Unsolved

I PULL up the e-mail with the search results. There are 736 hits.

Talk about a needle in a haystack. The haystack has too much hay. The search is too broad.

You've known that for weeks, Emmy. But you're so afraid of making the search too narrow and missing that one needle.

Okay. Exhale. Let's do it.

A gas explosion in Gresham, Oregon, claiming the lives of two people, a mother and daughter…a man electrocuted in his backyard in Gering, Nebraska…a teenager found dead in a pool in Brookhaven, Mississippi…

I push up from the desk too fast, get a head rush.

The north wall of this room is papered with more than a hundred letters, all of them copies; the originals are still under forensic analysis.

The room's east wall has the timeline, the articles cut from newspapers or printed out from websites.

Beneath each article are the photos, the autopsy reports, and, where they exist, the police investigators' notes.

A buzzer sounds. My iPhone alarm. A reminder pops up on the screen: Get some sleep, dummy!

It's 3:00 a.m., so this is probably good advice. Maybe later.

I walk into the kitchen, make a fresh pot of coffee, pace back and forth while the water passes through the cone of ground beans; the pungent aroma helps wake me up, but not enough. I walk into the living room, lie down on the carpet, and do fifty abdominal crunches. I still have the residual pain in my rib cage after all this time, but I use it, anything to keep me alert.

I pour a blazing-hot cup of coffee and head back to my desk, the computer screen.

A man drowns after falling off an embankment into Lake Michigan…a young couple missing after renting a kayak in Door County, Wisconsin…a father and son killed by a lightning strike…

No. I'm not looking for couples, only single victims. I need to figure out how to narrow this search to exclude multiple victims. But if I narrow it too much, I might miss the one I'm looking for, so I'm left hopelessly combing through tragedy after tragedy: a grandfather dead after striking a power line while digging in the backyard, a woman in New Orleans found dead in a bathtub, a father—

Wait. Back up.

A New Orleans woman found dead in a bathtub. Click on that one.

Hmm. Maybe.

I do a quick background check on Nora Connolley. First I do a few things anyone can do, Facebook and Instagram and Google searches. Then I do something only law enforcement can do, searching vital records in Louisiana. Then I go back to things anyone can do, this time looking at Google Earth and residential real estate websites.

When I find what I'm looking for, I slap my hand on the desk, making the coffee spill and the computer monitor shake.

Nora Connolley is one of the victims.

I pull up another website, find the e-mail for the New Orleans PD's public information bureau, and start typing to Nigel Flowers, the department spokesman, beginning with my customary preface:

The lawyers came up with that last sentence. I'm not allowed to let my "wild-goose chases" bear the imprimatur of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not unless the Bureau agrees to open the investigation.

I press the backspace key and hold my finger down, gobbling up word after word like I'm playing Pac-Man, completely erasing that last sentence.

I start typing again. There. That's better.

I hit Send, bounce out of my chair, and experience the vertigo again, as well as pain in my ankle. I really have to stop doing that.

I walk back over to the timeline and scan each article and its accompanying notes, photos, and autopsy findings, especially the various details highlighted: petechial hemorrhages, congestion in the lungs, bloody froth in the pharynx, unexplained puncture wounds…

And the first one, the death of Laura Berg in Vienna, Virginia. I'm still waiting for a return call from Detective Joseph Halsted. He was reluctant initially, but he seems to be coming around now.

"Call me, Joe," I mumble. "Help me find this guy."

Then I head back into the kitchen for more coffee.

THE MAN who calls himself Charlie when he's in character finds the PBS video on YouTube. It has gotten over two million hits. He clicks on the red arrow and settles in.

Words appear on the black screen in white block letters—THE REAL EMMY DOCKERY—then dissolve.

Images of front pages of several newspapers fade in and out like whack-a-moles:

The screen goes black again, then opens to an aerial view of a house, orange flames sweeping out of its second-story windows, then the roof collapsing.

"Fires," says the narrator in a soothing baritone voice. "Homes are engulfed in flames every day due to various accidents—an overturned candle, a cigarette, a frayed wire. Every year, three thousand people die in their homes from fires. A house goes up in flames every ninety seconds in the United States, in neighborhoods big and small, rural and urban. Atlantic Beach, Florida. Monroe, North Carolina. New Britain, Connecticut. Lisle, Illinois."

The screen shifts to the aftermath of another fire, the structure battered and shrunken to gray ash.

"Peoria, Arizona."

A screenshot of a newspaper, a headline from the Peoria Times:

"Marta Dockery was killed in that fire in Peoria. Officials said the fire was an accident. Everyone agreed. Everyone but Marta's twin sister, Emmy."

A photograph of two girls in their teens, tanned and squinting into the camera, one a bit shorter than the other, with darker hair and fuller cheeks. The twin thing, you could see it, but they were anything but identical, these two. The camera zooms in on the taller and ganglier girl.

"Emmy insisted that it wasn't an accidental fire. That it was murder."

The screen goes dark.

Then a shot of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, DC, headquarters of the FBI.

"Emily Jean Dockery was a data analyst for the Federal Bureau of Investigation," says the narrator. "Her life was numbers and statistics. She wasn't a field agent. She wasn't a fire investigator. So when Emmy Dockery insisted that her sister's death was murder, nobody believed her."

Images of excerpts from another newspaper article, enlarged:

"All forensic evidence points to death by an accidental fire." A middle-aged woman appears on the screen with the caption Nancy Parmaggiore, chief of staff to the director of the FBI. "Emmy was able to convince a very skeptical team of seasoned veteran investigators not only that her sister was murdered but that a serial killer was out there committing some of the most gruesome crimes imaginable."

