also held a pair of sunglasses in his hand.
'Poker night,' the man explained. 'Just heading out.'
He was no more than five foot five and weighed no more than a hundred and fifteen pounds.
'I'm looking for a man. Late twenties. White. About my height. Walks with a limp.'
'Melvoy,' the little cowboy said.
'Melvoy what?'
'No,' said the man. 'Lee Melvoy. Apartment Two-A right over mine. What's he done?'
'Is he in?'
'Heard him go out about an hour ago, maybe less. What's he done?'
'I'd like to take a look in his apartment,' said Flack.
'Don't you need a warrant?'
'I've got one.'
'What's he done?'
Flack showed him the warrant. He had picked it up from Judge Abbott a few hours earlier. It gave no address, but it read, 'the residence of one Keith Yunkin.'
'He's a quiet guy.'
'Jeffrey Dahmer was a quiet guy,' said Flack.
'Yeah. Melvoy do something bad?'
'Looks that way.'
'Knives,' said the cowboy.
'Knives?'
'He sells 'em. Shop on Stoneman. All kind of knives. Says right on the window, 'Bohanan's Collectables, Combat, Cutlery.' Works there. Guns too. He stab somebody?'
'Let's go look at his apartment so you can get to your poker game, cowboy.'
When they got to the apartment, Thibidault opened the door, reached in and hit a switch. A light came on in the overhead fixture in the middle of the ceiling.
They stepped inside.
The one-bedroom apartment was as clean and sparse as a monk's cell. Flack had seen apartments like this. He had even seen a monk's cell. Monks get murdered too. Not often. Sometimes monks are murderers. Not often either.
'Keeps it clean,' said Thibidault. 'I wish all the tenants were like him.'
'Be careful what you wish for,' said Flack.
The living area held one straight-backed wooden chair with curlicue arms. The chair faced a low dresser atop of which was a fifteen-inch television set. Next to the chair was a wooden-topped desk table with black metal folding legs. In a corner to the left was a cot covered by a sheet under a khaki blanket. The blanket was pulled tight. A pillow rested at the head of the cot. The pillow showed no sign of wrinkle.
There was one thing on the wall and one thing only. To the right of the cot was a framed black-and-white photograph of a teenage boy and a crew-cut young man. The boy's hair was tumbled over his forehead. The man had his arm over the shoulder of the boy. The photograph had been blown up as much as it could bear without losing the image to grain.
'That's him,' Thibidault. 'The older one, only he don't smile, never saw him smile. I don't know who the kid is. Okay if I go now?'
'The kid's name is Adam,' said Flack, moving toward a closed door to his left. 'And no, I'd appreciate it if you stayed.'
Thibadualt sighed deeply.
Flack might want a witness, depending on what he found or didn't find. The impatient man at his side wouldn't be much of a witness, but he would be better than none at all.
Flack moved to the closed door, opened it and reached over to turn on the light.
'Never been in there,' said Thibidault. 'Not since Melvoy moved it.'
A small plywood desk sat in the middle of the room. On top of the desk was a computer that hummed in sleep mode. Against the wall to the right were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Simple. Planks nailed neatly together. Magazines, neatly lined up, were piled on the lower shelves.
On the wall to the left were two old, battered, unmatched display cases with glass windows. Behind the glass windows were neatly displayed knives, none large, most in sheaths or folded closed. There were about two dozen of them. Through the glass panes Flack could see that the blades that were visible were sharp and glistening.
On the back wall was corkboard on which a series of photographs had been pinned with small plastic push pins.
'Who're they?' asked Thibidault.
Flack looked at the photographs of Patricia Mycrant, James Feldt, Timothy Byrold, Ellen Janecek, Paul Sunderland and another woman and four more men. At the bottom left-hand corner of the photographs of this day's victims was a red check mark.
'Some friends of your Mr. Melvoy,' said Flack, moving to the bookshelves, Thibidault at his side.
Flack picked up a magazine. Thibidault looked over his shoulder as he flicked through the pages of
'Jesus Christ, he's a perv,' said Thibidault.
'No, he was doing research.'
'Research?'
There was a wireless phone on the desk next to the computer. Flack picked up the phone and pressed the redial button.
'Jeffrey?'
'No, Ellen, it's not Jeffrey,' said Flack. 'It's Detective Flack.'
'My mistake,' she said.
'A big one,' said Flack. 'Did you get a call from Adam Yunkin?'
'No,' she said.
'From Jeffrey?'
She didn't answer.
'Did you tell him where you are?'
No answer.
'Get out of that room,' said Flack. 'Now. There's a policeman outside your door. Get him.'
'But…'
'Get him,' Flack demanded.
'Wait,' she said. 'There's someone at the door.'
'Don't…' he shouted, but she couldn't hear him. She had put the phone down.
12
CONNOR CUSTUS WOKE UP looking at the ceiling of a dimly lit hospital room. He was feeling no pain but he knew that his lack of agony was only a result of the temporary solace of medication. He didn't know what they had given him, but it was working. His own drug of choice under comparable circumstances in both the recent and past had been morphine.
Connor welcomed the haze, knew that all he had to do was close his eyes and he would be asleep again, but such was not to be. He caught a movement to his right and turned his head to see a vision, a beautiful woman who reminded him of a girl in a Sicilian village whose name escaped him at the moment. The girl in the village was a beauty. So was the drug-induced vision at his bedside.
He began to close his eyes again when a voice said, 'Custus.'
He recognized the voice, the policewoman who had been at the rim of the pit, Hawkes's partner.
'A mistake has been made,' he croaked, throat dry, slightly sore from dampness and the dust of a dead
