Fear Nothing (Detective D.D. Warren #7) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,52
tucked against her ribs, an ice pack on the back of her left shoulder. After the impromptu physical therapy session with Dr. Adeline Glen, it seemed the least she could do. Plus, she was trying to prove to herself, if not to her pain specialist, that she wasn’t a complete control freak. She could try other pain management techniques. Yes, she could.
“Neighbors don’t have much to offer,” Phil continued. “Basically, a person, very average-looking, entered your home.”
Across from Phil, Neil shrugged. “Nothing we didn’t already know. Killer has entered and exited two other crime scenes without arousing attention. Blending in is obviously something the perpetrator does well.”
“But maybe we learned more about technique,” Phil said. “The suspect was disguised to appear as a home security company employee. We can go back to the other two crime scenes, see if they had systems, if there were any calls that came in that night. Or ask about other common service companies. Maybe a van marked ‘pest control’ or ‘plumbing.’ You know, the kind of thing that really didn’t stand out for the neighbors at the time, but if we return with more specific questions now . . .”
“Who is this guy?” asked Alex abruptly. He stopped pacing, stood in the middle of their modest, beige-carpeted family room and stared at them.
“Joe Average,” Neil spoke up. “Or maybe Jane Average. Statistics would argue for Joe, given that most killers are male. But again, the lack of sexual assault, not to mention any kind of useful eyewitness account, means we can’t rule out Jane. So maybe, just Average Person. We are looking for an everyday average person.”
“No,” Alex responded immediately. “Our suspect’s a killer. That already makes him or her a member of an extremely small percentage of the human population. And a double murderer who’s not a sexual sadist predator falls into an even smaller percentage of an already small percentage. So again, who is this asshole? Because right now, we’re not understanding this killer. And yet, he, she or it is getting to us just fine.”
D.D. thought she knew what her husband meant. “I paid a visit to a funeral home today,” she spoke up. “Thinking along the same lines, that we’re investigating a predator who commits incredibly macabre murders, except he doesn’t seem that interested in the actual killing part. It’s the postmortem mutilation that appears to drive him. Which made me think of someone who might feel more comfortable with dead people than living people, which made me think of people who work at funeral homes.”
“The Norman Bates syndrome,” Neil murmured from the love seat.
“Yeah. Except, when I interviewed the embalmer, he emphasized that successful funeral home directors excel at empathy. Not exactly how I’d describe our killer.”
Neil sighed, sat up. “Much like you, I’ve spent the day contemplating necrophilia.”
“This from the guy who spends all his time in the morgue,” D.D. muttered.
Neil scowled, clearly not in the mood. “Here’s the thing. On the one hand, our killer seems most comfortable with his victims postmortem. On the other hand . . . he or she or whatever is still not that into them. No sexual assault. Meaning by definition he’s not a necrophiliac—which just for the record, once again does not exclude our perpetrator being female. I ran across five or six case histories of female necrophiliacs just to ensure my research was icky enough.”
“Industry has a number of female embalmers, too,” D.D. added. “Just saying.”
“Meaning back to Alex’s point,” Neil continued. “We have two dead bodies and still no idea what’s driving these crimes. If these aren’t murders of pain, passion or punishment, what are they?”
“I think I might know the answer to that one,” D.D. said. “Given the lack of pain and punishment, I think it’s fair to say our killer isn’t driven by bloodlust. I think, in fact, our killer is not that into killing at all. Instead, he, she, it, may be driven by compulsion. Say a deep-seated desire to add to a very unique, very personal private collection.”
“What kind of collection?” Phil asked.
“Strips of human skin.”
The room fell quiet. Then Neil made a face. “Ed Gein, anyone?” he muttered.
Now everyone grimaced; Ed Gein was a notorious serial killer who’d once made a lampshade from human skin.
“Earlier today,” D.D. said, “when I pictured our unsub in my head, I kept seeing a lone guy, small of stature, limited social skills. If you think about his MO, ambushing his victims while they’re still asleep, drugging them quickly,