“ The precise number of male students at the Manoa campus hovers around five thousand nine hundred eighty.”
“ Concentrate on part-timers first,” she suggested.
That'd be something like two thousand two hundred fifty.”
“ No,” she corrected him. “Less the females, say forty percent, one thousand two hundred fifty to thirteen hundred.”
“ Hey, not bad. Now there's a figure we can work with,” he said with a little salute of sarcasm. “I'll set Tony to work on it.”
“ Just remember, our guy-if he is a student and not a bottle-washer out there-he may've dropped out or flunked out before now. You may want to get backlist enrollments as well as current ones.”
He nodded, telling her she was right, and then he quietly added to her repertoire of knowledge about the killer, saying, “This creep probably lives, or has lived most of his life, with a partner or spouse.”
“ Or parents,” she replied.
“ Maybe one parent.”
“ Stress would factor into his violence.”
“ Stress is brought on by the trade winds, maybe?”
She quickly agreed. “Something symbolic in the wind, perhaps? Maybe our guy got left out in a nasty storm as a child, who the hell knows.”
“ Probably hears voices in the damned wind.”
She nodded admiringly, continuing the game of automatic thought. “Violence could also be triggered with a sudden problem- finances, job, marriage, or a romantic relationship.”
“ Alcohol and/or drugs are apt to figure in,” Parry added, casually rising to the challenge. “A person who's usually no threat, nothing to take a second look at, socially capable, visibly acceptable, but he doesn't stand out.”
“ Approaches his victim in an open area, uses a non-threatening manner in a friendly, even familiar place.”
“ Picks 'em up at malls, in shops, at the bus station.”
“ Prefers verbal manipulation to physical force as he hunts for his prey. From the police reports, sounds like Linda may have known him from an earlier time, didn't want to go with him, and so he had to resort to physical force to get her off the street and into the car.”
“ Exactly… she knew him, and perhaps some of the others also knew him.”
“ Control over his victim is a vital part of what he does, and fantasy-”
“ Ritual dominates his actions; the murder itself an acting out of a long-held fantasy, I know.”
“ He brutalized Linda. It was no pure accident the geyser sent her arm up from the spray.”
Parry looked quizzical. “Whataya mean?”
“ Close examination of the tear shows that it was sliced off at the shoulder, not torn off by natural forces.
There're striated marks at the bone.”
“ Bastard…” he said.
“ He transports the bodies in a vehicle,” she said, continuing the unofficial killer profile they'd begun together.
Parry, pacing now, nodded and said, “Yeah, and his car's in fairly good condition. He won't risk being pulled over or caught with a dead engine, especially after Koko Head.”
“ Still, something about his car that night attracted the HPD cops.”
“ Kaniola.”
“ What?”
“ Alan Kaniola first noticed the car… called it 'suspicious- looking.' I've only listened to the dispatch tape a thousand times.” Parry's obvious anguish over the case showed through. “There's nothing there. They never called in a plate; never had the chance.”
“ Look, I think the killer takes souvenirs from each victim, squirrels them away, possibly clothing and jewelry, but most assuredly the hands.”
“ Cut at the wrist?” he asked.
She nodded, her eyes boring into him. “He… he takes his trophies out later… re-counts them, relives the fantasy over and over, until he does it again. And one more thing. He likely enjoys reading about the accounts of the missing girls and any news coverage devoted to their disappearances.”
Parry nodded. “He's always out there looking for prey, the girl who looks like Linda Kahala.”
“ He knows what he likes… what he wants, and he feels comfortable doing it here. He's on his own turf. He knows the terrain well.”
Parry agreed. “And when he sees that look-alike victim, he strikes.”
“ He ensnares, perhaps with words at first.” Parry thought of the Shakespearean sonnets he'd picked up from Linda's room, taken home and glanced over.
“ Then he renders his victim helpless,” she went on, “as when a snake sends venom into a mouse, immobilizing it. We found traces of a drug called curare, not present in the usual street drugs.”
“ I see…”
“ He next assaults, kills and disposes of his victims.”
“ And he hunts nightly during the trades, looking for his victim of opportunity.”
“ Exactly,” she agreed. “And when he fails to find her, he goes home and opens his box of precious collectibles-a collection of keys, hairpins, lipstick vials, underwear, earrings, necklaces and body parts.”
“ HPD has a lot of red-eyed detectives back out on the streets, particularly along Ala Moana, Kalakaua, Kuhio and the Ala Wai, interviewing pimps, johns, taxi drivers, employees in stores and restaurants in the vicinity, you name it. My own people have already logged three hundred man hours out there and zip. It's like this guy's a magician; makes 'em disappear before everyone's eyes.”
“ Yeah, I saw how crowded the streets were the other night when we were strolling. He meets her at a bus stop or a supermarket, convinces her that he has something she needs, that they have to go to his place to get it.”
Parry grimly replied, “He has that lethal combination of desire, passion, lust and an inability to satisfy that need through any normal means.”
“ Impotence,” she agrees. “Dysfunctional, and squeamish over the thought of pain and suffering-his own, that is-and the sight of blood-his own, that is. But at the first sight of blood from his first slash when he lost control with his first victim, he learned that the feel of anguish and torture, and the sight of blood streaming down the body of a helpless victim, creates in him an epiphany of pure pleasure, an orgasm like nothing he has ever experienced before, that for the first time in his miserable life he is sexually fulfilled.”
“ Yeah, understood… not only does overpowering a helpless woman give him an erection, it makes him ejaculate.”
“ Blood and pain… that's what he's into, and whoever this guy is, he's slowly come around to the conclusion that murder's not only easy, it's sexually gratifying,” she continued. “The sight of blood, the struggle against him, the ultimate empowerment he feels, his goddamned erection, it all combines when he cuts into his victim and dangles her life over the edge.”
“ Her life or death in his hands alone. Makes him feel like God, I'm sure.”
“ For once in his life he's in control. That's what matters to him.”
Parry swallowed hard, thinking of young Linda Kahala, of her father and mother, of how he was going to break the news to them that their daughter was now, for a certainty, the first positively identified young woman of the many missing who were all assuredly dead. It followed that since the last of the missing was murdered, the others were more than likely just as dead. There was no telling how many bodies this madman had accumulated below the waters of the Blow Hole.”Not so sure I can eat lunch now,” admitted Jessica.
“ How about a stiff island drink?” he suggested.
“ That I can't refuse.”
“ Maybe after a drink, you'll feel like something to eat, maybe a sandwich. I know a place close by.”
She got up, grabbed her cane and came around to where he'd remained standing. “You're certainly taking
