“Where were his views on abortion?”
“I've thought about that. He took the unpopular view that a woman's decision was a woman's decision where her body was concerned. He hedged a bit, calling the fetus a seed before the end of the first trimester. Anyway, I don't think he was killed by fanatical pro-lifers. His body was found mutilated, the head severed and taken away, along with other parts of him. I've never heard of an abortion-related murderer also being a hacker.”
“Sex organs?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things are there?”
Damn, even his dark humor is subtle, she told herself.
“His hands and feet.”
“Both hands, both feet?”
“You got it.”
“Cut at the wrists?”
“Forearms, actually. “Feet?”
“At the calf.”
“Somebody really wanted this dead man hobbled. You're the shrink, maybe you can help me.” She smiled, nodding. “However I can.”
“I'll never fully understand hacking up the body in such a way after the guy's dead.”
“Indians did it.”
“Sioux, Cheyenne, and other Plains Indians did it to mark a kill during a battle to send a message, to demonstrate to all other enemies just who had sent this particular enemy-say George Custer-over to the other side. So why do white murderers do it?”
She shrugged. “An FBI profile would likely come to the same conclusion as it might in a lovers' quarrel, that such an overkill means only one thing: that the killer knew his victim, had a vested, highly charged emotional interest in mutilating the body.”
“Yeah, so the killer loved Judge Charles Mootry?”
“Loved him or hated him. The emotions are, while opposites on the spectrum, extremely close if the spectrum is a circle.”
“So, in any case, the killer wanted Mootry deader than dead. By eating an enemy's heart, a warrior takes on the courage of his enemy. Taking his head, I don't begin to understand, nor his hands or feet, unless…”
“Go on,” she encouraged.
“Old and foolish notions come to mind.”
“I'm listening.”
He shrugged. “There are ancient tribal stories among the Alabama that speak of supernatural creatures that fed on men; they were like vampires, and the only way to kill one was to strike it through the heart with a stake or spear.” He paused to look up at her, to see if she was getting this.
“I'm with you so far,” she said, as if reading his mind.
“It's foolish, but the old ones say you then cut off the monster's feet, so it can't walk, and the hands so it can't crawl, the head so it can't see, and the genitals so it can't reproduce.”
She nodded. “All very sound reasoning when dealing with a supernatural enemy, I would think. Meanwhile, we're left with the torso sporting a high-tech, high-density, huge aluminum crossbow arrow straight through the heart. He died on impact.”
Lucas's eyes widened, his breath coming short in a dry mouth. “He was killed by a… a crossbow, really?”
“Really.”
“I guess I should've heard about this, if nowhere else than in the locker room.
Where'd it happen?”
“In his bed.”
“In his bed? Whereabouts?”
“At his home in the Bay area, where the killer somehow gained entry without using so much as a screwdriver.”
“Another indication the killer knew the man…” Lucas lingered over the suggestion, finding himself naturally caught up in the mystery.
“It was believed he either forced his way in at gunpoint or talked his way past the threshold. Or he was someone known by the judge. Other than these possible scenarios… well, there's the sexual proclivities angle. Was the judge into sex games, auto erotica, anything of that nature? But this monster arrow made for one pretty deadly toy, if that's what was going on.”
“Assuming it wasn't a lover of one sort or another, what's left? Who had reason to kill the judge? Was he a sentencing judge?”
“He had some big and well-known cases, but he was one of a number of judges on the court, so really, he had no known enemies. He adjudicated cases all his life, both criminal and civil offenses, nothing major except for the money involved.”
“Until he bought his way into the hearts of the rich and powerful and found a seat on the appellate court, you mean?
People who lose appeals are generally at the end of a long rope. Good enough reason for most people to take a life.”
She tried to steer him back on course even as she steered the car. “The brutalization of the body… you see, there were no signs whatsoever of a struggle, or that Judge Mootry had the remotest chance of escaping, since he'd made no attempt to do so.”
“No signs of a struggle? No blood trails? Coroner puts it as death first, mutilation afterwards,” he stated.
“You hit the nail right on the head.”
“So, how did the killer waltz in with a spear gun?”
“Crossbow, actually,” she corrected him. “Very expensive, very high-tech. Sort you find in gun magazines for collectors.”
“Sure, I've seen some at the gun shops. I've even hunted deer with one.”
“Nobody knows for sure just how the killer got in or out. He got past Mootry's gates, his guard dogs, his alarm. Nothing, it seems, could save the judge that night. It's as if it were fated.”
“Or well executed…”
“Another pun and I'll execute you.”
“Certainly must have known the place well. I don't suppose anything useful was left at the crime scene by the killer?”
“Only a message written in the judge's blood.”
“Really? What, on a wall?”
“No, with pen on paper.
“Really? Interesting…
“It figures to be an old quill pen, according to the guys in Documents.
They're studying the wording, the handwriting, everything.
“What'd the message say?”
“It's pretty straightforward: 'Cut off the limb of Satan.
“Sounds biblical.”
'They're running it down, but I have a girlfriend who is a biblical scholar, and she tells me it's not a direct quote from any of the various translations of the Old or New Testament.”
“That's interesting.”
“Joanna says that although the sentiment sounds Christian enough, it's not specific to any texts she knows. Still, I'm guessing that this guy has some kind of fixation on himself being some sort of savior, and that for some reason, he singled out Mootry as one of the demons he is meant to destroy-the so-called limb of Satan, maybe… you see?”
“Or someone wants the authorities to believe it's all part of some bizarre shit.”
