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PT asked, “Did you just use the word ‘brouhaha’?”
“You hang around Win long enough…” Myron replied. “Anyway, you told Win and me. You didn’t swear us to secrecy. You gave us enough information to figure out a few of the other cases. You knew we would act on it, and it would get out into the world, just like this.”
Silence. Then: “No comment.”
“I’m not a reporter,” Myron said. “There’s no need to comment.”
“I believe that my role should always be clandestine, but the Bureau itself should be transparent,” PT said. “Does that make me a hypocrite, Myron?”
“It makes you a man of principle who doesn’t like innocent people languishing in prison for the sake of optics.”
Myron drove the car past the Port of Elizabeth, which had one of those oil refineries that probably inspired the set for the Terminator movie, then past Newark Airport. A few miles later, the Manhattan skyline rose into view.
“By the way,” PT said, “I didn’t know the Ronald Prine murder was connected.”
“There hadn’t been an arrest yet.”
“Still,” PT said. “Good work on that.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you and Win going to stay on this?”
“I can’t speak for Win.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I have a question for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“We took a hard look at these cases last night,” Myron said.
“When you say ‘we’—”
“Win, Esperanza, yours truly.”
“Go on.”
“We see the patterns, of course, but what we don’t see are the connections.”
PT said, “Ah.”
“Ah what?”
“The—what did Sadie Fisher call him?—the Setup Killer?”
“The Setup Serial Killer.”
“Terrible name.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I hope the media comes up with a better one,” PT said. “Look, I despise calling serial killers ‘evil geniuses,’ but let’s face it—this guy is close. He was careful. He was smart. He took his time, not only in staking out the murder victim but more so in framing the—shall we call them second victims?”
“Ruining two lives for the price of one,” Myron said.
“Yes. It’s one thing to enjoy killing people. That’s a sickness we are somewhat familiar with at the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. But to also get a thrill out of sending an innocent person to prison? That’s a true double hit of psychotic behavior.”
