Lien-hua waited while Melice licked at his cigarette. He didn’t have a way to light it, and she wasn’t about to offer him one.
Get him talking about what he likes, and he’ll tell you what he’s done.
“So,” she said. “Tell me. The killer. What does he enjoy most?
Let’s start with that.”
“I’ll bet that, more than anything else, the killer enjoys the moments that lead up to the end. Watching his victims. Following them.
Stalking them, and then acting like it was a chance encounter when they finally meet. To him that would be loads of fun.”
“How does he choose them?”
“He prefers it when they choose him.”
Detective Dunn and I listened as Melice spun his elaborate “hypothetical” stories about a killer being in the right place at the right time to find new “girlfriends.”
I kept telling myself he was innocent until proven guilty, but it was hard for me to believe. Everything he said was consistent with the confessions of other predatory killers I’d encountered. They’re always on the lookout for potential victims, always trolling, seeing who they can lure in.
As he spoke I couldn’t help but notice that Melice was being careful to make his observations vague enough to be interpreted different ways. He didn’t actually confess to anything but couched everything in terms of what a killer might think or might do. He was good at this game.
But I was banking on the fact that Lien-hua was better.
I heard the door behind me open and recognized Ralph’s heavy footsteps.
“What do we know?” I kept my eyes glued on Lien-hua and Melice.
I heard Ralph flop a stack of papers onto the table beside me.
“Good news and bad. The handwriting on the wall of the warehouse doesn’t match Melice’s. Based on his writing style, the analysts say he wouldn’t have made those strokes when painting the words.”
“Is that the good news or the bad?”
“Both. Good; it confirms there was another abductor. Bad; the second guy’s still at large. Next, criminalists’ reports. You’re not gonna like this. The metal pipes, computer in the back room, cameras, the whole freakin’ place is clean. No prints from this psycho, just a few partials on the keyboard, but they’re not Melice’s. We ran ‘em through AFIS and got nothing.”
Why didn’t that surprise me.
“The criminalists are at his condo now,” Ralph continued. “But so far, zilch.”
A thought wandered past me. The idea seemed utterly unlikely but still possible. “Maybe it wasn’t him,” I said softly.
“What?” said Dunn.
“Maybe he was just passing through, he heard the shots that Lien-hua and I fired, and came running to see if anyone was hurt.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” he said.
“Let’s just be careful what we assume,” I said. “Things aren’t always what they appear.”
“I don’t buy it,” Dunn said. “Melice told Lien-hua he was batting . 875 and now he’s telling her all about what it’s like to kill women.” “I’m with Dunn on this one, Pat,” said Ralph. “I think this is our man. But let’s see what else the criminalists turn up.”
My phone trembled, and when I checked it, I saw a text message from the airline notifying me that Tessa’s flight had been delayed.
Since I was the one who’d booked the ticket, they were using my phone number rather than hers. Her flight had been scheduled to leave over ninety minutes ago and just now they were sending me the message. How helpful.
I shook my head. Then I left a quick voice mail for my parents, letting them know to check the flight schedule first, before leaving for the airport, and then as I was pocketing my phone again, I noticed that Melice was scratching at a moist wound beneath the bandages on his left hand. “Did you two see that?” I asked Dunn.
“What?” asked Ralph.
“Why do you think he’s picking at his hand like that?”
Dunn pretended to be seriously thinking about it, but his sarcasm was evident. “I don’t know… let’s see… because it itches?”
“I’m growing tired of your attitude, Detective,” I said, and I was ready to say a lot more, but before I could, Ralph asked me,
“What’re you thinking, Pat? About the scratching?”
“Margaret said people with CIPA can only feel pressure and texture, right?”
“That’s right,” Ralph said.
“Well, do they itch?”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know.” He looked at Melice through the mirror. “It looks like it.”
“We need to find out,” I said, leaning toward the glass. “I want to know for sure why he’s scratching that hand.”
“What’s wrong with you, Bowers?” grumbled Dunn. “Maybe this… maybe that… we can’t be sure about this… you have boatloads of evidence staring you in the face and you question everything.”
“Thank you,” I said. Ralph stepped around the table. “I’ll get someone to check on that itching thing.”
I stared through the glass. “I’ll be right here.”
Lien-hua felt a prick of warm sweat beneath her arm. The room was hot, too hot. The police had probably cranked up the heat to make Melice uncomfortable, without even realizing that he didn’t feel either heat or cold. She could sense droplets of warm moisture forming just above her eyebrows, and she hoped he didn’t see it as a sign that he was getting to her.
“And then,” Melice went on, “after he meets her, he finds a way to get alone with her-maybe coffee, maybe dinner, maybe a hotel room. Who knows. And then it either happens or it doesn’t, and he’s prepared either way.”
“How does he get them into his car?”
“Maybe he just asks them, maybe he forces them. I’d say he likes it better when the women climb in by their own choice.”
Flowers. She thought of flowers in full bloom.
“So it’s her fault if she gets hurt?”
Petals, bruised and withered. Lying dry and brittle on the table.
“You see? Your problem, Agent Jiang, is that you’re thinking like a profiler and not like a killer. It’s never about those things-fault or guilt or shame. It’s about control. Everything’s about control.” He rolled the cigarette between his fingers. “How do you think a handful of hijackers took over those planes full of people on 9/11?”
“They threatened the people onboard. Threatened to hurt them if they didn’t comply.” She knew that wasn’t the reason, of course, but she wanted to see how he’d respond.
“There. You see? You don’t understand people as well as you think you do. The hijackers didn’t threaten the passengers, they reassured them.”
“How do you know?” “Because they were successful.” He paused long enough to scratch at his hand. “The way to control the frightened is to give them hope. So that’s what your killer would do. My father was in the army, and one of his drill instructors used to say, ‘Always leave your enemy an escape route. Never corner him. Even a mouse will fight fiercely when it’s trapped in a corner.’”
He laughed at this; maybe he was mocking the saying. It was hard for her to tell.
“Your killer would know this,” Melice continued. “He’d know that allowing people an escape route is the best way to corner them for good. Lead them along slowly, baiting them with hope, until at last they’re in the position where they think the corner is safe.
Then, you snatch all hope away. To the killer, that moment would be the best one of all. Just like it was for those hijackers when they slammed into the buildings.”
As Melice talked about baiting people with hope, I could see he’d let down some of his guard. Lien-hua probably knew this would happen. She’d gotten him talking about the things he loved most-abducting, overpowering, and killing young women. He was opening up. Enjoying the spotlight.
I heard Dunn flipping through some papers.
“His dad wasn’t in the army,” he said. “He’s playing her.”
“No,” I said. “I think she’s playing him.”