Free Anatomy of Fear by Jonathan Santlofer

his almost girlish good looks, blue eyes cold and gorgeous, the seductive, unsettling smile. Thinking about him now brought a chill, and another emotion she did not want to consider.
    Collins looked back at the crime scene pictures and wondered about this unsub. All they had surmised so far was that the guy lived somewhere in the geographic vicinity, had experience handling weapons, and could draw.

    She had her two full-time field officers, Richardson and Archer, combing through the tax records of every former soldier living in the tri-state area, anyone who held a job in commercial art, design, or architecture, as well as students and professors at the local art schools. Maybe something would pop up, though that was not the way it usually happened, and she knew it.
    Damn it, she needed a break.
    She wished she could get someone from BSS to give her a psyche profile, but these days Homeland Security was sucking up the bureau’s dollars and she had been told to make do with her two full-time FOs. For now, Quantico was strictly for analysis and backup unless the unsub escalated, and she expected to capture him before that happened.
    She didn’t know what she could expect from the NYPD, particularly Detective Russo, who had fucked up a case a few years back. She’d read the file. Of course if the detective gave her any trouble it would be easy enough to bring up the past and blame her all over again.
    Collins sat back and crossed her legs. They were still, she thought, her best asset. She decided she’d wear a skirt to her next meeting with Chief Denton.

15
    I didn’t see nothing.” The old lady, Mrs. Adele Rubenstein, reminded me of my Grandma Rose. She pursed her lips together and cherry red lipstick snaked its way into whistle lines like sidewalks cracking in an earthquake. “The police, they already asked, and I told them. I didn’t see a thing.” She glanced up at Terri Russo. “You don’t even wear a uniform.”
    “I already explained that, ma’am. I’m a detective. We don’t wear uniforms.”
    The old lady shrugged and made another face. Russo was getting nowhere.
    “This is important to the investigation, ma’am. Anything—”
    “I told you, there’s nothing. I was a block away and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I saw a man leaning over a man, and that’s it. I can’t tell you anything else. You want I should make it up?” She folded her arms across her chest.
    I stepped between Russo and the old woman and offered up my best “nice Jewish boy” smile.
    “Tell you what, Mrs. R, you mind if I call you that?”
    The old lady shrugged and I could see that my smile hadn’t quite done it. I’d have to drag out the big guns. “My mother,” I said, “Judith Epstein, always says—”

    “Epstein?”
    “Yes,” I said. “From Forest Hills. My father was Spanish, but my mother’s a hundred percent Jewish.”
    Adele Rubenstein looked at me for the first time. “You understand that makes you Jewish. Your father—” She waved an arthritic hand. “He doesn’t matter. The line is through the mother. You’re Jewish, and that’s that.”
    “Of course. I know that.”
    “So, you had a bar mitzvah?”
    “Huge affair, relatives, friends, friends of friends, the whole mishpucheh.” I figured if I was lying I might as well give myself a big party, the whole nine yards. “We had a chopped-liver mold like you wouldn’t believe. Like a piece of art. It was a sin to eat it.”
    “And your father, he didn’t mind?”
    “Oh, my father…” I went for the home run. “He converted.”
    “Call me Adele,” she said, her face one big smile.
    Russo gave me a look.
    “Adele,” I said. “Let’s make this fun. You tell me everything you can remember and I’ll draw it. I do this with my grandmother all the time.” I didn’t bother to tell her it was with my Spanish grandmother because I knew she’d assume I meant my Jewish one. My abeula would be the same way. She considered me a