Detective Leonard Butts looked around Chuck Morton's office as though he had found himself in the den of a small and rather dirty burrowing animal. He studied the chair nearest him as if calculating the number and severity of diseases he might contract by sitting in it, then lowered himself into it with an air of resignation. Lee glanced at Chuck to see if he noticed Butts's attitude, but if he did, he didn't react. Morton walked over to his desk and perched on the edge of it, his muscular arms folded. Nelson sat in a chair in the corner, a paper cup of coffee held between his freckled fingers. Detective Florette sat in the opposite corner, looking like he had stepped straight off the cover of GQ-blue striped Brooks Brothers shirt with French cuffs, black Givenchy loafers polished to a glossy sheen. They had all been waiting, somewhat uncomfortably, for Butts to appear.
"Well?" Nelson said. "What have you got?"
Morton picked up a manila envelope from his desk and tossed it to Nelson, who caught it with his left hand.
"Brooklyn," Morton said, rubbing his eyes. "She was found Saturday. Same MO-strangulation, mutilation, left on the altar."
Nelson raised his left eyebrow, which could signal anything from surprise to disgust. Nelson looked at the photos in the file and then turned to Lee.
"You went to the crime scene?"
"Yes. There was a difference this time: there was evidence of a struggle-a lot of it."
Chuck rubbed his forehead wearily. "This time the pathologist said the wounds were ante-mortem."
Nelson raised an eyebrow. "So now he's torturing them before he kills."
"Yeah."
"That means either he's restraining them physically or chemically," Nelson mused. "Is the tox screen in yet?"
"Nope," said Detective Butts.
Nelson stared at him.
"Detective Butts is the primary on this case," Morton said, "since the first vic turned up in his precinct. I'll be overseeing the investigation from here, but for day-to-day details go to him."
Detective Butts shifted in his chair, a look of satisfaction on his broad, pockmarked face.
"Mmm," Nelson said, placing the photos on Chuck's desk. "What do we know about the victims?"
"The first one we know for sure was his was Marie Kelleher," Butts replied with a glance at Lee. "A sophomore at Fordham. Nice Catholic girl, religion major, steady boyfriend, no known enemies."
"Yeah, right," Nelson muttered. He looked down at the stack of photographs. "What about this girl?"
Detective Florette held up the crime scene report. "Annie O'Donnell, twenty-one years old, a senior at Brooklyn College, philosophy major. Ditto with the nice Catholic girl. Boyfriend-not so steady, but seems like a nice kid."
"So he goes for nice girls," Nelson remarked, staring out of the grimy windows at the gray February sky. "If this Jane Doe Number Five-"
"Pamela," Lee said.
"Right. If she's his too, she's probably a nice girl as well."
"Okay," said Morton to Lee. "What can you tell us so far?"
"Well, first of all," Lee said, "these fantasies have been in place for a long time-way before he committed his first murder."
Detective Butts stared at him. "So now you're a mind reader?"
"Okay, Detective, that's enough," Chuck snapped. He turned to Lee. "How do you know that?"
"In part because it's usually true of serial killers, but here in particular the crime is very specific, very ritualized. There's been a lot of forethought and planning-it's not in any way an impulse killing." He glanced over at Nelson, who nodded his approval.
"Okay," said Morton. "What else?"
"He's likely to have a history of arson, abuse of animals, maybe a few arrests for Peeping Tom type activities-maybe even stalking. On the other hand, he may have no criminal record at all."
"That's not much of a help," Butts muttered.
"We can infer a lot from the way he leaves the victims. He displays them in a very specific way-"
"No kiddin'," Butts muttered under his breath.
"-but it's not for us."
"Really?" Florette said. "Then who is it for?"
"If we knew that we'd have him," Nelson grumbled.
"He's motivated by rage," Lee said, "but it's directed at God as much as at women. He defiles these women before God, so he's taunting God as much as he's taunting us."
