He took a sealed Baggie from his pocket and held it up. The gypsy’s stun gun was inside.
Pope shuddered at the sight of it and felt a phantom jolt of pain in his ribs. He could only imagine what McBride was feeling.
“Soon as we’re done here, I’m taking this baby back to the lab and putting a rush on it. If we don’t get a match on this son of a bitch’s fingerprints, I’ll turn in my badge.”
“With our luck he doesn’t have fingerprints,” Pope said.
It was a joke, but none of them laughed.
Pope shifted his attention to Susan’s notebook, which lay on the table in front of them.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t we get down to business? See what my darling little ex has to say about all of this.”
McBride nodded. “My thinking exactly.”
They first looked at the newspaper clippings. There were at least a half dozen of them, starting with the Salcedo Daily ’s account of Jillian Carpenter’s abduction and death.
The morning after the kidnapping, she had been found by a jogger in Foster Park, her half-naked body nearly buried by fallen leaves.
When the leaves were cleared away, it was discovered that the killer had used Jillian’s blood to draw something on the ground:
The symbol of a wheel.
The gypsy wheel.
Anna looked at the clipping. “It says here that Jillian’s left forefinger was severed and positioned inside the wheel to replace one of the missing spokes.”
Jake’s eyes widened. “That’s pretty fucked up. Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s fucked up,” Pope said. “Why does he kill little girls? Why does he smoke cigarettes that’re older than God?”
“Calm down, Cuz. It’s a legitimate question.”
“You’re right,” he said. “But I feel like I keep having to hammer this point home: There’s no rational explanation for half of this shit. And the sooner we all accept that, the better off we’ll-”
“Oh, my god, look at this.”
McBride had wisely been ignoring them and had moved on to another newspaper clipping. This one a stapled, two-page photocopy. She pulled the first page free and put it on the table in front of them.
It was a murky copy of an already murky tabloid photo. A teenage girl lying on a slab in the morgue, the victim of multiple stab wounds.
The headline screamed: WHEEL OF DEATH!
McBride read from the second page:
“ ‘Manhattan. Seventeen-year-old Mary Havershaw’s lifeless body was part of a macabre crime scene discovered by a janitor in the gymnasium of Columbia High School for Girls. The victim of multiple stab wounds, Havershaw was found lying next to a crudely drawn symbol of what sources describe as a chakra, or wheel, believed to be part of a satanic ritual. The symbol was drawn using Havershaw’s blood.
“ ‘Police have zeroed in on a group of young girls who have been known to dabble in the occult at Columbia, but no suspects have been named and no arrests made.
“ ‘Friends of the victim, however, point to another possibility, claiming that Havershaw had complained of being followed in the days before her death.
“ ‘ “She was really worried about this guy,” said one friend, who wishes to remain anonymous. “She said he never got close, but he kept showing up all over the place. Outside school, on the subway, at Coney Island. She tried talking to her parents about him, but they just thought she was being dramatic.”
“ ‘When asked if Havershaw had ever described this man, her friend said, “Not really. Just that he looked like some kind of circus freak.” ’ ”
McBride lowered the page and stared at them.
“What’s the date on that thing?” Jake asked.
“September third, 1971.”
“This guy’s defying all the stats. Most serial killers usually get their jollies, then retire after a while. What does this put him at? Forty-something years?”
“Maybe longer than that,” Pope said. His gaze was on another photocopy in the stack, its protruding corner showing a handwritten year in the margin: 1954. He recognized Susan’s handwriting.
Reaching across the table, he pulled it free, and stared down at a two-paragraph article titled “Police Baffled by Bizarre Ritual Killing.”
“ ‘Dayton, Ohio,’ ” he read aloud. “ ‘Police continue to be baffled by the bizarre stabbing death of thirty-year- old housewife Anita Dallworthy, who was found on her living room floor in what officials have determined to be a ritual killing. Her assailant or assailants used Dallworthy’s blood to create a circular symbol on the carpet. Sources wouldn’t confirm, but it’s believed that one of the victim’s body parts was incorporated into the symbol’s design.
“ ‘Police are currently looking for what witnesses have described as a severely deformed man of possible foreign descent, who was seen lurking near the Dallworthy home just days before the incident. Their search, however, has so far proven fruitless.’ ”
Pope looked up at them. “It’s dated January fourteenth, 1954.”
“This is impossible. It can’t be the same guy.”
“Can’t it?” Anna said. “Take a look at these.”
She was holding a stack of photographs she’d taken from a small manila envelope clipped inside the notebook. As she laid them on the table, Pope immediately recognized them as crime scene photos-several shots of the victims in question.
Each one of them showed a savagely gutted victim lying next to a bloody gypsy wheel, a severed finger in place of one of the spokes. Pope was reminded of the photos of satanic ritual killings he’d once seen when he took a class in cultural anthropology.
They all studied the photographs silently; then Jake said, “How did Susan get hold of these?”
“I’m sure it took her years and a lot of determination,” McBride said. “She didn’t stop until she got what she wanted.”
Pope tapped one of the photos. “Take a look at the date on this one.”
It was a high-angle shot of a young woman lying in the middle of an alley, her intestines exposed by lateral slashes across her stomach, another bloody gypsy wheel beside her on the asphalt-complete with severed finger. The legend in the bottom corner was written in a foreign language. Russian, maybe. Pope couldn’t be sure.
Slavonian?
Whatever the case, it meant the killings weren’t limited to the U.S.
“1924,” McBride said. “Thirty years before Dallworthy. And the M.O.’s the same.”
Jake shook his head. “This is bullshit. We’re talking over eighty years ago. He’d have to’ve started this when he was a kid, and the guy I shot was no goddamn senior citizen.”
“The evidence doesn’t lie, Jake.”
“But what about Kimberly Fairweather? She still had all her fingers, and I didn’t see any friggin’ gypsy wheels near her body.”
“She was a mistake,” McBride said.
“A mistake?”
“That’s what he told me before he grabbed me on the football field. He said he’d made a lot of mistakes.”
“Which means that these could be just the tip of the iceberg,” Pope said. “There could be a lot more Kimberlys out there.”
“Exactly. It’s like he’s searching for someone special, but he doesn’t always find her.”
Jake heaved an exasperated sigh. “You people aren’t listening to me. This is not possible.”
“No, you’re the one who’s not listening,” McBride said. “Danny’s right. We’ve seen enough craziness the last few hours to throw possible right out the window.” She paused. “Check out the pattern in these photographs.”
