I PAGED TYLER, ADDING the prefix 999 to my phone number—code for “We’ve got a case; get your butt over here ASAP!” I figured it would take him at least ten minutes to lock the research cage and get back across the river to the stadium. Plenty of time for me to make a phone call. As I dialed the number, I prayed I wouldn’t be routed to a voice-mail box or a secretary. What was the chance that a senior-level FBI profiler was still at his desk at four on a Friday afternoon?
“Behavioral Sciences, Brubaker.” Even over the phone, the FBI agent’s confidence and air of authority were unmistakable.
“Thank God you’re there,” I said. “This is Bill Brockton, at UT—the University of Tennessee.”
“Hello, Doc. What’s up? You sound stressed.” Apparently his psychological insight wasn’t limited to psychotic killers.
“Things have just gotten really strange here,” I said. “Remember the meeting in Nashville, when I said that dismemberment case up near Kentucky looked like one of my Kansas cases?”
“I remember. The cut marks. Curved cut marks. What about it?”
“There’s just been another killing here. Another woman. And it mirrors another one of my cases.”
There was a brief silence before he spoke. “With all due respect, Doc, there are only so many ways to kill a person. Law of averages—sometimes killings resemble other killings. Coincidence is not the same as causality.”
“Damn it,” I snapped, “this is not resemblance, and it’s not coincidence. This death scene is an exact replica. I got a photo of this latest victim in the mail a week ago—a week before her body was found. I thought it was one of my photos, from two years ago. Even the damn camera angle was the same.” The line went silent. Did he just hang up on me? “Are you still there?” I was reaching for the switchhook and the redial button when he spoke.
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m thinking.” More silence. “So let’s say you’re right. Who would do this, and why?” Now I was the one struck silent. “Doc? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just confused. Aren’t you the one who figures out the who and the why?”
“I try. But if you’re right—if these killings have some connection to you—then you’re the key. What’s the message he’s sending you?”
The call wasn’t going the way I’d hoped it would. “Well,” I floundered. “Could he be trying to impress me?”
Even from five hundred miles away, the derision in his voice was clear. “Impress you? You’ve been watching too many Hollywood movies, Doc. He’s messing with you, more like. Or threatening you.”
“Threatening me? Why would he be threatening me?” Up to now, I’d felt puzzled and disturbed. Suddenly I felt something much worse.
“I don’t blame you for sounding nervous,” he said. “If any of the creeps I’ve profiled ever hatched a vendetta against me, and were out in the world instead of locked up? Trust me, I’d be nervous as hell. Luckily, I’ve got no prior relationship to any of ’em. No reason for them to come after me.”
Somewhere in a far, dark corner of my mind, I began to hear a low humming sound. “Wait. Wait. Are you saying that this could be someone I know?”
“Possibly. I’m just thinking out loud here, Doc. Maybe somebody you had a connection with; somebody who felt like you betrayed him somehow, did him a grievous wrong.”
“But if that’s the case, why’s he killing these women? If he’s got a grudge, why doesn’t he just come shoot me? Why these murders that echo cases of mine?”
“Dunno. He might be trying to make some sort of grand philosophical statement. Something about the hydra-headed nature of evil.”
“The which-headed?”
“Hydra-headed. Hydra, the mythological monster with all the heads—nine? twelve? A bunch. Hercules was sent to kill the Hydra. Which was supposedly impossible, because any time one of the heads got cut off, a new one grew back.”
“Got it,” I said. “I do remember that myth, now that you mention it. So you’re saying this guy might be trying to make the point that it doesn’t matter if I solve one murder? That another one, just like it, will take its place? But what does that have to do with me?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “More personal. He’s not broadcasting the message. He’s narrowcasting it.”
“Narrowcasting?”
“Whatever he’s saying, he’s saying it to you, about you. It’s between him and you. We don’t know why.” He paused. “Not yet. But I’m afraid we will.”
His words chilled me. “So I need to conjure up the name of everybody I ever cut off in traffic? Every student I ever flunked?”