different, I was thinking, and epinephrine shot through my system. My palms felt sweaty. They all want some peace in the midst of chaos. “She wasn’t the first,” I heard myself saying to Rauser. Yes, this one is different. This killer’s not just some opportunist, not some thug, but something else, something cruel and hungry that schemes and feeds off fear and anguish.
“Four victims we know of.” Rauser’s gray eyes were cold as winter rain. “ViCAP linked them. Detective down in Florida got assigned to cold cases a few months ago and started entering old scenes in the database. ViCAP matched two scenes down there to one here in the northern suburbs, then the flags went up again when we entered the Koto scene two weeks ago. No doubt about it. Same MO. Same signature elements—positioning, multiple stab wounds, staging, lack of physical evidence. Also, the victims are always facedown, legs spread, premortem stabbing to various areas of the body and postmortem stabbing to specific areas, inner and outer thighs, buttocks and lower back. Bite marks on inner thighs, shoulders, neck, and buttocks. Same weapon, serrated blade, something like a fishing knife, four to five inches long. Bite marks are consistent for the same perpetrator.”
“No DNA?”
Rauser shook his head. “He’s using rubber or latex barriers, maybe a dental dam. We’re checking medical supply houses, dentists, medical assistants, doctors.” He chewed his lip. “Four victims that we know of. I mean, how many murders out there haven’t even gone into a database? Or have different characteristics? If he started killing young, are the early ones going to match? I assume he’s been developing and learning.”
“How long since the first murder?”
Rauser didn’t have to look at his notes. “Keye, this guy has been hunting for at least fifteen years.”
How many murders had gone unreported? How many cold cases still not entered in a criminal database? I tried to let this sink in. “The last one didn’t satisfy the craving,” I said. “So he writes to you about it. He’s restless, unfulfilled. He’s telling you he’s becoming fully active, Rauser.”
“You know what really bugs me?” Rauser rubbed the stubble on his face. “The way he leaves them. The bastard knew about the Koto kid. He knows enough about each victim to get in and out at exactly the right time to avoid apprehension. He wanted the kid to find her.”
I didn’t like thinking about the boy or anyone else finding someone they love torn and broken and treated with that kind of disregard. It took me a moment to swallow down the growing lump in my throat. “Ritually displaying the body, leaving it for someone close to the victim to find in positions the killer considers humiliating, leaving the body unclothed, postmortem mutilation, it’s all part of the domination theme. It absolutely establishes the killer’s control over the victim.”
He took more scene photos out of his case, rubber-banded together, each group labeled, and pushed them across the desk. “Why do you think he turns them over?”
“Maybe he’s not okay with their faces,” I answered, and thought about that. “Maybe it feels to him like they’re watching him.”
“Jesus,” Rauser said.
“Positioning the bodies gives him more power. It helps him dissociate and objectify them.”
I went through the photographs one by one. Anne Chambers, white female, 20, Tallahassee, Florida. Bob Shelby, white male, 64, Jacksonville, Florida. Elicia Richardson, black female, 35, Alpharetta, Georgia. And Lei Koto, Asian female, 33. Three women and one man of varying ages and ethnicity, all left facedown, stabbed and bitten.
She died asking WHY. They all want some small peace in the midst of chaos. Their chaos, not mine. I do not tell them. I am not there to comfort them.
I looked at Rauser. “Homicide isn’t the motive in this kind of crime. It’s merely the result of his behaviors at the scene. Manipulation, control, domination—that’s motive.”
Rauser groaned. “Great, that’s gonna be easy to track down.”
I looked back at the Lei Koto scene: the little kitchen, pale yellow walls, yellow countertops, white appliances spattered with blood and smeared with her handprints. I’d seen a lot of crime scenes. They all shocked and disturbed me. They all told a story.
According to the autopsy report Rauser brought with him, there were extensive wounds to the neck and shoulders. The angles suggested that Lei Koto had her back to her killer at some point during their interaction; some of the wounds were clean, some torn and ragged. I looked at the bloodstain analyst’s report. Blood