Butts leaned forward in his chair, which creaked on its ancient hinges. It was an old-fashioned office chair on rollers, the kind of heavy oak furniture common in the 1930s. Chuck's desk sergeant had brought it into the office to accommodate the extra people. "What about hair, fiber, prints on the second girl?" he asked.
Morton shook his head. "Nothing."
"But she put up a fight this time," Florette pointed out.
"Not only that, but he brought her to the church conscious this time-last time he just used one as a dump site," Butts added.
Chuck picked up the glass paperweight on his desk and tossed it lightly from one hand to the other. "We're pretty sure he's wearing gloves."
Lee frowned. "Lack of forensic evidence means he's knowledgeable in the field of criminal investigation."
"Right," Nelson agreed, leaning against the dirty radiator, which hissed at him in protest. "Probably reads detective magazines. Maybe even has fantasies of being a cop. You might look through your files to see who's applied but been rejected in the last few years."
Morton groaned. "That could take forever. Do you realize how many inquiries we have in a given year?"
"Hey, maybe he is a cop," Butts suggested. When the rest of them stared at him, he said, "Look, I just don't think we should entirely eliminate the possibility. Some of those guys are pretty weird, lemme tell you."
"Detective Butts has a point," Lee said. "The worst thing we can do right now is to close off any options."
"What I don't get," Florette said, "is why there's no sign of sexual molestation. I mean, the knife is very phallic-"
"But a phallic substitute," Lee pointed out. "Since there's no sign of penetration, I think he could be a virgin."
Nelson raised an eyebrow.
"He's spent his life converting any sexual thoughts he might have toward women into religious impulses," Lee continued.
"Until he decides to kill them," Florette pointed out.
"Which would mean we're dealing with someone who is extremely withdrawn in his personal and social life," Lee continued. He turned to Nelson. "He might have fantasized about being in law enforcement, but I doubt he ever acted on those fantasies. He'd be too much of an introvert."
Nelson grunted. "Maybe." He took a sip from a paper coffee cup, made a face, and put the cup back down on the desk.
"Not only that," Lee went on, "but from a geographic point of view, it's a very odd profile."
"What do you mean?" said Florette.
"Well, usually killers choose victims within a certain radius of where they live-places where they feel comfortable. But these two locations are miles away, in different boroughs."
"So maybe he has a job that allows him to travel," Florette suggested. "Some kind of work having to do with churches."
"Or it could be an attempt to cover his trail so we can't use geographic profiling on him," Lee mused.
"That would indicate tremendous sophistication about crime investigation on his part," Nelson pointed out.
"What about the person who took a shot at you?" Chuck asked Lee. "Isn't it possible that's-"
"What?" Nelson growled, turning to Lee. "You didn't tell me about that."
Lee told him about the incident on Third Avenue. "But there may not be a connection," he added. "I don't see this guy as a shooter."
"Yeah, that would really change the profile," Nelson agreed.
"What else you got?" Butts asked, getting up to stretch his stubby legs. "Isn't there anything?"
"He doesn't fit neatly into any particular category of killer," Lee said, "which makes it harder to get a fix on him."
"But that's not that unusual," Nelson said.
"I'd call a sexual killer who's a virgin pretty damn unusual," Butts grumbled, plopping back down in his chair.
"That's another part of the puzzle, isn't it?" Florette responded, straightening his immaculate starched cuffs.
"Right," said Nelson. "With a guy like this, at some point sex and violence become linked in his mind-"
"-and to religion," Lee added.
"There's another angle on the altar motif," Florette pointed out. "It's where couples are married."
"Good point!" said Butts. He tossed an empty coffee cup toward the wastebasket and missed. With a groan, he heaved his bulky body out of his chair, plucked the cup off the floor, and deposited it in the basket.
"Yes," Lee agreed. "And I think there's little doubt that he's Catholic, since both bodies were found in Catholic churches."
