The Maze

Thursday at noon. His photo was shown on TV special bulletins throughout the day and evening. Hundreds of sight-ings from Boca Raton to Anchorage had flooded in.

    Savich tried to work, tried to concentrate on the killings in South Dakota and Iowa, but it was tough. He called everyone together Thursday afternoon to announce that Hannah Paisley had been reassigned. He would let everyone know where she would be going when it was decided. No one was particularly sorry to see her go.

    As for Lacey, she felt as if a hundred-pound weight had been lifted off her back.

    An hour later, there was a resolution to the nursing home murders in Florida. Savich, Ollie, and Sherlock were all hooting when they walked into the conference, giving everyone high fives.

    Savich, grinning from ear to ear, rubbing his hands, said, "Good news. Great news. It turns out our murderer is an old man-Benjamin Potter from Cincinnati who's been a magician for thirty years-he's a master of disguise, which all of you know. Also, he's never done a bad thing in his life. He easily entered the nursing homes as just another old person in need of round-the-clock attention. Sometimes he passed himself off as an old woman, other times, an old man. Because he was in basic good health, no nurse ever saw him without his clothes on, important since he could have been playacting an old woman. He never had difficulty escaping after each murder, because he didn't. Nope, he always stayed on until a 'relative' came to take him home to his family. He paid the 'relative' fifty bucks for this service." Savich turned to Ollie. Ollie said, "The cops found the 'relative' in Atlanta. He denied knowing anything about the murders. He said only that the old man was a kick and it was easy money." He nodded to Lacey.

    "Benjamin Potter wouldn't have been caught after the sixth murder except that he happened to trip on a used syringe on his way out of the victim's room and suffered a heart attack. He died before he could tell anyone why he'd killed six old women."

    Ollie picked it up. "Yep, the relative is my part. He said he had no clue. The old man always seemed happy and well adjusted to him. So go figure."

    They all tried to figure it out, but no one could come up with anything that sounded like the perfect fit. Although Savich said that MAXINE thought it just might be that the old man had always wanted to be an old woman and he was killing off his competition.

    "A real big one down," Savich said. "Everybody to the gym for celebrations." There was groaning from around the table. Lacey was still on a high when she went to the women's room in the middle of the afternoon, a redone men's room that looked it. When workmen had removed the urinals, they hadn't patched the wall tile very well. The big room was always dank and smelled like Pine Sol.

    Lacey was washing her hands when she looked up to see Hannah in the mirror, standing behind her. She didn't say anything, just looked at her reflection.

    "Your lover didn't want to take the chance I'll slap him with a sexual harassment complaint so he couldn't fire me." "I thought you denied leaking my relationship to a murder victim to the press." "I did deny it."

    "Then how could Savich have fired you without proof? Oh enough, Hannah. Say what you have to say and go about your business."

    "You're really cute, you know that? Tell me, Sherlock, did you set your sights on Savich while you were still at Quantico?"

    "No."

    "He'll screw your eyes out but he won't marry you. Has he made love to you in the shower? He loves that."

    "Hannah, it's none of your business what either of us does. Please, let it go. Forget him. You know I'm irrelevant in all this. Even if I weren't here, Savich still wouldn't be going out with you."

    "Maybe, maybe not."

    "Good-bye, Hannah."

    Ollie was waiting outside for her. He said only, "I just didn't want her to shoot you."

    "So you were waiting out here to see if a gun went off?"

    "Something like that."

    "I'm fine, Ollie. Any word yet on Martin Jones?"

    "Nope, nothing. Oh yeah, your father called, asked that you phone him back. He said it was really important."

    She didn't want to pick up that phone. She didn't want to, but she did. She felt an urgency that she'd never felt before. Even as she was dialing her parents' home number, she was terrified.

    "Isabelle? It's Lacey."

    "Oh God, Lacey, it's your mama. Let me get your daddy on the phone. You just caught him in time. He's just leaving now