“Dallas FBI and police SWAT teams have already surrounded the complex and evacuated the nearby apartments. Strobekker’s still online. An FBI Hostage Rescue Team is en route from Kansas City via jet. They were waiting on alert there so that they could reach any US destination in the shortest possible time.”
“Don’t you need to be in Dallas? In case there’s a standoff or something? To try to talk the guy out?”
“Daniel has authorized explosive entry. Rosalind May could be inside, and Strobekker has already proved he’ll kill without mercy. Hostage Rescue blows down the doors as soon as they get there. ETA eighty minutes.”
“What if Strobekker tries to leave before they get there?”
“Dallas SWAT takes him down.”
“You mean they kill him?”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that. Where we’re going, I’ll be able to speak directly to whoever’s in the apartment, if necessary.”
I sit back heavily in my seat. Ten minutes ago I was angry and tired; now I taste the euphoria of my name being cleared, of my life getting back to its normal anxiety level.
Lenz gooses the Mercedes up an on-ramp and joins the southbound stream of traffic on 495. “Cole, I need your help, and you need mine. The best way for you to avoid trouble in this case is to assist with the investigation. But before I can use you, I have to be sure you’re not involved.”
“But they’re about to nail the guy.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. The evidence in this case suggests a group of offenders working in concert. Is Strobekker himself in that apartment? Or is it the owner of that Indian hair found at one of the crime scenes?”
Great. “What do you want from me?”
“Answers. I think you’re a good man haunted by a bad thing. The question is, is that thing related to this case or not?”
“It’s not, okay? Isn’t my word enough?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Goddamn it, I reported the murders! And so far all I’ve gotten for my trouble is more trouble.”
The psychiatrist looks away from the darkening road long enough to fix me with a disquieting stare. His face looks like my father’s did the first time he confessed money problems to me. One minute I was looking at a man in his prime—responsible, circumspect, in charge—the next at a drawn visage haunted by failure and doubt. A face about to confide secrets that would change my life forever.
“I’ve been a forensic psychiatrist more than thirty years,” Lenz says in a voice stripped of all affect. “Thirty years of listening to men describe how they tortured and violated children. Watching videotapes of men tearing women into bloody pieces in vans and basements.” He lowers his head almost defensively. “My work is the benchmark by which others are measured. But not long ago, I reached a point where the compass that had led me thus far no longer functioned. I had problems at home. My work had become an endless round of tedium. Do you have any idea what the Investigative Support Unit actually does, Cole?”
“Catches serial killers, right?”
“Wrong. It does exactly what its title says. Gives support. The movie image of FBI agents single-handedly tracking down serial killers is pure fantasy. We advise. Local police do the physical work, make the arrest, and get the credit.”
I watch Lenz from the corner of my eye.
“Killers are monotonous, as a rule,” he goes on. “Variations on a theme. I testify at their trials, seal their fates, then recede back into the shadows. It’s just … rote. The whole goddamned profession is being corrupted. By greed, ambition. Men I’ve trained peddle my ideas to the masses in the form of sensational books, lectures, and Hollywood consulting. None of which I ever had a taste for. I’m a scientist, do you understand? A physician.”
The integrity in Lenz’s voice is almost embarrassing. “I understand, Doctor.”
“The only thing that kept me working was that the prospect of retirement seemed even less appealing.”
“You just spoke in the past tense. What changed it?”
“You.” Lenz turns to me with new light in his eyes. “The EROS killer has already murdered seven women we know of, with the corpses found in every case. Yet he staged each crime but two in such a way that they were not linked. And homicide detectives look
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