John Katzenbach - The Madman

"But then again, says a lot, too," Peter added. Lucy made a wry look with her face, as if this particular observation was painful or unsettling.

"I don't understand," Francis said.

"Well," Peter began slowly, but picking up momentum, as he spoke, "what we have are three crimes, all committed in different police jurisdictions, probably, because bodies were moved postmortem, which means that no one precisely has charge of any case, which is always a bureaucratic mess, even when the State Police get involved. And we have victims discovered in various states of decomposition, whose bodies have been exposed to the elements, which makes forensics at best difficult and really well-nigh impossible. And we have crimes, which, as best as one can tell from the detectives' reports, were randomly selected, at least the victims were, because there are few, if any similarities in the women who were killed, other than body type, hair type, and age. Short hair and slender physique. One was a waitress, one was a college student, and one was a secretary. They didn't know each other. They didn't live anywhere near each other. They didn't have anything in particular that linked them together, other than the unfortunate fact that each traveled home alone on various forms of public transportation you know, subways or buses and that each had to walk several blocks through darkened streets to get to their apartments. Making them eminently vulnerable."

"Easy," Lucy said, "for a patient man to pick out and stalk."

Peter hesitated, in that second, as if something Lucy said raised some question within him. Francis could see that some notion was churning about within him, and he was unsure whether to put it to words and speak it out loud. Finally after a few moments had passed, Peter leaned back, and said, "Different jurisdictions. Different locales. Different agencies. All here together…"

"That's right," Lucy said carefully, as if she was suddenly watching her words.

"Interesting," Peter replied. Then he leaned forward, back toward the materials on the desktop, surveying the entirety slowly. After a second, he stopped and picked up the three photographs of the victims' right hands. He stared at the mutilated fingers for a moment. "Souvenirs," he said briskly. "That's pretty damn classic."

"What do you mean?" Francis asked.

"In the studies done on repetitive killers," Lucy said quietly, "one common characteristic is the need for the killer to remove something from the victim, so that he can relive the experience later."

"Remove?"

"A lock of hair. A piece of clothing. A part of the body."

Francis shuddered. He felt young, in that moment, as young as he'd ever been, and wondered how it was that he knew so little of the world, and Peter and Lucy, who weren't more than eight, maybe ten years older than he was, knew so much. "But you said it told you a lot, too," Francis said. "Like what?"

Peter looked over at Lucy, their eyes linking for a second. Francis eyed the young prosecutor carefully, and thought that his question had somehow crossed some sort of divide. There are moments, he knew, when words assembled and uttered suddenly created bridges and connections, and he suspected this was one of those moments.

"What all this says, Francis," Peter said, speaking to his friend, but his eyes on the young woman, "is that Lanky's Angel knows how to commit crimes in a manner that creates immeasurable problems for the folks who would want to stop him. That means that he has some intelligence. And a significant amount of education, at least, in the ways of killing. When you think about it, there are only two ways that crimes get solved, C-Bird. The first, and best way, is when the great mass of evidence gathered at the scene of the crime points inexorably in one direction. Fingerprints, clothing fibers, blood work, and murder weapons that can be traced and maybe even eyewitness testimony. Then these things can be coupled with clear-cut motives, like insurance money, or robbery, or an angry dispute between estranged couples."

"What's the other way?" Francis asked.

"That's when you uncover a suspect, and then you find ways of linking him to the events."

"That sounds like it's backward."

"It is indeed," Lucy said.

"Is it more difficult?"

Peter sighed. "Difficult? Yes. That it is. Impossible? No."

"That's good," Francis said. He looked at Lucy. "I would be worried if what we had to do were impossible."

Peter burst out with a laugh. "Actually, C-Bird, it's really simply a matter of us using some other means to figure out who the Angel is. We create a list of potential suspects, and then narrow that down until we are more or less certain we know who it is. Or, at the least, have a few names of potential killers. Then we apply what we know about each crime to these suspects. One, I trust, will stand out. And once we see that, it won't be all that hard to put him in proximity to these victims. Things will fall together, we just don't know yet how or what it will be. But there will be something in this mess of papers and reports and evidence that will trap him."

Francis took in a deep breath. "What sort of other means are you talking about?" he asked.

Peter grinned. "Well, my young friend, there's the rub. That's what we need to figure out. There's someone in this place who isn't what everyone thinks he is. He's got a whole different sort of crazy lurking about inside him, C-Bird. And he's got it hidden pretty damn carefully. We just have to figure out who's acting a lie."

Francis looked at Lucy, who was moving her head up and down.

"That, of course," she added slowly, "is more easily said than done."

Sometimes the lines of demarcation between dreams and reality become blurred. Hard for me to tell precisely which is which. I suppose that's why I am supposed to take so much medication, as if reality can be encouraged chemically. Ingest enough milligrams of this or that pill, and the world comes back into focus. This is sadly true, and, for the most part, all those drugs do pretty much what they are supposed to do, in addition to all the other things not so pleasant. And, I guess, it is all in all positive. It just depends on how much value one places on focus.

Currently, I wasn't placing much value on it all.

I slept, I don't know for how many hours, on the floor of my living room. I had taken a pillow and blanket from my bed, and then stretched out beside all my words, reluctant to leave them, almost like an attentive parent, afraid to leave a sickly child at night. The floor was board hard, and my joints complained in protest when I awakened. There was some dawn light slipping into the apartment, like a herald trumpeting in something new, and I rose to my task not precisely refreshed, but at least a little less groggy.

For a moment, or two, I looked about, reassuring myself that I was alone.

The Angel was not far, I knew. He had not fled. That wasn't his style. Nor had he concealed himself behind my shoulder again. My senses were all on edge, despite the few hours' sleep. He was close. He was watching. He was waiting. Somewhere nearby. But the room was empty, at least for the time being, and I felt some relief. The only echoes were my own.

I tried to tell myself to be very careful. In the Western State Hospital, there had been the three of us arrayed against him. And still it had been an equal contest. Now, here alone in my apartment, I feared that I wasn't capable of the same fight.

I turned to the wall. I remembered asking Peter a question and his response, spoken in an upbeat tone: "Detective work is about a steady, careful examination of facts. Creative thinking is always welcome, but only within the boundaries of known details."

I laughed out loud. This time irony overcame me, and I replied, "But that's not what worked, was it?" Maybe in the real world, especially today, with DNA testing and electronic microscopes and forensic techniques honed by science and technology and screaming modern capabilities, finding the Angel wouldn't have been so tricky. Probably not at all. Put the right substances into a test tube, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, run them through a gas chronometer, apply some space-age technology, get a computer readout and find our man. But back then, in the Western State Hospital, we didn't have any of those things. Not a one.