Unruh walked into town armed with a German Luger pistol, carrying thirty 9-millimeter rounds. In a twelve-minute span he shot and killed thirteen people, wounding three more. Locations included a pharmacy, a barbershop, and a tailor. While the desire to murder was proven to be premeditated—Unruh was later found to have kept a list of enemies in a diary—his victims were a mix of preferred targets and people unfortunate enough to cross his path on that clear Tuesday morning. Victims and eyewitnesses alike described the look in Howard’s eye that morning as trance-like, dazed.

To anyone other than a law enforcement professional, the classification of the crime matters little. The only truly important fact of the matter was that, for more than sixty years, Unruh’s shooting spree stood as the worst rampage killing in New Jersey.

That is, until the night Walt Leppo ordered meat loaf.

“Is it cooked fresh?” Walt asked the young server after his return from the men’s room.

“Oh, absolutely,” she answered.

“Would you do me a favor, then?” he said. “Could you look and see if there’s maybe a slice or two left over from the lunch rush? Preferably set under a heat lamp for a few hours? Really dry with toasted edges?”

The server held his gaze for a few moments, as if unsure whether or not she was being put on. She was a student probably, likely at one of the nearby law schools. Odessa had put herself through her third year of law school in Boston waiting tables, and she acutely remembered the uneasy feeling she got when certain male customers made vaguely creepy, borderline fetishistic food requests—usually loners, men who she suspected wished that they could order women off menus, not just food.

The server glanced at Odessa sitting across from Leppo. Odessa offered an encouraging smile, hoping to set the fellow young woman at ease.

“Just let me check,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, closing his menu and handing it to her. “By the way, I prefer the end pieces.”

She left with their orders. Walt added to Odessa, “We used to call the end pieces the heels.”

Odessa nodded as though fascinated. She said, pleasantly, “Serial killer.”

Walt shrugged. “Because I like my meat loaf the way my mother used to make it?”

“Oh God. Add one oral fixation.”

“You know what, Dessa? I got news for you: Everything can be sexualized. Everything. Even meat loaf, apparently.”

“I bet you like your toast burnt, too.”

“Like a slice of charcoal. But didn’t you get the regulation about rookies not being allowed to profile veteran agents?”

Both their heads turned when the first drops of rain began tapping at the other side of the picture window at the front of the Soup Spoon Café.

Leppo said, “Oh great.”