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  "I know, Darcy. I know. I'm not saying I don't want you along." I paused, considered, then atypically opted to just tell the truth. Sort of. "They, uh, say I can't bring you with me."

  Darcy lowered his voice to a whisper. "Then we will not tell them."

  "Sorry, Darcy. I'll have to drop you off at home."

  I knew he wasn't happy about it, but he was too nice to argue, too sweet-hearted to cause me any grief. He threw away his empty custard cup and headed toward my beat-up Chevy.

  "I just hope I can manage," I said, trying to bolster his spirits. "It's been a long time since I went out on a job without you by my side. I probably won't know what to do."

  "It will go very well. You will be very wonderful," he said, sliding into the passenger seat. His eyes looked as if they were brimming with tears.

  "And how can you know that?"

  "Because we had custard together today," he replied, beaming that goofy, beatific smile. "And any day we have custard together is a Very Excellent Day. It's a rule."

  It took me four months to stop stuttering and not be nervous and ask Susan to adopt me and then when I did she said no and she laughed at me I mean she did not really laugh at me but her voice did I could hear it because it was just like when I ask my dad if I could be a policeman or when the ladies at the day care watch me change a diaper and why would anyone laugh because no one wants to change a diaper I remember when my mother was alive and she used to Stop. Susan says I have to learn to stop and slow down and focus and put more periods in my thinking and I like Susan so I am going to try. To do. What she says. It is hard when there are so many ideas going on inside my brain all at once I wish I could block some of them out but I cannot they just keep coming and I have a hard time remembering what I am supposed to do because my head is like a computer trying to do too many things at once and then the CPU gets blocked and it crashes and I don't remember to stop and Reboot. Windows is loading. One thought at a time.

  Being with Susan is always interesting. I like being with Susan but she would not let me be with her today and it is my dad's fault it is always his fault he never never never wants to let me do anything he does not think I can do anything he just scowls at me and acts all disappointed and I wish I did not look so much like my mother I think it would be better if I did not look so much like my mother because then maybe my dad Stop. Blinking hourglass symbol. One thought at a time.

  I am disappointed that my dad would not let me go. With Susan. Because I love Susan and I want to be with her always. I knew she would never marry me because I am so stupid and weird but I thought that maybe if she adopted me then we could live together and we would not have to be married. I do not care if we do sex because I do not know how and I think it has a lot of touching so I probably would not like it and probably would not be any good at it anyway. I do not care about anything except that I want to be with Susan and I love her. I like babies and babies usually like me and if we had babies that would be very nice I think. Babies are easier to understand than big people.

  I still see the Bad Man sometimes at night when I am sleeping or just before I am sleeping. Susan says I should not let him scare me because he cannot hurt me now but he does he does he hurts me and I don't know what to do about it. I think that if Susan would adopt me then the Bad Man would go away forever just like my mother did but she said no so now I am alone with my father and I am not happy and he is not happy and what is the point of everyone not being happy?

  I wish that I were with Susan. I hope that she does not meet another Bad Man.

  6

  You'll understand when you get here, O'Bannon had said, and those words were still echoing in my head when I reached the Burger Bliss fast-food joint as per his instructions. Don't bring Darcy. O'Bannon had initially been resistant to my involving Darcy in police investigations, but over time had become gradually, if guardedly, accepting of it. Despite his protestations to the contrary, some part of him must've enjoyed seeing Darcy's phenomenal gifts put to good use. For the past couple of months, it had been automatically understood that anytime he gave me a consulting job, Darcy would be tagging along. Until today. Which told me that either he had undergone a dramatic change of heart… Or there was something in there he really did not want Darcy to see.

  I gave a shout-out to the two uniforms posted at the door, who smiled and waved me inside without a word. I can still remember, just after I was released from detox and got myself booted off the force, when I practically needed a hall pass to get onto a crime scene. And O'Bannon would sniff my breath the moment I arrived. This was better.

