“The answer is no.”

  “Talk about Hamet Ajax.”

  “Doc Ajax?” Yoder’s nearly invisible brows rose in surprise. “What about him?”

  “You tell me.”

  “He’s Indian.”

  Slidell offered an upturned palm.

  “Not a talker, it’s hard to know.”

  “He a good doctor?”

  “Good enough.”

  “Go on.”

  “What do you want me to say? Patients seem to like him. He treats the staff okay. I don’t know anything about his personal life. The docs don’t hang with the drudges.”

  “Ever hear any complaints? Rumors?”

  “What are you getting at?” Yoder’s eyes hopped to me, back to Slidell. They were a peculiar avocado green.

  “Just asking.”

  “No.”

  “Ever get any bad vibes?”

  “From Doc Ajax? No.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Is Alice Hamilton working today?”

  Yoder’s fingers stopped. “Now I get it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Her and the doc.”

  “Go on.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a piece of that myself.” His lips squashed up in a smarmy grin. “If you catch my meaning.”

  Slidell looked at him coldly.

  “Hey, I’m not casting stones.” Raising and splaying both hands. Which were peppered with tiny flakes of dry skin.

  “You saying Ajax and Hamilton are doing the two-headed roll?”

  Yoder hiked both shoulders and brows.

  “Where is she?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Not for a while.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  Yoder considered the question. “Nah. She’s a part-timer.”

  Slidell gave Yoder the usual mantra about calling if he thought of anything further. We left him scratching and staring at Slidell’s card.

  Before leaving the hospital, Slidell asked a supervisor about Hamilton’s next scheduled shift. Learned she was off until Wednesday. Obtained contact information, a mobile.

  Slidell dialed as we crossed the parking lot. Got a recorded voice. Next he phoned the surveillance team. Learned Ajax hadn’t left home since being deposited at six.

  I glanced at my watch. Half past ten and we’d accomplished zip. The adrenaline fizz had long since faded.

  Still smarting from Slidell’s speed-dial remark, I didn’t ask his plans.

  I got into my car and headed home.

  Inspired by Yoder’s skin storm, I took a quick shower.

  Ryan called as I was dropping into bed. I stacked pillows behind me and put him on speaker. In the background, I could hear frenetic male voices.

  “How goes it?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Watching the Habs pummel the Rangers.”

  “At eleven P.M.?”

  “DVR, baby.”

  I told Ryan about the phone calls made outside Mercy. About Ajax.

  “Sonofabitch. How’d he act?”

  “Cool as a snake. Ajax was on duty in the ER when Donovan and Leal presented. Slidell and I are talking to everyone else who worked both shifts.”

  “What do his co-workers say about him?”

  “One CNA hinted he had something going with another CNA. Otherwise the interviews were a bust. No one knows diddly about Ajax. No one remembers much about Donovan or Leal. How about you? Any luck with McGee?”

  “The mother was on the level. Tawny did take some CEGEP courses.” Ryan used the acronym for Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel, a type of post-secondary school unique to Quebec.

  “Where?”

  “Vanier. I talked to some profs. No one remembers her. Not surprising. She attended for a little while, dropped out in 2006. Then it’s as if she fell off the planet.”

  “Did you ever hear back from the psychiatrist?”

  “Yeah. Pamela Lindahl. You met her in ’04, right?”

  “Only briefly.”

  “Your impression?”

  “She seemed genuinely interested in Tawny’s welfare. Why?”

  “I don’t know. She’s odd.”

  “Psychiatrists are all odd.”

  “I can’t put my finger on it. She seemed to be hinting at something she wouldn’t come out and say.”

  “Did you ask why she took Tawny to de Sébastopol?” Not relevant. But the outing still troubled me. I couldn’t see the upside.

  “She claims she was opposed to the idea, but Tawny insisted, like it was some rite of passage. When the kid wouldn’t let up, Lindahl consulted colleagues, they said go for it, so she finally agreed.”

  “The house was sealed after the fire. How’d they get in?”

