David Wiltse - Bone Deep

"An attractive woman," Becker said. "A hand ful, I'd guess, but nice-looking."

"I didn't mean the woman," Tee said impatiently. "Well then, otherwise-I'd say you have a problem."

"That's what I was afraid of." Tee laid the bone carefully on the back seat of the cruiser. "It's human, isn't it?"

"Looks that way to me," Becker said. "Humerus."

"May be funny to you, not to me."

"I mean the humerus bone."

"God, I love an educated man. That anything like the upper arm in American?"

"Very similar."

"Shit. I'll have a doctor check it out, but it is human, isn't it?"

Becker nodded. "Maybe we have a cemetery flooded. That'll be pretty."

"At least you know where to start looking," Becker said. "Where is that?"

"Upstream."

"I probably would have thought of that eventually, but see, you didn't even hesitate. Quick. Quick as a Fed." Tee reached for his radio.

"I'm sorry about that comment she made," he said, changing his tone. "I hope it didn't upset YOU."

"Of course it upset me," Becker said. "How would you like to be a celebrity because of the people you killed?"

"Well… sorry. "

"Not your fault."

"She's kind of outspoken."

"Who is she, anyway?" Becker asked.

"Mrs. Leigh? Just, you know-do we say housewife anymore? A nonworking mother? Full-time parent, something like that. Husband does something with magazines in the city. Probably can't really afford to live here, but they're doing it for the schools for their kids, that type of deal.

"How do you happen to know her?"

"Hey, I'm the chief. I know lots of people… She had a prowler once, I think it was. Or she imagined she had a prowler. She's a little on the neurotic side, maybe you picked up on that… I don't really know her."

"Anything else you want to tell me about Mrs. Leigh?" Becker asked.

"Why should I?" Tee looked at Becker, his face a mask of puzzlement. "I hardly know her."

Becker nodded, looking out the window. "What? What?"

Becker shrugged. "Nothing. Reading too much into things is an occupational hazard."

"Having people be friendly with the chief of police is an occupational hazard too. Personally, I'd rather have them all scared and troubled by a guilty conscience in my presence, but some of them just get friendlier than they have a right to be. What can I do?"

"Kind of nice to see somebody wearing shorts after all this rain, isn't it? I would have thought it was a little cool for that kind of outfit."

"Maybe it's what she wears around the house," Tee said.

"Maybe… but I thought she was out in her yard. That's how she found the bone."

"Good Christ, John, does your mind work like this all the time?"

"Pretty much," Becker said. "It must be hard to live with."

Becker smiled. "You've got to find the right mate. Fortunately, I have."

"Fortunately for you. How about her?"

Becker's smile broadened. "If Karen isn't happy, I'll just work harder." Tee stared at Becker. "Man, you've changed. Karen's been the best thing in the world for you."

"I know it. I have blossomed like a flower."

"It's made you kind of weird, too."

"She's brought out my feminine side, as they say." Becker grinned.

"Well, keep that part to yourself while you're in this car. I'm sworn to enforce the law." Tee stared at him a moment longer before speaking into the radio.

"Maureen, find out what doctor we've got on call this month, would you?

I need a specialist, a what-do-you-callit?"

"Orthopedic surgeon?" Becker suggested. "An orthopedic surgeon," Tee repeated into the radio. Then, to Becker: "Why a surgeon?"

"The bone's been cut," Becker said. "On the end. Looks like someone went at it with a knife."

"Well, shit twice," said Tee.

He thought of himself as Captain Luv, and when he had sex with his victims he would think, Cap'n Luv is in command now. Sometimes he would say it aloud, drawing out the word "love" into several syllables while affecting the accent of a black crooner. "Here come Captain Luuuvvv," he would say, and they would giggle, or look at him askance, he didn't much care, it was always much too late for them to change their minds. Most of them smiled at him, most were inclined at that point to find anything he did endearing.

"Goine take you apart, girl."

And later he would take them apart, or he wouldn't, depending on circumstances, depending on how severely the temptation gripped him, depending on whether the mania descended and took control of him. There was no way to tell ahead of time, the mania had fooled him more than once, bursting suddenly into his brain just when peace should have reigned, compelling him to do its bidding. So now he awaited it with expectation, half hoping it would overtake him, half fearing it, but in either case powerless to affect it.

He thought of all the girls as his victims, whether he worked on them or not. Lucky victims, most of them, cause he was good, very very good at sex and they always got more than they had ever dreamed of They were always sated when he finished, he saw to that-he kept working until they were, and he was as generous as he was patient. While they were doing it, he had thoughts only for them I and they sensed it, responded to it, and finally surrendered to it.

And if they didn't, there was something wrong with them, it was not his problem, he was certain of that. Some women were just like that, so to hell with them. Strangely enough, it was not necessarily the ones who didn't respond that he killed. There did not seem to be any pattern to his choices. He had given it a deal of thought, trying to figure out what the victim might have done to trigger his response, but he could never find any consistent cause.

Sometimes he thought of himself as a wolf or a lion. some strong and wily carnivore that selected its prey out of the herd from among the weak, the lame, the very young, but that model wasn't right, he didn't work that way in picking the ones he killed. But then he didn't do the picking, that was the key. It was not his needs that made him do it, it was the mania. The mania operated on its own timetable, in accordance with its own hungers.

He thought of the mania as something apart from himself, but he did not disapprove of it, he did not resent it. Far from it. Despite the danger and complications, it was welcome when it arrived and he always felt bereft and depressed when it was gone.

His current victim was named Inge, a young German girl working as an all pair in Clamden for the summer. Summer was a great time to find victims, they came from abroad and they came from the great Midwest to be mother's helpers. They were young, eager, innocent, and lonely, frequently away from home for the first time, disappointed at the dreary and confining routine of cleaning house and acting as baby-sitter, seeking the excitement and sophistication they had expected to find in far-off Connecticut. They were all rebellious in the first place, or they would not have come. And they were dumber than older women; he could had never heard before, sincerity was tell them lies they not so important, they had never seen it anyway and didn't know how to recognize it. It astounded him the things he could say to them, the things they would believe. He usually had no problems other than overcoming their initial resistance to his age. Many of them liked the idea of an older man anyway, and once he had talked to them for a few moments, they saw the sensitive, loving, patient, troubled man within.

Or that's what they thought they saw. What they did not see, because they were blinded by the mirrors of his art, was the wolf that sat in the dark corner, grinning, salivating, laughing softly to himself.

Inge was a groaner, and he rewarded her by taking even longer than usual. The silent ones were difficult, there was too much guesswork involved when they provided no allditory feedback. It was much better for all concerned when he knew how things were progressing, what worked and what didn't, what she liked and what she liked even better. Some of them told him directly what to do, and of course he did it, but there was always an air of command to such a direct approach. He didn't like to be told what to do, he preferred to discover it, to improvise as he went alongand of course, the victim benefited from such an arrangement as well, because he could come up with combinations and approaches that she'd never known before. And sometimes things that he'd never done before. There was art to sex as well as craft, and the permutations were limited only by the imagination.