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Both Savich and Lily were on their feet. “What is it, Sherlock?”

“Daniel O’Malley. Danny Boy. Someone killed him. Lily, can you—”

“If you’re thinking about asking Mom, hang it up. Sean’s mine. Go.”

Sean wanted to go too. It took a couple of minutes to convince him that rolling his red ball over his Aunt Lily’s stomach would be more fun.

DANIELO’MALLEY HADN’T died easily. He’d fought, hard, but his killer had been stronger. He’d been strangled with his own St. Christopher medal.

He lay sprawled on his back in the narrow hallway that led from the living room to the bedroom of his apartment. His fingers were cut where he’d tried to get them beneath the heavy chain. The living room had been ripped apart—his one sofa, which looked like it had come from his parents, was turned facedown, a big TV chair ripped apart, the television smashed, all the dozen upon dozen of books pulled off the shelves, many of them ripped in two.

His apartment was on Biltmore Street N.E., near the middle of a long block in a blue-collar neighborhood that had undergone some recent gentrification. The apartment was small—a narrow living room, tiny kitchen, with everything in it smashed, the refrigerator open, milk pooled in the craters on the old linoleum floor. There was one bathroom, again with everything on the floor, a long skinny bedroom, three dead plants lined up on the windowsill, the only things that hadn’t been destroyed. The mattress was turned over and slashed open. All the drawers in the small dresser were pulled out, shorts, undershirts, socks, pullovers thrown on the floor. Everything in the small closet was shredded, including two pairs of shoes.

They heard quiet weeping from the kitchen.

Jimmy Maitland and the medical examiner nodded to them in the hallway. Savich and Sherlock went down on their haunches beside Detective Ben Raven. He looked over at them. “You can thank Mr. Maitland for getting me here. He also called the dozen task force team leaders. This place is going to fill up pretty soon. He thought it would be more efficient than calling everyone together again at FBI headquarters.”

“Is Callie with you, Ben?” Sherlock asked.

“Yes, she’s downstairs in the car. I ordered her on pain of dismemberment to stay there.”

Savich said, “Good, no one wants her to see this.”

They studied Danny O’Malley’s body. “It’s like Justice Califano,” Sherlock said. “He really fought, but in the end, the murderer toyed with him, let him think he could pull the chain free, but he couldn’t, of course. The killer is strong, guys, he’s very strong.”

“And sadistic,” Ben said. “He enjoyed this as much as he did strangling Justice Califano, got a real kick out of Danny’s struggles, gave him a whiff of hope, then strangled him right through his fingers.”

Sherlock said, “I wonder if he brought his own wire, then saw Danny’s chain and decided that would do the job just as well.”

Savich nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s probably right. He would have come prepared. He knew he was going to kill him, no doubt in my mind.”

Jimmy Maitland crowded in beside them. “There’s got to be some useful physical evidence this time. The guy was looking for something. Even the bathroom, it looks like a hurricane went through. The killer didn’t care, just destroyed, even the mirror and the medicine cabinet, glass everywhere, all the pill bottles open, pills scattered on the floor. He even ripped up the shower curtain. Still, we’ll go over this place thoroughly, just maybe he didn’t find what he was looking for.”

“Or maybe he wasn’t looking for anything. He was enraged and wanted to destroy everything,” Ben said.

“That’s possible,” Maitland said. “But I hope you’re wrong, and the murderer was looking for something.” Jimmy Maitland rose and went off toward the kitchen.

Savich and Sherlock continued to examine Daniel O’Malley’s body. “Do you smell that? It’s like the Fantastik we use to clean the counters and bathrooms at home.” She raised Daniel O’Malley’s fingers and sniffed. “The bastard scrubbed under his nails, cleaned away any skin and