Marie Ferrarella: Colton Copycat Killer

“None taken,” Sam assured him.

He felt almost guilty at his lack of grief over Celia’s death. Everyone was treating him with kid gloves, assuming he was stoically bearing up to this tragic blow. He just didn’t feel right about deceiving them this way.

But this wasn’t the time to come right out and admit he had no feelings for the woman, that all there had been was a sense of obligation, nothing more, behind the wedding.

He had no time to deal with that right now, Sam told himself. There was a killer to catch.

He thought for a moment, then asked abruptly, “Why women with long dark hair?”

Caught off guard, Trevor shook his head. “No idea,” he confessed.

“Maybe we can find the answer with the first victim. Victim A,” Sam clarified. But even as he said it, another idea had hit him. “If that actually was his first victim.”

Trevor wasn’t following him. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Sam was extrapolating as he went, building on his initial idea. “Maybe our serial killer killed someone before that, someone the police didn’t find. The person our killer actually hated,” he specified. “The person all the other victims remind him of.”

“Okay,” Trevor agreed. “But why kill these others alphabetically?” In his opinion, that ramped the murders up another notch, making them that much more difficult to execute.

Sam thought for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Maybe our killer is an obsessive-compulsive type and whatever makes those birds tick makes him want to conduct these killings in this specific, macabre, alphabetical fashion.”

It was, Trevor thought, as good a theory as any—and better than most.

“You know,” he told Sam, “if you ever decide you want to move up from being a detective in a town the size of a green pea, the FBI Behavioral Bureau could use someone like you.”

Sam knew he should be flattered by the invitation, but all he really was...was numb. But, this was his brother, and relations were still in the very early reacquaintance stages, so he proceeded as if he was crossing a river in a skiff made of eggshells.

“Thanks, but no thanks. Two serial killers in one lifetime is more than enough for me,” he assured his oldest brother.

They both knew he was referring to their father as well as to the current killer who had suddenly raised his head and thrown everything into chaos.

About to return to the church and the remaining wedding guests that still needed to give their statements, Sam turned to his brother with another, more pressing thought. “You know, before we go on with this investigation, given what’s already happened, I think we should release this story to the local papers.”

Trevor looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “The papers? What the hell for? Those reporters are nothing more than vultures. At the very least, they’ll just get in the way.”

He probably hated reporters more than Trevor did, or at least equally as much. When the story had broken about their father, the reporters had had a field day, camping on their front lawn, following them everywhere and always, always snapping pictures and shouting out embarrassing, humiliating questions.

But there was a reason for his break with protocol. “I’d be the first to agree with you,” Sam said, “but since this nutjob has already killed three women that fit a certain description and pattern, it stands to reason that his next victim will be a twentysomething, dark-haired woman whose name begins with the letter D.

“It seems only right that we issue a warning so these women will exercise extreme caution and do what it takes to stay out of harm’s way. Otherwise, if this maniac kills a fourth victim, her death will be as much on our heads as on his.”

Trevor sighed. “I wouldn’t exactly say fifty-fifty, but you’ve got a point. You want to release a formal statement to the press?”

Sam was stunned by his brother’s suggestion. He had a tendency to clam up in front of a microphone. Press conferences weren’t his calling.

“Me? Hell no. We’ve got someone in charge of PR at the station to do that.” The name of the woman escaped him at the moment. “If they have me talking to the news media, public relations between the police and the press will plummet down below sea level. Maybe even lower.”

“Haven’t lost that charming touch of yours, have you?” Trevor laughed.

“No occasion to,” Sam answered and it seemed to Trevor that his younger brother wasn’t really kidding.

Walking into the church proper again, Sam saw the wedding guests were growing somewhat restless as they sat in the pews. He assumed a number of them had been interviewed by now, but everyone was being detained until the last statement was taken.

Sam looked around for Annabel, the person he had temporarily put in charge of this phase. Spotting her, he called his sister over to him.

Annabel was wearing a light blue cocktail dress and looked less like a police officer than usual. At the moment, she was in the middle of questioning one of the wedding guests. She paused when she saw Sam waving her over.

“Be right back,” she said to the older woman, patting her hand. With that, she made her way over to her brother. The first word out of her mouth was, “Anything?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Annabel was a great deal more loquacious than he was and she had the ability to get people to talk to her. He felt certain that if any of these people had the slightest inclination to talk and “share secrets” they would do it with Annabel.

“Nobody saw anything,” Annabel replied needlessly. She did it to ensure the fact that her brother wouldn’t think she was hiding something from him.

“Didn’t think so, but it was still worth a shot. Have all the statements on my desk when you and the others get finished.” That simple act, he thought, assured him of eyestrain and a headache the size of a medium boulder.

“You got it.” There was a pause before she said, “And, Sam—”

He was developing a sixth sense about this. He knew what she was going to say before she had a chance to say it.

“Yeah, I know. You want to tell me that you’re very sorry for my loss.” He forced a smile to his lips. “Thanks.”

Annabel hesitated for a moment, debating saying anything at all. Sam was obviously steeling himself off from the events, reacting to it only as a police detective, not as anything else. But remaining silent on the subject didn’t really sit all that well with her.

“You know, you could try to look a little more broken up, all things considered,” she suggested.

“It’s all on the inside, Annabel,” he replied. “I don’t believe in putting on a show for anyone.”

“I know that, but other people don’t know you as well as the guys and I do,” his sister pointed out, referring to their other siblings.

Sam shrugged. “Other people don’t count,” he replied and, to a good extent, he meant it.

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