LITMIR.BIZ

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Kaiser refused. He said if he didn’t get journeyman duty, he’d resign from the Bureau.”

      “Why? What happened to him?”

      “I’ll let him tell you. If he will.”

      “Why would Kaiser have the primary role in this case?”

      “The atmosphere in New Orleans has become highly charged over the past year. You can imagine: victim after victim being taken, no progress by the police. Not even a lead. The NOPD is under tremendous pressure. Complicating the issue is the multijurisdictional nature of the investigation. What people think of as New Orleans is actually a group of communities—”

      “I know all about it. Jefferson Parish, Slidell, Kenner, Harahan. Sheriff’s departments and cops all mixed together.”

      “Yes. And the only man in the area with any real experience in cases like this—full time, on the ground—is John Kaiser. It’s my understanding that he resisted involvement when he arrived, but as more victims were taken, he began to work the case. Now he’s obsessed with it.”

      “Has he made any headway?”

      “No one had, until you found those paintings. But I’ve no doubt that John Kaiser knows more about the victims and attacks than any man alive. Except the killer, of course. And perhaps the painter, depending on the degree to which they interact.”

      “You really believe this is some sort of team? A conspiracy?”

      “I do. It helps explain the extreme professionalism of the kidnappings in New Orleans. The fact that we have no witnesses and no corpses. I’m starting to think the painter in New York is masterminding the operation, and merely paying a pro to snatch the women for him.”

      “Who’s a professional at kidnapping?”

      Lenz shrugs. “Perhaps the painter spent some time in prison. He might know a convict from New Orleans. Or perhaps he’s originally from New Orleans himself. He may have many contacts there. That would explain the selection of the city in the first place.”

      The psychiatrist’s theory makes logical sense, yet I feel that it’s wrong somehow. “Was this Kaiser good when he was at Quantico?”

      Lenz looks over at the porthole. “He had a very high success rate.”

      “But you don’t like him.”

      “We disagree about fundamental issues of methodology.”

      “That’s psychobabble to me, Doctor. I’ve learned one thing in my business, like it or not.”

      “What’s that?”

      “You don’t argue with results.”

      Lenz keeps looking out his window.

      “What do you think about Baxter’s theory? Catching one of the guys by using airline computers? Tracing passengers on New York flights?”

      “I’m not hopeful.”

      I lean back in my seat and rub my eyes. “How much longer to New Orleans?”

      “About an hour.”

      “It’s too late to call my brother-in-law. I think I’ll get a room at the airport hotel, call him tomorrow.”

      “I’m staying at the Windsor Court. Why don’t you sleep there?”

      I hope I’ve misunderstood his tone. “In your room?”

      He wrinkles his mouth as though the idea were absurd. “For God’s sake. At the hotel.”

      “As I recall, the Windsor Court is about five hundred dollars per night. I’m not going to pay that, and I know the FBI won’t.”

      “No. But I’ll treat you.”

      “Are you rich?”

      “My wife’s insurance policy has made a certain standard of living possible, one I never enjoyed before.”

      “Thanks, but I’ll stay at the airport.”

      Lenz studies me with a strange detachment in the dim light, like an anthropologist studying some new primate. “You know, I used to ask everyone I interviewed three questions.”

      “What were they?”

      “The first was, ‘What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?’”

      “Did people answer that?”

      “A surprising number did.”

      “What was the second?”

      “‘What moment are you proudest of in your life?’”

      “And the third?”

      “‘What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?’”

      I force a casual smile, but something slips in my soul at his words. “Why didn’t you ask me those things?”

      “I don’t ask anyone anymore.”

      “Why not?”

      “I got tired of hearing the answers.” He shifts in his seat, but his eyes never leave my face. “But in your case, I think I’d like to know.”

      “You’re old enough to be accustomed to disappointment.”

      He waves his hand. “Something tells me that before all this is done, I’m going to find out anyway.”

      A high beeping sounds in the cabin. Lenz reaches into his jacket, removes a cell phone, and presses a button. “Yes?” As he listens, he seems to shrink in his seat. “When?” he says at length. “Yes … Yes … Right.”

      “What is it?” I ask as he drops the phone in his lap. “What’s happened?”

      “Twenty minutes ago, two teenagers found the body of the woman taken from Dorignac’s grocery store.”

      “Her body?”

      Lenz wears an expression of deep concentration. “She was lying on the bank of a drainage canal, nude. The kids climbed a wall behind some apartments to drink beer and heard noises by the water. She was lying in the weeds. A nutria was feeding on her, whatever that is. The police sealed the crime scene for a Bureau forensic team. Her husband just identified the body.”

      “It’s a big water rat.”

      “What? Ah,” Lenz says, his mind a thousand miles away.

      This news nauseates me, but not because of its ugliness. “It wasn’t him,” I say quietly. “If they found a body, it’s unrelated.”

      “Not necessarily. It could still be him.” Lenz nods with a strange intensity. “Think about it. It’s been four and a half weeks since the last victim. The New Orleans UNSUB was on the prowl tonight—maybe all afternoon. He may have known what happened in Hong Kong, but he didn’t know what his partner did: that Wingate was about to be silenced, along with you. He snatches the woman from Dorignac’s and takes her back to his house. When he arrives, he finds an urgent message on his machine from his partner. Or maybe he gets a call. The victim was found, what”—Lenz checks his watch—“seven hours after he took her? Plenty of time. His New York partner tells him Wingate is no longer a problem, and also that Jordan Glass got away. The investigation is about to get very hot. So, instead of painting this woman, he kills her and dumps her in a canal. Sometime in the last seven hours.” Lenz slaps his knee with excitement. “Seven hours, by God. I won’t be surprised if there’s staging. Not at all.”

      “What’s staging?” I ask, searching my memory for remnants of the crime classification manuals I read in the month after Jane vanished.

      Lenz’s eyes are glowing. Like all of Baxter’s team, he’s a hunter at heart. “Staging is an attempt to mislead investigators by altering the crime scene or the corpus. The UNSUB may mutilate the body in an attempt to

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