Текст книги "The Butcher's Theatre"

Автор книги: Jonathan Kellerman

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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

But she fucked it up. What happened was her fault, when you got right down to it. The thoughtlessness, dirtying his heritage.

Dirtying Schwann.

He'd say one thing for Fields: The shitbag had been thorough. Checking foreign phone books, employment and immigration records, physicians' directories, licensing board rosters, motor vehicle registrations. Medical journal obituaries.

Being a private eye was clearly more busywork than brainwork, all that TV stuff pure bullshit.

He learned something: Lots of information was just lying around for the taking, if you knew where to look for it.

One downer: The best information Fields had gotten hold of came right out of Schwann's hospital file-Doctor's hospital, the same hospital he'd been working in for two years! In the Pathology Department, of all places-he'd delivered mail there at least a thousand times, was still doing it, had fondled a stiff there just last week.

All those sacred facts right under his nose and he'd paid a dumb slime to find them!

Overlooking it made him tremble, want to cut himself. He cooled himself down with a beer and a stroke, told himself it was okay to make mistakes as long as you learned.

He'd learned. From a dead man, a fucking scumbag.

It paid to keep an open mind.

Visually, Fields's report was a mess, just what you'd expect from a lowlife slob: cheap machine, ink smudges, bent corners, the text typed on a cheap machine with chipped letters, and marred by typographical errors and slipping margins. In those margins, Fields had scrawled little handprinted comments-the slime had obviously planned on squeezing more money out of him by coming across superhelpful. Writing in a oily buddy-buddy tone that made him wish he could bring the fucker back to life in order to smash him to trash again.

Despite all that, the file was sacred, a bible.

Bless you. Daddy.

He set aside bible time every day, sitting naked on the floor of the ice palace, touching himself. Sometimes he worshipped more than once, memorizing the text, every word was sacred. Staring at the hospital ID photo for hours until the image of Schwann's face was burned into his brain.

His face.

The same face. Clean-cut and handsome.

Handsome, because Schwann had wanted to pass the superhero legacy on to him, had squeezed those face-chromosomes into her filthy womb.

Dominating her inferior tissue with Schwann supersperm. The line of command from father to son, a sparkling clone chain.

Looking at his face, anyone knowing Schwann would have to know. Doctor had been a stupid kikefuck not to have caught it.

No one else had ever mentioned it because they were kike-dupes. Doctor had paid them off.

He intensified his bible studies, started reading…„…the file after every meal. The New New Testament. Book of Dieter, Chapter One, Verse One.

In the beginning, Dieter Schwann was born.

Only child-like him!-of Hermann Schwann and Hilde Lobauer Schwann.

Date of the blessed event: April 20, 1926.

The sacred place: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

("Fancy ski resort for the rich, Doc," Fields had scrawled. "Family probably had money, may still have some. You could try to attach some of their bank accounts but overseas stuff is hard to pull off without an internt'l attorney-be happy to get you a referral.")

Grandma Hilde: Fields had little to say about her. ("Nothing traceable. Died 1962, haven't been able to find out who inherited her estate. A foreign trace might obtain you more.") But he was certain she was beautiful. Clean and cool. And blond.

Grandpa Hermann: a doctor, of course. An important one-two doctorates, M.D and Ph.D. Professor of Surgery, University of Berlin.

Herr Doktor Professor Hermann Schwann, M.D., Ph.D. ("Died, 1952. A Nazi. I checked the Periodicals Index and his name turned up in a 1949 Life magazine article on the Nuremberg trials. Seems he ran experiments at Dachau, was convicted of war crimes and imprisoned after the war. Died in jail. Tough luck for the bastard, eh, Doc?")

Tough luck for slime-o Fields, eh?

Chapter Two, Verse One: Dieter Grows to Manhood.

