That brought her a grudging smile.
She wanted to tell all of them, Savich included, that she now knew as much about this guy as they did, maybe even more than the Chicago cops, and she'd thought about him for as long as Savich had, but she kept her mouth closed. She wondered what Savich had up his sleeve. She'd only known him for seven hours, and she would have bet her last buck that he had a whole lot up that sleeve of his. It wouldn't have surprised her if he had the guy's name and address.
They sat in the small conference room, all the files and photos spread over the top of the table. There was a photo of the crime scene faceup at her elbow. It was of Mrs. Lansky, the toaster cord still around her neck. She turned it facedown and looked over at Savich.
He had what she already thought of as the FBI Look. He was studying Dubrosky in a still, thoughtful way. She wondered if he saw more than she did. Poor Dubrosky: he looked so tired he was beyond exhaustion, a man who wasn't smiling, a man who looked as if he'd just lost his best friend. He was wired, probably on too much coffee. He couldn't sit still. His brown suit was rumpled, his brown tie looked like a hangman's noose. He had a thick five- o'clock shadow.
Savich put his elbows on the table, looked directly at the man, and said, 'Detective, were there any repairmen in the Lansky household within the past two months?'
Dubrosky reared back, then rocked forward again, banging his fist on the table. 'Do you think we're fucking idiots? Of course we checked all that! There was a phone repair guy there three weeks ago, but we talked to him and it was legit. Anyway, the guy was at least fifty years old and had seven kids.'
Savich just continued in that same calm voice, 'How do you know there weren't other repairmen?'
'There were no records of any expenditures for any repairs in the Lanskys' checkbook, no receipts of any kind, and none of the neighbors knew of anything needing repairs. We spoke to the family members, even the ones who live out of town- none of them knew anything about the Lanskys' having any repairs on anything.'
'And there were no strangers in the area the week before the murder? The day of the murder?'
'Oh sure. There were pizza deliveries, a couple of Seventh-Day Adventists, a guy canvassing for a local political campaign,' said Mason, a younger man who was dressed in a very expensive blue suit and looked as tired as his partner. Savich imagined that when they took roles, Mason was the good cop and Dubrosky the bad cop. Mason looked guileless and naive, which he probably hadn't been for a very long time.
Mason gave a defeated sigh, spreading his hands on the tabletop. 'But nobody saw anyone at the Lansky house except a woman and her daughter going door-to-door selling Girl Scout cookies. That was one day before the murders. That doesn't mean that UPS guys didn't stop there a week ago, but no one will even admit that's possible. It's a small, close-knit neighborhood. You know, one of those neighborhoods where everybody minds everybody else's business. The old lady who lives across the street from the Lanskys could even describe the woman and the little girl selling the cookies. I can't imagine any stranger getting in there without that old gal noticing. I wanted to ask her if she kept a diary of all the comings and goings in the neighborhood, but Dubrosky said she might not be so happy if I did and she just might close right up on us.'
Captain Brady said, 'You know, Agent Savich, this whole business about the guy coming to the house, getting in under false pretenses, actually coming into the kitchen, checking before he whacked the families to make sure they had a toaster and a low-set big gas oven didn't really occur to anyone until you told Bud Hollis in St. Louis to check into it. He's the one who got us talking to every neighbor within a two-block radius. Like Mason said, there wasn't any stranger, even a florist delivery to the Lansky house. Everyone is positive. And none of the neighbors seem weird. And we did look for weird when we interviewed, just in case.'
Savich knew this of course, and Captain Brady knew that he knew it, but he wanted the detectives to think along with him. He accepted a cup of coffee from Mason that was thicker than Saudi oil. 'You are all familiar with the profile done by the FBI after the first murders in Des Moines. It said that the killer was a young man between the ages of twenty and thirty, a loner, and that he lived in the neighborhood or not too far away, probably with his parents or with a sibling. Also he had a long-standing hatred or grudge or both toward the family in Des Moines, very possibly unknown by the family or friends of the family. Unfortunately this didn't seem to pan out.'
