The Maze

bright, that he probably works at a low-paying job, that he's a loner and doesn't relate well to people-" He waited, something he was excellent at. "I always wondered why it killed families. Families of four, exactly."

    "You called him 'it.' That's interesting." She hadn't meant to. She forked down her lettuce and took her time chewing. She had to be more careful. "It was just a slip of the tongue."

    "No, it wasn't, but we'll let that go for now, Sherlock. This family thing-the people in the ISU, as you've read in their profile, believe he lived on the same block as the first family he killed in Des Moines, knew them, hated them, wanted to obliterate them, which he did. However, they couldn't find anyone in the nearby area of the first murders in Des Moines to fit that description. Everyone just figured that the profile wasn't correct in this particular case. When he killed again in St. Louis, everyone was flummoxed. When I spoke to Captain Brady in Chicago, I asked him if the St. Louis police had canvassed the area for a possible suspect. They had, but they still didn't find anybody who looked promising."

    "But you had already talked to the police in St. Louis, hadn't you?" "Oh yes."

    "You know a lot, don't you?"

    "I've thought about this case, Sherlock, thought and thought and re-created it as best I could. Unlike the cops, I firmly believe the profile is right on target."

    "Even though they didn't find anyone in Des Moines or St. Louis to fit the profile?'' "Yeah, that's right."

    "You're stringing me along, sir."

    "Yes, but I'd like to see what you come up with. Let's just see if you're as fast with your brain as with that Lady Colt of yours."

    She splayed her fingers, long slender fingers, short buffed nails. "You still kicked it out of my hand. It didn't matter."

    "But you're a good catch. I wasn't expecting that move from Porter."

    She grinned at him then, momentarily disarmed. "We practiced it. In another exercise, he got taken as a hostage. I threw a gun to him, but he missed it. The robber was so angry, he shot Porter. As you can imagine, we got yelled at by the instructors for winging it." She said again, still grinning, "Practice."

    He said slowly, shutting down his laptop, "I got creamed once when I was a trainee at the Academy. I wish I'd learned that move. My partner, James Quinlan, was playing a bank robber in a Hogan's Alley exercise, and the FBI got the drop on him. I had to stand there and watch him get taken away. If I'd thrown him a gun, he might have had a chance. Although God knows what would have happened then." He sighed. "Quinlan turned me in under questioning. I think he expected me to break him out of lockup, and when I didn't, he sang. Although how he expected me to do it, I have no idea. Anyway, they caught me an hour later heading out of town in a stolen car, the mayor's blue Buick."

    "Quinlan?"

    "Yes." Nothing more, just the yes. Let her chew on nothing for a bit.

    "Who is this Quinlan?"

    "An agent and longtime friend. Now, Sherlock, what do you think we're going to find in Chicago?"

    "You said the Chicago police believed they were close. How close?"

    "You read it. A witness said he saw a man running from the victims' house. They've got a description. We'll see just how accurate it is."

    "What do you know, sir, that's not in the reports?"

    "Most of it's surmise," he said, "and some excellent stuff from my computer program." He nodded to the flight attendant to remove his cup of coffee. He gently closed his laptop and slipped it into its hard case. "We're nearly at O'Hare," he said, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

    She leaned back as well. He hadn't shown her the computer analysis on the case. Maybe he'd thought she already had enough on her plate, and maybe she did. She hadn't wanted to look at the photos from the crime scenes, but she had. It had been difficult. There hadn't been any photos in the newspapers. The actual photos brought the horror of it right in her face. She couldn't help it; she spoke aloud: "In all three cases, the father and mother were in their late thirties, their two children-always a boy and a girl-were ten and twelve. In each case, the father had been shot through the chest, then in his stomach, the second shot delivered after he was dead, the autopsy reports read. The mother was tied down on the kitchen table, her face beaten, then she was strangled with the cord of the toaster, thus the name the Toaster. The children were tied up,