Supercloner had been a doctor too. A brilliant one-you could tell by reading between the lines of the bible/report:

"M.D., 1949, University of Berlin"-which made him a doctor at 23! "Residency and fellowship in surgical pathology, '49-'51"-they didn't give that to just anyone! "Immigrated to the U.S. on a student visa in '51 for a post-doctoral fellowship in micro-anatomy research. Finished up in '53, and went to New York as a staff pathologist at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital."

Reading between the lines revealed a dual mission to the emigration:

A. Put the finishing touches on a brilliant medical education.

B. Shoot superhero sperm into a womb-receptable until it cloned to perfection.

Fuck the womb-the seed lives on!

Dr. Terrific, alias Dieter Schwann, Junior-no, the second. No, Roman numerals: II. II. II.

Dr. Dieter Schwann, II.

Herr Doktor Professor Dieter Schwann, II: Famous– world-renowned physician, surgical pathologist, micro-anatomist, life giver and taker, cleanser of dirt and scum, mind-picture artist, and man-about-town.

Dieter Schwann had died for the sins of the world, but his seed lived on.

Lived.

A noble story, but the end of the report couched it in lies. The Apocrypha. By trying to conceal the truth, Fields had justified his death a million times over.

It had happened too fast. The slime had deserved a lesson. Real science.

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Still, he didn't tear out the lies, not wanting to alter any part of the bible. Forced himself to read, in order to strengthen his will, harden his heart.

"Schwann left Columbia in '59. They wouldn't say why– his file was closed. (I picked up a hint of something smelly in the ethics department, which makes sense when you follow what happened to the guy.) After that, the State Board has him working in a storefront medical clinic in Harlem-that's a bad black neighborhood-from '60 through '63. The first dope arrest is in '63. He got probation, lost his license, appealed, and lost. No employment record after '63. Second arrest, '64, possession of heroin and conspiracy to sell. A year at Rikers Island-that's a New York City jail-released on probation after six months. Arrested again in '65, sent to the state prison at Attica for seven years. Died of a heroin overdose in prison in '69."

In the margin: "Like father, like son, eh?"

He read the scrawled note for the millionth time, became inflamed with rage. Rubbed his cock until the skin was raw and pinpointed with blood. Clawed at his thighs, tore the skin, pushed through the bad-machine noise, which was as loud as thunder, strong as a tidal wave.

"No records of burial service," wrote Fields. "Probably a potter's field situation (pretty low for a doctor, eh?). No bank accounts or credit cards, no permanent address since '63." In the margin: "I wouldn't count on getting your dough, Doc. This guy may have made a good living at one time but he pissed it all away on dope. Top of that, it's been a couple of years. The foreign angle seems our best bet. What do you think, Doc?"

He thought-he thought-he though the thought.

NOTHING!!!

One summer, two tourist girls from the Midwest got raped and stabbed to death near Nasty and the politicians got all hot and bothered about the crime situation. The cops responded like good little robots, enforcing a ten P.M. curfew, raiding bars and skin joints, busting heads, hauling geeks and creeps off to jail for spitting on the sidewalk.

A threat to his relationship with Nightwing, but no problem for Dr. T.-he was ready to break it off with the ungrateful cunt anyway. Had been figuring out the best way to do it. The best plan.

She was a shallow person, had stopped acting scared but the emotional distance was still there. But she wanted him, said:

"Listen, Doc, no reason for you to boogie away. I found another place. A safe one."

He thought for a while.

"Sure, babe."

There was a big park in the hills north of the boulevard, huge place with a zoo and an observatory and a dozen gates. She told him to drive there, directed him to an obscure gate on the east side, almost completely hidden by giant eucalyptus-a swinging metal frame crossed by wood beams that the park rangers never bothered to lock. She got out of the car, pushed it open, got back in, and they drove through.

The park was oil-black at night. Nightwing pointed left, to a winding road that circled one of the mountains that formed the core of the park. He drove slowly and carefully, with his headlights off, aware of sheer drops on both sides, the city lights that got smaller as they climbed.

They cruised nearly to the top of the mountain, came to a flat turnoff before she said, "Right here. Park under those trees and turn off the engine." When he hesitated: "Come on, don't be a party pooper."

