in a few minutes. A child could have done it.”
“But why would she fake that,” Krieger mused, “if she really was being stalked?”
“Maybe so I would take her seriously,” Lee suggested.
“Or,” Butts offered, “maybe it was the boyfriend after all. He spent time in that house, too.”
“But why wouldn’t he cover his tracks more? Why leave the magazine in plain sight?” Chuck said.
“To freak her out?” Butts suggested. “I seen weirder things than that, believe me.”
Krieger frowned. “But the manner of death—”
“Could it be a copycat crime?” Chuck asked. “Highly unlikely,” Lee said.
“But you said she was a crime buff,” Butts pointed out. “She could have told the boyfriend about the other vics, or he could have read about them.”
“It doesn’t really make a lot of sense for the boyfriend to cast suspicion on himself by leaving the magazine around, though, does it?” Chuck said.
“No, not really.” Butts looked disappointed. “But there’s something about that guy I don’t like.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t arrest people just because you don’t take a shine to them,” Krieger pointed out dryly. Butts glared at her. “May I ask what the magazine was?”
Chuck leafed through the evidence photos. “Uh, it was Better Homes and Gardens.”
Krieger frowned. “Does that seem like the kind of magazine a young girl like her would be likely to have lying around?”
“They dusted for prints,” Chuck said. “Only hers were found on it.”
“Well, if it was the boyfriend, he could have wiped off his—or used gloves,” Butts pointed out.
“Any other evidence we should know about?” said Lee.
“Nope,” said Chuck. “The crime scene didn’t give us much. But that’s not surprising. The water pretty much washes everything away.”
“Very clever way to dispose of bodies,” Krieger said. “Obvious but effective.”
“That’s not the only reason he does it,” said Lee.
“What do you mean?” Krieger said, her eyes narrowing.
“Water is important to him—it’s the only constant factor in every one of his crimes. I’m convinced it’s part of his signature.”
Krieger frowned. “Do you really believe in that whole ‘signature’ business?” Lee stared at her.
Butts spoke up for him. “What kind of question is that?”
“I mean the notion of these killers needing to perform a certain ritual in order to get satisfaction. It’s all a bit unscientific, isn’t it?”
“It’s not so much a question of ritual,” Lee replied, determined not to lose his temper. “It’s more that certain elements remain constant.”
“But that’s even more nebulous, isn’t it? I mean, so we have a criminal who likes to leave his victims in water—what good does that do us if we have no forensic evidence?”
“It’s an insight into his psychology, his personality,” said Lee.
“So maybe he had a traumatic episode with water as a child,” she scoffed. “I don’t see how that helps us. And now you say that signatures can ‘evolve’ and change—which makes it even more useless, it seems to me.”
“Not useless,” Lee said, “just more complex.”
“And what about all this terminology—psychopath, borderline personality disorder, and so on. I don’t see what good that does us. So what if this man is a psychopath—how does that help us catch him?”
“Actually, the clinical term is sociopath,” Lee corrected her.
Krieger rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to reply, but Butts beat her to it.
“Okay, we done here?” he said irritably. “Can we get on with this?”
Krieger stiffened, her spine even more rigid than usual. “I was just trying to save time by establishing what our working methods are going to be.”
“Well, do us all a favor and don’t, okay?” Butts snapped.
“All right, settle down, both of you!” Chuck said. He turned to Krieger. Lee could see from the tension in his shoulders he was making an effort to control himself. “Whether or not psychological analysis of a criminal is a flawless method—and I think we can admit that no method of crime analysis is perfect—it’s all we have right now. So can we just agree to carry on until we have something more ‘scientific'?”
Krieger smoothed her flawlessly coiffed hair. “I have no intention of hindering the investigation. I just thought it was appropriate to raise a few questions before getting too far into it.”
“Look, lady,” Butts interjected, “like it or not, we’re already way further into it than any of us wants to be. The question is, how do we get out of it?”
“Okay, so what stands out about these killings so far?” Chuck asked Lee.
“Well, as I said, water plays an important part in the killer’s fantasy. Although the one victim was electrocuted, it was still a