  “Lindahl called the city, and someone did a safety inspection. Though damaged, the building was structurally sound. Given the special circumstances, they were allowed to visit. I’m not sure of the whole story.”

  “What did they do there?”

  “Mostly sat in the parlor.”

  “Did Tawny venture into the basement?”

  “Yeah. Lindahl passed on that. Figured the kid needed to be alone.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Lindahl stayed in contact even after funds for treatment ran out.”

  “How long?”

  “Until the kid cut herself off in 2006.”

  “Does she have thoughts on where Tawny might be?”

  “If so, she’s not sharing them.”

  “Did you ask about Jake Kezerian?”

  “Lindahl’s comments weren’t flattering.”

  “Does she think he’s the reason Tawny took off?”

  “She refused to speculate.”

  “Did Anique Pomerleau come up in their sessions?”

  “She’s not at liberty to say.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Tawny is a patient. And an adult. Anything they discussed is privileged.”

  “Did you ask about the potential impact of our contacting Tawny?”

  “Lindahl felt revisiting the past would be painful.”

  “No kidding.”

  A pause.

  “You really think Ajax could be our guy?” Ryan asked.

  “Slidell does.”

  “How’d he hook up with Pomerleau?”

  “Unless Ajax cracks, we may never know. But after Oklahoma, he worked in New Hampshire.”

  “Somehow they meet. Paired with Pomerleau, things escalate to murder.”

  Nothing but hockey as we thought about that.

  “Here’s what bothers me,” I said. “Ajax is a pedophile. But these homicides show no sexual component.”

  “Who knows what’s sexual to these freaks. Our doer takes souvenirs. Maybe the rush comes after the kill.”

  “Maybe it comes from controlling the victim.” Continuing Ryan’s train of thought. “From dictating minute personal choices—hair, clothing, body position.”

  “Moment of death.”

  I heard a match strike. An expulsion of breath.

  “Why kill Pomerleau?” Ryan asked. “And why shift to Charlotte?”

  “Better climate?” I didn’t believe it.

  “Then why the delay? Why go to New Hampshire, then West Virginia?”

  “Ajax needed time to rebrand himself.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Pomerleau probably told him about Montreal. About my role in bringing her down. Maybe that excited him. It’s not uncommon for serial killers to try to up the ante.”

  “Increase the danger, increase the thrill.”

  “The danger being me.”

  We both considered whether that had legs.

  “How about this,” Ryan said. “Ajax wants to be arrested. He loathes what he’s doing but can’t stop himself.”

  “Subconsciously, he wants me to catch him?”

  “While consciously, he tries to avoid it.”

  “Hmm.”

  The voices exploded into a frenzy.

  “Who scored?”

  “Desharnais.”

  “Why would Ajax, or anyone, continue to strike on dates significant to Pomerleau?”

  “He’s taken over her compulsion? Or maybe, unknowingly, he’s sending out a clue.”

  “A clue I would understand.”

  “That plays.”

  “And the next date comes in less than six weeks.”

  Little happened over the next forty-eight hours.

  Turned out Ajax couldn’t reconstruct his movements on the day in 2007 when Nellie Gower disappeared. He was in New Hampshire by then, but the clinic’s pay records didn’t reflect exact dates worked, and it didn’t keep schedules going that far back. Neither did the doctor.

  As in Charlotte, Ajax had lived alone, in a rental home on the edge of Manchester. He ventured out only to work, shop, and run errands, never socially. He did not attend church. He had no colleague with whom he was close, no friend or neighbor with whom he discussed gardening or sports. No one to contact to help jog his memory.

  Ajax claimed to be at the hospital or at home on the dates Koseluk and Estrada went missing. Tinker worked on verifying his hours with Mercy. Talked to people there.

  Ajax’s lawyer refused access to phone, credit card, and bank records. Tinker started the process to obtain warrants.

  Leal was a different story. Ajax knew exactly where he was the Friday she was abducted.