  It wasn't hard to figure out where the action had taken place. The videographer was making a detailed record of the entire kitchen, everything behind the cash register counter. At least a dozen other crime techs were swarming around in their coveralls, protective coverings on their shoes, always careful not to step off the butcher paper that had been laid on the tile floor. I loved watching these guys (and gals) work. It was like when you're a kid and you can spend hours staring at an ant farm, observing all the specialized tasks as the creatures scurry across one another's paths but never collide. Some of the crime techs were using forensic oils and chemical swabs, some were shining fluorescent lights, some were crawling on their hands and knees, scrutinizing the tile floor for anything that might've been missed. It was no accident they decided to set that TV show in Vegas; according to the FBI, we had the second best CSI unit in the country, here in a city that ranked only thirty-second in terms of population.

  On the far left, one of the stainless steel countertops was covered with blood spatter. Didn't take empathic powers to figure out what must've happened there.

  I hopped over the countertop and was heading in that general direction when I felt a strong arm yank me backward. It was Barry Granger, the man who filled the gap I left when I lost my job and had recently been promoted to chief homicide detective. He'd been my husband David's partner; he was very close to David and took his death hard. Over the past few months, we'd learned to coexist, but we weren't friends and I couldn't imagine that we ever would be. Fair or not, he blamed me for David's death.

  "Just so you know," Granger said, "I was opposed to bringing you in on this case."

  I smiled. "Top o' the mornin' to you, too, Barry. How are the wife and kids?"

  "Don't get smart with me. Just listen and understand what I'm saying. We have a good homicide department and we will crack this case. You've been asked-against my wishes-to give us some psychological insight on the sicko who did this. That's all. The men here respect me, and I don't want you parading around with your smart mouth and superior attitude and undermining my authority. It's my case. You work for me. Understood?"

  "Loud and clear. Now let go of my arm before I have to embarrass you in front of all these men who respect you." He did.

  "I mean it, Pulaski. Are you going to cooperate?"

  "Hmm. Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook Not Good."

  "It would be different if you were a team player. But you never are. While my men are out pounding the street, you're off in your own little world, doing your weird stuff."

  "I'm a behaviorist, Granger. I don't street-pound."

  "If you really wanted to help, I could assign to you some of the hundred or so people who need to be interviewed. You could hit the back alleyways, talk to contacts, see what you can stir up. Show the street scum that we mean business."

  "Thanks, but that sounds a little too Starsky and Hutch for me. Who was the first responder?"

  "MacNeill."

  "Thank God." Meaning, thank God it wasn't you. The first officer on the premises has the critical job of securing the crime scene, making sure it isn't contaminated. If it had been someone as sloppy as Granger, there'd be no clues left to find.

  I turned back toward the blood spatter. Even at a glance I could see the arching pattern that suggested a single blow from behind. And although the quantity was plenty enough to turn my stomach, there was very little bloo
d outside the arch. No pooling on the floor.

  "DRT?" I asked Granger. This is hip cop slang for Dead Right There.

  "No question."

  "ID?"

  "We're working on it. My men just arrived. The body is not on the premises."

  "That adds to the challenge."

  He made a mock salute. "That's why you're here." His voice rose. "Now get to work, lieutenant. Er…former lieutenant. Whatever. Hop to it."

  Granger walked away, having accomplished his mission. Which was not to put me in my place. He knew that was useless. What was important to him was that he stage a scene that everyone present would see-with him reading me the riot act, reminding everyone that no matter how smart I was or what cases I had solved in the past, I was not in charge.

  I'd be seriously mad at him-if I didn't know deep down that it was important for the head of the department to be in charge, to be seen to be in charge, to keep upstarts in line. He didn't want to lose his job any more than I had wanted to lose mine.

