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Savich said, “Dr. Conrad is good. If there’s anything to find, he and the forensic guys will find it.”

They rose, stood looking down at the young man’s body, the gray pallor, the bulging eyes, the smell of waste his body had expelled—no, Sherlock couldn’t see him with a bugle now, uniform sharply pressed, standing on the shore of Ireland. Twenty-six years old and he was dead. “He was so young, so—new. Maybe Eliza was wrong, maybe he would have turned out to be Danny Boy, a bugle under his arm, fighting for justice, maybe he wouldn’t have turned into a money-grubbing kind of lawyer. Why was he murdered?”

Savich said, “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel good.”

“No,” Ben said. “It doesn’t. Why was the place torn apart?”

Sherlock said, “The killer was looking for something. But what? What could a law clerk for Justice Califano have that was so important for him to find?”

Savich said, “There’s lots to consider here, but like I said, I have a bad feeling about this. And about Danny. Let’s speak to Danny’s girlfriend. Hopefully she’ll know what was going on with him.”

Jimmy Maitland was looking both pale and furious when he walked back from the kitchen. “Damnation, this makes me mad, a young kid like this, why the hell did this maniac kill him?” He looked down at Danny O’Malley’s body. “He was so damned young. It burns me to the ground.”

Sherlock said, “You find out anything from the girlfriend?”

“His girlfriend—her name’s Annie Harper—said she and Danny went to a movie Friday night, couldn’t tell me what it was. She said Danny loved Italian flicks, the ones with subtitles. She spent the night with him. She said he was really upset about Justice Califano’s murder when he heard it on the news Saturday morning. I’m going to shut up now. I want you guys to speak to her, form your own opinions, but I’ll tell you, she’s a mess right now, incoherent really. Came over here, had a key, let herself in and found him.”

“It sounds like she belongs in the hospital right now,” Sherlock said. “They’ll probably want to sedate her. And we’ve got to call her family.”

Jimmy Maitland nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s the way to go. Hope to God she’ll know what was on his mind. I don’t mind telling you, I really don’t like this.

“Okay, let me get Annie Harper to the hospital. I’m going to leave it to Dr. Conrad and the two forensic teams. We’ve got people out canvassing the neighborhood. The twelve team leaders are here. Come into the living room when you’re done.”

“Oh yeah, best to put a guard on her, just in case,” Savich said.

Maitland nodded.

Five minutes later, twelve agents stood amidst the wreckage of the small living room. When Maitland spoke, everyone fell silent. “We want every person who knew Danny O’Malley interviewed again as quickly as possible. Check alibis and phone records. The canvassing of Danny O’Malley’s neighborhood hasn’t turned up anything yet, but we’ll continue pounding the pavement, speaking to every neighbor—and you can believe we’ll get all the warrants we ask for.

“You all know the drill. Our murderer worked fast. What was he looking for when he tore up Danny’s apartment? We need to find that out.

“Danny was killed within twenty-four hours of Justice Califano, according to Dr. Conrad’s preliminary examination, which means he was killed early this morning or very late Saturday night. Annie Harper, his girlfriend, didn’t spend the night on Saturday.”

“That was her good luck,” said Agent Ollie Hamish. “She’ll realize that soon enough.”

Maitland said, “Yes, she will, and then she’ll have to live with it. Danny’s murder brings us so close I can taste it. It’s someone in this bloody loop, someone we’ve already met and interviewed, not some deranged stranger, not someone on the outside. Let’s get it done, today, all of it.”

Savich said, “We’re going to focus on the following scenarios. First, there’s some connection between Danny O’Malley and Justice Califano, something in Danny’s background that ties them together. If this is the case, we’ll find out what it is.”

Savich drew