"You tell them, Sherlock."
They were all staring at her now. He'd put her on the spot. But he'd seen the knowledge in her eyes. How, she didn't know. He was giving her a chance to shine.
Lacey cleared her throat. "The FBI Profilers were right. It's a local neighborhood guy who hated the Lansky family. He killed the families in Des Moines and St. Louis because he wanted to practice before he killed the people he hated. He wanted to get it perfect when it most mattered to him. So, the families in Des Moines and St. Louis were random choices. He undoubtedly drove around until he found the family that met his requirements. Then he killed them."
Captain Brady whistled. "My God, you think the profile is correct, but it was meant only for the Lanskys?"
"That's right," Savich said. "The other two families were his dress rehearsal." He turned to Dubrosky and Mason. "I wanted you to be completely certain that there was no stranger around the Lansky household before the killings. Are you both certain?"
"Yes," Mason said. "As certain as we can be."
"Then we go to the Lansky neighborhood and pick up the guy who will fit the profile. He screwed up and now we'll nail him. The computer hit on three possibles, all within walking distance of the Lanskys' house. My money's on Russell Bent. He fits the profile better than the others. Given how well the profile fits this guy and given no strangers, the chances are really good that this wasn't just another dress rehearsal. Also, Russell Bent lives with his sister and her husband. She is exactly two years older than he is."
"I don't understand, Agent Savich," Captain Brady said, sitting forward. "What do you mean she's two years older?"
"The boy and girl in all three families," Lacey said. "The girl was twelve and the boy was ten."
"Jesus," Captain Brady said.
"Why didn't you just tell us?" Dubrosky was mad. He felt that Savich had made him look like a fool.
"As I said," Savich said as he rose from his chair, "I wanted you to be certain that no stranger had been near the Lansky home. It was always possible that the guy was having a third dress rehearsal. But he wasn't. This time it was the real thing for him. I wasn't really holding out on you. I just got everything in the computer this morning, once Captain Brady had sent me all your reports. Without the reports I wouldn't have gotten a thing. You would have come back to this. It's just that I always believed the profile and I had the computer."
Russell Bent lived six houses away from the Lanskys' with his sister and her husband and one young son. Bent was twenty-seven years old, didn't date, didn't have many friends, but was pleasant to everyone. He worked as a maintenance man at a large office on Milwaukee Avenue. His only passion was coaching Little League.
The detectives had already spoken to Russell Bent, his sister, and her husband as part of their neighborhood canvassing. They'd never considered him a possible suspect. They were looking for a transient, a serial killer, some hot-eyed madman, not a local, certainly not a shy young guy who was really polite to them.
"One hundred dollars, Sherlock, says they'll break him in twenty minutes," Savich said, grinning down at her.
"It's for certain that none of them looks the least bit tired now," she said. "Do we watch them?"
"No, let's go to Captain Brady's office. I don't want to cramp their style. You know, I bet you that Bent would have killed one more family, in another state, just to confuse everyone thoroughly. Then he wouldn't have killed again."
"You know, I've been wondering why he had to kill the kids like that."
"Well, I've given it a lot of thought, talked to the Profilers and a couple of shrinks. Why did Bent murder these families with two kids, specifically a boy and a girl, and in each case, the kids were two years apart, no more, no less? I guess he was killing himself and his sister."
She stared at him, shivering. "But why? No, don't tell me. You did some checking on Mr. Bent."
"Yep. I told Dubrosky and Mason all about it in the John. They're going to show off now in front of Captain Brady."
"I wish I could have been there."
"Well, probably not. Mason got so excited that he puked. He hadn't eaten anything all day and he'd drunk a gallon of that atomic bomb coffee."
She raised her hand. "No, don't tell me. Let me think about this, sir."
She followed him down the hall and into Captain Brady's office. He lay down on the sofa. It was too short and hard as a rock, but he wouldn't have traded it for anything at the moment. He was coming down. He closed his eyes and saw that pathetic Russell Bent. They'd gotten him. They'd won this time. For the moment it made him forget about the monsters who were still out there killing, the monsters that he and his people had spent hours trying to find, and had failed. But this time they'd gotten the monster. They'd won.