He parked. She got out. "Come on. There's something I want to show you."

He got out carefully. Walked down a twisting dirt path, through walls of trees.

Spooky. But not scared. His body was hard and strong from hours of self-torture and weight lifting, his eyes cat-sharp in the darkness-he was part cat, now. Snowball's contribution to his Aryan ubermensch superconsciousness.

Ubermensch. Kultur. Das Reich. He sang the sacred words to himself as he followed Nightwing's ass-wiggle. Arbeit machl frei.

So many things you could learn in the library.

The librarian at the junior college was an older woman with big tits, not bad-looking, but not his type.

Excuse me

Smile. Yes, what can I do for you?

Uh, I'm doing a term paper on racist literature for Soc. 101. What kind of reference material do you have?

Let's see. The general references would be in the card catalogue-you could try bigotry, racism… prejudice, possibly ethnicity. How far back do you want to go?

Twentieth century.

Hmm. We also have a special collection of Nazi and neo-Nazi literature just donated a few months ago.

Oh? (I know, bitch. A truckload of stuff donated by the wimps at the Coalition Against Racism. Long-haired kikes and spies and niggers wanting to expose the student body to the evils of prejudice, raise the fucking student consciousness. Fucking candlelight ceremony with some hook-nosed rabbi mouthing off about the peace-love-brotherhood scam. Campus paper covered it big-he'd cut out the article, put it in his research file.)

Is that something you'd be interested in looking at? Smiling. The tits jiggling as she talked.

I guess so.

She kept him waiting, went into the back room and came back pushing a trolley of file cases.

Here you go. It can't be checked out. You'll have to read it right here.

Thanks. You've been a great help.

Smile. That's what we're here for.

He wheeled the trolley to a table against the wall, away from everyone else, opened the cases, and found a treasure trove.

Mein Kampf, in English. Gerald L.K. Smith. George Lincoln Rockwell. The Thunderbolt. The Klansman. And classic stuff: Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Der Sturmer with those terrific cartoons.

Truth-tellers.

Their words gripped him, set off something inside of him that he knew was right and real.

He wanted to eat all of it, chew up and swallow every book and pamphlet, infuse it directly into his genetic code.

But not the liars' books.

Whiny, whimpering shit written by kikes and kikesymps about the SS, the death camps, Josef Mengele, M.D., Ph.D. Photos of twin victims, piles of bodies, supposed to repulse.

But they turned him on.

Among the lies, a find: a book on the Nuremberg trials written by some kike lawyer who'd been there. A list at the back, naming the defendants. Noble Herr Doktor Grandpa occupying a place of honor in the S column. His sweet name shining like a beacon.

A fuzzy group picture of defendants at the docket.

The same face!

Hermann to Dieter to Dieter II.

The seed lives!

He returned to the library, again and again, got the trolley and wheeled it to a quiet corner-such a studious boy. Lived with the treasure for weeks while he copied sacred sentences into spiral notebooks, preserving the words, burning the truth into his mind.

The kikes were behind the drug trade, world communism, diseases of the genitals. War and crime. Out to turn the world hook-nosed and filthy.

Gerald L.K. Smith said so. So did George Lincoln Rockwell, Robert Shelton. They proved it with facts, exposed Holocaust lies, the kike-banker conspiracy.

The Fuhrer, persecuted. Grandpa Hermann, framed, dead in a prison cell.

Daddy Dieter dead in a prison cell!

Crucified by nigger-pimp-pushers and the kike drug bankers who bankrolled all of it.

Heil Daddy! He felt like crying

Thin fingers on his arm brought him back to the park, the night air. They'd reached the end of the pathway. Nightwing stroked his hair.

"Come on, Dr. T., it's cool, no patrols. Nothing to get freaked about!"

He looked at her, through her.

Stupid cunt had her mesh blouse unbuttoned, revealing her tits, hands on her hips, trying to look sexy. The moonlight hit her face, turned her into a skeleton, then back to a girl, then back to a skeleton again.

