“This might be a moment or several.” She began playing Rubik’s Cube with the two sets of prints, trying to place them together, enlarging and shrinking, rotating them, moving them from side to side. The room was silent, every eye on the screen.

She adjusted her elaborate, green-framed glasses, studying it carefully. She spoke in Italian.

Ercole said, “She believes this is the Composer’s print, three partials combined into one nearly whole.”

Beatrice began to type fast as a machine gun. She said something in Italian. Ercole turned to Rhyme and Sachs. “She has sent it already to Eurodac, Interpol, Scotland Yard, and IAFIS, in the United States.” Beatrice sat back but kept her eyes focused like gun muzzles on the print.

Spiro was about to ask a question but Ercole said, “And I asked the owner of the station but he saw no one at the trash bin. And his employees did not either.”

The prosecutor nodded with an expression that explained that this was to have been his question. He opened his mouth once more.

Ercole said, “And no CCTV.”

“Ah.”

After two excruciating minutes, a noise interrupted. A beep from Beatrice’s computer. She bent to the screen and nodded.

“Ecco. Il Compositore.”

She turned the monitor toward them.

The face of a bearded, shaggy-haired man was on the screen. It was a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Sheriff’s Office mug shot. He was pudgy and stared at the camera with piercing brown eyes.

Below was the text that accompanied the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System report. “His name is Stefan Merck, thirty years old. He’s a mental patient, committed indefinitely for assault and attempted murder. He escaped from the hospital three weeks ago.”

Chapter 55

Amelia Sachs, on her phone, turned back to the room and announced, “I’ve got the director of the mental hospital in Pennsylvania. She’s Dr. Sandra Coyne. Doctor, you’re on speaker.”

“Yes, hello. Let me understand. You’re in Italy? And this is about Stefan Merck?”

“That’s right,” Sachs said. And explained what her patient had been up to.

The woman reacted with silence, presumably stunned. Finally she spoke. “Oh, my,” she said in a husky voice after a moment. “Those kidnappings in Naples. Yes, they made the news here. The stories said the crimes were modeled after one in New York, I think. But it never occurred to us that Stefan might be the one behind them.”

Rhyme asked, “What’s his diagnosis?”

“Schizophrenic personality, bipolar, severe anxiety disorder.”

“How did he escape?”

“We’re a medium-security facility. And Stefan had been on perfect behavior since he’d been here. He had grounds privileges and apparently some very careless landscapers left a shovel outside. He found it and dug under the chain link.”

“He was committed for attempted murder?”

“At another facility, yes. He permanently injured him. He was found incompetent to stand trial.”

Rossi said, “I am an investigator here, in Naples. Please, Doctor. How could he have paid for this, the trip? He has resources?”

“His mother died years ago, his father disappeared. There was some trust money and he’s had some relatives visit recently, an aunt and uncle. They might have given him something.”