Death Match

“That was your first time in the penthouse, too. You never told me what you thought of the place.”

“We’re talking about you now, not me.”

“As you wish.” The waiter returned with the check; Lash fumbled for his wallet, dropped a credit card onto the leather folder. “Cognitive behavioral, that’s correct.”

Tara waited until the waiter had scooped away the bill. “I must have dozed off during our psych orientations. What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t focus on unconscious conflicts, on whether somebody got enough hugs from his mother at age two. I focus on what a person’s thinking, what his ruleset is.”

“Ruleset?”

“Everybody lives by a set of internal rules, whether they know it or not. You understand enough of a person’s rules, you can understand, predict, their behavior.”

“Predict. I assume that’s what you did for the FBI.”

Lash finished off his drink. “Something like that.”

“And if this — this turns out to be the work of a killer, will you be able to predict what he’ll do next?”

“Hopefully. But the profile is extremely contradictory. Anyway, maybe that won’t be necessary. We’ll know tomorrow morning.” As he spoke, Lash became aware of the waiter standing at his elbow.

“Yes?” Lash said.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the waiter said. “But this card has been declined.”

“What? Run it again, please.”

“I already ran it twice, sir.”

“That’s impossible, I just sent in a check last week…” Lash opened his wallet. It was as he feared: he was only carrying one credit card. He sounded his pocket for cash and found two dollars. Half asleep and forgot to go to the damn ATM, he thought.

He replaced his wallet and looked sheepishly at Tara. “Would you mind picking this up?” he asked.

She looked at him.

“I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

And then, suddenly, her blank expression dissolved into a grin. “Forget it,” she said, dropping a twenty on the table. “It’s worth it just to see that smug psychoanalyzing look wiped off your face.” And then she laughed: briefly, but loud enough to turn heads halfway to the entrance of Sebastian’s.

TWENTY-THREE

By the time Lash broached the Eden lobby Wednesday morning, threaded the complex network of security, and gained the sixteenth floor, it was almost nine-thirty. He walked down the pale violet corridor, bypassing his darkened office and heading directly to the cafeteria.

“A jumbo espresso, right?” asked Marguerite, the counter woman who seemed to know everyone’s needs before they did.

“Marguerite, your espresso is the best in the tri-state area. I was dreaming about it the whole drive in.”

“Sugar, the amount of caffeine you ingest, they could put a set of wheels on you and you’d drive yourself.”

Lash sipped, sipped again. The hot liquid warmed his tired limbs and accelerated his heart. He smiled at Marguerite, then made his way back down the corridor.

He’d been slow to rise, feeling a lethargy that had little to do with weariness. The desperate urgency of their search seemed, ironically, to have a retarding effect on him. All his former field experience told him this wasn’t the way to work the case. You didn’t sit in an office, poring over computer transcripts. Sure, they were helpful enough in classification and profiling. But when you were hunting a suspected killer who might be about to strike again, you pounded the pavement, hunted up leads, talked to family and eyewitnesses. Sitting in a skyscraper, far from bodies and murder sites, gathering data, seemed like lunacy.

Yet Eden’s unmatched ability to gather data was all they had.

Reaching his office, Lash saw through the door pane that one entire wall was now hidden behind stacks of evidence lockers. He barely had time to step inside and place his cup on the desk before Mauchly entered, Tara Stapleton at his side.

“Ah, there you are, Dr. Lash,” Mauchly said. “As you can see, the gathering process finished earlier than expected.”

Tara smiled at Lash. As she moved to the terminal and sca

“What if we don’t find our killer?”

“Then we’ll move on to the Eden employee, Handerling. Though that seems a remote possibility.”

“Whatever you say.” Lash was highly skilled at reading people, but Mauchly remained an enigma. His seemed a monochrome personality, unburdened by mood or even emotion.

“Let’s get started,” Tara said. For the first time, she had a brisk, eager air about her. The prospect that filled him with lassitude seemed to give her energy.

They took seats around the table. Lash sipped his coffee while Mauchly broke open the first of three summary folders, put the contents on the desk.

“Grant Atchison,” Mauchly said, reading from the top sheet. “Completed initial application July 21, 2003. Age twenty-three, male Caucasian, graduated Rutgers with a bachelor in economics, residing at 3143 Auburn Street, Perth Amboy, New Jersey.”

“Is that his own home, or his parents’?” Lash asked.

Tara had taken up a few of the sheets and was riffling through them. “Parents.”

“So far, so good.”

“Employed at a chemical dye plant in Linden.” Mauchly turned over a sheet. “Passed our initial screening, came in for applicant evaluation in August. Was rejected by the senior evaluator, Dr. Alicto.”

Lash waited for Mauchly to glance up at him. But the man’s eyes remained on the summary sheets.

“Reason?” Tara asked.

“A lot of false answers on the tests, for one thing. Validity scales were way off baseline.” Mauchly read from the sheet. “‘Difficulties with impulse control, emotional turbulence, anhedonia.’ It goes on.”

“He was in Arizona during the week the Thorpes died,” Tara said.

“How do you know that?” Lash asked.

“Any of half a dozen ways. Guy buys an e-ticket, gets entered into the airline database. Pays for it with a credit card, gets into the credit card database. Rents a car in Phoenix, gets into the car rental database.” She shrugged as if it was common knowledge.

“Yes, but here’s a problem.” Mauchly was looking at the last page of the summary. “There are reports here of a recent medical condition: bloods sent to Enzymatics for a workup, there’s traffic on the insurance carriers network.” He glanced at Tara. “Care to dig a little deeper?”

“Sure thing.” Tara walked over to the terminal behind Lash’s desk and began to type. “The guy was admitted to Middlesex County Hospital two and a half weeks ago. Renal problems. Had to remove a kidney.”

“Length of stay?”

More typing. “He’s still there. Complications from surgery.”

Lash listened to this interchange in growing disbelief.

“So much for Mr. Atchison.” Mauchly gathered the papers, returned them to the folder, then laid it aside and broke the seal on another. “The second obsolete’s name is Katherine Barrow. Completed application December 20, 2003. Age forty-six, female, Caucasian, high school equivalency degree, resides in York, Pe

“What does her evaluation say?” Tara asked as she returned to the table.

“Never made it that far. There was a security incident after filing the initial application. Lingered in the lobby, tried to approach several male applicants. There was an intervention, and she became disorderly.”

“Tut-tut,” said Tara.

Mauchly leafed through the summary. “Credit card vouchers and hotel records place her in Sedona, Arizona, when the Thorpes were killed. She was attending a seminar on crystals.” He put down the summary, looked at Lash. “How common are female serial killers?”

“More common than people think. Dorothea Puente killed as many as nine of the lodgers in her boarding house during the late eighties. Mary A