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done throughout the past decade. I had to dig deeper.

“In your letter to the New York Daily News,” I said, “you wrote, ‘Think of the one who has killed the most. I am better than him.’ Who is that?”

“The person who killed those two women was trying to copy me,” Ott said. “Everyone should copy the master, the one who has killed the most. The Butcher of Rostov. The Red Ripper. I learned his ways when I was a young man, working for my first employer.”

Ott’s confession had been flowing, then suddenly he’d turned cryptic. My mind flashed on the prolific serial killers Ott had been tracking. Little. Bundy. Chikatilo.

I took an educated guess. “Andrei Chikatilo.”

Ott looked surprised and pleased. “You know the master’s name.”

But there was more I had to know.

“You took the blood of your victims and mixed it with blood at fresh crime scenes,” I said. “You haven’t been home for more than six weeks. Where is the blood of your New York victims?”

“The blood vials I collected here are in sealed plastic bags inside a can falsely labeled shaving cream. You can find it in my hotel room. The others are in a safe in my home office. I wouldn’t want my girls getting into them.”

I couldn’t resist asking, “Why do you mutilate the women’s left eyes?”

“That’s simple. I stand over them, and they’re completely in my control. The last sight they see is my face.”

Internally, I was reeling with horror, but I couldn’t stop the interview.

“Did you push a woman in front of a bus near our office?”

“By the elevated train?”

I nodded, already knowing the response.

“I meant to shove the detective with the broken nose. He tried to be a hero and lost.”

I had to move off the subject before I got too angry and did something stupid. I simmered for a minute. I was too wound up that Ott had made Hollis his target. That he had known about my kids, about Mary Catherine and our wedding. I couldn’t focus.

But there was one more question I had to ask. “Why did you sign your letter ‘Bobby Fisher’?”

Before Ott could answer, I heard voices outside the door. Loud voices. Arguing.

Chapter 96

The sounds outside the interview room brought even Daniel Ott up short.

Someone bumped against the door. This was more than an argument. This was a scuffle. Then I heard Harry Grissom’s voice. He was regaining order.

I stood up and gestured for Ott to stay seated. I walked across the small interview room and popped open the door. I stuck my head out into the hallway with the idea of shouting, Keep it down!

Instead, I was shocked into silence at the sight of Harry and a precinct captain named Jefferson squaring off with several extremely well-dressed people, including Robert Lincoln, the assistant special agent in charge of the New York FBI office.

How did they even know we made an arrest? Are they trying to physically steal our suspect?

What I said was “Hey, what’s going on?” My voice sounded remarkably calm, especially considering my confusion.

Emily Parker stepped through the pack of people. She looked at Harry as if she was trying to calm down an angry lion. Then she turned to me. “We have a federal warrant for your suspect, Daniel Ott.”

I stepped out into the hall and shut the interview room door behind me. “You worked a separate case on him? Without even talking to me?”

“Mike, it’s not what you think.”

It was Harry Grissom who spoke next. “I think it’s bullshit. This is just some kind of stupid FBI ploy. They’re claiming this mope is a spy.”

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