30.

At two o’clock Wardell called. “You looked great on TV,” Kirsten told him.

He told her that after “that bullshit” he’d had to go downtown to the Dirksen Federal Building, with the cops from the other jurisdictions, to meet with an FBI profiling team. He didn’t sound thrilled.

“Take a lot of notes?” Kirsten asked.

“Hey, they were full of insights. New stuff … if you never saw a Hannibal Lecter movie. Gotta give ’em credit, though, these are guys who’ve found their niche, and truly enjoy their work … which is mainly talking to each other.”

“And you’re headed back to Rockford right away?”

“Soon as I pick up my damn car.” It sounded like he was walking down the street. “What you got for me?”

“Have you had lunch?”

“I’ve had about eight doughnuts and a gallon of coffee since ten o’clock. Just tell me whatever you got.”

“We should talk in person.” She hesitated, then jumped in. “I know who the next victim’s going to be.”

“Yeah, me too. It’ll be some priest who—”

“No, I know which priest it will be. And I know the one after that, too.”

“Uh-huh.” He thought she’d gone over the edge, she could tell. “So, have you notified the appropriate law enforcement agency?”

“I’m notifying you. Like I said I would. As to the guy, he seems safe enough for the moment. We really need to talk in person.”

“I just spotted the garage where my car is, and I’m sure as hell not gonna wait around and get caught in rush hour. I’ll call you from the road, and—”

“You don’t believe me. And you won’t, not unless we sit down and go over it. If you’re not interested, I’ll take what I have elsewhere.” As if she had some elsewhere to go. “But,” she said, “I know where we can meet.”

She told him and he agreed. Which was good, because she was already there, waiting for him.

*   *   *

“Great,” Wardell said. He lifted the cup that would start him on his next gallon of coffee. “So the killer is spelling out your name with his victims. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”

“I didn’t say it made sense,” Kirsten said. “Serial killers aren’t famous for making sense. Maybe your FBI consultants failed to point that out.”

“My FBI consultants pointed right up their collective—”

“Serial killers are psychotic, or psychopathic, or whatever. They’re crazy, anyway. And often enough they’re highly intelligent people who get drawn into fantasies and…” She paused. “Anyway, we don’t need to get into all that stuff here.”

Here was a booth in a McDonald’s along I-90, just northwest of O’Hare Airport on the way to Rockford. Convenient for Wardell, which was the point. For Kirsten it was out of the way, but at least she got an edible chicken salad.

“Look,” she said. She took the sheet with Michael’s list of eighteen names from her folder and put it on the table between them. “The three that are dead already and the one presumed dead—presumed by me, at least—are lined out. Kanowski, Immel, Regan, and Stieboldt. That’s K-I-R and—”

“I know the alphabet. And you look. This freak is almost certainly some crazy mope who was abused by one of these creepo priests as a kid. Now he’s striking back. What makes you think he even knows who you are?”

“Whoever it is—and there’s at least a chance it’s a woman—is smart, smart enough not to leave a trace so far, at least not until Stieboldt. He also seems to know an awful lot about the men he’s after.”

“You just said it might be a woman.”

“Thank you,” she said. “So, if this person has studied the priests on the Sun-Times list, he or she—”

“We don’t even know if the killer—and the possibility it’s a woman is about zero—is working from that list.”

“The killings started shortly after the list appeared,” Kirsten said. “Every victim so far is from the list. Some of these men have never been identified publicly as sex abusers. So without the list how would whoever it is know that?”

“Kanowski was charged and convicted. That’s public. Regan messed with about a dozen kids and the archdiocese was sued because of him. That’s public.”

“Immel, though,” she said, “that was kept quiet. And so was Stieboldt.”

“We don’t even know yet that Stieboldt’s dead.”

Kirsten shook her head. “Now you’re just arguing for the sake of argument. He’s a victim, isn’t he?”

“Maybe he’s the psycho. Maybe he chopped off his own fingers to throw us off.”

“Right. Jesus.” She took a bite into her salad and thought a moment. “I think the killer’s working from the list, and my uncle is on it.” She pointed. “Michael Nolan.”