Shifting layers.

The beauty beneath the surface.

"C'mon, cutie." Pointing to a cave. Taking his hand and leading him into it.

Dark, mildew-smelling place. She took a penlight from her purse, switched it on, revealing grooved rock walls, sloping rock ceilings. A June bug, momentarily paralyzed by the light, came to its senses and scampered for cover. Other insects wiggled in the corners of the cave-spiders and whatever. Ignoring them, Nightwing crawled to the far end, showing him her ass under her microskirt, the line of black panties splitting the cheeks. There was a filthy-looking army blanket wedged near the wall. She lifted it, dragged out a cheap vinyl suitcase and opened it.

Watching her practiced movements, seeing the suitcase, he knew she'd been there before, thousands of times, with thousands of other men. Had shared the secret place with them, but not him.

Stupid, unfeeling cunt! After all he'd done for her, she hadn't trusted him enough to show him her little hidey-hole. Not until thousands of others had come up here first, filling her with their lies and their scuzzy jizz.

The last straw. Be casual.

"What's in the case, babe?"

"To-oys." Licking her lips.

"Let's see them."

"Only if you promise to be a good bo-oy."

"Sure, babe."

"Prom-ise?"

"Promise."

The "toys" were predictable: novelty-shop SM props, the stuff seen in the ads at the back of fuck books-whips, chains, spiked boots, an oversized black dildo studded with bumps, a leather domination helmet with straps and buckles all over it.

Yawn.

She put on the boots, lifted her legs to give him a beaver shot while she did it.

Double yawn.

Took off the mesh blouse, put on a leather bra with holes cut out for the nipples.

Borrring.

Then she pulled out the hat. Black silk Nazi officer's hat with a shiny black brim, the SS death's-head insignia above the center of the crown. Under the grinning skull, the double lightning bolts that stood for:

Schwann-Schwann.

"Where'd you get that? Babe?"

"Some-where." Leaning close and running a long-nailed finger down the side of his arm, thinking she was turning him on when all she was doing was shoving hot needles into his flesh.

Putting on the hat. Raising her arm in salute.

"Heil, Nightwing! Da dum, da dum." Putrid smile. Bad German accent: "Vont me to poot it on ven I do you, little Adolf? I giff grreat hat!"

Keep cool. Stay in control. "Sure, babe."

"Hey, feel that! You like this Nazi shit, don't you? Thought so." Salute. "Heil blow-jobs!"

Touching him, unzipping him.

"Look at me, Fraulein Adolfa Titler, ready to suck you all the way to the Fourth Reich. God, you're hard. You really love this, don't you? I found your thing!"

He could have done her the same way he'd done Fields and the nigger, but that was wrong. She deserved better.

Gluing his jaws together, fighting back the noise, acid tears, he said: "Sure do, babe."

She gave a death-eating smile, went down.

They went to the cave three more times after that. The third time, he put sheets, soap, a bunch of water bottles, and the knives in the trunk of the car. The dope was in her purse. He knew from her leg tracks that she'd developed a heavy Jones. Wasn't surprised to find out she was carrying blatantly, disobeying him. Because that was the way a junkie functioned. As addicted to sneakery as the needle.

When he pulled her works out of her purse, she was scared shitless. Relieved-grateful-when he didn't get angry.

Downright orgasmic when he said, "No sweat. I've been too uptight about your getting off, babe. You want to fix, go ahead."

"You're sure?" Already breathing hard.

"Sure, babe."

Before he finished talking, she'd jumped on the works, was panting, fixing, smiling, nodding off.

He waited. When she was totally out of it, he walked back to the car.

The morning after his last date with Nightwing, he woke up with a new sense of purpose, knowing he was ready for bigger and better things. After he'd touched himself to the accompaniment of new real science pictures, he went to work at the hospital, delivered the mail to the Surgery Department, and cornered Doctor in his office.

"What do you want?"

"Been a long time, stud. Cash-in time. I want to go to med school."

Kikefuck was blown away.

