The Maze

Savich stood up and stretched, then he scratched his stomach. "You're probably right. I'm just dragged down because MAX got it and we didn't. But you know, I've got this itch in my belly. Whenever I've gotten this itch in the past, there's been something I've missed.

"I need to go to the gym. Working out clears my brain. You want to come along? I won't tromp you this time. In fact, I'll start work on your deltoids."

"I didn't bring any workout stuff. Besides, I plan to protect my deltoids with my life."

The cops tracked down four possible suspects within the next twenty-four hours-two of them astrologers who'd come to Boston during the past year, two of them numerologists. Both the numerologists had come during the past year from southern California. They didn't arrest any of them. Budnack, Savich, and Lacey met later that day in Captain Dougherty's office.

"No big deal about that," Ralph Budnack said, frowning. "All the nuts come from southern California."

"So does Julia Roberts," Savich said.

"Point taken," Budnack said and grinned. "So what do you think, Savich? It just doesn't feel right with any of these guys. Plus two of them have pretty good alibis. We found a homeless guy, Mr. Rick, he's called, who said he saw a guy going in and out of the warehouse on Congress. He said he was all bundled up and he wondered about that since it was really warm that night, said it was so warm he didn't even have to sleep in his box. Said he hadn't seen him before."

"Any more specifics about the man?" Lacey asked. "Anything about what he looked like?"

"Just that he looked kind of scrawny, a direct quote from Mr. Rick. Whatever that means. Mr. Rick is pretty big. Scrawny just might mean anything smaller than six foot. I might add that only one of the four guys we picked up could

be called scrawny, and he's got the strongest alibi."

Savich had wandered away. He was pacing, head down, seemingly staring at the linoleum floor.

"He's thinking," she said in answer to Captain Dougherty's unasked question.

"Your sister was really offed by this guy?"

"Yes. It's been seven years. But you never forget."

"Is that why you got into the FBI?"

"I didn't know what else to do. I went to school and learned a bit about all the areas in forensics, then I focused on how the criminal mind works. Actually I'd planned to be a Profiler, but I couldn't live what they do every day. So here I am. Thank God for Savich's new unit."

"You even learn about blood-spattering patterns?"

"Yeah, some of the examples of that were pretty gruesome. I'm not an expert, but at least I learned enough so that I'd know what to do, where to find out more, who to contact."

Captain Dougherty said, "Everyone thinks profiling is so sexy. Remember that show on TV about a Profiler?"

"Yeah, the one with ESP. Now that was something, wasn't it? Why bother with profiling? A waste of time. Just tune in to the guy and you've got him."

He grinned and she distracted him with another question about one of the men they'd hauled in for questioning.

It was at midnight when Savich sat up in bed, drew a very deep breath, and said softly, "I've got you, you son of a bitch."

He worked at the computer until three o'clock in the morning. He called Ralph Budnack at seven A.M. and told him what he needed.

"You got something, Savich?"

"I just might," he said slowly. "I just might. On the other hand, I might be off plucking daisies in that big flower market in the sky. Keep doing what you're doing." He then called Lacey's room.

"I need you," he said. "Come to my room and we'll order room service."

The fax was humming out page after page from Budnack. "Yeah," Savich was saying, "this will help."

"You won't tell me what you're homing in on?"

"Nope, not until I know there's a slight chance I'm on the right track."

"I was thinking far into the night," she said, and although it wasn't at all cold in the room, she was rubbing her hands over her arms. She looked tired, pinched. "I couldn't get this seven business out of my mind." She drew a deep breath. "We banked everything on seven, and so we got the Pleiades and all that numerology stuff. But what if it doesn't have anything to do with seven at all? What if there was just the one instance of seven and that was merely the time lag before he started killing again? What if he killed more than seven women? Eight women or even nine?" She looked nearly desperate, standing there, rubbing her arms. "Not much of a big lead there. I think you're right, it's just too pat, and too confining. But if there's nothing there, then what else is there?"