Now there's an elderly man on the screen; the caption identifies him as Dennis Sasser, special agent, FBI (ret.). "Nobody believed Emmy. I didn't. But we never would have caught Graham if it weren't for Emmy. In fact, we never would have even known that crimes were being committed in the first—"

Charlie fast-forwards the video. He knows this part. Everyone does. The manhunt across the country. And then the final showdown, Graham dead and Emmy, well…alive, at least.

He stops about forty-five minutes into the documentary. The screen has faded to black again.

Then the narrator: "And what has become of the FBI analyst who caught and killed Graham?"

An image of paramedics hauling a woman on a gurney down a driveway toward an ambulance, the entire scene filled with police cars and flashing lights and armed law enforcement. This, Charlie knows, was after Emmy's face-to-face encounter with Graham.

"According to reports, Emmy Dockery suffered extensive injuries that day: deep scalp lacerations, burns over a large portion of her body, a punctured lung, a broken ankle."

Dennis Sasser again: "Emmy was horribly injured. She endured terror that is difficult to put into words."

Then the narrator: "It took half a dozen surgeries and three months before Emmy Dockery was released from the hospital. And then…"

The screen goes dark. An ominous sound, a single beat of a soft drum.

And this newspaper headline:

The screen fades to black again. Then an older woman, her gray hair pulled back, wearing a defiant expression, appears. The caption reads Dorian Dockery. "My daughter wasn't trying to kill herself," she says.

Charlie pauses the video and takes a breath. He's read many of the various reports that came out afterward—that Emmy Dockery had suffered a nervous breakdown, that she'd gone into hiding, that she was receiving both death threats and love letters from purported serial killers.

"You broke into pieces, Emmy," he whispers. "But you put yourself back together. You survived. Just like me."

Charlie closes his eyes and does what he always does when he remembers. First he beats back their garbled shrieks, the hot breath of their terror, the smells of scorched flesh and splattering blood and perspiration and pure human fear burning his nostrils even now.

And then he accepts them. Lets their contents settle inside him, mix together, and jell.

His body cools. His pulse slows.

"It is a thinking man's war," he reminds himself. A quiet war, Charles Darwin said, lurking just beneath the serene facade of nature.

His eyes open. On the screen, the video is still paused, having just transitioned from the words of Emmy's mother to a photo of Emmy, her hair in a ponytail, a fierce look on her wounded face. Her eyes on his. His eyes on hers.

Lonely, determined eyes.

"We could do so much together," Charlie says.

HARRISON BOOKMAN—known as "Books" to everyone—feels his phone buzz at his hip as he helps a customer choose the right nonfiction selection for her grandfather, a history buff. They decide on a book about LBJ's struggle to get Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He feels a small flicker of satisfaction as he rings up the transaction. He loves everything about books, but this is his favorite part of the business, talking with a customer and finding just the right novel or nonfiction work, like a sommelier helping diners choose the perfect bottle of wine to pair with their meal.

Now if only there were more customers.

At least he has Petty, bald and clean-shaven, sitting in the corner in one of the comfy chairs reading The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway; next to him is a cup of the coffee Books always has brewing. It probably isn't the greatest idea to let a homeless man hang out in your store, but Petty keeps to himself and keeps himself reasonably presentable, and, really, how could Books turn away a guy who served two tours in Desert Storm and gave up so much for his country, not least of which was his sanity?

Petty is a part-time resident of the inventory room in the back of the store. He's slept there a few nights a week every week since Books first met him six months ago, last December, sitting on the sidewalk outside the store. He shaves and washes up in an old shower that Books revived after converting the space from an old apartment.

Books watches his customer leave. His eyes wander over to the front window, where the name of the store—THE BOOK MAN—is stenciled prominently; the newest releases and local favorites are arranged just so to lure in the shoppers and the passersby in downtown Alexandria.

Then he turns the belt pouch holding his phone upward so he can see who just called. He glances at it, then does a double take.

Moriarty.

William Moriarty, the director of the FBI.

Not a social call. Bill never makes social calls.

Books considers returning the call right away. No customers in the store now, after all. And he can't deny that tiny surge of adrenaline. You can take the boy out of the FBI, but you can't take the FBI out of the boy.

The door chimes behind him. A customer. That makes the decision for Books. The FBI will have to wait.

He turns and sees two people enter the store, men in dark suits, each of them removing sunglasses. Jesus, they really have to stop reinforcing that stereotype.

One of them he doesn't know, but the other, the taller one, is familiar. Desmond, part of the director's advance team.

"Hey, Books," Desmond says, glancing around.

"Hey, Dez…" Books gives him a confused look.

"The director needs a moment. He called."

Yeah, he called two minutes ago. It's not like he made an appointment last week or anything.

"Somewhere private you could talk for a moment?"

Books lets out a breath. "Sure. The stockroom. There's a service entrance out back where—"

"He's already parked there." Dez nods.

Of course he is. "Okay," says Books. "Let's do it."

BOOKS LEADS the advance team into the back room. There are piles of inventory, books ready to be placed on shelves, books ready to be sent back to the publishers, a stand-up display for the children's author who did an appearance last week. Dez arranges two chairs at a table while his partner pushes open the back door.

"There he is, the bookseller." Director William Moriarty has aged, and not so gracefully, in this job. He has been a public servant all his life, first as a special agent, then as a federal prosecutor, later as a congressman, and after that as a federal judge. The stress of all of those, he said, paled in comparison to running the FBI. He has lost most of his hair, and his face and torso have widened, but he still has that same no-nonsense stare.