  In the back of the kitchen, I spotted Tony Crenshaw. I knew he'd be useful. He'd come on board as an expert in dactylograms-that's what he insisted on calling what you and I call fingerprints-but had proven himself so darn smart that anymore O'Bannon let him do pretty much anything he wanted to do. What's more-he liked me, and he had stuck by me, even in the tough days following David's death. Being single and good-looking didn't hurt him any, either.

  Tony smiled as I approached. "Me and the boys were betting on how many seconds would pass before you showed up."

  I guess that was a compliment. Of sorts. "That weird?"

  "Oh yeah."

  "Slit the guy's throat?" I paused.

  "Right."

  "Looks like he did it in a single blow."

  His eyes widened appreciatively. "Very good. So you were awake during my blood spatter seminar."

  Well, off and on. "Do we know what weapon was used?"

  "Not exactly. Any big knife would do. Lots of them here in the kitchen. I don't really know yet. But we can safely assume it was something strong and extremely sharp. Look at the pattern of the arch." With a finger in the air, he traced the path of the blood across the stainless steel counter and then onto the wall behind it. "It's one thing if your victim is beneath you and you can swing the weapon executioner-style, like you're swinging one of those hammers to ring the bell at the county fair. But if that had been the case, the blood would've spattered across the floor. These two, killer and victim, were standing one behind the other. Meaning the assailant had to reach around his throat, while holding him upright."

  "So we're looking for a guy. A very strong guy."

  "I don't want to sound sexist, but given the upper-body strength requirement…" He shrugged. "Either it's one of those chicks from the Worldwide Wrestling League, or it's a guy. A barbarian."

  "Tall, dark, and brutal?"

  Tony shook his head. "Again, look at the main concentration of the blood spatter. Over six feet off the floor, and forming an upward elliptical arch. Our assailant was shorter than his victim, probably shorter than average."

  "A homunculus."

  "Well, I don't like to make value judgments about strangers. But I wouldn't set him up on a date with my sister."

  I nodded my agreement. "I'm surprised the victim didn't struggle more."

  "Oh, God, didn't anyone tell you?"

  Just the way he said it gave me a severe case of the jimjams. "Just give it to me straight, Tony. What happened?"

  He pointed to the stainless steel gizmo to the left, obviously uncomfortable. "Do you know what that is?"

  "Tony, the only thing I cook is Lean Cuisine."

  "That's a deep fat fryer. It's where they make french fries and onion rings."

  "I feel certain the victim wasn't killed by onion rings."

  Tony swallowed. "The killer pushed the vic's face down into the fryer. Into the boiling oil. While it was on."

  I felt an intense surge of nausea rising up my stomach like a surfer on the big kahuna. "So the temperature was…"

  "Approximately three hundred and fifty degrees."

  I took several quick short breaths, trying to steady myself. "How-"

  "First," he continued, "the skin would melt off your face. Then you would go into shock. Your brain would literally begin to cook. It would feel like-"

  I held up a hand. "I don't need to know what it would feel like."

  "Okay." He looked away, then muttered: "Having his throat cut afterward was probably a mercy."

  I fought back the nausea, the shaking in my knees that oh so desperately wanted a quick snort of something with a very high alcoholic content, and asked, "But-why?"

  Tony laid his hand on my shoulder. He was looking a bit ashen himself. "And with that question, Susan, you have officially moved out of my realm-and into yours."

  7

  "Isteadied myself against the counter, doing my best to stay out of the way of the scientists who had real work to do, and thought. Or perhaps more accurately…I listened. To the kitchen. What had happened? What went on here?

  Could there possibly be a rational motive behind boiling someone's face? It was hard to imagine. Was this planned or spontaneous? The killer used his brute strength and the tools at hand-in this case, one that fried potatoes at three hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit. But he might've also brought a weapon for the decapitation. Premeditated? Every instinct told me he wasn't killing for love, money, jealousy, revenge, hatred, or any of the usual motives. Everything I had seen so far pointed to a psychopath.

