Free Dreams in the Key of Blue by John Philpin

state, went to that FBI school. Sort of stuff you do, I guess.”
    “I doubt it,” I muttered.
    “What’s that?”
    “Like to meet her,” I said, gazing beyond Jaworski at a silent TV that offered a view of the media crews loitering at the building’s front door.
    “Wish I’d been here to see me drive by,” I said.
    Jaworski glanced at the screen, then back at me. “Our mirror on the world is aimed at us.”
    “We’d best be careful. Those autopsy photos come in yet, Herb?”
    Jaworski handed me a manila envelope. “Came in an hour ago. I haven’t had a chance to look at them. We’ve got two sets, so you can take your time getting that package back. They’ll probably tell you more than they will me anyhow. You’ve got another set of reports in there, too. Don’t ask me which ones. I copied them and stuck them in the envelope.”
    Karen Jasper put down her phone, swung around in her swivel chair, and said, “I’ve checked NCIC, VICAP,and our own computers. Our focus is Stanley Markham. This is the work of a traveling pro, and we have no other pros on the road in the Northeast right now. We had a hit in southern California, but that guy is taking kids under twelve. Who the hell are you?”
    She directed her rapid-fire report at Jaworski. The final remark was for me.
    “Karen Jasper, I’d like you to meet Dr. Lucas Frank,” Jaworski sputtered.
    Jasper glared at me.
    I had showered, and had changed my socks and underwear, so I could not imagine why she was firing such a pissy expression my way. Perhaps she had heard of my disdain for all bureaucratic hacks.
    Trying to make nice, I stuck out my hand. She ignored my gesture.
    “I’m recommending that you request federal assistance,” Jasper said to the chief.
    See what I mean? I never enjoy my meetings with people like Karen Jasper. I usually go away feeling that I’ve met someone who has missed her or his calling—you know, inventory management, or maybe even pyramid sales.
    Jasper planned to fill her plate: a main course of Markham, with a side order of pale people in suits wandering around with copies of
The Wall Street Journal
tucked under their arms looking for a private place to take a shit. Not that they’re not perfectly nice people.
    “Karen, I mentioned Lucas to you. He’s the one—”
    “I’m familiar with your work,” she said through her continuing glare. “We spent an entire class on the early contributors to the field. All that history is interesting, but has little contemporary relevance.”
    Ouch. If I were sensitive about my age, “early contributors,” however accurate, would have stung.
    In the late sixties and early seventies, the few people in the U.S. who examined crime scenes for the leavings of a personality were trained and educated broadly in criminology, psychology, and sociology. They probed their own minds, then plunged into the streets with the cops. They knew they had to acquire a feel for the setting of slaughter and for the mind of the veteran homicide detective whose intuitive leaps were the inspiration for investigative shrinks.
    Too many from my generation remained in university offices and played with statistics. Some wrote scholarly, theoretical treatises. Others had established lucrative private practices consulting on issues related to violence that they read about in their brothers’ and sisters’ articles. Most of their advice was common sense, but they saw it as a chance to turn a profit on fear. They also shaped a national belief that pure science could explain the vagaries of human violence.
    Art and intuition were out; math and science were in. The new generation, of which Karen Jasper was surely a member, followed their household gods to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. A few independent thinkers ventured to Europe and found that even more quantifiable work was under way. The governments and universities that funded research wanted cleanly calculated accountability. They loved bar graphs