J Robb - Imitation in Death

“There’s a rush in it, the control, the power, the details. She’s alive now because I allow it, she’ll be dead because I want it. It’s clear he admires the serial killers who made names for themselves. Jack the Ripper, the Boston Strangler, so he emulates them. But he’s very much his own man. Better than they were, because he’s versatile.”

“And he wants you pursuing him because he admires you.”

“In his own sick way. He wants the buzz. It isn’t enough to kill. That doesn’t heat the blood enough. The hunt, being both hunter and prey, that does it for him. He hunted these women.”

She turned to the board she’d set up in her home office, with pictures ofJacieWooton andLoisGregg, alive and dead. “He watched them, learned their routines and patterns. He needed a prostitute for the Ripper imitation, and a certain type of LC. She fit the mold. He expected her to walk along that street at that time. It wasn’t chance. Just asLoisGregg fit his need for a Stranglervic, just as he knew she’d be home alone on a Sunday morning.”

“And knew someone would find her before the end of the day?”

“Yeah.” Sipping coffee, she nodded. “Quicker gratification that way. More and more likely he called in the anonymous nine-one-one. Wanted Wooton found as soon as possible so the adulation and horror could begin.”

“Which tells me he feels very safe.”

“Very safe,”Eve agreed. “Very superior. IfGregg hadn’t had family or friends who were bound to check on her in a few hours, he’d have to wait to get the next kick, or risk another nine-one-one. So he targeted these women specifically, just as he’s targeted the next.”

She sat, rubbed her eyes. “He’ll imitate someone else. But it’ll be someone who created a stir, and who left bodies where they could and would be found. We eliminate historic serial killers who buried, destroyed, or consumed their victims.”

“Such a fun group, too.”

“Oh yeah. He’s not going to copy someone likeChefJourard, that French guy in the twenties, this century.”

“Kept his victims in a large freezer, didn’t he?”

“Where he carved them up, cooked them up, and served them to unsuspecting patrons of his fancy bistro inParis. Took them nearly two years to catch him.”

“And he was famed for his sweetbreads.”

She gave a quick shudder. “Anybody who eats internal organs of any species baffles me. And I’m off the track.”

He trailed a hand down her arm. “Because you’re tired.”

“Maybe. He’ll stay more straightforward, won’t go for a play on someone like Jourard, or Dahmer, or that Russian maniacIvan the Butcher. But people being what they are, he’s got plenty of others to work with. He’ll stick with women.”

She walked back to the board. “When you kill women the way he did these two, you’ve got a problem with them. But he’s not connected to the actual victims. I’ll go back and push the paper-the note. See if anyone on the list has a particular interest in celebrity killers.”

“There’s another you might want to speak with,” Roarke suggested. “ThomasA.Breen. He’s written what some consider the definitive book on twentieth-century serial killers, another on mass murderers throughout history. I’ve actually read some of his work, as the subject matter is of some interest to my wife.”

“Breen,ThomasA.I might’ve read some of his stuff. Sounds vaguely familiar.”

“He lives here in the city. I looked up the particulars when you were at Central, as I thought you might want a word with him.”

“Smart guy.”

This time when she reached for the coffeepot, he laid a hand over hers to stop her. “Smart enough to know you’ve had over your quota of coffee for the day, and despite it you’re starting to droop.”

“I just want to run a couple of probabilities.”

“Set them up then, and they can run while you’re sleeping. You’ll have the results in the morning.”

She’d have argued, but she was too damn tired. Instead, she did as he suggested, and still her gaze was drawn back to the board. Back toLoisGregg.

She could hear the way the woman’s son, a grown man, had sobbed. She could see the utter devastation on his face when he’d pleaded with her to tell him what he should do.

“Mom,” he’d said, the way she imagined a child would. Though over thirty he’d said “Mom” with a little boy’s helpless loss.

She knew Roarke had felt some of that same helplessness, that young boy’s lost grief, when he’d learned the mother he’d never known had been murdered. Dead for three decades. Still he grieved.

And just that afternoon, a grown woman had studied her with suspicion and resentment over a relationship with her mother.

What was it that bound the child, so inexorably, with the mother? Was it blood, she wondered, as she stripped down for bed? Was it imprinted in the womb or something learned and developed after birth?

Killers of women, lust killers, were often bred due to their unhealthy feelings or relationships with a mother figure. Just as she supposed saints were bred from healthy ones. Or all the normality of the human race between the extremes.

Had this killer hated his mother? Abused or been abused by her? Was he killing her now?

And thinking of mothers, she slipped into sleep to dream of her own.

– -«»--«»--«»--

It was the hair, golden hair, so shiny and pretty, so long and curly. She liked to touch it, though she knew she wasn’t supposed to. She liked to pet it, as she’d seen a boy pet a puppy dog once.

Nobody was home, and it was all quiet, the way she liked it best. When they were gone, the mommy and the daddy, nobody yelled or made scary noises or told her not to do everything she wanted to do.

Nobody slapped or hit.

She wasn’t supposed to go into the room where the mommy and daddy slept, or where the mommy sometimes brought other daddies to play on the bed without their clothes.

But there were so many things in there. Like the long golden hair, or the bright red hair, and the bottles that smelled like flowers.

She tiptoed toward the dresser, a thin girl in jeans that bagged and a yellow T-shirt that was stained with grape juice. Her ears were keen, as the ears of prey often were, and she listened carefully, prepared to dart out of the room at any moment.

Her fingers reached out and stroked the yellow curls of the wig. The pressure syringe tossed carelessly beside it didn’t interest her. She knew the mommy took medicine every day, sometimes more than once a day. Sometimes the medicine made her sleepy, sometimes it made her want to dance and dance. She was nicer when she wanted to dance; even though her laughing was scary, it was better than the yelling or the slapping.

There was a mirror over the dresser and she could just see the top half of her own face if she strained up high on her toes. Her hair was ugly brown and straight and short. It wasn’t pretty like the mommy’s play hair.

Unable to resist, she put the wig over her own hair. It fell all the way to her waist and made her feel pretty, made her feel happy.

There were all sorts of toys on the dresser, for painting faces with color. Once when the mommy had been in a good mood, she’d painted her lips and cheeks and said she’d looked like a little doll.

If she looked like a doll, maybe the mommy and daddy would like her better. They wouldn’t yell and hit, and she could go outside and play.

Humming to herself, she painted on lip dye, rubbing her lips together as she’d seen the mommy do. She brushed on cheek color and clumsily fit her feet inside the high-heeled shoes that were in front of the dresser. She teetered on them, but was able to see even more of her face.