The Face of Death

student.'

'Okay, that's good,' I say. 'Now let's talk about motive,' I begin.

'Revenge. Does anyone disagree?'

'Makes sense,' Alan says. ' 'Pain,' 'justice,' all that. The question is, revenge for what? And why is Sarah in the mix?'

'Sins of the father,' I say.

They all look puzzled. I fill them in on my deductions from last night.

'Interesting,' Callie murmurs. 'Something the grandfather did. It's possible.'

'Let's examine the overall picture. He stated to Sarah that he is

'making her over in his own image.' He calls her his sculpture and gives that sculpture a title: A Ruined Life. What does that tell us?'

'If he's making her into him, that he thinks his life was ruined,'

Alan replies.

'Right. So he devises a long-term plan, not to kill her, but to destroy her emotionally. That's pretty severe pathology. It tells us he wasn't just ignored by Mommy. Something was done that requires devastation of a girl's life as a response. What are some possibilities?'

'Going off the 'own image' concept,' Alan says, 'he orphaned her. So he was probably orphaned at an early age himself.'

'Good. What else?'

'I think he was raised in an unsupportive environment,' James says. 'He destroyed anyone or anything that vaguely promised to become a support system for Sarah. He isolated her completely.'

'Okay.'

'Additionally,' James continues, 'we can surmise that he was the recipient of sexual abuse.'

'Based on?'

'It's inductive. Orphaned, a lack of emotional support--he fell into the wrong hands. Statistically, that means he was sexually abused. It fits with the sheer ambition of his plan for Sarah. Fits with the need for a plan at all.'

'Callie? Anything to add?' I ask.

Her smile is cryptic. 'Yes, but for now I'll just say I agree. Let's get to me last.'

I frown at her, she sips her coffee and smiles, unfazed.

'So he was orphaned and abused,' I continue. 'The question: Which does he want revenge for, one or both? And why multiple victims?'

'I don't follow,' Alan says.

'We have Sarah as a living victim, a kind of symbolic recipient of revenge. Fine. If we follow that line of thought, the Kingsleys become incidental. Collateral damage, their bad luck to have fostered Sarah. But we also have, per Sarah's accounts, the poet and the philosophy student. Why were they in the line of fire? And why the difference in MO between them and Vargas?'

Alan shakes his head. 'You've lost me.'

'Vargas got the same treatment as the Kingsleys,' James explains.

'His throat was cut, he was disemboweled. Terrible enough, I guess, but not the most painful way to go. When he talks about the poet and the philosophy student, it's different. Sounds like their deaths were no fun at all. The same goes for Sam and Linda Langstrom. Nothing quick or painless about that.'

'You're saying he changes his MO based on what he considers to be the severity of their crime?' Callie asks.

'I'm saying he feels like he's handing out justice. Within that paradigm, not every offense merits the same punishment.'

Alan nods. 'I'll buy that. Let's call them primary and secondary victims. Vargas and the Kingsleys would be secondary victims. Sarah and her parents, the poet and the philosopher, they'd be primary victims, deserving the worst he can dish out.'

'Yes,' James replies.

'Except we're theorizing that Sam and Linda are secondary, in their own way,' Alan muses. 'Descended from the actual bad guy.'

'Not secondary to him, though. It still fits the construct. If Grandfather Langstrom did something to affect The Stranger as a child, and he's no longer available for justice, then his progeny deserve to suffer by proxy,' James says.

'It would also mean that The Stranger views Granddad's crimes as particularly bad,' I say.

'You're basing that on what he's done with Sarah?' James asks.

'Of course.'

'How do you know the poet and the philosophy student, whoever they are, didn't have children as well? How do you know there aren't other Sarahs out there?' he asks.

I pause, considering this pretty unsavory, pretty terrible thought. 'I guess I don't. Okay, so we theorize he was orphaned, fell into the wrong hands, and suffered abuse. The scars on his feet support that. Anything else?'

Silence.

'My turn,' Callie says. 'I spent a good part of my evening digging through Mr. Vargas's computer. It's infested with pornography of every kind, including hardcore kiddie porn. He's indiscriminate in his perversion. In addition to the kiddie porn I saw scat, bestiality.' She makes a face. 'Vomit eating.'

'Okay, we get the idea,' Alan says, looking distressed.

'Sorry. All of that, however, seemed to have been for personal consumption. It supports what we already know: Mr. Vargas was an unpleasant individual. His e-mail wasn't revelatory either. The video clip, however, was.'

'Video? Of what?' I ask.

She indicates her monitor. 'Crowd around and I'll show you.'

We form a semicircle. The media player has already been invoked.

'Ready?' she asks.

'Go ahead,' I reply.

She hits play. A moment of blackness. An ugly rug comes into view.

'I recognize that,' I murmur. 'The carpet in Vargas's apartment.'

The camera jitters and the shot moves up, rolling around like a drunk as the camera is wrestled onto a tripod. It settles down to autofocus on the same sad bed, the one I'd found Vargas and the girl dead on. A nude girl clambers onto the mattress. She's too young, only just pubescent. She takes a moment to arrange herself. Gets on her hands and knees. Her wrists are in handcuffs.

'That's the girl from last night,' I say.

A voice outside the shot murmurs something. I can't make out the words, but she turns her head up and looks right into the camera lens. Her living face is placid, almost docile. It's not all that different from her dead face. She has beautiful blue eyes, but they're as hollow as a drum. Full of nothing.

Jose Vargas comes into view. He's dressed, wearing blue jeans and a dirty white T-shirt. He looks his age. His back is slightly stooped. He's unshaven. His face is tired, but his eyes, they're bright. He's looking forward to whatever it is he's about to do.

'Is that a switch in his hand?' Alan asks.

'Yes it is,' Callie replies.

The switch is a thin branch that's been stripped from a tree. I can see a hint of its green core at one end. Vargas has prepared for corporal punishment the old-fashioned way. He moves behind the girl. Leans forward, seems to be checking the camera. Nods to himself. He gives the girl a critical eye.

'Ass higher in the air, fucking puta,' he barks. The girl hardly blinks. She wiggles a little, forcing her posterior higher.

'That's better.' Checks the room again, the camera, again. 'That's good.' A last nod to himself and Vargas gives the camera his full attention. He smiles and it's an ugly smile, full of brown teeth or the spaces where teeth should be.