"That's crazy! You haven't even finished two years of junior college!"

Shrug.

"Have you taken any science courses?"

"Some."

"Are your grades any better?"

"I'm doing fine."

"Sure you are-oh, great. Terrific. Straight D's and you want to be a doctor."

"I'm going to be a doctor."

Fucker slammed his hand on the desk. His eyes were popping out of his ugly purple face. Mad because an Aryan warrior was breaking into the kike medico conspiracy.

"Now you listen-"

"I want an M.D. You're going to fix it for me."

'Jesus Christ! How the hell do you expect me to pull something like that off!"

"Your problem." Stare-down, melting the fucker by being totally cool.

He walked away with a spring in his step, ready for a bright new future.

Saturday, seven forty-three P.M. Daniel had just finished praying ma'ariv and havdalah, bidding farewell to a Sabbath that, for all practical purposes, had never existed. Talking to God with all the devotion of a nonbeliever, his mind on the case, chewing on the new information as if it were fine filet steak.

He put away his siddur and had started to assemble his notes for the staff meeting when the operator phoned and said a Mr. Vangidder was on the line.

Unfamiliar name. Foreign. "Did he say what it was about?"

"No."

Probably some foreign reporter. Despite Headquarters' blackout on Butcher information, journalists were being their usual persistent selves. "Take his number and tell him I'll call him back."

He hung up, made it to the door when the phone rang again. He considered ignoring it, let it ring, finally answered.

"Pakad?" said the same operator. "It's about this Vangidder. He says he's a policeman calling from the Netherlands, says you'll definitely want to speak to him. It has to be now-he's leaving tonight for a one-week holiday."

Dutch police? Had the Interpol man finally done his Job?

"Put him on."

"Okay."

He waited anxiously through a series of electronic bleeps, hoping he hadn't lost the call. In light of what Shmeltzer and Daoud had found at the Amelia Catherine, information from Europe could narrow the investigation.

The bleeps were followed by a serenade of static, a low, mechanical rumble, then a high-pitched, cheerful voice, speaking in flawless English.

"Chief Inspector Sharavi? This is Joop Van Gelder of the Amsterdam police."

"Hello… is it Chief Inspector?"

"Commissaris," said Van Gelder. "It's similar to a chief inspector."

It was, Daniel knew, a rank above chief inspector. Joop Van Gelder was unassuming. Instinctively, from thousands of miles away, he liked the man.

"Hello, Commissaris. Thank you for calling and sorry for the delay in putting you through."

"My fault, really," said Van Gelder, still cheerful. "I ne-glected to identify myself as a police officer, was under the impression that your Interpol man had passed my name along."

Thank you, Friedman.

"No, I'm sorry, Commissaris, he didn't."

"No matter. We've got more important things to chat about, yes? This morning, your man passed along some homicide data that so clearly matched an unsolved murder in our city that I knew I had to get in touch with you. I'm off-duty, packing for a holiday to England. Mrs. Van Gelder won't tolerate any further postponements, but I did manage to find the file on the case and wished to pass the information along to you before I left."

Daniel thanked him, again, really meaning it. "When did your murder take place, Commissaris?"

"Fifteen months ago."

Fifteen months ago. Friedman had been right about the Interpol computer.

"Ugly affair," Van Gelder was saying. "Clearly a sex killing. We never cleared it up. Our consulting psychiatrist thought it had all the characteristics of the first in a series of psychopathic killings. We weren't certain-we don't often get that kind of thing."

"Neither do we." Or didn't.

"The Germans do," said Van Gelder. "And the Americans. One wonders why, yes? In any event, when no second murder occurred, we weighed two alternatives: that the psychiatrist had been mistaken – it does occur, yes?" He laughed. "Or that the murderer was someone passing through Amsterdam and had departed to do his killing elsewhere."

"Traveling psychopath," said Daniel, and told him about the FBI data.

"Horrifying," said Van Gelder. "I began an inquiry into the FBI files myself. However, the Americans were less than helpful. They put up bureaucratic barriers and when a second murder didn't occur, given our work load…" The Dutchman's voice trailed off, guiltily.

