Flynn read her faculty webpage for the twentieth time. Philosophy professor, Lucerne College. Philosophy professor? She didn't look like the crusty old guy he'd had in college. What a waste of time that class was. Well, except for the logic exercises. Deductive reasoning had been known to be of some use to a detective.

Nerdy professors didn't usually have a lot of enemies, though. And any enemies they made were more likely to pick up a poisoned pen than throw a punch. This Mackie guy wasn't some pissed off academic. What he was, in fact, was a five-pound, cherry-studded fruitcake. Was he demanding money? A pardon for some crime? Transportation to a tropical island? No. What kind of nutcase demanded admitting privileges at a tier 2 or better hospital?

And what could possibly tie him to these three women? Gallego had been a middle-aged housewife in Las Vegas. Bristol had been a psychologist in Palm Springs, close to retirement age. The three women had never lived in the same city or even the same county. They didn't go to the same colleges, weren't members of the same political party, didn't have the same hobbies. Bristol had received a hysterectomy 5 years ago, Hughes an appendectomy 20 years ago, but Gallego had never had surgery, so that possible link was a dead end. Flynn was starting to get a bad feeling that this guy had simply chosen three women at random and invented some story about each of them in his deranged mind. If that was the case, he and Provenza could study the womens' biographies as much as they liked and they'd never get any closer to figuring out who Mackie was.

Flynn dry-swallowed a couple of aspirin and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. If they didn't find this Mackie guy quickly, the next few days were going to be a nightmare. Tomorrow, another package, another part. If he stayed true to form, it would be a little finger next time, the cut end neatly sutured. Next day a kidney. Next day it was over.

Provenza's hand fell on his shoulder. "Go get some sleep," he said.

Flynn shook his head. "I'm fine."

"You're just spinning your wheels, and it's not doing anyone any good. Go to the bunkroom for a few hours. That's an order."

Flynn rolled his eyes and sighed, but he went. How did that putz always know?

An hour later he sat up suddenly, smacking his head smartly against the bunk above him. He cursed by pure reflex, but his mind was on the dream he'd just had. An old one, from childhood: he had to take an important exam, but he hadn't attended class all year, and he couldn't find his classroom. He wandered the empty halls, growing increasingly anxious.

"That's it!" He pulled his trousers on hurriedly over his boxers, jammed his feet into his loafers, and grabbed his shirt off the back of the chair. He was still buttoning it over his t-shirt as he strode into the murder room.

Provenza raised his eyebrows. "I thought I told you to get some sleep."

"I did," he said distractedly. He sat down at his desk and started typing impatiently.

Provenza walked up behind him. "You look like hell."

"Leave me alone," Flynn muttered. He continued typing, then finally settled back as he waited for the search results. He ran his fingers through his hair and re-buttoned his shirt the way it was supposed to go. When the computer finally gave him what he wanted, he printed it out and walked it directly to the Chief's office. Provenza followed him.

She was hanging up the phone. There were several empty candy wrappers on her desk, which she made no attempt to hide. That told him how tired she must be. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Chief, I think I know how to find this guy." He handed her the printout.

She looked at it for no more than five seconds and said, "Lieutenant, we've already considered the possibility that he's a failed medical student; Tao's trying to get records of medical school dropouts, and I've asked Fritz to come over and help us out, but it'll still take days to get the information narrowed down. We don't have that much time."

"No, Chief. I'm saying he may not have gone to medical school at all. He might have been stopped before that by his grades or test scores or -"

Brenda sighed. "Dr. Morales says the skills he has shown in all the surgeries indicate medical training, especially the removal of the kidneys from the first two bodies. They would have survived if he hadn't later killed them."

"He could have got that training somewhere else, even in another country."

"Fine, but we're already investigating the possibility that he might be a former disgruntled student of Professor Hughes. The college is working on getting us her grade sheets, but those won't show students who dropped out earlier in the semester."

"Dammit, Chief, will you listen to me for a minute? I know I'm not exactly the brains of this outfit, but I do have ideas sometimes."

The Chief's lips pursed and she looked impatiently at Flynn, her eyes snapping. "Well?" she said.

"Um…"

Provenza cackled as Flynn tried desperately to remember what he was going to say.

"Oh, yeah! The other women – what if there's nothing that ties them all together except Mackie himself? Maybe he blames each of them for his failure, even though the roles they played were very different. Look at the printout – Gallego was a housewife when she died, but twenty years ago she was a junior high school teacher in northern California."

"How could a junior high teacher be responsible for a student failing to get into medical school?" Provenza asked.

The Chief picked up the line of thought. "Well, if she held him back a grade or disciplined him, maybe that kept him from going to some fancy high school he wanted to go to, and then he thought that kept him from a top college."

"Exactly!" Flynn said. "And look at Bristol – she was in private practice her whole career, but there were times when she consulted with school districts to do IQ tests."

"But medical schools don't require IQ tests," the Chief muttered as she stared at the printout.

"No," Flynn said. "But elementary schools often use them to decide who gets into the gifted program."

Brenda's mouth dropped open.

"Huh," Provenza muttered.

"Lieutenants, get Sanchez and Tao to help you. We need records from the school districts these women worked with. Compare them with the college's records as soon as we get them, and see if one name pops up on all three. Hurry."