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There was magic here, belief in the power of wishes, killer thoughts, telepathy, unspoken conveyance of desires and all the guilt that accrues from such beliefs.
Janek
recognized the guilt, smelled it in that cabin with the Coleman lighting one side of Jesse's troubled face, leaving the other side lost in darkness.

He described Switched Heads then, one cop to another. It didn't take him long; the story was much simpler than he'd thought. Which surprised him. He'd always believed it was fiendishly complicated, that the case was nearly intractable on account of its web of complications.

"'Stop me,'"
Janek
said. "That's the message of everything, the cat, the birds, the killing of your wife and Baxter and my two girls in New York. He wants to be stopped. He needs to be. And the only way I can do that is to come at him in a way you never did."

"Yeah," the old man said, "all those girls he carves up in his pictures—thinks he can get to me with them."

Janek
saw a glimmer then in Jesse's eyes, saw it burn there a moment, then die away. The old man shrugged, a great and final shrug of impotency. Aaron was right—he was too far gone to care.

I
t was dark when
Janek
returned to the car. Aaron had kept the engine running so he wouldn't freeze. They started driving back in silence, the snow a black crust upon the fields, an occasional truck roaring toward them out of the night, headlights shimmering off the ice upon the road.

"Well?" asked Aaron finally.

"Didn't work out,"
Janek
said.

"What was supposed to happen?"

"My crazy idea that he might want to tell his father, that the movies were somehow addressed to him. That they said, 'Come on. Wring it out of me. Here's what I did. Now do something. Capture me. Don't let me get away.' And that if I could enlist the old man I might be able to break through. Look, the hell with it! He's useless. You were right—there's nothing there."

They drove a while longer. "He's shrewd, though." He glanced at Aaron, "I thought you told me he never saw any of Peter's movies."

"That's right," Aaron said.

"You're sure?"

"He told me he didn't."

"Then how—?"
Janek
paused. "Aaron, please stop the car."

"What?"

"Stop a minute. I need to think."

Aaron pulled over to the shoulder. A truck rushed by.
Janek
thought,
If he saw the movies he would have said so. If he didn't see them, then what did he mean when he said, "...those girls he carves up in his pictures—thinks he can get to me with them"?

"Listen, we got to go back. I think I missed something back there."

Aaron nodded, turned the car around. They sped back through the night.

Though it had been an hour since he'd left, it seemed to
Janek
that Jesse had scarcely moved. He was still sitting in his chair beside the stove, and his expression, that look of fright and gloom, was still the same. The old man didn't even seem surprised that his visitor had returned. When
Janek
came in he motioned him again toward the second chair.

"What do you know about Peter's movies?"

"Don't know nothing. Never saw one."

"But you spoke of the girls he carves up." Jesse shook his head. "You said—"

"The girls in the pictures. Yes."

"What pictures?"

"The ones he sent."

"Pictures?"
Was Caroline right?
"You mean photographs? He sent you
photographs
?"

Jesse nodded.

"Where are they?" Jesse looked at him curiously. "You have them?"
Janek
held his breath.

It took more than an hour to extract the story, how over the years Jesse had received envelopes containing still photographs of murdered girls. Awful grotesque pictures but prettied up too, as if an effort had been made to make them look beautiful in death. Jesse could see that they were faked and knew they came from Peter, but he'd no idea how Peter had found out where he lived. Which was why he'd moved so many times, covering his tracks—to escape those envelopes which were reproaches, to escape the reproaches of his son.

He thought, finally, he'd succeeded; it had been two years since he'd come to Jersey, two years since he'd received a set of stills. But then a couple of months ago he'd received an envelope with four pictures inside—two of dead girls and two more in which each girl bore the other's head. Crazy, sickening, crazier and more sickening than anything he'd received before. They looked real too, though Jesse knew they couldn't be—that Peter had faked them up, that they were trick shots done with models just like the others. He didn't even examine them. Just threw the damn things away.

O
n the way back to Philadelphia for the second time that night Aaron tried to give
Janek
consolation.

"Well, one thing anyway, at least now we understand why he prettied up the crime scenes. But, I tell you, Frank, the deeper we get into this the less I understand the case."

They stopped at a gas station. While the tank was being filled
Janek
called the precinct from a pay telephone. Howell answered and he had something to report:

"Peter's found a whore, Lieutenant. Looks kind of like the one in those pictures he was showing around. Sal talked to her. She told him Peter's been back three times and that he likes to do it on a rubber mat. Now we're thinking maybe he's going to try and switch her with the girl in the photo. But we got a problem. We don't know who that other girl is."

When he put down the phone his head was reeling. Was Peter bluffing, taunting, or was he really setting up to go after Caroline? He worked to calm himself, then phoned the loft. Three rings before she answered. "Listen," he said, "this isn't meant to alarm you but you know me—I like to play things safe. I've got an extra revolver and a box of bullets in the closet, upper shelf on the right. Make sure all the windows are locked and stay inside till I get back. Whatever you do don't open the door for anyone. Anyone tries to break in you shoot. No, I don't expect anything to happen, but still I want you aware. I'm on my way now. Should be there in a couple hours. Don't worry. It's going to be all right."

Back in the car he couldn't contain himself; he spilled the whole story to Aaron—of Caroline, the intrusion, the razor blade and the stalking photographs.

"I suppose if I were a real hard-ass I'd think of some way to use her for bait," he said.

