“Anyhow, I saw this all in like a split second, and then he was on me again. And I punched him, hard, in the face.”

Ah. That explained the black eye. “You did a great job,” I said. “He has quite a shiner.”

“Yeah, well, he was sort of reeling from that, but at this point he was still between me and the door and I didn’t know how I was going to get out. I was looking around for a weapon, and then I realized that I had this in my bag.” She opened up her shoulder pouch and pulled out an economy-size can of Aqua Net hairspray.

“I didn’t realize they still made that,” I said, amazed.

“Oh, yeah. It’s hard to find. I buy it by the case on the Internet. Where I’m from, you learn how to do big hair early. So I gave him a good spritz, right in the eyes. It’s better than Mace.”

Hence the reddened eyes complementing Grant’s shiner. I was beginning to think that Gabrielle might do better at an investment bank than anyone had been giving her credit for.

“I ran out,” she continued. “And he was yelling after me. That I’d better not say anything to anyone, or I’d regret it. He said he’d hunt me down and kill me.”

“That must have been pretty scary,” Jonathan said. He’d been listening carefully, an empathetic expression on his face, and I could see why the students came to him with their problems. “What did you do next?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I really thought he was going to come after me. And I was too scared to go to the police. I mean, what if they didn’t believe me? Or, even if they did, what if Grant found me before the police found him? So I checked myself into a motel in Porter Square. I’ve been holed up there ever since, and when I finally calmed down enough, I called you. And here I am.”

“You did the right thing,” Jonathan assured her. “And we’re going to tell the police what happened. It sounds like you’ve managed to find both the prostitute killer and the guy who’s been attacking Sara.”

“I guess so,” said Gabrielle. “But are you sure he can’t come after me?” She looked around the room again, her anxiety almost tangible.

“Yes. Even if they can’t immediately tie Grant to the murders and the assaults, they can get him for assaulting you.” He smiled. “Although, it sounds like you won that fight.”

Jonathan went back to the lobby to call Detective O’Connell, and Gabrielle asked me to accompany her to the ladies’ room. Although she was calmer now that she’d told her story, she was wary of going anywhere unaccompanied until Grant Crocker was safely apprehended.

As I waited outside the door for Gabrielle to emerge, I called Hilary, thinking that I’d be doing a good deed by giving her the scoop on Grant Crocker.

“Where are you?” I asked. “I have some news that you’ll want to hear.”

“At Widener Library. There were a few things I wanted to check into after I interviewed O’Connell. Which was great, by the way. I definitely owe you.”

“You’ll have to mention me in the acknowledgments. Although, after you hear this, you might just decide to dedicate the book to me.”

“What?” she asked excitedly.

“I know who the killer is. And it’s not Jonathan Beasley.”

“That’s wonderful news. So you can still go out with him. But who’s the killer?”

“No, this will be more fun in person.”

She didn’t want to wait, but I told her I’d meet her at the library and give her the full download. “Then we can go up to Jane’s together.”

“Okay. But hurry. Suspense makes me cranky.”

Gabrielle emerged from the ladies’ room, and we met Jonathan in the lobby.

“Did you reach O’Connell?” I asked.

“Yes. He’s back at the station and he suggested Gabrielle come by. Is that all right, Gabrielle?”

Gabrielle hesitated but then she nodded. “Will you come with me?” she asked him.

“Of course. In fact, I’ll drive you there.”

Jonathan’s car was parked around the corner, and he dropped me off at the gate to Harvard Yard nearest the library. I wished Gabrielle well in her discussion with O’Connell and gave Jane’s address to Jonathan.

“I’ll come by as soon as we’re done,” he told me.

“Good. See you later. And Gabrielle, don’t worry. You’re doing the right thing.” She didn’t look convinced, but she gave me a stoic wave. I made a mental note to see what I could do about finding her a job. She still seemed like too much of a stress case to handle Winslow, Brown, but the Aqua Net incident demonstrated a level of gumption that I had to admire.

I shut the car door behind me and passed through the familiar gates.

I didn’t realize I was being followed.

W idener Library was a looming white stone edifice smack in the middle of Harvard Yard. Shallow steps led up to its pillared entrance. I’d once read that the steps were built to accommodate the hobble skirts that had been fashionable ninety years ago, when the library was endowed, but that had never made sense to me. Harvard hadn’t done much embracing of women at that point in time, much less worked to accommodate their fashion needs.

Hilary had told me she’d be in the library stacks, one of her favorite haunts in college. She prided herself on having racked up a number of encounters there that hovered on the border line between NC-17 and XXX ratings, but she’d assured me that her only objective today was to dig up a couple of esoteric books about the history of violent crime and spend some quiet time reviewing her notes.

A Harvard ID was required to obtain entrance to the stacks, but I flashed my Winslow, Brown security pass to the student at security. He was sufficiently absorbed in his reading that he didn’t seem to notice the difference. Hilary had said to meet her on the C level, and I rode the rickety elevator down two flights. My navigational abilities hadn’t improved since earlier that afternoon, but I remembered the basic layout of Widener sufficiently well, having spent more time than I cared to recall in the stacks as an undergrad on those occasions when I couldn’t afford any sort of distractions. The floors were dimly lit, but there were study carrels lining many of the walls, and you could tuck yourself away in a corner and work undisturbed for hours, assuming you had the foresight to smuggle in a supply of Diet Coke and M &Ms for sustenance. Of course, what had been for me the perfect place to power through exam prep or thesis research had been for Hilary the perfect place for illicit sexual encounters.

Today, however, I found her alone in one of those study carrels, surrounded by heavy, dusty texts and an assortment of papers. My heels echoed on the hard cement floors, alerting her to my arrival.

“So, tell me,” she demanded. “I can’t believe you held out on me like this.” She seemed to have run out of gratitude in the last fifteen minutes. Forced patience never had a good effect on Hilary.

“Grant Crocker.”

“No way. I thought he was the Creepy Stalker.”

“He is. But it turns out he’s violent, and a serial killer to boot.” I related what Gabrielle had told Jonathan and me. “It sounds like a fit, doesn’t it? I mean, with the newspaper clippings and souvenirs and everything.”

“Absolutely. Amazing. And you used to work with him. Unbelievable. I’ll have to put you in the book, too. You can talk about his creepiness when he was at Winslow, Bro-oh my God!”

“What?”

“I just realized something.” She began shuffling through the papers on the desk. “I’d printed out some stuff off the Internet about another uncaught serial killer. There was an article in one of the Boston papers about how the killings here were similar to a series of killings in New York City a couple of years ago. They took place over the course of about eighteen months, and then they just stopped. But they probably happened when Grant Crocker was at your firm, right? Before business school. Here, check this out.” She found the pages she was looking for and handed them to me. I quickly skimmed the articles.