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“Did you ever take anybody over there? School friends or . . .”

“Or rough trade, Officer Graham?”

“That’s right.”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Not once.”

“Did he ever mention any kind of threat, was he ever disturbed about anything in the last month or two before it happened?”

“He was disturbed the last time I talked to him, but it was just my grades. I had a lot of cuts. He bought me two alarm clocks. There wasn’t anything else that I know of.”

“Do you have any personal papers of his, correspondence, photographs, anything?”

“No.”

“You have a picture of the family. It’s on the dresser in your room. Near the bong.”

“That’s not my bong. I wouldn’t put that filthy thing in my mouth.”

“I need the picture. I’ll have it copied and send it back to you. What else do you have?”

Jacobi shook a cigarette out of his pack and patted his pockets for matches. “That’s all. I can’t imagine why they gave that to me. My father smiling at Mrs. Jacobi and all the little Munchkins. You can have it. He never looked like that to me.”

Graham needed to know the Jacobis. Their new acquaintances in Birmingham were little help.

Byron Metcalf gave him the run of the lockboxes. He read the thin stack of letters, mostly business, and poked through the jewelry and the silver.

For three hot days he worked in the warehouse where the Jacobis’ household goods were stored. Metcalf helped him at night. Every crate on every pallet was opened and their contents examined. Police photographs helped Graham see where things had been in the house.

Most of the furnishings were new, bought with the insurance from the Detroit fire. The Jacobis hardly had time to leave their marks on their possessions.

One item, a bedside table with traces of fingerprint powder still on it, held Graham’s attention. In the center of the tabletop was a blob of green wax.

For the second time he wondered if the killer liked candlelight.

The Birmingham forensics unit was good about sharing.

The blurred print of the end of a nose was the best Birmingham and Jimmy Price in Washington could do with the soft-drink can from the tree.

The FBI laboratory’s Firearms and Toolmarks section reported on the severed branch. The blades that clipped it were thick, with a shallow pitch: It had been done with a bolt cutter.

Document section had referred the mark cut in the bark to the Asian Studies department at Langley.

Graham sat on a packing case at the warehouse and read the long report. Asian Studies advised that the mark was a Chinese character which meant “You hit it” or “You hit it on the head”—an expression sometimes used in gambling. It was considered a “positive” or “lucky” sign. The character also appeared on a Mah-Jongg piece, the Asian scholars said. It marked the Red Dragon.

13

Crawford at FBI headquarters in Washington was on the telephone with Graham at the Birmingham airport when his secretary leaned into the office and flagged his attention.

“Dr. Chilton at Baltimore Hospital on 2706. He says it’s urgent.”

Crawford nodded. “Hang on, Will.” He punched the telephone. “Crawford.”

“Frederick Chilton, Mr. Crawford, at the—”