“Uncle?” He stared at her. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Yeah … well … it never came up. Anyway, my uncle’s case was made public a couple of years ago in a lawsuit by the parents of the girl he … he had sex with. And anybody who checked could easily find out I’m his niece. Also, I helped him when he was sued.”

“You helped him? A fucking child abuser?”

“You’re helping him, too. Trying to catch whoever wants to kill him.”

“Because that’s what they pay me for. Catching bad guys. I don’t give a fuck who the victims are. That’s different.”

“Whatever, but the killer knows who Michael Nolan is, and could easily find out I’m his niece and that I’ve helped him in the past. I still see him fairly often, too. Maybe the killer thinks helping an evil man is evil. So I’m evil, too, and he wants to—”

“What, you think this maniac is gonna go after all the relatives of these child fuckers, too? Gimme a break.”

“The families of a lot of these guys probably abandoned them long ago. My own mother wouldn’t even talk to her brother, my uncle. And until he got sued I never knew why. I’m just saying I’m on record as trying to help him. I got my husband to represent him in the lawsuit.”

“Then your husband’s nuts, too.”

“My husband feels the same way you do about Michael and the rest of them, but … you know … he’s my husband.”

“Right. So that’s it? That’s what you got? A fucking alphabetical coincidence?”

“Coincidence? Four victims. Four last names starting with letters that start to spell out my name. The odds against that are forty-seven million to one.”

“You made that up.”

“I know. It’s probably way higher than that. But there’s something else.” She took out a photocopy of the postcard, front and back, and laid it on the table in front of Wardell. “A few weeks ago I picked up my mail at my office and found this. Look at how it’s addressed to me. With a label which was cut off a magazine, one that had earlier been taken from my office.” She tapped her finger on the copy. “See the message? ‘Here I come.’ That’s not creepy?”

“Creepy, maybe.” He looked up from the card. “But tied to these killings? No.”

“The day I got the card was the very day Kanowski was killed.” She went on to tell him about someone puncturing her tire, “which happened Tuesday, the day Regan got it, and the day before Stieboldt,” and about the magazine having been returned—minus its mailing label.

“You’re sure it’s the label from that particular magazine?” Wardell asked.

“Leroy Renfroe says it is.”

“Well then, it is.” Renfroe’s expertise was widely respected.

“And yesterday it was returned, put back on the table … inside my locked office. A lock which could be picked by a ten-year-old, true. But still…”

“So yeah, maybe someone’s trying to mess with your mind. But that still doesn’t show a connection with these killings.”

“K-I-R-S,” Kirsten said, and tapped her finger on the list again. “K-I-R-S. And there’s one T on the list and that’s—”

“I told you … I know the goddamn alphabet. The only T is this guy Truczik.” He shook his head. “Christ.”

“You don’t have to tell anyone you actually buy what I’m saying. But it has to be brought to someone’s attention, and at least they’ll listen to you.”

“I gotta check with my boss before I say anything beyond him.”

“I guess I’m not going to get any medicals, huh? Or autopsy reports?” He shook his head, and she said, “Was Regan sliced up, too?”

“Yeah.”

“While he was … alive?”

He nodded. “Pretty bad.”

“And that happened late Monday or early Tuesday, Stieboldt was taken Wednesday evening, and today is Friday. So you can’t waste a lot of time thinking about what I—”

“Hey!” Wardell glared at her. “I don’t need you to tell me my fucking job. Got it?”

“I’m just saying…” She shrugged. “Meanwhile, I’ll cover Truczik. It’s what, four o’clock?” She checked her watch. “He’s safe for now … in the middle of a round of golf at a course right there at the seminary. I’ll get there before he’s—”

“Golf?” Wardell pointed toward the windows behind her and she turned and was shocked at how dark it was getting outside. “You oughta leave your radio on,” he said. “A big thunderstorm coming out of the northwest. High winds, heavy rains, maybe some hail. Lightning, for sure. The seminary’s in Mundelein, right?”

“Right.” She was already on her feet. “About due north of here.”

“Better hurry. That golf game’s gonna be called off before you get there.”