“Can we get their names?” Sachs asked.

“Yes, I’ll find them in the files.” She took down Sachs’s contact information and said she’d send the information as soon as they hung up.

“Is there anything you can think of,” Sachs asked, “that might help us understand why he’s doing this?”

After a pause, the woman said, “Stefan has his own reality. His world is a world of sounds and music. Nothing else matters to him. I’m sorry to say we don’t have the money or authority to give patients like him access to what would help. In Stefan’s case, instruments or the Internet. He’s told me for years he’s starved for sounds. He was never dangerous, never threatening, but something must have pushed him even further from reality.” A pause, then she said, “You want to know the kind of person you’re dealing with here? In one session he told his therapist he was very depressed. And why? Because he didn’t have a recording of Jesus’s crucifixion.”

Those words resonated with Rhyme. He sometimes imagined walking the grid at famous historical crime scenes, using modern forensic techniques to analyze the crimes. Calvary was perhaps number one on his list.

Sachs asked, “Why Italy? Any connection here?”

“Nothing from his past. But I do know that just before he escaped, in one session, he kept referring to a special woman in his life.”

“Someone with an Italian connection? Can we talk to her?”

A laugh. “That would be pretty difficult. It turned out he was referring to a three-thousand-year-old mythological being. Euterpe, one of the nine muses in Greek and Roman lore.”

“The muse of music,” Ercole said.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Sachs asked if there were any special foods he might eat, any special interests he had—anything that might help them find stores or places he would tend to go.

She could think of nothing, except to add the curious comment that Stefan didn’t care about the taste of food. Only the sound of eating. He preferred crunchy foods to soft.

Hardly helpful, from an investigative perspective.

Rhyme asked if she had pictures of Stefan other than the mug shot.

“Yes, let me find them. Give me an email.”

Rossi recited the address.

A moment later they appeared, a half-dozen images depicting a stout, intelligent-looking young man with perceptive eyes.

Spiro thanked her.

The woman added, “Please, obviously, he’s suffered a break, a bad one. But until now, he’s always been eminently reasonable. With these kidnappings, he’s become dangerous. That’s clear. But if you find him please, before you hurt him, just try to talk.”

“We’ll do our best,” Sachs said.

Disconnecting the call, Rossi muttered, “Try to talk? To a man who didn’t think twice about sniping at two officers?”

Spiro gazed at the pictures of the kidnapper. In a soft voice he said, “What are you up to, amico mio? How does your assault on these poor souls in New York and in Naples help you find comfort?”

Rhyme, with no interest in that question, was wheeling forward, examining the evidence chart.