'No shit,' Dubrosky said as he tapped a pen on the wooden tabletop. 'The Des Moines cops wasted hours and hours going off on that tangent. They dragged in every man in a three-block radius of the house, but there wasn't a single dweeb who could possibly fit the profile. Then it turned out that the Toaster wasn't just a little-time killer, he's now a serial killer. Thank God we didn't waste our time going through that exercise. You people aren't infallible.' Dubrosky liked that. He looked jovial now. 'No, this time you were so far off track that you couldn't even see the train. Like the captain said, we did talk to all the neighbors. Not a weirdo in the bunch.'
'Actually, on this case, we're not off track at all,' Savich said. 'Believe me, it's astounding how often the profiles are right on the money.' He was silent a moment, then said, 'Now, everyone agrees that the same guy murdered all three families. It makes sense that he had to visit each of the houses to ensure that there were both a toaster and a classic full-size stove/oven combo that sat on the kitchen floor. And not an electric stove, a gas one. There were delivery people all over the neighborhoods in both Des Moines and in St. Louis, but the truth is no one is really certain of anything. By the time they acted on the profile theory of the killer living in the neighborhood, there wasn't much certainty anymore about any repairs or deliveries. Nobody remembered seeing anybody.'
'Good summary, Savich,' said Dubrosky.
'Bear with me, Detective.' He took another drink of coffee. 'This stuff is so potent, I bet it breeds little cups of coffee.'
There was one small smile, from Sherlock.
Savich said, 'You guys have done hours of legwork here and you did it immediately. You've proven that there wasn't a repairperson or a salesman or even a guy whose car broke down and wanted to phone a garage near the Lansky house. So then we come back to the basic question. How then did he get into the Lansky house? Into the kitchen specifically so he could make certain they had all the props he needed?'
Dubrosky made a big show of looking at his watch. 'Look, Savich, we thought of all that. We found out that all the houses were older, not just here, but also in Des Moines and St. Louis. To me it means that chances are excellent that you'd have a big low gas oven in the kitchens. And who the hell wouldn't have a toaster? This is all nonsense. Our perp is a transient. He's nuts. None of the shrinks agree on why he did this. Maybe God told him to strangle every mother with the toaster cord. Maybe God told him that kids are evil, that he was the evil witch out of Hansel and Gretel. Who the hell knows why he's whacking families? Like I said, the fucker's crazy and he's traveling across the U.S., probably killing at whim, no rhyme or reason.'
Mason said, 'Buck's right. We don't know why no one saw him in the Lansky neighborhood, why a single dog didn't bark, but maybe he disguised himself as the postman or as that old woman who lives across the street from the Lanskys. In any case, he got lucky. But we'll find him, we've got to. Of course with our luck, the bastard's long gone from Chicago. We'll hear about him again when he murders someone in Kansas.'
And that was truly what they believed, Sherlock thought. It was clear on all their faces. They believed the guy was long gone from Chicago, that they didn't have a prayer of ever getting him.
'Let me tell you about the magic of computers, gentlemen,' Savich said and smiled. 'They do things a whole lot faster than we can. But what's important is what you put into them. It's a matter of picking the right data to go into the mixer before you turn it on to do its thing.' He leaned down and picked up his laptop and turned it on. He hit buttons, made the little machine bleep, all in all, ignored the rest of them.
'I've got to go home, Captain,' Dubrosky said. 'I've got gas, I need a shower or my wife won't even kiss me, and my kids have forgotten what I look like.'
'We're all bushed, Buck. Just be patient. Let's see what Agent Savich's got.'
Lacey realized then that Savich was just putting on a little show for them. He had the pages he wanted to show them in his briefcase. But he was going to call up neat-looking stuff on the screen and make them all look at it before he gave them any hard copy. In the next minute, Savich turned the computer around and said, 'Take a look at this, Detectives, Captain Brady.'
6
THE THREE MEN CROWDED around the small laptop. It was Detective Dubrosky who said suddenly, 'Nah, I don't believe this. It doesn't make any sense.'
'Yes, it does.' Savich handed out a piece of paper to each of them. Sherlock didn't even glance at the paper. She knew what was on it. In that moment, Savich looked over at her. He grinned. He didn't know how she knew, but he knew that she'd figured it out.
