'Then there are the physical difficulties of one perpetrator doing this all by himself,' Lee went on.
'Yeah,' Butts agreed. 'It does seem kinda tricky.'
'The girls were all low-risk victims who were left in public places,' Lee continued. 'And the carving is both arrogant and incredibly risky. At least one perpetrator is controlling and organized, with a sophisticated knowledge of forensic investigation.'
'It's perfectly believable that it could be the work of one person,' Nelson argued.
'If there are two killers,' Lee continued, 'we could expect the more submissive partner would be exhibiting odd behavior as the stress begins to get to him. People around him would notice this.'
'What about the other guy?' Florette asked.
'If he is in a relationship of some kind, he would be controlling and possibly violent-though not necessarily physically violent. But he would certainly be manipulative and controlling. He might have a history of petty crimes: shoplifting, breaking and entering, that kind of thing. But he might not have a criminal record yet, depending on how old he is-or how lucky.'
'What about these mysterious text messages you've been getting?' Chuck asked, changing the subject. 'Do you think they're related?'
'I don't know,' Lee replied. All attempts to trace them had been unsuccessful so far.
'What text messages?' Nelson asked. 'I didn't hear anything about that.'
The door was flung open, and Detective Butts stormed into the room, brandishing a newspaper over his head as though he were going to swat someone with it.
'What the hell is this?' he demanded, slapping the paper down on Morton's desk.
Nelson's eyes narrowed and hardened, as they did when he was dangerously irritated. Butts was oblivious to Nelson's mood, however; his square body was rigid with rage.
'Look at what these pansy reporters wrote! Where the hell do they get off writing this kind of crap?'
Lee looked down at the paper, its headline screaming out alarm:
Slasher continues to terrorize city.Police baffled.
'For Chrissake, talk about yellow journalism!' Butts fumed, shoving a chewed cigar stub into his mouth.
Florette snorted. 'Well, what do you expect from the Post?'
'That's all we need, to have a goddamn panic on our hands!' Butts threw himself into the beat-up chair in front of the window and stared out moodily.
Lee looked down at the headline, and read the first paragraph of text. 'The killer is not content to merely kill, but must mutilate his victims in order to achieve his sick satisfaction…' He looked at Butts. 'Where did they get this? This information wasn't released to the public.' What he didn't say was that it was curious that the press had picked up on the nickname Butts himself had chosen for the killer.
'Who knows?' Butts replied. 'They're goddamn vultures-scavengers makin' money off these girls' deaths.'
'Well, if you put it that way, we are too,' Florette pointed out.
Butts chewed viciously on his cigar, nearly biting it in two.
'It's not the same thing! We're workin' to solve this thing. Our job is about protecting people.'
'Well, we're not going to get very far if someone keeps leaking things to the press,' Lee pointed out.
Butts got up and tossed what was left of his cigar in the trash basket next to Morton's desk and sat in one of the captain's chairs scattered around the desk. 'It probably was one of the geeks in the morgue, or maybe a CSI did it. Who knows? Could be anyone.'
Chuck walked into the room, his face grim.
'We've got trouble,' he said, sitting behind his desk. 'Walker's lodged a formal complaint against you,' he said to Lee.
Butts smacked the arm of his chair with his closed fist. 'Bastard!'
'What does this mean for the investigation?' Lee asked.
Chuck picked up the glass paperweight from his desk and held it in both hands. 'It's hard to say. Internal Affairs will have to evaluate the complaint and decide what to do about it.'
'Can they take me off the case?' Lee asked.
Chuck put the paperweight down and put his hands in the air in a gesture of helplessness. 'They can do anything they want.'
Butts blinked, his homely face slack. 'Anything?'
The relationship between Internal Affairs and the other members of the police force was like the relationship between a prison warden and the incarcerated: watchful, wary, and mutually distrustful. Visitors from IA were as welcome in precinct houses as an infestation of head lice in an elementary school classroom.
The phone on the desk rang, and Chuck answered it.
'Morton here.' He listened briefly and then he said, 'Really? When? Where are they now? Okay, thanks.'
He hung up and exhaled. 'Jane Doe Number Five has been identified. Her parents just called and ID'd her photograph from our Web site.'
Lee rose from his chair. 'Who is she?'
'Name's Pamela Stavros. She's a runaway from New England. Parents are flying down from Maine today.'
'Okay,' Chuck said, 'let's go over what we have.' He read from aloud from an autopsy report on his desk. 'Two of the autopsies indicated the presence of semen. One girl was on the pill, the other was found still wearing her diaphragm. The third girl used a condom. In each case there was sexual conduct shortly before her death, but no evidence of rape. In the case of Marie Kelleher and Annie O'Donnell, the boyfriends admit to having sex with the victims the night before they were found dead.'
Lee stood up, his face rigid. 'He watches them.'
Chuck stared at him.
'You mean…?'
'He watches them have sex-but he can't stand the feelings it stirs in him, so he has to kill them.'
'So since they're the source of his arousal,' Nelson said, 'they have to die?'
'But that's not how he sees it. Somehow he manages to rationalize his acts.'
'Maybe he sees himself as their savior, rescuing them from the sin of carnality?' Florette suggested.
'Yes, yes. That would make perfect sense,' Lee agreed.
'Look, the mayor and the DA are both coming down hard on us,' Chuck said, 'so we're going to-'
'Round up the usual suspects?' Nelson suggested dryly.
'Bring in a few more known sex offenders for questioning,' Morton finished, ignoring him.
They had already completed interviews of half a dozen known sex offenders. Nelson disdained to be present at any of these interviews, which he deemed a waste of time and taxpayers' money, but Detective Butts was keen on them.
'Go ahead,' Nelson said. 'But it won't do you any good.'
'Yeah?' Butts challenged. 'And why's that?'
'Because you won't find him that way.'
Butts blew air out of his nostrils and rolled his eyes.
Chuck looked at Lee. 'You agree?'
'I'm afraid so,' he replied. 'He'll have a history of abusing animals, maybe setting a few fires, but chances are he wasn't caught.'
'I checked with VICAP again for crimes similar to this UNSUB,' Florette said, flicking an invisible speck from his immaculate shirt. He seemed to enjoy using anagrams whenever possible. VICAP stood for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and UNSUB was shorthand for Unknown Subject.
'VICAP could be useless for a guy like this,' Nelson responded. 'Up until now, he could have been flying under the radar.'
'Oh, that's just great!' Butts said, biting off the end of a cigar and spitting it in the trash can. He frowned, the pockmarks on his forehead merging. 'You said this was a sex crime.'
'Like I said, this guy will probably have a history of cruelty to animals,' Lee said. 'Also possibly voyeurism and fetishistic behavior, maybe some arson-but arsonists are hard to catch, so he may not have any criminal record.'
