The Kill Room

pastry. Apparently not.
    “What do you know about this guy running NIOS?” Sellitto asked Laurel. “Metzger?”
    She again recited without the benefit of notes: “Forty-three. Divorced. Ex-wife’s a lawyer in private practice, Wall Street. He’s Harvard, ROTC. After, went into the army, Iraq. In as a lieutenant, out as a captain. There was talk of him going further but that got derailed. Had some issues I’ll tell you about later. Discharged, then Yale, master’s in public policy along with a law degree. Went to the State Department, then joined NIOS five years ago as operations director. When the existing NIOS head retired last year, Metzger got his job, even though he was one of the youngest on the management panel. The word is nothing was going to stop him from taking the helm.”
    “Children?” Sachs asked.
    “What?” Laurel replied.
    “Does Metzger have children?”
    “Oh, you’re thinking someone was pressuring him, using the children to force him to take on improper missions?”
    “No,” Sachs said. “I just wondered if he had children.”
    A blink from Laurel. Now she consulted notes. “Son and daughter. Middle school. He was disallowed any custody for a year. Now he’s got some visitation rights but mostly they’re with the mother.
    “Now, Metzger’s beyond hawkish. He’s on record as saying he would’ve nuked Afghanistan on September twelve, two thousand one. He’s very outspoken about our right to preemptively eliminate enemies. His nemesis is American citizens who’ve gone overseas and are engaged in what he considers un-American activities, like joining insurgencies or vocally supporting terrorist groups. But those’re his politics and’re irrelevant to me.” A pause. “His more significant quality is that he’s mentally unstable.”
    “How so?” Sellitto asked.
    Rhyme was beginning to lose patience. He wanted to consider the forensics of the case.
    But since both Sachs and Sellitto approached cases “globally,” as Captain Myers might have said, he let Laurel continue and he tried to appear attentive.
    She said, “He’s had emotional issues. Anger primarily. That’s largely what’s driving him, I think. He left the army with an honorable discharge but he had a half dozen episodes that hurt his career there. Fits of rage, tantrums, whatever you want to call them. Totally lost control. He was actually hospitalized at one point. I’ve managed to datamine some records and he still sees a psychiatrist and buys meds. He’s been detained by the police a few times for violent episodes. Never charged. Frankly, I think he’s borderline with a paranoid personality. Not psychotic but has definite issues of delusion and addiction—addicted to anger itself. Well, to be precise, the response to anger. From what I’ve studied up on the subject, the relief you feel in acting out during an episode of anger is addicting. Like a drug. I think ordering a sniper to kill somebody he’s come to detest gives him a high.”
    Studied up indeed. She sounded like a psychiatrist lecturing students.
    “How’d he get the job, then?” Sachs asked.
    A question that had presented itself to Rhyme.
    “Because he’s very, very good at killing people. At least, that’s what his service record indicates.” Laurel continued, “It’ll be hard to get his personality workup to a jury but I’m going to do it somehow. And I can only pray he takes the stand. I’d have a field day. I’d love for a jury to see a tantrum.” She glanced from Rhyme to Sachs. “As you pursue the investigation I want you to look for anything that suggests Metzger’s instability, anger and violent tendencies.”
    Now a pause preceded Sachs’s response. “That’s a little fishy, don’t you think?”
    The battle of the silences. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “I don’t know what kind of forensic evidence we could find showing that this guy has temper tantrums.”
    “I wasn’t thinking forensics. I was thinking general investigation.” The ADA was looking up at Sachs—the detective was eight or nine inches taller. “You have good write-ups in your file for psych profiling and witness interrogation. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something if you look for it.”
    Sachs cocked her head slightly, eyes narrowed. Rhyme too was surprised that the ADA had profiled her—and presumably the criminalist himself too.
    Studied up…
    “So.” The word was delivered by Laurel abruptly. The matter was