"No way, Frank. Not you. Look—we'll get more guys and put them on her. Meanwhile we'll crowd Lane. We got to stop this guy." Suddenly enraged, Aaron banged his fist against the steering wheel. "
Real evidence
. In a cop's hands, too. So the old fart does just what he did before. Throws the fucking stuff away. Jesus!"

It was five minutes before
Janek
answered, for it took him five minutes to understand his idea. He caught a glimpse of it, wasn't sure he liked it, set it aside to germinate awhile. When he brought it out again for another look it sprang forth fully made, a flower emerging instantly from a seed. And the flower was beautiful, perfect, symmetrical and so frightening too that
Janek
shrank back from it, afraid. But its beauty enticed him to look again and when he did the petals beckoned. And when he touched them he knew he must have seen that perfect flower before, perhaps one night in a dream.

"Peter doesn't know he did."

"What?" Aaron glanced at him.

Janek
nodded slowly. "Peter doesn't know Jesse threw the evidence away."

H
e announced himself from downstairs; he knew she wasn't trigger happy but he'd seen too many mishaps to want to come charging through her door. As it turned out she was lying in bed calmly watching TV.

She looked up at him. "Hi. I'm fine," she said. She turned back to the screen. "Now that you're here I can get all feminine and nervous again.”

He leaned down to kiss her. Bogart and Bacall were exchanging heated sexual innuendoes; the movie was
The Big Sleep
and Caroline was totally engrossed. He noticed his extra revolver next to her camera on the bedside table. He sat down beside her. "Going to try to bluff Lane out."

Several seconds passed before she turned and looked him in the eye. "God, that's a terrific line." She shook her head, got up and switched the TV off. "Bogart's fine, but you're better, Frank." She reached for him. "He's a good detective but you're the best."

In the morning he explained it to her, how the bluff would work, the role Jesse would play and the chances of success. "A gamble," he said. "Except if I lose I'm no worse off than I am right now. Which is loser-city. Because without a confession I'm never going to make the case."

"What makes you think it'll work?"

"I feel something explosive in the father-son relationship," he said, "that's maybe strong enough to blow Peter apart. He's too controlled to be really stable. That's his weakness—all that control. Switched Heads was perfectly done, but then he went ahead and took those pictures. Why? You said maybe he needed proof, for himself, to show himself he'd really done it. I read it differently. To me it's like he needed to create evidence. Something confessional there, something to exploit. Suppose I could freak Peter out, put him in a deranged frame of mind. Then things could get really interesting. Under the right conditions maybe he'd break and spill...."

A
n icy day a week before Christmas, a perfect day,
Janek
thought. Too cold and windy for Peter to want to go out, but the air so clear he'd see everything—if he looked.

The first step was to attract his attention. They'd planned that part carefully. A burst of activity, squad cars parked in front of the building, detectives coming and going, assuming energetic poses, conferring urgently in Amanda's studio, behaving as men do when a change is imminent.

"I don't know, Frank. It's a cute idea. But I'd say the odds are one in four."

"Well, you know me, Aaron—I never play the odds."

They were standing around Amanda's bed while
Janek
conspicuously framed it with his hands, as if he were taking photographs or trying to match up imaginary shots with real ones. He tried not to overplay; Peter knew acting, could read a false performance. But even if Peter thought it was performance,
Janek
felt certain he'd be tantalized, if only out of curiosity and for the pleasure of watching them bungle their show.

The only important thing was that Peter watch.

They spent the early evening standing around, waiting for the night. When darkness came they were well illuminated—all the lights in the studio were on.

Finally Sal went to the window and peered out. "He's there," he said. "I know it. Sitting in the dark, watching from darkness the way he likes."

"You sure?"

"Positive. He's an owl, Frank."

Janek
nodded, then looked at his watch.

J
esse was the dummy. Howell, assigned as handler, had cleaned him up, brought him to New York, kept him fed and occupied. Jesse didn't know what he was doing or why, which was how
Janek
wanted him. If Jesse didn't know what he was doing, then there was no conspiracy to entrap. If
Janek's
plan happened to work he didn't want the results to fall apart in court.

The old man looked good in his night watchman's uniform, tough and skeletal, almost frighteningly intense. A specter from the past, the single flaw in Peter's flawless crime, turned up unexpectedly with evidence in hand.

Janek
introduced him to Sal then marched him past the window several times—it was important the old man be clearly seen. It was possible,
Janek
knew, that Peter would not recognize him at once, but he would know he was watching a figure of importance, a man for whom the detectives had been waiting many hours.

Janek
took him into the bathroom where he explained the stabbing in great detail, wondering, as the old man nodded, whether he understood how he was being used. Then, when he thought sufficient time had passed for Peter to have begun to grow unnerved, he brought the old man back into the studio and then to the side of Amanda's bed.

There he conspicuously pulled out four
Polaroids
. "Look familiar?"
Janek
asked. Jesse squinted at them hard. Ostensibly he was there to study the crime scene and say whether he recognized elements from the background of the photographs he'd thrown away. "Like the ones you got, right?"
Janek
nudged him. "Right?"
Jesse
nodded slowly like an old cop dumbly matching the pieces of a puzzle.

The object was to make Peter think his father had kept the shots, though
Janek
had resolved never to tell him that he had. It had to be unspoken; Peter had to
think
Janek
had the proof. However successful the interrogation to take place later on,
Janek
wasn't going to be accused of inducing a confession with a lie.