unsub’s notes.
    But it was now on fire, the page with the notes on it was curling into black ash. Parker tore his jacket off and carefully laid it over the pad to extinguish the flames.
    “Look out!” somebody called. Parker looked up just as a huge piece of burning siding crashed to the ground three feet from him. A cloud of orange sparks swarmed. Parker ignored them and carefully lifted his jacket off the pad, surveying the damage.
    Flames began spurting through the wall behind them. The whole building seemed to sink and shift.
    The medic said, “We gotta get out of here.” He waved to his partner, who ran up with a gurney. They eased Geller onto the stretcher and hurried off with him, dodging falling debris.
    “We gotta pull back!” a man in a black fireman’s coat shouted. “We’re going to lose the wall! It’s gonna come down on top of you!”
    “In a minute,” Parker answered. He glanced at Lukas. “Get out of here!”
    “You can’t stay here, Parker.”
    “The ash is too fragile! I can’t move it.” Lifting the pad would crumble the ash into powder and they’d lose any chance to reconstruct the sheets. He thought of the attaché case inside the apartment, now destroyed, and the bottle of parylene in it, which he could’ve used to harden the damaged paper and protect it. But all he could do now was cover the ash carefully and hope to reassemble it in the lab. A gutter fell from the roof and stabbed the ground, end first, inches away from him.
    “Now, mister!” the fireman shouted.
    “Parker!” Lukas called again. “Come on!” She retreated a few yards but paused, staring at him.
    Parker had an idea. He ran to the duplex next door, pulled off the storm window and broke the glass with a kick. He picked up four large pieces. He returned to the pad, which lay like a wounded soldier on the ground, and dropped to his knees. He carefully sandwiched the two sheets of scorched paper—the only ones with writing on them—between pieces of glass. This was how document examiners in the Bureau used to protect the samples sent to them for analysis before the invention of thin plastic sheets.
    Chunks of burning wood fell around him. He felt a stream of water as the firemen trained a hose on the flames above him.
    “Stop it!” he shouted to them, waving his arm. Worried that the water would further damage the precious find.
    Nobody paid him any attention.
    “Parker,” Lukas shouted. “Now! The wall’s about to come down!”
    More two-by-fours crashed to the ground. But still he remained on his knees, carefully tucking bits of ash into the sandwich of glass.
    Then, as timbers and bricks and fiery siding fell around him, Parker slowly rose and, holding the glass sheets in front of him, he walked away from the flames, perfectly upright and taking gentle steps, like a servant carrying a tray of wine at an elegant cocktail party.
    * * *
    Another picture.
    Snap.
    Henry Czisman stood in an alleyway across the street from the burning building. Sparks were flyingleisurely into the sky like fireworks seen from miles away.
    How important this was. Recording the event.
    Tragedy is so quick, so fleeting. But sorrow isn’t. Sorrow is forever.
    Snap .
    He took another picture with his digital camera.
    A policeman lying on the ground. Maybe dead, maybe wounded.
    Maybe playing dead—when the Digger comes to town people do whatever they must to stay alive. They tuck their courage away and huddle until long after it’s safe to get up. Henry Czisman had seen this all before.
    Picture: the wall of the duplex falling in a fiery explosion of beautiful embers.
    Picture: a trooper with three fingers of blood cascading down the left side of her face.
    Picture: the illumination from the flames reflected in the chrome of the fire trucks.
    Snap, snap, snap . . . He couldn’t take enough shots. He was driven to record every detail of the sorrow.
    He glanced up the street and saw several agents talking to passersby.
    Why bother? he thought. The Digger’s come and the Digger’s gone.
    He knew he too should go. He definitely couldn’t be seen here. So he started to slip his camera into the pocket of his jacket. But then he glanced back at the burning building and saw something.
    Yes, yes. I want that. I need that.
    He lifted the camera, pointed it and