The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

A long pause. "Fifty minutes, twice a week for three years I've been trying to figure him out and I can't. For three years. And he still hurts me. I--" Keating broke into a harsh, eerie laugh. "You catch that? I said 'hurts.' I meant to say 'haunts.' He still haunts me. How's that for Freudian? I'll have something to share next Monday at nine A.M., won't I? He still haunts me and I don't have a clue what his fucking outlook is."

Rhyme could see everyone on the team was growing frustrated with the man's rambling. He said, "We heard his wife was killed in the fire. Do you know anything about her family?"

"Marie? No, they'd only gotten married a week or two before the fire. They were really in love. We thought she'd calm him down. Make him haunt us less. We were hoping that. But we never got to know her."

"Can you give us the names of anybody who might know something about him?"

"Art Loesser was first assistant. I was second. We were his boys. They called us 'Erick's boys.' Everybody did."

Rhyme said, "We have a call in to Loesser. Anyone else?"

"The only one I can think of is the manager of the Hasbro circus at the time. Edward Kadesky's his name. He's a producer in Chicago now, I think."

Sellitto got the spelling of the man's name. Then asked, "Did Weir ever call back?"

"No. But he didn't need to. Five minutes and he got the claws in. Hurting and haunting."

It's Erick . . .

"Look, I should go. I have to iron my uniform. I'm working the Sunday morning shift. It's a busy one."

After they hung up, Sachs walked to the speakerphone to hit the disconnect button. "Brother," she muttered.

"Needs more meds," Sellitto observed.

"Well, at least we've got a lead," Rhyme said. "Track down that Kadesky."

Mel Cooper disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned he had a printout of a database of theatrical companies. Kadesky Productions had its office on South Wells Street in the Windy City. Sellitto placed a call and, not surprisingly, being late Saturday night, got the answering service. He left a message.

Sellitto said, "Okay--Weir's messed up his assistant's life. He's unstable. He's injured people in the audience and now he's a pattern doer. But what's making him tick?"

Sachs looked up at this. "Let's give Terry a call."

Terry Dobyns was an NYPD psychologist. There were several on the force but Dobyns was the sole behavioral profiler, a skill he'd learned and honed at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. Thanks to the press and popular fiction the public hears a lot about psychological profiling and it can be valuable--but only, Rhyme felt, in a limited type of crime. Generally there's nothing mysterious about the workings of a perp's mind. But in cases where the motive is a mystery and his next target is hard to anticipate, profiling can be valuable. It helps investigators find informants or individuals who might know the suspect, anticipate his next move, set up decoys in appropriate neighborhoods, run stakeouts and look for similar crimes in the past.

Sellitto thumbed through an NYPD directory of phone numbers and placed a call to Dobyns at home.

"Terry."

"Lon. You've got speakerphone echo. Let me deduce that Lincoln's there too."

"Yep," Rhyme confirmed. He had a fondness for Dobyns, the first person he saw when he awakened after his spinal cord accident. Rhyme recalled that the man loved touch football, opera and the mysteries of the human mind in roughly the same degrees--and all passionately.

"Sorry it's late," Sellitto offered, not sounding sorry at all. "But we need some help with a multiple doer. We've got a name but not much else."

"This the one in the news? Killed the music student this morning? And that patrol officer too?"

"Right. He also killed a makeup artist and tried to kill a horseback rider. Because of what they and the student quote represented. Two straight women, one gay man. No sexual activities. We're at a loss. And he's told Lincoln that he's going to start up again tomorrow afternoon."

"He told Lincoln? Over the phone? A letter?"

"In person," Rhyme said.

"Hmm. That must've been quite a conversation."

"You don't know the half of it."

Sellitto and Rhyme gave the man a rundown on Weir's crimes and what they'd learned about him.