Dance Of Death

Pendergast nodded.

"And now, let us return to your brother's motive-the fountain-head of his hatred. Something happened between you and him, and I must know what it is."

"It's all described in that folder. He always hated me. The final straw was when I burned my brother's journals."

"Tell me about it."

"I was fourteen, and he was twelve. We had never gotten along. He was always cruel and strange-much more so after the scarlet fever."

"When was that?"

"When he was seven."

"Are there any medical records?"

"None. He was treated by the private family physician."

"Proceed."

"One day I came across his journals, which were filled with the most vile things ever put on paper-abominations beyond the reach of any normal mind. He'd been keeping them for years. I burned them-and that was the precipitant. Some years later, our home burned, and our parents died in the fire. I was away at school, but Diogenes saw it all, heard their cries for help. That drove him over the edge."

A cold smile played at the corners of Gli

"You think not?"

"I have no doubt that he was jealous of you and that the destruction of his journals infuriated him. But that happened far too late to produce such a deep, pathological, obsessive hatred. Nor can a mere bout with scarlet fever create hatred out of thin air. No, Mr. Pendergast: this hatred stems from something else that happened between you and your brother at a much earlier age. That is the information we lack. And you are the only person who can supply it."

"Everything of relevance that happened between me and my brother is in that file, including our recent encounter in Italy. I can assure you there is no single incident, no smoking gun, which explains his hatred."

Gli

"Just as I said."

"It's quite possible you've repressed it."

"I repress nothing. I have an exceptional memory going back to before my first birthday."

"Then you are deliberately withholding something."

Pendergast went very still. D'Agosta watched the two men, surprised. He had never seen anyone challenge Pendergast in quite this way before.

As he eyed Pendergast, Gli

D'Agosta looked at Pendergast. For the first time in his memory, the agent's face wore a look of something like apprehension.

"I'm not going anywhere," D'Agosta said immediately, irritated at Gli

Pendergast smiled thinly, shook his head. "It's all right, Vincent- much as I loathe the idea of rummaging around in my past for something that probably doesn't exist, I see the necessity for doing so. I will meet you back at our prearranged place."

"Are you sure?"

Pendergast nodded. "And never forget: you are the one named next by Diogenes. January 28 is less than three hours away. Vincent: be transcendentally cautious."

FORTY

Laura Hayward paced the small room like a caged lioness, glancing frequently at the ugly clock behind her desk. She felt that, if she didn't work off her nervous energy, she would explode. And since she couldn't leave her office, she paced.

She had spent almost the entire evening organizing the evidence from the Duchamp and Green killings, and cross-comparing it to evidence she had cajoled, pried, and bludgeoned out of the New Orleans and D.C. police departments. She had cleared her cork wall of all other cases and had divided it into four cantons, one for each homicide: Professor Torrance Hamilton on January 19; Charles Duchamp on January 22; Special Agent Michael Decker on January 23; and Dr. Margo Green on January 26. There were micrographs of fibers and hair, photographs of knots and footprints, abstracts of the M.E. reports, blood splatter analyses, photographs of the murder scenes and weapons, fingerprint reports, diagrams showing ingress and egress where determined, along with an embarrassment of other evidence, relevant or not. Pushpins with colored strings drew red, yellow, green, and blue co

No doubt.

Sitting on the middle of her desk was a thin report, just in, from the top guy in the forensic profiling division. He had confirmed that the homicides were psychologically consistent and could have been committed by the same perp. What's more, he had prepared a profile of the killer. It was startling, to say the least.

D.C. and New Orleans didn't know it yet; the FBI didn't know it yet; not even Singleton or Rocker knew it yet: but they were dealing with a serial killer. A meticulous, intelligent, methodical, cool, and utterly insane serial killer.

She spun, strode, spun again. As soon as she showed Rocker that she'd co

But she couldn't call Rocker until she had the last piece of evidence, the last piece of the puzzle. The smoking gun. She was going to get raked over the coals, no matter what. The political fallout would be terrible. It was important she had all her ducks in a row- that was the only thing that could save her ass.

A timid rap came on the door, and she halted midstride. "Come in," she said.

A man holding a manila envelope poked his head in.

"Where've you been? I was supposed to have this report two hours ago!"

"I'm sorry," the man stammered, taking a few tentative steps inside the office. "As I explained on the phone, we had to run the match three times because-"

"Never mind. Just give me the report, please."

He held it out from a distance, almost as if fearful of being bitten.

"You got a DNA match?" she asked, taking the report.

"Yes. A pair of beautiful matches, blood from the box cutter and the spot on the floor. Both from the same individual, not the victim. But here's the problem: the DNA wasn't in any of the FBI criminal or juvenile databases, so we did like you asked and ran it against all the DNA databases. When we finally did get a match, it was in a federal database, and we had a major problem because of confidentiality issues and… well…" He hesitated.

"Go on," Hayward said as gently as she could.

"The reason I had to run the program three times was to be absolutely sure about this match. This is explosive stuff, Captain. We can't afford to be wrong."

"And?" Hayward could hardly breathe.

"You aren't going to believe this. The DNA matched one of the Bureau's top agents."