"A scavenger hunt with corpses. So that's what you came up with," Elizabeth remarked motionlessly as she looked at Paul Matthai's corpse. She took another careful breath before turning to her colleague. Someone should open a window!

Matthai's apartment was only a few miles away from Praetorius' practice

"How long has he been dead?" Mike asked Maggie, who had arrived at the scene as quickly as possible.

"He lost a lot of blood from the mutilations, just like Praetorius. But judging by the smell alone, it could be about two days."

"Did he die before Praetoruis or after him?" Elizabeth asked as she inspected the high school teacher's apartment more closely.

Maggie looked at her wife with a frown. "I'm sorry about that. You'll have to wait for the target photo. And if you're unlucky, the times of death will be so close together that I won't be able to tell for sure."

Paul Matthai had been beaten to death with a blunt object in the bedroom of his apartment and then prepared on his bed for the staging that his murderer had intended for him. The killer had then used fishing line to tie him to a chair in the living room, which had been placed at the dining table. This time, however, no skeleton had been placed next to the dead man. The chair opposite was empty but had been carefully positioned as if someone was sitting on it. One of the textbooks Matthai had used to teach his students biology lay open opposite the dead man, the teacher's sawed-off forearms next to it. One of them was lying half on top of the book, and the perpetrator had stuck a ballpoint pen between the fingers of the other hand. Matthai had also had one of his little fingers removed, which the perpetrator had taken with him. In addition, the victim's tongue had been cut out and was lying directly on the paper of the book page, forming the gruesome climax of the dreadful picture.

"A teacher teaching himself," Elizabeth analyzed the scene with furrowed brows. "It's slowly getting lighter in the dark."

"You mean he's telling us a story?" Mike asked as more forensic technicians entered the apartment around him.

"That's true too. But most importantly, we know what he's up to." Elizabeth didn't look at Mike at any point during the conversation. Instead, she kept looking around the apartment. "He's leaving me puzzles that lead to his next victim. If I'd found the notes in the book quicker and deciphered the message in them faster -"

"Don't even start!" Mike interrupted his captain. "You couldn't have saved Matthai!"

"I know," Elizabeth replied, taking a deep breath. "Human lives aren't important to Ishmael. He doesn't think wanting to save them is sufficient motivation. That would be far too ordinary for him, downright profane."

Instead of answering immediately, Mike preferred to go to the now-open window to breathe in the fresh air. The coppery aroma of congealed blood drifted toward the investigators from the bedroom, and the incipient decomposition of the dead man added to the odor in the small apartment.

"And what were you getting at then?" he finally asked.

"If I had found the message faster, we would already know who the third victim is."

"You mean Ishmael didn't want to give Matthai any chance of survival with his riddle but simply wanted to make sure that you didn't discover his body too quickly?"

"Exactly," Elizabeth praised the young man. "And from now on, the puzzles get easier. He's shifting the weight of the game in a different direction now because he's about to have a problem. He's killed all his victims in just one day, and if I take too long to find them, the bodies start to stink up their homes. In that case, neighbors will call the police, and Ishmael's fun will be ruined. He's not going to risk that."

Maggie had finished the post-mortem by now. She removed her latex gloves and replaced them with fresh ones to not leave any additional traces at the crime scene. Then she approached her wife. "It took him much less time to do this than with Praetorius," she reported. "He only had to saw off the forearms, which is quick and doesn't make as much of a mess as removing organs. He left the saw on the bed; it seems to have come from Praetorius' practice. In any case, it's a surgical saw."

"And the tongue?"

"He used special clamps to remove it, which he also left here for us. He used them to pull it out of the victim's mouth as far as he could and then cut it out with a straight stab. Very skillful, by the way! The little finger, well, we know that. A matter of seconds -"

Elizabeth didn't comment further. Instead, she called out to her investigators: "How many more chapters do you think his story has? The doctor treats himself, and the teacher teaches himself. What's next?"

Both Mike and most of his colleagues lowered their eyes and fell silent.

"Have you discovered anything yet?" Mike finally broke the silence. "A clue to the next puzzle?"

"I need more details. What was Matthai? A patient or a private acquaintance of Praetorius?"

Mike immediately went to the analysts in the BRIC after his captain's call and searched the data on Praetorius' laptop for the name Matthai. "He was a patient. For quite a long time. How did you actually -"

"I need Matthai's medical records and anything you can find out about him immediately. If Ishmael sticks to his guns, he'll hide his riddle with a contradiction. So, to see what doesn't fit in this apartment, I need to know everything you can find out about Matthai, okay?"

"I'll get right on it!" replied Mike, nodding a greeting in Maggie's direction and then swiftly leaving the scene to gather the requested documents.

xxx

The presence of the dead, especially when the victims had been violently torn from life, had always had a remarkable effect on Elizabeth. As a child, she had imagined that a corpse was something gruesome, perhaps even disgusting. In reality, however, the dead only inspired respect in her. A feeling of respect that she rarely felt for a living and that was triggered solely by the confrontation with finiteness.

