didn't fully understand it, primarily because it had not been reported in its entirety to him. He'd gotten it secondhand, off a fax. Anxious to prove to superiors that it would make sound sense to combine his psychological profiling team with a solid forensics team under Jessica's leadership. Otto had recklessly-for him-whisked her off to oversee the ' 'trouble” in Wekosha.
On the plane with Otto, she was given the impression the case involved murder, but she wasn't told that it involved the ninth level of torture, blood-taking. She wondered how much Otto had known, and how much he had kept from her when a sudden, jarring pothole in the city's pavement brought her back to the present.
They had to first go by the city police department, where all the evidence was placed under lock and key, Otto and Stowell witnessing, as a matter of protocol. From there Stowell had a deputy drive them to the Wekosha Inn, where they had rooms awaiting them. As soon as the deputy was away, Jessica hurried inside, anxious for a shower and some well-deserved sleep, but Otto stopped her at the desk the moment she had her key in her hand, taking her aside.
“ There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?” he said.
She stared into his eyes, wondering how he had ever gotten so smart at reading people. “Nothing I can prove, yet.”
“ What is it?”
“ Aside from the bastard's having carted off most of her blood?” she asked.
“ Carted off?”
“ Stowell said she had been missing for two days. From the stage of rigor that I saw, I'd say she died the first night of her disappearance. Now, the guy could have hung around all night, but I don't think so. And no one can consume that much blood at one sitting. I don't care if he thinks he's a vampire or not.”
“ So he took the blood with him?”
“ Most of it, yes.”
“ Some of the local idiots are trying to make a case for the Copeland girl's getting into a little B amp;D, or maybe auto-erotica getting out of hand.”
“ That's bullshit, and you know it. She was tied by her heels to the rafters and her blood syphoned off. If it had started out as some torture turn-on, there'd be whip marks, bite marks, small wounds and bruises, and like I said the sperm was smeared inside her along with the blood. She was not a party to her own death.”
“ Only insomuch as the way she lived her life,” he replied sadly.
She understood his meaning. Many a victim “invited” attack; many people were perfect victims.
“ Stowell says they got a tire print. Not a great one, but-”
“ You made sure that guy Stadtler's not to embalm her before I get a closer look at the lab?”
“ Taken care of, I assure you. Meanwhile, 1 want you to get some solid rest. God knows, you've earned it.”
She started away with a “good night” trailing after, but stopped at the elevator and said, “One thing, Otto.”
“ Yes?”
“ Whoever this fiend is, he showed amazing control.”
“ Amazing control?”
“ Of the blood flow. Given the body's position, there would have been tremendous pressure against the arteries leading to the cranium, the jugular in particular.”
“ The kind of pressure that should have sprayed the place with her blood.”
“ He knew that himself… has thought this thing out… thought about it a lot.”
“ Fantasized about it, or has actually done it before, maybe,” he suggested.
“ And the bastard's come up with a way to staunch the flow, control it and contain the blood.”
“ Suggest a medical background, possibly.”
“ Also suggests an organized mind at work.”
They both knew the literature-if it could be called that-on the organized versus the disorganized murderer. A disorganized killer left a disorganized crime scene behind: weapons, footprints, fingerprints, personal articles and other giveaways to the police, usually in haste to run from what he had done. An organized killer only left carefully chosen clues, evidence that he wanted police to find, often in an attempt to send them down a blind alley; other reasons ranged from fetishes and fantasy rituals concocted in a fevered brain to a sick desire to taunt those who came in to clean up his filthy work.
If Jessica was right, they'd turn up no murder weapon, and all the suspects hauled in by the locals would likely be poor substitutes for the real thing. The local response in such killings was to chalk it up to the work of lunatic impulse. In fact, they counted on it and on moving quickly to incarcerate someone for the crime.
But they both knew that while all this would happen for the community's sake and for the newshounds, the real killer would be all but invisible. An organized killer would have returned home, gone to bed, slept the peace of the innocent, having relaxed his biting urge to take blood, and wake refreshed. He was not about to show up at Stowell's office dazed, disoriented, blood dripping from his mouth, to give himself up in order to quell a brain in turmoil over having fed on the life of another human being. Whoever this man was, he felt no remorse, pain or empathy with his victim. Instead, he likely had a place in his garage for the cutting tools he'd used on Candy Copeland, and he most likely had placed each on its respective nail or shelf before turning in for the night.
“ Our guy's a tidy man,” said Otto there in the dimly lit hallway, as if reading her thoughts.
“ Fastidious about himself and his things,” she agreed, “and I don't think he wanted to get any blood on his clothes. If he tried catching her blood in a bucket, it would still be all over that cabin, and all over him. He'd gag and wretch if he tried taking it all in at once through a hose of some sort. No, he'd have to do it in a very clean, neat way.”
She was busy in her head with the image of the monster, silhouetted in the dark against his victim, working meticulously over her before tearing into her dead body with the mutilating tools in an attempt to hide his finer work.
This time neither of them said good night. Both of them knew that sleep, if it did come, would not be without disturbing images.?
FOUR
When she got into her room, she turned on all the lights, and seeing the big double bed, she stretched out across it in her clothes thinking she'd just lie here for a moment. Then she was in back of Stowell's car with her hands in Otto's. She felt safe with him and she nestled in against him there in the crooning car, finding warmth in the crook of his arm, a curved, protecting cove. All around them the dismal, black Wisconsin landscape transformed into an oceanside lit bright with sunshine where they drove along a winding road above the escarpments. It was as if they were transported to Scotland, she thought, a place she had long dreamed of seeing, since her roots were there.
The ride was lovely and Otto's voice was as caring and gentle as the soft breezes coming in at the windows. He asked after her comfort. She next heard him say something about love, but it was as if he were suddenly far away and she looked up to find herself alone in the car, a roiling black cloud having turned day into night, and the car was now a hearse, and the driver was no longer Stowell, for in the rearview mirror she made out the eyes of Candy Copeland as she said, “Just sit back, missy, and enjoy the ride.”
Jessica started from her sleep with a jerking motion that almost sent her off the bed. Sitting upright, panting, she surveyed her surroundings. The dream had been so real… so real… When the bleeding had stopped, it was almost three in the morning and he was alone with the corpse and his own mind again. He hated this moment. It brought on panic and guilt and sick feelings in his head and in his stomach, and so to push it away, he relived the moments leading up to his quenching the burning thirst inside him.
He hadn't made love to her in the usual sense, yet he loved her far beyond any physical bonding, for with her life's blood literally his, literally inside of him, they had become one.
Candy, she had called herself, and she'd had the dull look of a simple schoolgirl bored with life, when he had first approached her at the bus stop. She wasn't too bright, but it wasn't brains he was after. Her speech patterns
