Meriden, Connecticut

Maggie O’Dell watched Harvey take turns racing and chasing the much smaller Jack Russell terrier. She had never seen the big dog play so hard. She could swear Harvey looked like he was smiling and laughing as hard as Luc Racine was. Luc had already told Maggie three times that he didn’t know Scrapple liked to play with other dogs, and it wasn’t because he was forgetting that he had already told her but because he seemed truly amazed. Amazed and pleased. Which she knew had to make his daughter, Julia, a bit more relieved. This behavior, here and now at Hubbard Park, felt better especially after the alarming greeting they had gotten earlier at Luc’s front door.

Racine had called her father, talking to him several times in the hour it took them to get from West Haven to Wallingford. He sounded excited about having guests, even suggested that if Bonzado was picking up lunch and meeting them, he should stop at Vinny’s Deli. He seemed perfectly fine and yet minutes later when he answered the door he didn’t recognize his daughter or Maggie. He had no idea who the two women on his front porch were or what they could possibly want.

Maggie still remembered the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach when Luc’s eyes met hers and she saw that empty, confused look, a look that told her not all his pistons were firing no matter how hard he tried. It had been Harvey—who Luc had never met before—who ended up pulling him out of his memory lapse. The big dog nosed his way around Maggie to greet Luc and sniff Scrapple, Luc’s Jack Russell terrier. Now the two were best friends.

Luc had managed to stay with them, keeping up with the conversation throughout the sandwiches, exchanging forensics jokes with Bonzado and asking questions when Racine got into some shoptalk. Even when he wandered off to play with the two dogs, he still appeared to know where he was. Not bad, Maggie thought, for a man with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

“You’ve got to see the way Scrapple catches this ball,” Julia told Maggie and grabbed the dirty yellow tennis ball Luc had brought along, using it, Maggie suspected, as an excuse to be with her father.

“He worries about her,” Bonzado said when it was obvious both father and daughter were out of earshot. “You know, whether she’ll be okay without him? They’re pretty close. I don’t know if Julia would admit that to you or not.”

“No, she probably wouldn’t,” Maggie said. “I really don’t know her that well.”

“Really?” Bonzado seemed genuinely surprised. “She talks about you quite a bit. I guess I thought you two were pretty good friends.”

Maggie didn’t say anything. She wondered if Racine actually had any good friends if she considered Maggie one. Chalk it up to the job and to the crazy schedule. After all, how many people, other than another cop, could you go out with for drinks and to shoot the breeze, sharing your day, when the day included maggot-riddled heads on the edge of the Potomac? Again, it struck Maggie that Racine wasn’t that much unlike herself. Other than Gwen, and maybe Tully, what good friends could she claim? She noticed Adam watching her.

“What? Do I have mayo on my face somewhere?”

“No, no. Your face is fine. Actually your face is quite perfect.”

It took his follow-up smile to realize he was flirting with her.

“Why do you suppose he leaves the heads?” It was better to keep it business. She wasn’t sure she remembered how the flirting thing worked anymore.

“Excuse me?”

“The killer. It’s probably more convenient and much easier to transport and display the heads, but is he making a statement? Is he telling us something by leaving only the heads?”

Adam shook his head. “Always on duty,” he said with another smile.

“It’s a habit.” But she tried not to make it sound like it was an excuse. She loved her work. Anyone who knew her accepted that. Perhaps she expected that anyone who wanted to know her would also need to accept it.

“The head’s about as personal as you can get. As for what kind of a message he’s sending, well, that’s your expertise. One thing that has been nagging at me,” he said, laying his hands flat on the top of the picnic table, “is the angle. He didn’t just cut straight across her neck.” His fingers emphasized his point, the right hand’s index finger moving along the surface in a straight line. “Instead, he cut from just below the left ear—” and he brought the same index finger to his own throat to demonstrate the angle “—went across, dipped down and back up, almost like a notch.”

“Does it mean anything?”

“I have no idea.”

“Could it just be a part of his rage, a glitch, a haphazard zigzag?”

“Possibly. But it’s exactly the same on both. The rest of the neck is jagged and ripped in sort of a maniacal style and yet here’s this very precise, squared-off notch at the base of the throat. It’s just odd. It seems out of place. You might have the M.E. check to see if the third has the same thing.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.” She let it sink in, trying to figure out what kind of symbol the killer might be leaving behind. Adam was watching her again.

“The national forensic conference is in D.C. next month. I’ll be spending over a week there for the conference and also doing a little work at the Smithsonian. How about having dinner with me?”

This time his smile wasn’t quite as self-assured. His soft brown eyes seemed a bit vulnerable, and Maggie wondered if it had taken some effort for him to get to this invitation. Was it possible the handsome, outspoken professor thought he was as inept at this flirting thing as she was? Before she answered, he added, “I promise I won’t even try to break any of your habits.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “And I promise I won’t ask a single severed-head question.”

Maggie’s cell phone started ringing.

“Excuse me a minute,” she said, flipping open the phone. “This is Maggie O’Dell.”

“O’Dell, glad I reached you. Sorry to interrupt your holiday.”

It was her boss, Assistant Director Cunningham. She could hear papers shuffling and imagined him at his desk, multitasking as he cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder. No holiday for him. She waved an apology to Bonzado as she got up from the table and wandered away for some privacy.

“Actually, I’m working today, sir. Detective Racine and I brought the first two Jane Doe heads up to Connecticut for Professor Bonzado to take a look at.”

“Is it conclusive that the three murders were done by the same killer?”

Just like Cunningham—straight to the point. She had gotten used to his abrupt, unemotional manner. There was more flipping of pages and Maggie could hear what sounded like a TV in the background. Maybe he wasn’t in his office.

“It’s too early to be positive,” she told him, but she knew he’d still want to hear her first impressions. So she continued, “All the decapitations look very similar. We’re talking rage. The guy rips and cuts in a frenzy. Bonzado thinks he uses a hatchet or machete. He’s disorganized during the killings or at least he feels safe enough to go into a rage. The decapitation must happen almost immediately after he strangles them. But then he’s able to compose himself and plan the dumps. I’m still not sure I have any idea what he does with the torsos.”

“Sounds like you’re off to a good start. I hate to pull you away from this, but I don’t have another available agent, especially with Agent Tully still on vacation. Everyone else is out of town on assignment and I have another case that needs a profiler. The body’s been autopsied already, but they could hold it for another day. Do you have enough to put together a profile for Detective Racine and Chief Henderson?”

“It’d be pretty sketchy, but yes, I could do a preliminary.”

“Good. That’ll give them a start. Hold on a minute.”

This time Maggie could hear voices in the background and Cunningham answering them, telling someone he would be there in five minutes. Was this urgent enough that he would be calling from his home? Maggie couldn’t even imagine it. For one thing, she couldn’t imagine Cunningham at home, although she knew he had a wife. There were never any photos or personal items on his well-organized desk or anywhere in his office to suggest a life outside that office. With anyone else it would seem odd. With Cunningham it seemed quite natural that after ten years she wouldn’t even know where he lived, whether he had a three-bedroom house in the suburbs or an upscale apartment in Georgetown.

“Actually I need you on a flight tomorrow morning,” he said before she realized he was back talking to her.

“Where am I going, sir?”

“Omaha, Nebraska.”