Broken Prey

Pope, time passes,” Lucas said. “Anyway, I’m getting Pope’s file sent up from St. John’s.” To Elle: “Sloan has you all filled in on the Rice killings?”
    “Not so much on the detail, as on the behavior,” she said.
    “One important detail,” Lucas said. “Adam Rice apparently tried to fight the guy off, and there was blood and skin under his fingernails. If it’s not his own blood . . . well, we have Pope’s DNA in the database here. We oughta know tomorrow if we’ve got a match.”
    “We’re looking for him now?” she asked.
    Lucas nodded. “Yes. There’s a bulletin out, I’m sending it to Iowa and Wisconsin, too. We’ve got a six-week-old picture from St. John’s. They took it just before they let him go.”
    “Gonna be a black eye for the state, letting him go,” Sloan said.
    Elle said, “Could I see Pope’s file?”
    “Sure. Don’t tell anybody. It’s supposed to be a confidential medical file . . . I’ll get Carol to make a copy for you. What about behavior . . . ?”
    Elle had a simple nylon briefcase with her and said, “I’ve got a note . . .” As she dug into it, it occurred to him that the old nun’s costume, by isolating her face, had kept her young even as she aged. Now, dressed in the gray-and-black garb of her order, she looked like a thin, middle-aged woman who’d lived an ascetic, but sedentary, life. Her hair, which he hadn’t seen for twenty years after she’d gone into the convent, had turned steel gray, and her wrists and ankles seemed frail.
    Then she looked over the note at him, and her eyes were as young as a kindergartener’s: “There are some interesting aspects to the behavior of this man. I think, after looking at the material that Mr. Sloan gave me, that he is probably intelligent. A planner. Nothing spontaneous or extemporaneous about this—he chose his victims, he knew when they would be alone and when he could get them without being interrupted. He knew where to leave Angela Larson’s body where it would have the greatest impact, but at a place where he could stop, take a little time to arrange her, and then leave, without being seen or noticed or monitored in any way. That’s not necessarily easy to do in a large city. Security cameras are everywhere, and as far as we know, he has not been seen by a single one.”
    Lucas pointed a finger at Sloan: “Security camera at the store where Rice worked?”
    “I’ll call.”
    Elle continued: “There’s also something interesting in the way he tortures his victims. He’s methodical. I pointed this out to Mr. Sloan . . .”
    “She won’t call me by my first name,” Sloan said to Lucas, grinning at Elle. Then, “Sorry, go ahead.”
    “He beat both of them with some kind of whip, but not in an uncontrolled frenzy. If he were in a frenzy, he would keep hitting them in the same place, but these victims look like they had been put through a mechanical shredder—some of the slashes cross each other, but most of them are carefully laid in, proceeding down and around their bodies, as though he’s being . . . careful. Thorough.”
    “Nuts,” Lucas said.
    “He’s crazy, but it’s not an uncontrollable frenzy. Not mechanically uncontrollable, at any rate. He’s like a punisher: remote from his victim. Like a paid torturer in a prison.”
    “Is he taunting us? Is he going to call somebody? Will he look for publicity?” Lucas asked.
    “He could very well,” she said, nodding. “He’s intelligent, but the way he displays the bodies, he’s looking for attention. I don’t think he’ll call the TV stations—he’ll call a newspaper, if he does call.”
    Sloan asked, “Why not TV?”
    “Because they would record him, and he wouldn’t want his voice on tape. He will be careful.”
    “What else?” Lucas asked.
    “He’s strong. Probably attractive. Quite likely charismatic—a person who might attract his victims’ attention in some way. Not necessarily a pleasant way, but somebody they would notice.”
    “You think they knew him?”
    She considered it for a moment, then nodded: “Maybe. That’s a hard call. These two people were unattached—it’s possible that he seduced them in some way before the attack. Or he might simply be visually appealing to them. That would get him close without a fuss. They may have welcomed his attention—he could very well be soft-spoken, somebody you would trust.”
    She looked up at Lucas. “One thing I would do is this: I