Broken Prey

the . . .” His eyes flicked sideways at Beloit, then back, “. . . penises off his victims, after he raped them. I don’t know if he posed them.”
    Hart said, “Rice had his penis cut off?” When Lucas nodded, he said, “That does sound like Biggie. His files say that he . . . there was some cannibalism involved.”
    Beloit: “Oh, yuck.”
    “He’s not a guy you mess with,” Grant said. “When we’re dealing with him, we use full protective restraints.”
     
    THEY ALL SAT AROUND silently for a moment, looking at one another, until Hart picked it up again.
    “But you know, when it’s all said and done, none of this really sounds much like Charlie Pope. He’s a crazy killer, but he was clumsy,” Hart said. “Sam is right: that first one, the woman, sounds more like Carl Taylor. He’s the one who goes on all the time about punishment. He told me once, in a therapy session, that if he had to do it all over again, he’d punish the women before he killed them so that they’d have a taste of hell before they went there. He said he’d hang them up naked and whip them like Jesus was whipped. He’s welded together sex and punishment like . . .” He shrugged. “Listening to him is like reading the Marquis de Sade.”
    “Hang them up naked,” Lucas repeated.
    “Yes. You know, so they were dangling and he could whip them all around . . .”
    “God damnit ,” Sloan said.
    Lucas: “Do you guys think Taylor and Lighter could be operating Pope by remote control?”
    Dick Hart jumped in: “Couldn’t really be remote control, because they can’t talk to him. These are the most highly restricted prisoners in the state. They have no contact with the outside.”
    “Not even their families?” Sloan asked.
    “Their families have disowned them,” Beloit said. “Chase’s sister said we should kill him if we ever got the chance. She was serious. Nobody in any of their families has ever come here or even called, except Taylor’s, years ago. He was left some property, and his brother came in here to get him to sign it away. But that’s been five or six years.”
    Grant said, “We know everything that goes in and out of their cells. We have people comb through their food before it goes in.”
    “Do they have access to TV news?” Sloan asked.
    “Well, sure . . . They have TVs in their cells.”
    “So, if they programmed him, they could be getting off on it by watching the news.”
    O’Donnell nodded: “They could. Maybe that would be enough . . . to get them off, anyway.”
    “If Pope’s a robot,” Lucas asked, “do you think they sent him out there deliberately, or he just went?”
    “Charlie was going after women no matter what,” Grant said. He was the skeptical one: “But this? Robots? I don’t know.”
    “Let’s talk to Taylor and Lighter and Chase,” Sloan said to Lucas. “What have we got to lose?”
    Lucas looked at the others: “What do you think?”
    They all shrugged or nodded. “Really don’t have anything to lose—but don’t go making any deals with them unless you get an okay in advance,” Hart said. “They’re gonna want something for talking.”
    Beloit looked at Grant, who showed a small smile and said, from the corner of his mouth to Hart, “Better read them the semen warning.”
    Sloan bit first: “What’s that?”
    “Lighter tends to hide semen around his cell. Or just keep it in his hand. We have a screen we keep up most of the time, but when we need to talk to him . . . Well, when you’re least expecting it, zip, it’s all over your face.”
    “That’s why prison guards carry clubs,” Lucas said.
    “Yeah, clubs,” Hart said. He stood up and stretched. “We’ll keep him under control. But if the worst should happen . . .”
    “Yeah?”
    “There’s a reflex to lick your lips. Don’t do that.”
     
    THEY HAD TO GO BACK to the unsecured side of the administration building to arrange the visit to Taylor, Lighter, and Chase. Darrell Ross, the assistant administrator, was a friendly codger with a ring of white hair around his bald pate and a pipe rack on his desk. He leaned back in his leather chair and said, congenially, “There’s a question here of whether you’re investigating them for a crime. If you’re investigating them for a crime, you’ll have to read them their rights. Then they’ve got a right to an attorney.”
    “They’re nuts ,” Lucas said. “They’re locked up in a nuthouse.”
    Ross frosted