'I'll expect your statements by oh eight hundred hours tomorrow,' Hammer said. 'You too, please, Dr. Campbell.' And with that, he left.
There was an awkward silence; then Butts muttered, 'Oh-eight-hundred hours my ass! Who the hell does he think he is, Goddamn Patton?'
'Never mind,' Lee said. 'I think we should all get him our statements as soon as possible.'
'I agree,' Chuck said. 'But let's forget it now, okay? Can we get back to the case at hand?'
'The Catholic angle is interesting,' Florette suggested. 'You definitely believe we're dealing with a religious fanatic here? I mean, he's not faking it or something?'
'I don't know if the killer is trying to set up an insanity plea or not, but the religious fervor is real,' Lee ventured.
'Really? Why?' Florette asked.
'Leaving the bodies in churches is risky and difficult-he could have easily been caught, and he's too intelligent not to know that. And the carving is even more risky. It's an important part of his signature, what he needs to get emotional satisfaction.'
'Yeah? So now we know what drives him, how does that help us nab him?' Butts asked.
'You know, Detective, if you spent less time criticizing the profiler and more time working with him, you might be closer to catching this guy.' Nelson's voice oozed sarcasm.
Butts frowned and crossed his arms. 'Yeah, and if pigs had wings, they'd fly.'
'All right!' Morton interrupted. 'I know this is frustrating for all of us, but let's remember we're on the same team and stop sniping at one another. Knock it off.' He fixed a stare on Butts until the burly detective sighed and looked away. Morton turned his gaze on Nelson, who smiled.
'I couldn't agree more, Captain Morton,' he replied.
'Well,' Butts remarked, 'this guy is bound to slip up sooner or later.'
Nelson looked at the detective as though trying to determine what species he belonged to.
'The question is,' he said acidly, 'what do we say to the parents of the next victim? That we decided to wait until he 'slipped up'?'
Butts's pockmarked face turned purple, and he clenched his plump hands into fists. 'Look, I wanna catch this guy as badly as you do! Anyone who says otherwise is-'
'All right!' Chuck shouted. 'Will you both cut it out? We have work to do!' He pointed to a map of the five boroughs tacked up on the wall. 'Now, the red thumbtacks indicate where he's struck already.'
'Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn,' Florette said. 'So far he's going borough by borough.'
'Could that be a coincidence?' Chuck asked.
'No,' Lee replied. 'This guy is compulsive and orderly-obsessively organized. No,' he said, looking at the little row of tacks, 'I think it's all part of a pattern. He's staking out his territory.'
'I agree,' Nelson said. 'However, the question is, what's next? Is he going to come to Manhattan, or cross down to Staten Island, leaving Manhattan as the final jewel in his crown, as it were?'
'You're right,' Lee agreed. 'There's no way of knowing.'
'Why don't we put out a public warning telling girls in those two boroughs not to go out alone?' Butts suggested.
Nelson bit his lip. 'We tried that during Son of Sam. It didn't work then, and it won't work now. People are going to do what they're going to do.'
'Of course we'll issue a warning,' Chuck said, rubbing his eyes.
'It won't do any good,' Nelson said. 'This guy is patient. The only way we stop these killings is to stop him.'
'Right,' Lee agreed. 'He'll wait-sooner or later he'll find someone who fits his profile.'
'So he's profiling his vics the way you're profiling him?' Florette asked.
'Pretty much, yeah,' Lee answered.
'Man,' Butts said. 'That's creepy.'
Nelson smiled. 'Detective Butts, I must agree with you there. Creepy is exactly what it is.'
As they filed out of the office, Nelson took Lee aside.
'What is it?' Lee asked, seeing the troubled look in his friend's face.
'I'm worried about you, lad. You look tired. Maybe you should take a leave of absence for a while, get some rest?'
'I'm fine,' Lee replied.
'Well, you don't look fine. Are the text messages getting to you? They must be very upsetting.'
'I'm fine-really. And I need to see this case through to the end.'
Nelson's face was stern and grim. 'The end may be more than you bargained for.'
'Thank you for your concern, but I'll be all right.'
'Well, at least be careful, please?'
'I will. I promise.'
But even as he said the words he knew that being careful might not be enough-for him or for the Slasher's next victim.
Chapter Thirty-three
The park was empty, just the way Willow liked it. His only companions this morning were the Canada geese who had stopped to rest on their early migration back north after their annual Florida vacation. That's how he thought of it: a Florida vacation. His mother had gone to Florida, but she had never come back. He imagined her flying overhead, honking at him, her voice harsh as the cry of the speckled geese waddling around the boat pond. He sat on his bench and watched the geese pecking at the lumpy brown earth, tattered from the snow and ice of winter.
Rubbing his hands together, Willow looked around the park in satisfaction. Today was a good day. The voices hadn't come at him yet, with their whispering and taunting, driving him to wander and fidget and talk to himself, just as they drove other people away from him.
In his more lucid moments, he knew how he must appear to them, and why they shunned him. He might be crazy, but he wasn't stupid. In fact, his mother once told him he had an IQ of 150. Near genius level, she had said. Near genius level…well, fat lot of good it had done him. His meds-when he remembered to take them-couldn't entirely block out the voices that reminded him who was after him. The CIA, the FBI, and occasionally aliens who posed as joggers or young mothers-or sometimes even their kids.
Paranoid schizophrenia, that's what they called it. They could call it whatever they wanted-they could call it a pig in a poke, for all he cared.
Christ, he needed a cigarette. He rummaged in his pockets, but all he found were bits of string and fast-food wrappers. Chicken McNuggets, his favorite. He liked to keep things in his pockets because it helped to keep him warm.
He rubbed his hands together again and looked up to see a man approaching him.
'Hey, got a cigarette?' he called out.
The man smiled.
'In my backpack-but I left it in the woods.'
That struck Willow as odd, but he shrugged.
'Shouldn't leave it there. Someone might take it.'
'Come with me, and I'll give you one.'
'Okay.' Suspicious, Willow frowned. 'Hey-you don't work for the FBI, do you?'
The man looked surprised. 'Good heavens, no-in fact, they're after me. Don't tell them you saw me, okay?'
Willow winked at him. 'Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me.'
'I knew I could count on you. Now, how about that cigarette?'
Willow got up and followed the man toward the thicket of woods on the other side of the jogging path.
