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Never in his young--and getting steadily younger--life had he been without a purpose and a plan Meaningful work kept thea hile purpose, was as crucial to longevity and to enduring youthful-ness as were adoses of Vitamin C and Coenzyme Qio-

Without a purpose to inspire him, Roy feared that in spite of a perfect diet, ideally balanced nutritional supplements, an array of exotic erow old mentally The more he brooded, the more it seemed that the path to senility looe chute

Mind and body were inextricably linked, of course, so a year of mental senescence would inevitably lead to lines at the corners of his eyes, the first gray hairs at his temples He shuddered

He tried to muster the desire to take a walk, but if he spent the day in the Quarter, as of celebratory tourists, and if he failed to encounter the radiant goddess of his destiny, his uneasiness would deepen

Because he himself was very close to perfect, perhaps now that he had collected all the parts of an ideal wooal to refine hi the perfect h this was a noble undertaking, it didn’t promise as much fun as the quest he had recently completed

Finally, out of desperation, he found hi-- that he had erred when he concluded that he had coht have overlooked an anatomical feature that, while saw

For a while he sat at the kitchen table with da Vinci’s famous anatomical charts and several old Playboy centerfolds He studied the feht have overlooked

When he an to consider the possibility that he had not been sufficiently specific in his collecting Was it possible that he had collected from too macro a perspective?

Were he to take Elizabeth Lavenza’s lovely pale hands froht be surprised to find that they were perfect, yes, in every detail but one Perhaps she had a single thumb that fell short of perfection

Perhaps the lips he had harvested were not both perfect as he had reht be perfect, the lower not quite

If he needed to set out on a search for the perfect left thumb to marry to Elizabeth’s otherwise faultlessly fair hands, if helower lip to match the exquisite upper already in his possession, then his quest had not been coful…

"No," he declared aloud "That way liesone toe per donor and killing for mere eyelashes A thin line separated serious ho that a blind alley lay before hiht at that h at heart he was an optiht Froinal list of wanted anatoh every ite, and perhaps early in the quest he had crossed off an ite, before he had taken possession of it His memory of certain periods in his past was somewhat hazy, not because of any mental deficiency, but solely because he was such a tomorrow-oriented person, focused on the future in which he would grow younger and closer to perfection

He vaguely recalled, over the years, killing a woman or two for an ideal feature, only to discover, in the intimate presence of the corpse, that the wanted ite Perhaps more than a woman or two Maybe as many as four had disappointed him Maybe five

He supposed it was possible that he had crossed off an item or two on his list only to discover, after the kill, that he had been too easy in his judgotten to restore the needed item to the list

Either to confirm or eliminate this possibility, he needed to coinal list

Despondency quickly faded and a happy anticipation filled him He opened a bottle of apple juice and sectioned a raisin muffin to sample as he worked

All the appliances in his roo the ovens, erator, and two enormous freezers

In the first freezer he stored the parts of the perfect woman He playfully referred to this as the love locker

The second freezer contained an assorte chicken breasts, and quarts of rhubarb puree In the event that a major act of terrorism led to a disruption in the distribution of vital nutritional supplees of powdered saw palmetto, St John’s wort, bee pollen, and other items

When he lifted the lid on the first freezer, a cloud of frosted air wafted past hiuely like that of frozen fish He saw at once that the freezer contained iteer treasures --legs and arhtly sealed in multiple layers of Reynolds Plastic Wrap The ss and then in Tupperware containers with dependably tight lids

Now he found a his collection three con-

tainers that were not Tupperware They were cheap knockoffs of that desired brand: opaque plastic bottoreen lids

This discovery h certain events in the ht be blurry in his memory, these unacceptable containers were set atop the rest of his collection; they could have been placed here only recently Yet he had never seen them before

Curious but not yet alarmed, he took the three containers from the freezer He put them on a nearby counter

When he opened theans The first reseht have been a heart With no real interest in things internal, he couldn’t guess whether the third ite evenfor some raisinthat these three speciht be the souvenirs taken by the other killer currentlya Renaissance man who had educated himself in a variety of disciplines, Roy knew ive some consideration now to the concept ofto consider that he ht have ue state, and that even now, confronted with evidence, he couldn’t rebut in the end not convincing He and hieon

The true explanation eluded him, but he knew that it would prove to be more bizarre than multiple personalities

Instinct drew his attention to the second freezer

If the first had contained the unexpected, allons of high-fat ice crea the herbs and health foods

Instead, when he opened the lid and blinked away the initial cloud of frosted air, he discovered Candace’s eyeless corpse jammed atop the suppleht this cotton-candy person home with him

CHAPTER 44

like THE SOMEWHAT disheveled ers’s private office was a classic exaed chaos The desktop overfloith papers, notebooks, folders, photos Books were jammed in the shelves everyay Nevertheless, Jack would be able to find anything he needed after

Only partly because of sleep deprivation and too much coffee, Carson’s one?"

Jack said, "The cadaver, the tissue saone"

"What about the autopsy report and photos?" Michael asked "Did you file theested?"