'Except what?' Graham asked.
Turning away from the window, Preduski said, 'Seven times he's eaten a
big meal in the dead women's own homes. But the other three times, he's
taken the food out of the refrigerator and faked a big meal.'
'Faked it? What do you mean?'
'The fifth murder, the Liedstrom woman,' Preduski said. He closed his
eyes and grimaced as if he could still see her body and blood. 'We were
aware of his style by then. We checked the kitchen right away.
There was an empty pear can on the table, an empty cottage cheese
container, the remains of an apple and several other items. But there
wasn't a mess. The first four times, he'd been sloppy-like he was
tonight. But in the Liedstrom kitchen, he hadn't left a lot of crumbs.
No smears of butter or mustard or mayonnaise or ketchup. No bloodstains
on the beer cans.'
He opened his eyes and walked to the table. 'We'd I found well-gnawed
apple cores in two of the first four kitchens.' He pointed at an apple
core on the table in front of him. 'Like that one.
The lab had even studied the teeth marks on them. But in the Liedstrom
kitchen he peeled the apple and removed the center with a corer. The
skins and the core were piled neatly on one corner of his dinner plate.
That was a change from what we'd seen previously, and it got me
thinking. Why had he eaten like a Neanderthal the first four times-and
like a gentleman the fifth? I had the forensic boys open the plumbing
under the sink and take out the garbage disposal unit. They ran tests
on it and found that each of the eight kinds of food on the table had
been put through the disposal within the past few hours. In short, the
Butcher hadn't taken a bite of anything in the Liedstrom kitchen. He
got the food from the refrigerator and tossed it down the drain. Then
he set the table so it would look as if he'd had a big meal. He did the
same thing at the scene of murders seven and eight.
That sort of behavior struck Graham as particularly eerie. The air in
the room seemed suddenly more moist and oppressive than before.
'You said his eating after a murder was part of a psychotic compulsion.'
'Yes.'
'If for some reason he didn't feel that compulsion at the Liedstrom
house, why would he bother to fake it?'
'I don't know,' Preduski said. He wiped one slender hand across his
face as if he were trying to pull off his weariness. 'It's too much for
me. It really is. Much too much. If he's crazy, why isn't he crazy in
the same way all of the time?'
Graham hesitated. Then: 'I don't think any court appointed psychiatrist
would find him insane.'
'Say again?'
'In fact, I think even the best psychiatrist, if not informed of the
murders, would find this man saner and more reasonable than he would
most of us.'
Preduski blinked his watery eyes in surprise. 'Well, hell. He carves
up ten women and leaves them for garbage, and you don't think he's
crazy?'
'That's the same reaction I got from a lady friend when I told her.'
