“Hey, that’s beautiful,” Kleberg said. He glanced at the other canvases lined up against the wall, the brushes, the tubes of paint.

Boxerbaum slapped his forehead. “The stains Donna West said he had on his hand. That’s what they were. He’d been painting.”

Nikki Miller, who had also seen the painting, came up to the suspect, still sitting in the chair. “You’re Milligan, aren t you?” He looked up at her, dazed. “No,” he mumbled.

“That's a beautiful painting over there. Did you paint it?” He nodded.

“Well,” she said, smiling, “its signed ‘Milligan.’” Boxerbaum walked up to Milligan. “Bill, I’m Eliot Boxerbaum of the OSU police. Will you talk to me?”

No response. There was no sign of the eye-drifting Carrie Dryer had noticed.

“Has anyone read him his rights?” No one answered, so Boxerbaum pulled out his rights card and read it aloud. He wanted to be sure. “You’re accused of kidnapping those girls from the campus, Bill. Do you want to talk about it?”

Milligan looked up, shocked. “What’s goin on? Did I hurt anybody?”

“You told them other people would come after them. Who are they?” ^

“I hope I didn’t hurt anybody.”

As an officer headed into the bedroom, Milligan glanced up. “Don’t kick that box in there. You’ll blow it up.”

“A bomb?” Kleberg asked quickly.

“It’s … in there …”

“Will you show me?” Boxerbaum asked.

Milligan got up slowly and walked to the bedroom. He stopped at the door and nodded in the direction of a small carton on the floor beside the dresser. Kleberg stayed with Milligan while Boxerbaum went inside to look. The other officers crowded behind Milligan in the doorway. Boxerbaum kneeled beside the box. Through the open top flap he could see wires and what looked like a clock.

He backed out of the room and said to Sergeant Dempsey, “You’d better call the fire department bomb squad. Kleberg and I are going back to the station. We’ll take Milligan in.” Kleberg drove the university police car. Rockwell, from the SWAT team, sat beside him. Boxerbaum sat in back with Milligan, who didn’t respond to questions about the rapes. He just leaned forward, awkward because of the handcuffs at his back, and mumbled disconnected remarks: “My brother Stuart is dead … Did I hurt anyone?”

“Did you know any of the girls?” Boxerbaum asked. “Did you know the nurse? ’

“My mothers a nurse,” Milligan mumbled.

“Tell me why you went to the OSU campus area for your victims.”

“The Germans are going to come after me …”

“Lets talk about what happened, Bill. Was it the nurses long black hair that attracted you?”

Milligan looked at him. “You’re strange.” Then, staring again, he said, “My sisters gonna hate me when she finds out. ’ Boxerbaum gave up.

They arrived at the Central Police Station and took their prisoner in through the back entrance up to the third-floor processing room. Boxerbaum and Kleberg went into another office to help Nikki Miller prepare the affidavits for the search warrants.