  November 21 was a rare day off. That afternoon he shopped at the Morrocroft Village Harris Teeter, then at a Walmart on Pineville-Matthews Road. Filled and washed his car at a service station one block up.

  That evening he ate dinner at home, then went solo to see a film at the Manor Theatre. Unfortunately for him, he’d used no credit card, kept no receipt, no ticket stub.

  Slidell showed Ajax’s photo to employees at the stores, gas station, and theater and requested surveillance video for the day in question. Began viewing it.

  Barrow continued with video taken from locations Leal had frequented in the months before her death. Phoned out to Oklahoma. Learned Ajax’s wife and daughters had moved back to India.

  Rodas floated Ajax’s picture in Hardwick and St. Johnsbury. No one recognized him. The man who serviced the furnace at the Corneau farm said he’d been too far away to see the guy’s face.

  Tuesday morning the IT tech phoned Slidell. He’d found a visitor to the dysmenorrhea chat room he thought might be of interest. HamLover. Ham. Hamet. Slidell told him to do what it took to identify the user.

  Tuesday afternoon, under increasing pressure from the media, the CMPD press office agreed to a news conference. It took place in the courtyard outside the LEC. Under a sunny sky, Salter and Tinker fielded queries on the Leal homicide. Gave no real answers. Didn’t mention Lizzie Nance or the other girls. Didn’t mention Hamet Ajax.

  Leighton Siler asked question after question, face knotty, clearly frustrated. Got nothing. Didn’t matter. Eventually, Siler or some hungrier or craftier rival would reveal details of the investigation in braying headlines.

  I phoned Heatherhill several times, never reached Mama. Left messages knowing she wouldn’t call back. When the demons stir, my mother distrusts all forms of communication. Calls, texts, and emails stop.

  Luna Finch said Mama was listless, sleeping more than usual. And that she’d contacted Cécile Gosselin.

  I hung up, breath coming in wobbly heaves. Mama had summoned Goose to her side.

  • ••

  Wednesday morning Ajax made a mistake.

  To my amazement, Slidell came by the annex to share the news. It was just past nine. He looked haggard and smelled of coffee and too much drugstore cologne.

  “The dumb shit drove right up to a school.”

  “When?”

  “Seven-twenty this morning.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In a cage at HQ.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “He was dropping off food for a Christmas campaign for the poor. Says he drives by the school every day, noticed their thermometer thingy wasn’t indicating a whole lot of donations. Wanted to give them canned peas and pasta.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Don’t matter. A pedo can’t go within a thousand feet of a school.”

  “A thousand feet?”

  “Whatever.”

  “The restriction doesn’t apply if Ajax is no longer required to register.”

  “We’re checking that out.”

  “Why is it taking so long?”

  “Must be a glitch out in cyberspace.”

  “When did you—”

  “Jesus Christ and the freakin’ Mousketeers. The guy raped a kid. He pulled into a school yard.”

  “Would you like coffee?” A kick in the nuts?

  “I got a warrant coming.”

  “Allowing you to do what?”

  “Toss Ajax’s house.”

  “You’re going there now?”

  Slidell nodded. “I want to be done and gone before Ajax’s lawyer finds out. Same goes for Siler and his bloodsucking cronies.”

  “How long does that give you?”

  “We got full radio silence on this. Still, not long.”

  “Where does he live?”

  Slidell held up a small page with ripped and twisted tabs running along one edge. An address was scrawled sideways across the blue lines.

  “You got us to this turd,” he said. “Figure I owe you.”

  Larabee called as I was brushing my teeth. A kid had found a trash bag full of bones in the northern part of the county. Nothing urgent, but he wanted me to examine them.

  Then it was Harry. That was a long one.

  I was pulling on jeans when Rodas took a turn. The toxicology report had come back on Pomerleau. She had neither drugs nor alcohol in her system at the time of death. I told Rodas about Ajax’s trip to the school. About the search warrant.

  Ninety minutes after Slidell’s departure, I finally broke free.