Knowing it would be rude to brush off the lack of thoroughness, Daniel said nothing.

"We can check suitcases for bombs," said Van Gelder, "but this kind of terrorist is harder to spot, yes?"

"Yes," said Daniel. "A person can buy knives anywhere. Even if he uses the same ones over and over, there are ways to transport them that can be legitimately explained."

"A doctor."

"It's one of our hypotheses."

"It was one of ours too, Chief Inspector. And for a while I thought it would help solve the case. Our records check revealed no matching homicides in the rest of the Interpol countries, but an almost identical crime did take place in September of 1972 in Sumbok-it's a tiny island in the southern region of the Indonesian complex that used to be a Dutch colony. We still consult to the local police in many of the colonies-they send their records to us biannually. One of my clerks was sifting through the biannual reports and came across the case-an unsolved mutilation homicide of a sixteen-year-old girl.

"At first we thought there might be a tribal link-our Amsterdam victim was an Indonesian-half-Indonesian, really. Prostitute by the name of Anjanette Gaikeena. It seemed possible that her murder might have been related to some primitive rite or revenge plot-an old family score to settle. But her family turned out to have no connection whatsoever to Sumbok. The mother is from Northern Borneo; the father is Dutch-met the mother while serving in the army and brought the family back to Amsterdam eighteen years ago.

"When I read about a sex murder there, I was puzzled, Chief Inspector. Sumbok really is an insignificant little bar of sand and jungle-a few rubber plantations, some cassava plots, no tourist trade at all. Then I remembered that a medical school once existed there: The Grand Medical Facility of St. Ignatius. No connection to the Catholic Church-the 'saint' was used for its official sound. It was a fourth-rate place at best. Unaccredited, the barest of facilities, but charging very high tuition-a money-making scheme, really, run by unscrupulous American businessmen. There was a dispute about taxes; the Indonesian government closed it down in 1979. But back in '72 it was functioning, with over four hundred students-mostly foreigners who'd been denied acceptance anywhere else. I managed to obtain a '72 faculty list and student roster, ran a check with our passport files during the time of the Gaikeena murder, but unfortunately found no match."

While Van Gelder talked, Daniel had pulled out the list of American homicides from the FBI data bank. Shehadeh: March '71. Breau: July '73. The Sumbok homicide fell neatly in between.

"Do you have that roster handy, Commissaris?"

"Right here."

"I'd like to read some names for you, see if any of them appear on it."

"Certainly."

None did.

"Too easy," said Van Gelder. "It never is, yes?"

"Yes. I'd like to see the roster anyway."

"I'll cable it to you, today."

"Thank you. Tell me more about your homicide, Commissaris."

Van Gelder described the Amsterdam killing: Anjanette Gaikeena's savaged body had been found in a fish-cleaning shed near one of the docks on the northeast side of town.

"It's a rough part of the city," said the commissaris. "Just above our famous red light district-have you been to Amsterdam, Chief Inspector?"

"Just once, last year, on stopover. What I saw was beautiful, but I had no real chance to tour. However, I did see the district." No chance to do anything but wait out a two-day sentence of house-imprisonment in an apartment suite, babysitting half a dozen Olympic rowers and football players. Listening to the athletes' nervously rowdy jokes with half an ear, one hand wedded to his Uzi. The athletes had grown irritable and difficult to manage, had finally been allowed a single excursion. Unanimous choice: the famous whores of Amsterdam.

"Everyone sees the district," said Van Gelder, somewhat sadly. "However, the part of the dock where Gaikeena was found isn't one of our tourist spots. At night it's deserted, except for prowlers, drunken sailors, and other undesirables. The shed was left unlocked-nothing to steal but herring bones and a warped old table. She was on the table, laid out on white sheets. The wounds match your first one precisely.

