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mind—”
    “Criminal Division isn’t getting it,” Wamsley interjected.
    “No? Who then?”
    “A special bureau we’re creating,” Wamsley enthused. “Kind of an all-star team. With all the men and resources they’ll need, regardless of jurisdiction or expense.”
    “Did you see this?” Byron tossed a copy of the morning’s
Observer
across the desk. A splashy three-column headline:
    STRANGLER INVESTIGATION RIDDLED WITH ERRORS
    The byline read, Amy Ryan and Claire Downey.
    “Yes, I saw it.”
    “That’s your sister-in-law, isn’t it, this Amy Ryan?” Byron bored in.
    “Something like that.”
    “Well,” Wamsley continued, “we think she’s hit the nail square on the head. BPD had its chance. They tried the old-fashioned way. Now it’s our turn.”
    “Meaning what, exactly?”
    “Meaning the case is just too big for one department, even Boston’s. You have thirteen women dead, a serial-murder investigation that spans four cities and three counties. These local departments aren’t used to working together. They don’t know how to communicate. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. What’s needed is a coordinated approach. It’s just the sort of case we should be intervening on. Even more important, what you have in this case is a killer who is canny enough or unpredictable enough or just crazy enough that traditional methods have failed utterly. What’s needed is new thinking.”
    “New thinking?”
    “Yes, yes.” Wamsley was giddy and sincere, and what he was saying made a superficial sort of sense. You could almost believe it. “An interdisciplinary, unconventional, scientific approach. Detectives unblinkered by experience, by what they know, or think they know, is the right way to investigate a homicide. If experience shows anything, it’s that people tend to see only what they’re looking for. They will overlook the most obvious evidence because it does not fit their preconceived notion of what clues
ought
to look like or where they
should
be found. We think this case could benefit from a fresh approach. We think the answer—the critical clue, the correct suspect—is probably already there in the data, somewhere in that haystack. The trick is to find it, to isolate it from all the background noise, and to do that before the strangler strikes again. If we could just aggregate all the evidence we have, synthesize it, and subject it to rigorous scientific methodology, we could really crack this thing. We could subject all that data to computer analysis—”
    “Alright, George,” Byron said. “I think he’s got it.”
    “Well,” Michael ventured, “it all sounds very interesting. You mind if I ask why you pulled me out of court to tell me all this?”
    “The new bureau is going to be headed up by Mr. Wamsley.”
    “It is?”
    Wamsley grinned. “It is.”
    “George, you don’t have any experience investigating homicides. Do you?”
    “Absolutely none.”
    Michael thought at this point that he knew why he was here. Nutty as it was, they meant to put Wamsley in charge of the new Strangler bureau, and Michael would be asked to take over Eminent Domain. Michael thought he was up to it despite his relative lack of experience, he thought the others would accept him. And in the New Boston era, who knew where it might lead?
    “Michael, George has asked that you be detailed to the new bureau as well.”
    “What! I’ve never investigated a homicide in my life.”
    “Precisely!” Wamsley boomed.
    “Precisely? Look, all I know is eminent domain. What am I gonna do—take away the Strangler’s parking space? This is crazy.”
    “It’s not all that crazy, Michael,” Byron insisted. “You’re a bright guy. Your dad was in Boston Homicide, which will give you a little credibility with these guys. And you probably absorbed more from him than you realize. Anyway, your primary responsibility will be administrative. The bureau will be staffed up with detectives and