  Ajax lived in the southeastern slice of the Queen City pie, close to Charlotte Country Day School, Carmel Country Club, Olde Providence Racquet Club. Big homes, big yards. Golf and pinot on the links. Lacrosse and Milton at school. Land of the nouveaux and not so nouveaux riches.

  Slidell’s scrawled note led me to Sharon View Road, a narrow two-laner with old-growth trees lining both shoulders. Sunrise Court was a small spur shooting from the south side.

  The block held ten residences, all the creation of a single developer enthralled with timber and stone. Entrance was through a faux wrought-iron gate decorated with a plastic wreath. I keyed in the code Slidell had provided, and drove through. No big pines or live oaks here. The scraggly saplings suggested fairly recent planting. Or a paltry landscaping budget at the time of construction.

  Ajax’s house was at the far end, above the others on a slight rise. Like its neighbors, upmarket but not over-the-top. Unlike its neighbors, devoid of Santas, reindeer, icicles, or elves.

  Ajax’s lawn was neat, the shrubbery basic. Hollies. Boxwoods. Nothing requiring attention.

  Slidell’s Taurus headed a line of vehicles circling the cul-de-sac curb. Two cruisers. A CSS truck. An unmarked SUV. Skinny wasn’t messing around.

  I added my Mazda to the assemblage and got out. Walking up the drive, I noticed movement in the front window of the house to my left. A silhouette stood with arms crossed, eyes pointed in my direction. Though a reflection off the glass obscured the face, body form suggested the curious neighbor was male.

  I hurried up stone steps to a darkly stained door. Tried the handle and found it unlocked.

  The foyer had a slate floor, oil-rubbed bronze sconces, and a matching bronze fixture overhead. To the left, a powder room. Straight ahead were living and dining rooms. In each was a CSS tech in white Tyvek coveralls. One was taking pictures. The other was dusting dark powder onto a door frame.

  Voices came from somewhere in back and to the left. Loud. Unhappy.

  A mound of disposable Tyvek shoe covers lay on the slate. I slipped on a pair and moved forward.

  The house’s interior looked like an attempt to re-create an old black-and-white photo. The upholstery, rugs, and walls were all variations on gray. Fog. Ash. Sweatshirt. Steel. Chartreuse accessories added splashes of color. Throw pillows. A mirror frame. A chair. DVDs crammed built-ins beside a fieldstone fireplace. A small flat-screen TV hung above.

  In the dining room, a dove-gray drum chandelier dangled over a table set with chartreuse place mats. In the middle, candles that had never been burned. A chartreuse ceramic bowl sat perfectly centered on a sideboard. A painting of bright green poppies decorated a wall.

  I wondered if Ajax or the builder had chosen the decor. Suspected the latter. The place had a cold, impersonal feel. As though the furnishings had been purchased at Rooms To Go and Pottery Barn, then placed exactly as displayed in a magazine spread.

  I nodded to the techs as I wound my way toward the kitchen. They nodded back.

  Slidell was on one side of a brown-granite-topped island. Tinker was on the other. Both wore shoe covers and latex gloves.

  “—couldn’t like him or not like him. They don’t know him. The woman next door thought he worked at an Apple store.” Tinker looked red-faced and cross.

  “Track down the ones you missed.” Slidell looked crosser.

  “I’ll get the same story.”

  “You’re the one pushed for this.”

  “You don’t think Ajax is dirty?”

  “I’m not saying that,” Slidell snapped.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying if Salter learns about the stall on Oklahoma, it’s my balls on a rusty hook, not yours. Not to mention blocking Ajax from his lawyer right now.”

  “Or is it that those balls are already gone? Once burned, twi—”

  “Get the fuck out there and bring me something!”

  Tinker started to reply, heard my plastic-bottomed footies slapping the tile. Mouth tightening into an inverted U, he spun and stomped off.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “We’ve been through the whole friggin’ place. So far, nothing. No porn. No girls’ clothing. No key, no ring, no ballet slippers. No boarded windows, no padlocked doors. Nothing to suggest a kid was ever in here.”