  Which led to the second question: Why here? Why commit a murder in a fast-food restaurant? Just to take advantage of the deep fat fryer? It hardly seemed likely. A private location would be better. Even the victim's home would be better. Perhaps he didn't live alone. Still, subduing a family would be easier than luring someone to a downtown eatery late at night, wouldn't it? No, the only possible explanation was that the victim worked here. Maybe the killer didn't know where he lived, maybe the victim was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he worked here. Which meant there was about a ninety percent chance he was young, thirty or under. He was here late, after hours, presumably alone. So he must be on the managerial staff, the poor chump with the job of turning everything off and locking up. Except this time, he didn't lock up fast enough. Or the killer was too determined to be deterred by a locked door.

  "Granger," I said, doing my best to feign politeness, "find out who was the manager of the late-night shift yesterday, okay?"

  "We're methodically reviewing all the employee records-"

  "Forget that. Just find out who last night's late-shift manager was. Then call his home."

  "Oh yeah? Why?"

  "Because I have a hunch he won't answer."

  I left Charlie Chan wondering what I knew that he didn't and approached my best friend on the force, Amelia Escavez. Over the past few months-after my childhood friend Lisa moved to Los Angeles-we had become very close. We palled around at the office and off-hours, too. She helped me get through some rough times and I loved her dearly.

  Amelia was standing by the patty grill, her trusty field kit close at hand. She was an impressions examiner. Over the years, I'd seen her taking impressions of tire tracks, footprints, fingerprints, even teeth marks. But this was the first time I'd seen her plying her trade with a greasy grill.

  "Trying out a new oven cleaner, Amelia?"

  She glanced up for barely a moment, then returned her attention to her work. She'd coated the surface of the grill with a white substance and was now hardening it with a handheld hair dryer. "Yup. Figured I could sell it to Dow and finally make some real money."

  "New car, new house, speedboat on Lake Mead?"

  "I'd be content if I could just get a date."

  Girl talk. The older we get, it never really changes. I used to be so obsessed with work that I almost never socialized with anyone else in the PD-well, not counting David, obviously. But after Lisa took off, I
made a real effort to get to know some of my colleagues, especially Amelia. Turned out we were very compatible; we were both smart, funny, and utterly sans a love life. Although staring at her slim figure and perfect height (meaning she didn't tower over and intimidate three-fourths of the male population like yours truly), I couldn't imagine that date-getting was really that much of a problem for her. My theory was, for whatever reason, she just wasn't trying. "Don't tell me the perp left a tire track on the grill."

  "Oh, it's ever so much stranger than that. Someone-we're assuming the killer-left a message in the grease."

  "What message? Stop me before I kill again?"

  "No."

  "His name and address?"

  "You wish." She glanced at her watch. "Two more minutes and I'll show and tell."

  "What's that weird goo you've poured all over everything? It doesn't look like dental-stone casting or any of your usual fixatives."

  "My own special recipe. Not an easy thing, lifting an impression off cooking grease."

  "I would imagine not."

  "We took pictures, of course, but there's always a chance that an impression will reveal something not apparent to the naked eye. A fingerprint, a swirl pattern. A minute hair or fiber. You never know. Problem was, all my normal casting agents would've dissolved the grease."

  "So what did you come up with?"

  "Hard to describe. Kind of a combination of plaster of Paris and cotton candy."

  "You're joking, right?"

  She winked. "Great scientists never reveal their secrets." The buzzer on her wristwatch sounded. "It's soup."

  With anyone else, I would've had my doubts, but Amelia knew her stuff. Carefully, Amelia put a gloved hand on each corner and lifted the cast. To her evident delight, it all held together in one perfect piece. Her secret recipe had worked. With an elegant flip, she showed me what was on the other side, what had been fingerpainted into the grease.

  It was reversed, of course, but I could still read it. As it turned out, it wasn't a message at all, at least not in the conventional sense. There were no words. Only…numbers. And symbols. And it wasn't a sentence, it was an equation: