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“I’m sorry, Dr. Sunday,” I said. “Did I wake you?”
“I was just about to turn off the hotel-room lights,” he replied. “I’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow.”
“In Austin?”
“That’s right. You still in Omaha?”
“Back in DC, and again, sorry to call, but I could use your help.”
“Well, of course,” Sunday said, and he yawned again. “How can I be of service?”
“You know, I jumped to conclusions about your book,” I said. “And I wanted to apologize again about that. I know we differ about the quotes you attributed to me, but I went back through the book earlier this evening and was really impressed how you got inside the perfect criminal’s or, now, Thierry Mulch’s mind.”
There was a pause, and I heard what sounded like gospel music playing in the background before he said, “That’s high praise coming from you, Dr. Cross. I truly appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome. So, anyway, I was wondering, now that you’ve had the chance to consider Mulch’s background, if you had come to any kind of deeper insight into his character and what he might have done with my family?”
There was another pause, this one longer, before Sunday said, “As a matter of fact, Dr. Cross, Thierry Mulch is all I’ve thought about since you told me he was my perfect criminal.”
“And?”
“Well, I don’t mean to sound narcissistic, but I think I sketched him with remarkable accuracy.”
“How so?”
“I stated quite forcefully in the book that the perfect criminal would have to be, in effect, an existentialist, someone who believed there was no inherent right or wrong, no ultimate moral code in the universe.”
“I saw that,” I said, glancing at Aaliyah, who took her cell away from her ear to make a keep-going motion with it. “You think Mulch is an existentialist?”
“I most certainly do,” Sunday said. “Think of the drastic actions he’s taken over the years. Killing his father to free and enrich himself before faking his own death. And then slaughtering his mother’s family and the family of this woman you say Mulch knew when he was in high school?”
“Alice Littlefield,” I said.
“Yes, so it would be much too easy to dismiss this man as insane,” Sunday said, sounding as if he were spouting off at some academic symposium. “Quite the contrary, I think those drastic actions show that he is thoughtful and careful in the extreme but bold in his execution, which means that he knows that he functions outside the norm, that he thinks a moral universe is folly, and that his acts are simply a means to an end. No right. No wrong. Simply tools for his purposes.”
I paused, glanced at Aaliyah, who shook her head.
“Interesting,” I said. “And what end or purpose might that be?”
After a moment of silence, Sunday said, “I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll get to ask him that someday when you catch him.”
“I look forward t
o it.”
“As do I,” Sunday said. “Now, really, Dr. Cross, I have a long day tomorrow and need my sleep.”
“Just one more question?”
He sighed and said, “One more.”
“In your research,” I said. “Did you ever come across a woman named Acadia Le Duc?”
CHAPTER
74
MARCUS SUNDAY CLOSED HIS eyes to the sight of Acadia Le Duc sprawled unconscious at his feet, took a long, slow breath, and then said, “You couldn’t forget a name like that if you tried. I can honestly say Acadia Le Duc’s never crossed my path.”
