"Dr. Williams, will you excuse me? There's another call coming in, and I really should get it."

"Of course. Why don't you just call me when you're ready to see me?"

"I will. Thank you for understanding."

He clicked the receiver button and picked up the second call. It was Nelson, and he sounded stone-cold sober.

"I am so so sorry. Can you ever forgive me for acting like a damn fool?" sorry. Can you ever forgive me for acting like a damn fool?"

"Of course," Lee answered.

He filled Nelson in on his theory about the locksmith store.

"That makes sense," he agreed, "because he would probably have a van with the company logo on it-a perfect way to transport the bodies."

"And a place to do the killing away from prying eyes."

"Yeah, that too," Nelson said. "So what did he say to you in the hospital?"

"He went on about being a servant of God, that kind of thing."

"Anything else?"

"Not really-mostly how he was on a holy mission."

"So he's a true believer."

"Looks like it." The sound of the killer's voice was still fresh in his ears, and Lee continued to have the feeling he had heard it before-but where? An image popped into his head of Nelson lecturing in the crowded classroom, and then it struck him. The voice belonged to the thin young man at the far end of the hall-whose face he had never seen.

"Do you have a listing of all the students signed up for your class?" he said.

"Why do you ask?"

"Do you remember that thin blond boy with the raspy voice?"

"Let's see...I think so."

"Who is he?"

"I don't recall his name offhand, but he said he was doing a makeup class or two because he missed a lecture in Dr. Zellinger's class."

"I think that's him."

"You mean him? him?"

"Yeah-I think he's the Slasher."

"Oh my God. If you're right, then he could have posed as building maintenance, or even picked a lock on a side door."

"Sure," Lee answered. "The main security gate at John Jay is up front, but no one guards the side entrances."

"So he's been watching us all this time."

"That explains how he knew who I was-and you too."

"Damn. So we had him under our noses under our noses all that time! Goddamn it!" all that time! Goddamn it!"

"Let's just focus on getting him, okay? I'll see you first thing tomorrow morning."

"Right."

After he hung up, Lee looked at the Seth Thomas clock on the mantelpiece, a gift from his mother. It was ten o' clock.

He looked out the window one last time before going to bed. He could feel the Slasher, out there in the darkness, waiting for him, waiting, "I'm coming," Lee whispered. "Ready or not, here I come."

Chapter Sixty-two

By 8:30 the next morning all the members of the task force were seated around the table in the conference room, a pile of phone books scattered over the big oval table. Florette and his sergeant sat at two computer terminals, doing their search online, while the rest of them leafed through the Queens phone book.

"Not too many locksmith shops will have Web sites, I'd think," Chuck said, peering over their shoulder.

Florette turned to look up at him. "Maybe, but you never know."

"What are we lookin' for, exactly?" Butts sneezed as he dialed a number. He was coming down with a cold, and his pockets bulged with tissues.

"Names and addresses of the owners," Lee replied.

"How will we know when we find the right one?"

"We won't," Nelson growled from the corner, where he sat, sucking at an unlit cigarette, a phone book balanced on his lap. He was looking more cheerful than the previous day, since as it turned out, the FBI was too swamped to send anyone for at least a week.

"We'll just start within a three-mile radius of the church, and go outward from there," Lee said. "Assuming that he lives near his shop-"

"Which is a pretty big assumption," Butts sniffled.

"Which, I was just going to say, is a pretty big assumption."

"Hey," Butts said, "do you remember the day that first girl died, and a locksmith showed up at the church? Claimed there was a broken lock in the basement?"

"Yeah," Lee answered. "It turned out there was a broken lock, but no one seemed to know about it at the time."

"You think that was him, coming in to check on his handiwork?"

"I think it's likely. He's been close to the investigation all along, it seems, in one form or another."

"Too bad we didn't detain him for questioning then."

"How could we know?"

"Yeah," Butts said. "I guess you're right. Still, it really burns me that he was right there-"

"Never mind, Detective," Chuck Morton said. "Let's concentrate on the task at hand."

They sat for about twenty minutes, dutifully collecting names and addresses of owners, when Lee chanced to put in a call to a place called Locktight Security Systems. It had a big ad splashed over half a page in the Yellow Pages.

We make sure that you stay safe-it's our business! All the latest technology in locks and security systems

Lee dialed the number. A kid answered-unenthusiastic, bored.

"Locktight Security."

"May I please speak with the owner?"

"Uh, he's not here right now."

"When will he return?"

"I dunno, really."

"What's his name-can you tell me that?"

"Uh, sure, I guess. It's Sam. Sam Hughes-or Samuel, he likes to be called."

"And he lives in...?"

"Queens. Not far from here. Can I ask who's calling?"

"I'm an old friend. I'll try back later-thanks."

He hung up and sank back in his chair.

"What is it?" Chuck said, noticing him. "You got something?"

"I'm not sure. Remember how we kept seeing the name 'Samuel Beckett' on all those church volunteers lists?"

"Why, did it come up again?"

"Not exactly. Guy's first name is Samuel, though. I just have a feeling. Let me try something."

He called back, and when the boy answered, did a passable stab at an upper-class British accent.

"I say, my good man, I'm trying to get in touch with Mrs. Hughes, Samuel's dear mother, old school chum of hers. He lives with her, I believe?"

There was a pause. Lee was afraid the kid wasn't going to buy his act. But then he snickered.

"Yeah, sure he does. Guy's pushing thirty, and he still lives with his mother."

"I see. Do they still live on the same street-oh, what was it...?"

"Lourdes Street."

"Yes, of course! Number-"

"Number 121."

"Right. Thanks ever so much. Cheerio."

He hung up, to find everyone staring at him.

"Cheerio?" Nelson said. "Cheerio?" "Cheerio?"

Lee made a face at him. "I was improvising." He looked at Butts. "Want to go out to Queens and check this out?"

Butts muffled a sneeze in a wad of Kleenex. "Yep-you bet!"

Fifty minutes later, Lee and Detective Butts emerged into the diffuse glare of an overcast sky, the sun struggling to assert itself through a thick gray cloud cover. Lourdes Street was a few blocks from the subway, right across the street from St. Bonaventure Catholic Church.

The Queens neighborhood had the smell of defeat. The houses were depressing little boxes with peeling paint, crumbling bricks, and cheap aluminum siding, stained and battered with age, overlooking cramped lots with rocky lawns-if you could call them that-of crabgrass and overgrown weeds. The occasional lawn ornament-mostly plaster dwarfs and religious figures-only reinforced the aura of hopelessness.

The same attitude of resignation was stamped upon the faces and slumped shoulders of the residents, who shuffled along the ill-kempt sidewalks, heads down, eyes focused on the cracked slabs of concrete, probably to keep from tripping and breaking their necks.

"This is it," Butts said, pointing to a little white house crammed between its equally undistinguished neighbors. Like many of the other properties, it was surrounded by an ugly chain-ink fence. Number 121 was a little neater than some of the others. The walk was swept, and a small concrete pond was adorned with a white plaster Virgin Mary, perched next to a statue of a fawn drinking from the pond.

The front gate on the chain-link fence creaked when they opened it, and their footsteps clicked loudly on the concrete path leading up to the house. When they reached the front door, Lee lifted his hand to knock, but saw that the door was cracked open. He pushed on it, and it swung forward on well-oiled hinges but then stopped, as though something was blocking it. There were no lights on inside the house, and no sign of life within its whitewashed stucco walls.

"Mrs. Hughes?" he called out through the opening.

No response.