Rhyme didn’t laugh. He was still furious about the man’s escape—and furious too that he apparently had no desire to retire. “When you get tired of making bad jokes, Lon, you might want to notice that his grammar and syntax are perfect. That tells us something else about him. Good education. Private school? Classically trained? Scholarships? Valedictorian? Put those on the chart, Thom.”

Sellitto was unfazed. “Fucking semicolons.”

“Got something here,” Cooper said, looking up from the computer. “The green material from his place in Brooklyn? I’m pretty sure it’s Caulerpa taxifolia. A noxious weed.”

“A what?”

“It’s a seaweed that spreads uncontrollably. Causes all kinds of problems. It’s been banned in the U.S.”

“And presumably, if it spreads, you can find it everywhere,” Rhyme said sourly. “Useless as evidence.”

“Actually, no,” Cooper explained. “So far, it’s been found only on the Pacific Coast of North America.”

“Mexico to Canada?”

“Pretty much.”

Rhyme added sarcastically, “That’s virtually a street address. Call out the SWAT team.”

It was then that Kathryn Dance frowned. “The West Coast?” She considered something for a moment. Then she asked, “Where’s the interview with him?”

Mel Cooper found the file. He hit PLAY and for the dozenth time they watched the killer look into the camera and lie to them all. Dance leaned forward intently. She reminded Rhyme of himself gazing at evidence.

He’d been through the interview so often he was numb to the words; it provided nothing helpful now that he could tell. But Dance gave a sudden laugh. “Got a thought.”

“What?”

“Well, I can’t give you an address but I can give you a state. My guess is that he comes from California. Or lived there for some time.”

“Why do you think that?”

She backed up with the rewind command. Then played part of the interview again, the portion where he talked about driving to Long Island to take delivery of the confiscated SUV.

Dance stopped the tape and said, “I’ve studied regional expressions. People in California usually refer to their interstate highways with the article ‘the.’ The four-oh-five in L.A., for instance. In the interview he referred to ‘the four ninety-five’ here in New York. And did you hear him say freeway? That’s common in California too, more so than expressway or interstate. Which is what you hear on the East Coast.”

Possibly helpful, Rhyme thought. Another brick in the wall of evidence. “On the chart,” he said.

“When I get back I’ll open a formal investigation in my office,” she said. “I’ll put out everything we’ve got statewide. We’ll see what happens. Okay, I better be going. . . . Oh, I’ll be expecting you both out in California sometime soon.”

The aide glanced at Rhyme. “He needs to travel more. He pretends he doesn’t like to but the fact is, once he gets someplace he enjoys it. As long as there’s scotch and some good crime to keep him interested.”

“It’s Northern California,” Dance said. “Wine country, mostly, but not to worry, we have plenty of crime.”