He sighed, and I could hear a head shake in his voice. “Do you know how many people have already claimed to be there at the house, hoping to get that twenty-thousand-dollar reward? Last I heard there were close to a hundred.”

“I’m surprised it’s not more.”

“I’m wondering if we should take a closer look at the senator’s life,” he said.

“What are you thinking?”

“Maybe he was pressured to make that offer. Compromised in some way.”

“Blackmail?”

“Possibly.”

“If we start poking around, we’ll need to tread softly. He is a ranking member of Congress.”

“Not to mention a good friend of the assistant director,” he noted.

“Yes.”

“I’ll put some feelers out. I can be a soft treader when I need to be.”

I was filling him in on the suicide videos when he yawned and then apologized. “Sorry. It’s not you. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“That makes two of us.” I thought of that living mannequin head I’d envisioned, like a death mask that was trying to tell me something important through its bloodless lips, something I wasn’t able to understand. “The more I have on my mind, the less sleep I tend to get.”

“You must not get much sleep at all then, brother.”

“Admittedly, there are times when it’s a bit slim.”

“So what’s the plan for today?”

“I’m going to check on the receipt I found in that woman’s jacket—the parking lot receipt from the garage over near the federal building. At least it gives us a time and a place to work from.”

“Besides, most people in Manhattan don’t even own a car. And with what it costs to park in the city, we should be looking for someone on the high end of the socioeconomic scale. That narrows things down.”

“If the driver was even from New York City at all,” I reminded him.

“Be careful with assumptions, right?”

“Always. Oh, and I’m planning to have lunch with Dr. Werjonic.”

“The Dr. Werjonic?”

“Yes. He was my advisor for my postgrad studies. He’s lecturing here in the city this week.”

“That guy’s a living legend.”

“I’m hoping to be able to pick his brain a little. Maybe get some inspiration or direction related to the case.”

“Sounds good. Alright. Talk to you soon.”

After the call, I found myself caught up thinking about the implications of the senator’s press conference until Tessa joined me in the kitchen.

“Okay,” she said. “So with Mom at that monastery, I’ve been thinking about monks and nuns and stuff. For some reason that got me thinking about Easter.”

“Alright.”

“You ever been to an Easter egg hunt?”

“When I was a kid.”