After the body had finally been taken away and Mike had left, Elizabeth looked at Matthai's apartment for a few minutes. She opened all the cupboards, looked at the letters lying around, and read the notes scattered around the apartment. Matthai had enjoyed taking photographs; the apartment had an expensive camera and various lenses. But it was mainly a strange black box under the victim's television that piqued Elizabeth's interest. However, before she could look into it any further, she was snapped out of her thoughts by a familiar voice.

"So you've cracked the code?" Nikki called, having just entered the apartment with Mardas.

Elizabeth had phoned her daughter thirty minutes earlier to inform her of the new development.

"It was quite simple," she replied, "and then incredibly complicated again. But never mind, that's in the past; I'm now interested in Ishmael's next riddle."

"Do you have an idea yet?" Mardas wanted to know.

"What's that box under the TV?" replied the captain, pointing to the table.

"You're asking me that? With my understanding of technology?" the sergeant replied coolly. Then, he detached himself from his colleagues to take a closer look at the device.

Nikki took a deep breath with a furrowed brow. "So it's a teacher this time," she stated with an undertone that made her mother sit up and take notice.

"He taught at your old high school.

Nikki acknowledged the answer with an ambiguous nod.

Elizabeth had not forgotten that her daughter had wanted to talk to her about something mysterious that morning. "What's wrong with you? What's all this fuss about?" she asked her daughter.

"All right," the younger woman capitulated. "There's nothing to hide from you anyway, so I'd better get it over now."

Elizabeth recognized a mixture of concern and doubt in Nikki's gaze, which worried her. At that moment, the activity in the apartment and the lingering smell of the corpse were forgotten for her. "Out with it," her daughter finally demanded.

Nikki hesitated briefly, then grabbed Elizabeth's forearm and pulled her mother into the hallway without further ado. "Okay," she whispered, "but not here!"

xxx

Elizabeth's unmarked car was parked not far from the entrance to the large apartment complex where Matthai had lived. She had now taken a seat in it with Nikki. The captain had to yawn. She had hardly had any restful sleep during the night.

"First of all, you can do what you like, of course," Nikki began, sitting far less relaxed in her seat than her mother.

Elizabeth was still quietly looking at the house where Paul Matthai had been murdered, lost in thought, while her daughter pulled her iPhone out of her pocket and called up the pictures Nick had sent her. "I saw you at the mall a little while ago, and I'm sorry I didn't talk to you. But I had a feeling you wouldn't have wanted me to. I kept quiet until today but can't do that anymore."

Nikki had agreed with Nick that she would attribute Alexandra's observation to herself to give Elizabeth the feeling that she knew about what had happened in the shopping center.

Elizabeth remained silent. Instead of examining Nikki's cell phone and the announced pictures, she closed her eyes. "That irritated you. You'd like to know what was going on," she finally said, her eyes still closed.

"I'm sure you can imagine."

An almost blissful silence hung in the car for a moment when Nikki finally showed her mother the display of her cell phone. She only opened her eyes briefly to look at the picture. "And I'd been so careful not to let anyone see us together," Elizabeth stated so matter-of-factly that it was almost scary for Nikki.

The pictures showed Elizabeth, dressed beyond recognition, having lunch with a young man. With his braces, fashionable hairstyle, slight acne on his face, and clothes that were far too loose on his lean body, the teenager looked so young that Nikki hardly dared to guess his age.

"He's almost a child," the young woman observed. "Thirteen?"

Elizabeth grinned inscrutably. "When the pictures were taken, he was fourteen. Now he's fifteen."

The matter-of-factness with which Elizabeth answered Nikki's question gave the young woman hope that she might have misinterpreted the situation even if this seemed extremely unlikely to her. "And who is the boy?"

Elizabeth opened her eyes and pressed a button to start the car's engine, then drove off without notice. "Who do you think the boy is?" she finally asked.

"The son of friends?"

The captain drove remarkably fast. Soon, she entered the city highway and pressed the accelerator pedal much harder than she should have, given the speed limit. "I'd probably be able to tell my neighbor that," she admitted. "But I'm afraid you're too clever for an excuse like that. Come on, Veronica, what have I taught you about deduction?"

In long conversations with Nikki over several bottles of beer, Elizabeth talked about concluding facts about the logical causes behind them. Elizabeth was aware that her daughter had already drawn these conclusions.

"I'm sorry," the detective apologized in advance while Elizabeth kept making risky maneuvers past vehicles that were keeping to the speed limit.

"It's all right," replied the captain. "I just shouldn't have been caught. So?"

Nikki inevitably checked the fit of her seatbelt before answering her mother's question as sincerely as she could. "You're disguised, so you wanted to remain undetected. That suggests you did something you couldn't or wouldn't do openly. That rules it out since there would be nothing dishonorable about babysitting a friend's son. Your body language and facial expressions show you are emotionally attached to the boy. And then there's your dysfunctional relationship with women."

