LITMIR.BIZ

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not a joke,’ he said. ‘What I think is, cutting himself like he does is how the guy gets off. Like a sperm substitute.’

      ‘He doesn’t have any trouble ejaculating,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty of seminal fluid.’

      ‘Maybe this is like some kind of bigger, better orgasm. He blows his load, kills the woman, then slashes himself. And there’s blood flowing and sperm leaking out, and the goddamn freak is flying off into orbit. All the bells ringing, whistles shrieking, lights going full blast, the guy’s soaring out there into interplanetary nothingness.’

      She stared at him.

      ‘Dan, maybe it is time for you to retire.’

      ‘Pathology boys are saying it’s glass he cuts them with, not a blade.’

      ‘Glass?’

      ‘Yeah, figure that out. Some kind of special glass.’

      ‘Special? How?’

      The big man shrugged. ‘I haven’t read the report yet. Just glanced at it on the way over here.’

      ‘Let me get this straight. The guy holds a chunk of glass in his bare hand, and when he cuts their throats, he winds up slicing himself in the process. Like either he’s totally stupid or for some reason he enjoys the pain.’

      Romano shrugged again. ‘Well, I think we can rule out stupid.’

      ‘Oh boy, the psychobabblers ought to have fun with that.’

      She shot the sprinkling of blood on the beige carpet. Got close-ups of the woman’s throat. Just like the four others, a gash with a little wrist flick, like the letter C. But that was for the ME to figure out, the pathology guys, the blood-spatter techs. Alexandra was just a photographer – cold, neutral eyes.

      They’d send the blood and sperm specimens, tissue samples, hair and fiber off to the FBI lab, the FDLE, have them run their blue-ribbon tests. And it would all be futile. This asshole wasn’t leaving behind anything he didn’t want them to find. They already knew his fingerprints weren’t on file in the AFIS database or with the FBI. The DNA was worthless unless they already had the guy in custody.

      From the autopsies and blood-spatter patterns, they could tell the guy was highly organized, under strict control. The whole event had the feel of a finely tuned script, a lockstep ritual. Same white wine at every scene. Even the same amount of chardonnay left in the bottle each time.

      No witnesses ever remembered seeing him arrive. No one saw him depart. Apparently, the guy was a charmer of lonely hearts. All the women he’d chosen were loners, vulnerable women, recently divorced or separated. Awkward and unsure, back on the market after some wrenching failure. Easy prey.

      After two sips of wine, a few hors d’oeuvres, he punched them in the face, slammed them to the floor. He was strong and quick, and once he got started, he was ruthless. Somewhere during the act itself, he reached back for his weapon and plunged it into their throats, stayed mounted until he’d ejaculated, then climbed off their cooling bodies. The ME had come up with that opinion, comparing the temperature of sperm with the temp of the body. Nothing high-tech about it.

      Then a few minutes postmortem, most likely after he’d dressed and recovered, the killer arranged his victims into the pose he’d selected, and a minute or two later, he began to dribble that trail of blood away from the scene.

      Though the sequence was identical every time, the women were all different. No regularity to body types or hair color or socioeconomic background. Either the killer wasn’t that particular or his fantasizing capabilities were so powerful that he could incorporate a lot of different types into his horror show. The only similarity among the women was their ages. They were all in their late twenties.

      Based on the very limited evidence he was leaving behind, Alex doubted he’d be caught from police work alone. Probably their best hope was that the killings would someday stop gratifying the guy and his passions would grow so pressurized inside the locked chambers of his heart that the walls would rupture and he’d blow wide open and do something out of character, wild, stupid, clumsy. Or better yet, there was the outside chance he would meet a woman who outmatched him, someone who could block that first punch and answer it with a high-caliber counter-punch – someone with a quick draw and a fast trigger, who’d make him spill his blood in earnest.

      Alex only hoped it happened on her shift, so she could take a roll or two of the asshole’s corpse.

      

      The apartment was crowded with cops by the time she was leaving. Media trucks in the parking lot, halogen lights blazing, helicopters fanning the moonlight. Alexandra Rafferty got in her van and moved on to a quiet neighborhood in the Grove, a home invasion with a husband and a wife pistol-whipped but alive. After that, she did a convenience-store robbery on Biscayne Boulevard, the clerk shot twice in the face for sixty-three dollars and two six-packs of Colt 45. As the sun was coming up, she did a domestic-abuse case in Little Havana. A Latin man in his sixties who’d stabbed his teenage boyfriend twenty-five times in the genitals. The old man had to be sedated before he would let go of the mutilated body of his lover.

       2

      At the end of their shift, Dan Romano tagged along behind Alex down the overbright corridor to the photo lab. They passed a couple of janitors who were mopping the glaring tile while they exchanged quick bursts of island patois.

      ‘That thing in the apartment.’ Dan stepped around the mop bucket. ‘My saying it was okay to steal that photograph off the wall? Hey, I’m sorry, Alex. I don’t know what I was thinking about. I was out of line.’

      ‘Yeah, you were, Dan. Way out.’

      ‘You can forget it happened, can’t you?’

      ‘I forgot it the second it occurred.’

      They rounded the last corner and pushed through the swinging doors. The raw chemical smell poured out of the developing room. Early shift was on already, which meant Junior Shanrahan stood behind the counter, smiling at her. In his early twenties, Junior was an inch or two over six feet, with shoulders so broad, he seemed taller. He was hulking behind the counter, wearing his usual bright blue granny spectacles and a white hair net and smock.

      Whenever she showed up, his smile brightened and his eyes seemed to track her every move. Nervous and deferential, like the kid had a crush on her. Junior high stuff. She expected him to pass her a folded-up love note any day now. Invite her to the prom.

      ‘This whole retirement thing’s got me fucked up, Alex, facing the void. My whole ethical orientation has gone to shit.’

      ‘Understandable, Dan. Perfectly understandable.’

      Alexandra started unloading her grocery sack of exposed film onto the counter. Each roll in its own envelope, with case information inside.

      ‘Good morning, Ms Rafferty,’ Junior said. ‘How’s the Ansel Adams of corpses doing this fine day?’

      ‘Ansel Adams?’ Dan was staring at Junior Shanrahan, taking in the hair net, the blue glasses. ‘Who the hell’s that?’

      ‘Famous photographer,’ Alex said. ‘It’s a compliment.’

      ‘More like a joke,’ said Junior.

      ‘Christ, I’m getting too old for this. Everybody’s doing stand-up, and I’m not getting the gags anymore.’

      Junior took her rolls of film one by one and logged them on his clipboard, then dropped them into the empty slot. A chute carried them back to the processing lab, where the minideveloper was already churning out new prints. Same kind of machine you’d find in Eckerd Drugs.

      ‘Get anything good last night?’ Junior was peering at her through his blue lenses. At his hairline, near the edge of the netting, a

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