"I'd agree with that," Nelson said, "but I'm not sure I go along with the virgin thing. He could just be sexually inadequate-impotent, maybe."
"What else can you say about him?" asked Chuck.
"He's likely to be of a similar socioeconomic level as his victims, a middle-class Catholic-which is one reason they'd feel comfortable around him," said Lee.
"But he's a virgin, huh?" Butts said. "So how old is this guy-thirteen?"
"Well, he's obviously arrested emotionally, but I'd put him in his early to mid twenties," Lee replied, "close to the victims in age."
"Right," Nelson agreed. "And he lives with-"
"With his mother or another female relative," Lee finished for him.
Chuck looked at Nelson, who was searching through the coffee cups on the desk for one that still had coffee in it.
"Of course, his chronological age could be older," Lee mused. "For example, if an offender spends time in jail, he can emerge after a number of years at the same emotional age as when he was incarcerated."
"You mean like Arthur Shawcross," said Nelson.
"Exactly."
Florette leaned back in his chair and frowned. "The Genesee River Strangler?"
"Right," Lee replied. "He was incarcerated for fifteen years for murder, and when he got out of prison he went right back to killing-with pretty much the same maturity level as when he went in."
"Jeez," Butts said. "So we could be lookin' for a middle-aged guy after all?"
"It's possible," Lee admitted.
"Shawcross was pretty stupid, though," Nelson pointed out. "This guy is much smarter."
"What about his method?" Chuck said. "Strangulation is a very up close and personal way to kill someone. I mean, there's rage there, but it's a pretty controlled rage."
"I know this is a stretch," Lee said, "but I think there's also a clue in the way he strangles them."
"Slowly, you mean?" Butts asked.
"Well, yes. I think there's significance to it."
"He wants to hold the power of life and death in his hands as long as possible," Nelson said.
"Yes, there's that," Lee said, "but I think it's also something to do with breathing."
"What do you mean?" asked Chuck, fishing a few bottles of water out of the small refrigerator next to his desk.
"Well, maybe he has trouble breathing-a chronic condition of some kind. I know it sounds odd, but he's suffering along with them even as he kills them."
"What kind of chronic condition?" Butts said, holding out his hand for a bottle of water, which Chuck tossed to him.
"I don't really know…bronchitis, allergies…asthma, maybe. He's too young for emphysema," Lee said.
"Interesting," Nelson mused, "but a bit thin on evidence, don't you think?"
"I told you it was a stretch. There's something else," Lee added.
The others turned to him expectantly.
"I know what he takes from them."
"Really?" Nelson asked, leaning forward.
"He takes the crosses they wear around their necks. Her boyfriend said that Marie always wore hers, but it wasn't on her body. And the same thing with Pamela, according to her friends. I'll lay odds that Annie O'Donnell wore one too."
"Taking jewelry from the victim is not at all uncommon," Nelson pointed out, taking the bottle of water Chuck offered him.
"He didn't take just any jewelry," Lee said. "He took a cross. I think it's significant. It may relate to the victomology-how he chooses his victims."
Butts took a swig of Poland Spring and frowned. "Yeah? How so?"
"He's after good Catholic girls who wear crosses around their necks."
Lee's cell phone beeped, indicating he had a text message. He fished around for it in his pocket, his heart pounding.
When he read the message, though, it simply said: Hey, Boss, when can we meet?
Relief flooded his veins like a sweet river. It was only Eddie. He had completely forgotten Eddie was trying to reach him. He was a little surprised to see Eddie sending text messages-it didn't seem like his style-but he was glad to hear from him.
"Okay," Butts was saying. "So all we have to do is find a loser who fantasizes a lot and lives with his mother. Why don't we just go hang out at a Star Trek convention? You know what we got on this guy? We got bupkes-that's what."
Nelson smiled at him, but it wasn't really a smile-it was a challenge.
"Well," he said, "we'll all just have to work harder, won't we?"