Shadow Man

these words. I'm sure he's right.

'Examination of the wounds shows that they're consistent with those caused by a scalpel, which fits. Because the ME says that the removal of the organs was skillful. Not just the surgery, but knowing where the organs were and how to remove them intact. They not only separated the large and small intestines, they divided them into their component parts. Three for the small intestine, four for the large.'

I think about this for a moment. 'Did he--sorry, they--dissect any other organ in the same way?'

He consults the file, then shakes his head. 'No.' He looks up at me.

'They were showing off.'

'That's good,' I say, grim.

Leo's look at me is incredulous. 'How is that good?'

Alan turns to him, answering the question for me. 'It's good because the way we catch these guys is that they make mistakes. If they're showing off, that means the act itself isn't enough for them. They also want our attention. That means they're not going to be as careful as they could be. Or should be. So they're more likely to make mistakes.'

'In simpler terms, child,' Callie says, 'it means they're even more Looney Tunes than usual. That increases the chances of them slipping up.'

'I get it.' Leo says this but looks a little bit disturbed as he thinks it over. I understand. Looking at the dissection of human organs by two psychopaths as a bright spot is hard to get your mind around. He's probably wondering if he wants to get his mind around it. Alan continues. 'Once they'd removed the organs, they left the body cavity open and tied Bonnie to her body.' He closes the folder. 'No seminal fluids found, and there was some evidence of latex in the vagina.'

They'd used rubbers to prevent leaving their DNA.

'Nothing else. No hairs or fingerprints found on or in the body. That's it.'

'So what does that leave?'

James shrugs. 'Look at the rest of the picture. There weren't any hesitation wounds. They were operating at a high level of certainty in what they were doing when it came to cutting her open. One of them may have had formal medical training. I think it's probable.'

'Or they've just had a lot of practice,' Callie murmurs.

'What else do we know?' I look around at each of them. Alan pulls out a legal pad and a pen at my words. This is a part of our routine. He's ready to jot down any relevant thoughts and musings.

'We know they're both white, both males,' Callie says. 'One is close to six feet tall, the other is approximately five ten. Both are in shape.'

Alan speaks next. 'They're careful. They understand the basics of transference and take precautions to avoid it. No hair, no epithelials, and no semen.'

'But they're not as smart as they think they are,' I note. 'We have the fingerprints on the bed. And we figured out that there are two of them.'

'Well, that's the problem, isn't it?' Alan says in a wry voice. 'If they really understood transference, they'd understand it always happens, somehow.'

Alan is referring to 'Locard's Principle.' Locard is considered the father of modern forensics, and we all know the principle by heart: When two objects come into contact, there is always transfer of material from one to the other, and such material may be small or large, may be difficult to detect; never- theless it occurs, and it is the responsibility of the investigating team to gather all such material however small they may be and prove the transference. Our killers were careful. The absence of semen is telling. It shows control. With the advent of crime books, television shows, and HIV, rapists using rubbers is on the rise. But it's still unusual. Rape is about sexual power and violation. Rapists get high on the intensity of sensation this gives them. Condoms get in the way of both the violation and the sensation. Jack Jr. and friend used them, making Alan's point for him.

'We know they're not perfect,' James says. 'They have an immediate weakness--showing off and wanting to taunt us. That's higher risk and creates the possibility of them screwing up at some point.'

'Right. What else?'

'At least one of them is technically proficient.' This is from Leo. 'I mean, it's not rocket science these days, editing video. But there is a learning curve, the way they did it. Not something your average computer user is going to know right off the bat.'

'We think they're based in LA, right?' Callie says. I shrug. 'We're going on that premise. But it's something we suspect, not something we know. We do know their victim type. They told us--they're planning to go after other women like Annie.' I turn to Leo.

'What did they call her in the letter?'

'A modern-day whore of the information superhighway.'

'What about that? What kind of numbers are we talking about?'

Leo grimaces at the question. 'Thousands, if you take the U.S. as a whole. Maybe close to a thousand even if you narrow it to just California. But that's not the only problem. Think of it this way: Every girl with a site is potentially an independent contractor. While some are sponsored under the umbrella of a single company, a lot of them are like your friend. They design, maintain, and operate their own Web sites. It's a business of one, with a single employee. And there's no chamber of commerce for this type of business. There are lists of these types of sites in various places, but there isn't any one single consortium.'

I think on this bit of bad news. Something occurs to me. 'Fair enough, but what if we take it from this view: Instead of looking at everyone in that industry, let's look for the places where the killers could have found Annie. You say there are lists of these types of sites, right?'

He nods.

'It's unlikely that she's on every one of those. We look for the ones she does appear on, then we narrow the field to just the other women on those particular lists.'

Now he is shaking his head again, but not in agreement. 'It's not that simple. What if they found her by using a search engine? And if they did, what word or phrase did they use? Also, most site operators like her put up their own 'feeder sites.' Small, free sites with sample photos and a link to their primary site. Kind of a 'sample the goods and if you like it, come into the store.' They could also have found one of those sites.'

'Not to mention the fact that they could have found her through you, Smoky.' Callie sounds reluctant as she says this. I give her a look of agreement. Followed by a sigh of discouragement.

'So the Web end of it leads us nowhere?'

'Not nowhere,' Leo says. 'The one place to look is her subscriber list. The people who paid to see her 'members only' area.'

My ears perk up at this. Alan is nodding. 'Right, right,' he says.

'That's how they got all those perps in the kiddie-porn sting, yeah?'

Leo smiles at him. 'Yep. There are a lot of laws and oversight when it comes to credit-card processing. Fairly precise records are kept. Best of all, most processors have a built-in address check. Where the address given at sign-up has to match the address of the cardholder they have on record.'

'Do we know how many subscribers she had?'

'Not yet. It won't be hard to find out. We'll need to get a warrant, but most of those companies are easy to work with. I wouldn't expect any trouble.'

'I want you to work on that when we get back,' I tell him. 'Alan can walk you through the warrant end of things. Get the list and start combing through it. I also want her computer scrutinized. Look for anything-- anything--that might be a clue. Maybe she noticed something off, made a note to herself . . .'

'Right. I'll also get her e-mail. Depending on who her provider is, they should still have copies of anything recent that's not already sitting on her computer.'

'Good.'

'There's something else,' Jenny says. 'They went to a lot of trouble to make us think there was only one of them.'

'Maybe they were hoping to confuse us with it later, somehow,' I say. 'I don't know. I haven't worked that