the way from my hotel to your place. All about if I knew of any other case where a serial killer had switched his modus operandi from rape and strangulation to necrophilia.” Sigmund never said MO like the rest of us. I think he may be too proud for acronyms.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“That it was new to me, but that there was that other case where the killer went from simple execution-style killings with a .22 to mutilation with a knife and drinking his victim’s blood. She said she was familiar with that case. She asked, too, about my theories regarding trophies and souvenirs, that sort of thing. She had done her homework, and wanted my opinion of Floyd Lynch.”
“Did you give it?”
“You know I detest professionals who give an opinion without ever talking to the alleged perpetrator. In addition to that, in my case I have to be cautious because there’s bias, being so familiar with one of the victims.”
One of the victims. I wanted to say that detachment was all well and good, but we were talking about Jessica here, not some generic victim, and it hurt not to say so. But agents didn’t talk about their feelings like that, even me and Sig. If he knew what I was thinking he didn’t let on but continued seamlessly, “I told Coleman I would not comment at all until after the full battery of competency tests and then only in a written report.”
“And how did she react?”
“She tried to disguise it, but she was frustrated. She seems ambitious. Wanted to move faster. She reminded me of you.”
There was that twinge again. “Is that why she was a little stick-up-the-ass in the car?”
“Possibly. And perhaps we both intimidate her a little, too. We are respected and famous, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely, in a washed-up kind of way. So what do you think? Is he sane?”
Sigmund pulled his glasses down and twinkled at me over the rims, declining to answer.
“If you want my opinion, I think he’s skeevy in spades,” I said.
He gave in with a nod. “An abomination of all things human. Yet for a sexual sadist, lacking in that certain psychopathic je ne sais quoi?”
Only Sigmund could dig me out of the pit and lighten me up a little even at a time like this. “Yeah, that,” I admitted.
“I picked up on it, too. And yet remember Harry Winthrop?”
“A real twerp. It was hard to imagine him cutting off male organs and sewing them to female torsos.” But I wasn’t in the mood for reminiscing. “Come on, I won’t tell anyone what you tell me, what does your gut say?”
“My gut, as you call it, is conflicted. He’s different from the man I expected to find. And yet it’s all there, the body on his truck killed in the same fashion as those of the Route 66 murders, the journals, the confession, knowing where the body is. I might have entertained the possibility of a copy cat, but he did know where the body was. If the dental records match, we’ll even be sure that, of the two bodies in the car, he identified Jessica’s body correctly. It’s cut-and-dried.”
“Open and shut. How’s Greta?” I asked, changing the subject in that kind of mental leap that only friends are capable of.
“She divorced me shortly after you left.”
“What the fuck?”
“She said I was too introverted to feel strongly. While I never met her therapist I would suppose those were his words she was quoting.”
Bullshit. Anyone who knew Sigmund, who knew what he had been through during his time crawling around in the muck and stench of killers’ minds, knew that he had done all the feeling there was and he was just all felt out.
“How about you, have you married well?” he asked because he knew it would be the next line in small talk.
“Gosh yes.” I smiled and felt my face go warmer at the mention of him. “I’m crazy about Carlo.”
“Gosh? That is linguistically uncharacteristic of you.” He glanced at my face. “As is blushing.”
“Stop profiling me,” I said, but couldn’t help but explain, “The man used to be a priest and I’m working at cleaning up my language.”
He shook his head in disbelief as if this revelation was more bizarre than any encountered in his career. “Stinger Quinn, going Stepford.”
“The name is DiForenza now,” I said, sounding as smug as I felt.
We approached the lip of the hill where the cars were parked, and, once begun, I