"Obviously?" Elizabeth repeated as if her daughter was joking.

"Before Maggie and during your marriage break, when were you seeing a woman who had nothing to do with the BPD?"

Elizabeth licked her lips as she gripped the steering wheel of her car tighter. "And from all these conclusions, what conclusion do you come to?"

Nikki felt dizzy. Not only was she overwhelmed by the situation, but she was also unaware of why her mother was speeding down the highway. "Ma, we all know that before Maggie and Mom, you had relationships with men, and that's okay. And if you're more attracted to men again and honest with yourself and Maggie, that's okay. But a fourteen-year-old? I'm not going to go along with that. He's just a kid!"

Elizabeth gritted her teeth at regular intervals and nodded slowly. "So you're assuming I have a thing for boys?"

Nikki was still resisting this realization. How, she thought, could her mother have kept this secret from her and her family for so long? "If there's any other reason for this meeting, tell me, Ma!"

"Who else knows about this besides you, Mike, Nick, and Alex?"

"Excuse me?"

"The day I met with the boy, you were on duty. At the time this picture was taken, you were writing a report. I can even tell you where it was filed. Nick was on duty, too, but his ex may have seen me in that shopping center. For all I know, she was having a visit from her family at the time."

Nikki gave up. "All right, Alex saw you. But no one knows except us. Now tell us: Who was the boy?"

Elizabeth shook her head slowly. "There are answers you don't want to give," she began, "and answers you can't give."

"And what kind would this be?"

"I'm afraid it's an unhealthy mixture of both."

Elizabeth's disarming candor almost knocked Nikki for a loop. "Ma, if you're having an affair with that boy, you're not just risking your job!"

"Is that what you're talking about?" the captain replied mockingly. "About my job? Or is it not rather the mother, which you are not, who is afraid that her little one, which you don't have, will grow up and look for the bad wolf as a playmate?"

"None of this suits you at all," the young woman defended herself against the increasingly apparent realization.

"What doesn't suit me? That I'm in love with a younger man?"

"It's not a fucking joke, ma! You represent the law. What if Ben had a boyfriend who was forty years older?"

Elizabeth raced on calm along the city highway. "So you think I'm capable of having a young, crunchy lover boy? That's almost flattering." Then she became more serious. "What must I do to keep the four of you quiet about your observation?"

"First of all, tell me what we observed."

"I can't do that," Elizabeth insisted with furrowed brows. "But why are you only coming up with this story now? The meeting took place almost six months ago. I mean, only one conclusion can be drawn from that."

"Which is?"

"You're afraid that Ishmael's appearance might have something to do with the fact that your captain and mother like to have fun with little boys. He knows my secret and now wants to show the world what bad things the captain does."

"You said Ishmael was too young to murder McMillan back then."

"You're assuming he was maybe one of my toyboys back then whose family doctor found out what he gets up to when Mom's not around? That's why he got McMillan out of the way. To protect a secret, his mommy wouldn't have been proud of?"

Nikki couldn't deny that she had thought about it, even if the thought was deeply repugnant to her. "Is it?" she asked bravely, fearful of the answer.

Elizabeth gritted her teeth again and shook her head. "In that case, I would have recognized Ishmael. No matter how much older he had become since then. And I would know his name and how to find him. I don't know what you see in these pictures. And even if I'm not going to tell you what it's all about, I'll at least tell you one thing: I loved Sarah and Leonore, and I love Maggie!"

"And why is a teacher who taught teenagers, of all people, dead now?"

Elizabeth couldn't deny that this must look suspicious in her daughter's eyes. "Matthai only died for one extremely tragic reason," she explained. "Because his name was Matthai! The boy Alex saw me with has nothing to do with this case. And that's all I'm going to tell you."

Elizabeth momentarily took her eyes off the road and looked at Nikki in a way that made her feel like her mother was heartfelt. She had noticed this look in her mother in so many conversations together, and her impression had never been wrong.

"We need to agree on something more important now," she explained to her captain. "This thing here will remain our secret for now. However, the two of us will check every event in our case with Nick and Mike to see if there might be a connection. If there isn't a connection, I'll delete the pictures from my phone and my memory, and everything will be fine. But I won't stand idly by and watch you ruin your life for a student with braces!"

"All right then," Elizabeth agreed. "That seems only fair to me."

Nikki now realized that they had left Boston in the meantime. "Where the hell are we going all this time?" she finally wanted to know.

"To Hartford. I want to find out where Ishmael got his car."

Nikki no longer understood the world. "I think they'd email you the list too!"

"But then we wouldn't have a chance to eat at Max Downtown. I haven't eaten properly for two days because of Ishmael. I'm starving so slowly."

Nikki tried to assess her mother's nonsensical plan. "It'll take us at least two hours to get to Hartford," she estimated.

Elizabeth grinned and stepped on the gas pedal a little more. Then she replied: "Not today."