Our pathologist said she'd been anesthetized with heroin, at least three knives were used, sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, but not necessarily a surgeon's scalpel. What impressed him was how clean she'd been washed-not a.trace of fiber evidence, no semen, nothing for serum typing. A local soap had been used on the body and the hair, the brand most commonly provided by many hotels, but millions of bars are sold each year here-that's not much of a lead. We tried to trace the purchaser of the sheets, with no success."

"Was she killed on the spot?"

"Unclear. However, she was definitely washed and drained there. The shed contained a large trough for gutting and washing fish, large enough to hold a woman of Gaikeena's size. It ran out to sea, but there was a bend in the pipe before it reached the sluice gate. Traces of human blood were found mixed in with the fish waste."

Thorough procedure, thought Daniel. But useless.

Van Gelder was thinking the same thing. "We reviewed our list of known sex offenders and knife-weilders, put every one of them through hours of interrogation, talked to the girl's habitual customers, interviewed every prostitute and procurer in the district to see if they remembered who she went off with that night. There was no shortage of leads, but all were false. Given what we know now about this traveler, it was a waste of time, yes?" The Dutchman's voice lost its cheer and took on a sudden intensity. "But now you may have him, my friend. We'll work together."

"Those names I read to you," said Daniel. "It would be nice if any of them turn up on your passport records."

"All of them are serious suspects?" asked the Dutchman.

"As serious as we've got." Daniel knew Van Gelder wanted more, a ranking of the names in terms of seriousness; he regretted not being able to provide it. "Anything you can find out about any of them would be tremendously helpful."

"Should a passport check prove positive, we'll be glad to pursue it with the hotels, the airlines, tour bus operators, canal boat drivers, local merchants. If any of those people were in Amsterdam during Gaikeena's murder, we'll provide you with the most precise records of their whereabouts and activities that we can muster. I'll be in England for a week on holiday. While I'm gone, the man to talk to is Pieter Bij Duurstede." Van Gelder spelled it, said, "He's a chief inspector, a very conscientious fellow. He'll contact you immediately if something turns up."

Van Gelder gave Daniel Bij Duurstede's direct-dial phone number, then said, "Meanwhile, I'll be watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace."

Daniel laughed. "Thank you, Commissaris. You've been tremendously helpful."

"Doing my job," said Van Gelder. He paused. "You know, we Dutch pride ourselves on our tolerance. Unfortunately, that tolerance is sometimes mistaken for passivity." Another pause. "Let's catch this madman, my friend. Show him we have no tolerance for his brand of evil."

Everyone was on time, even Avi, looking like a schoolboy with his short haircut and clean-shaven face; the skin where the beard had been, a sleek bluish-white.

Daniel turned to the summary of the medical charts and began:

"All three of them were patients at the Amelia Catherine. Nahum and Elias obtained the files this morning and I've abstracted the contents. Both Fatma and Shahin were seen at the Women's General Health Clinic, which is held three out of four Thursdays a month. The second Thursday each month is devoted to specialty clinics for women-gynecology and obstetrics; eye diseases; ear, nose, and throat; skin and neurology. Juliet attended Neurology Clinic to get a refill of her epilepsy medicine.

"Fatma first: The Thursday before she left the monastery, she was seen, treated for a vaginal rash and pubic lice. The American nurse, Peggy Cassidy, seems to have done most of the actual examining and treating. According to her notes, Fatma came in claiming she was a virgin, had no idea where she could have picked up the lice, or the rash-which turned out to be a yeast infection, something called Candida albicans. During the health screening interview, however, she quickly broke down, admitted she'd been havingintercourse with her boyfriend, had brought shame upon her family, and had been kicked out of her home. Cassidy described her as "suffering from an agitated depression, fearful, isolated, and lacking in psychosocial support.' In addition to the guilt about losing her virginity and fear of her family, Fatma was convinced she'd given the lice to Abdelatif and was terrified he'd find out and leave her-though we know from Maksoud, the brother-in-law, that the reverse was probably true. Abdelatif consorted with prostitutes, had infected Maksoud's entire family with lice more than once.