“He wouldn't travel.” Now Kathy was leaning forward as well, her eyes sharp. “He's got a well-defined comfort zone, and he's acting within it. He's hiding his victims, not dropping them. He's cherishing them, which means he's keeping at least some of them close. And his trophies are extremely personal. It sure looks to me as if he's adapted to his needs pretty damn well.”
“And, if he has picked South Grand,” Molly added, just as intensely, “he's found the perfect victim pool. South Grand is a marginal neighborhood. It's ethnically diverse, which means lots of people who aren't on comfortable terms with English, much less the local law enforcement community. It's a rehab area sprinkled in among a high-crime zone. The business strip, which has lots of restaurants, coffee shops, and retro shops, also happens to be a magnet for some of the more disenfranchised youth who come seeking entertainment, outrageous attire, and seditious discourse.”
“Would you be willing to give me a tour?”
“After I get some food in me. Sure.”
Which was, thankfully, just about the time Molly's breakfast showed up. She knew she should have been too sick to eat. Unfortunately, Molly had never been too sick to eat. She slammed into those pancakes as if they were the last grain products in North America. Kathy took one wide-eyed look at the food piled on Molly's plate and dipped into her fruit like a debutante.
“If we're very lucky,” Kathy said as she speared a melon chunk, “this
may just give us our first insight into our man's pattern. If we're even more lucky, he should be very predictable, which means that every scrap of information we learned from the Dahmers of this world will come in handy.”
“Why did he change now?” Molly asked, scooping up eggs to follow her pancakes.
“Why send you the bones?”
Molly nodded.
Kathy leaned back. “Because of a greater need than he's had. Or a change in availability of his fantasy. The truth? I think he just realized you were around and couldn't wait to contact you.”
All of a sudden, Molly was way behind again. “He
just
⦠? What do you mean, he just realized it? Isn't this somebody I know?”
Kathy shrugged. “Maybe. But I think more important, he's somebody who knew you before. Remember the wording of his letter? âYou saw me.' The word
saw
capitalized. Not a sophisticated note, but heartfelt. You say you've done the research on these guys, Molly. What does that kind of note sound like to you?”
It sounded like he wanted to send her pretty bones. What the hell did Kathy think it sounded like?
“Come on,” Kathy urged, voice taut, suddenly as much like a soccer mom as a sniper. “You've read the histories. You've probably heard the interviews. What's a frequent theme in the growth and development of the serial killer?”
Funny, Molly was sweating. “You're not talking about that stupid, âshe's the only teacher who tried to help me' stuff.”
“It's quite a recurring theme, Molly. Usually in their childhood. About the time the obsession is taking over and the killer begins to disappear beneath his facade. One person stands out as âseeing' them. âKnowing' them. One person recognizes whatever humanity is left and tries to help. And if this guy is a Dahmer type, then he spent his life being abandoned, ignored, and, ultimately, invisible. He just disappeared from human radar until the only way left for him to have a social circle was to create it with hydrochloric acid and Soilex. But somewhere as he began to disappear, maybe somewhere about the age of ten or so, I think you were there, and you were the only one who tried to pull him back.”
Molly's reaction was instinctive. “Don't beâ”
Kathy didn't have to say a word.
The Game. Molly had played The Game for so long. Praying so hard that she could make a difference to those silent, shattered children. Inch by inch giving in to the inevitable decline of hope until she just watched. Just counted. Just wished she knew what to do when there was nothing to do.
She wondered suddenly if she was coming down with something. She felt light-headed and even more sweaty. She couldn't take a deep breath. She felt as if she were caught back in one of those damn small dark corners and couldn't get out.
“He's sending eyes,” she whispered, wondering why she didn't vomit.
Kathy nodded. “He's sending eyes.”
Molly didn't know what else to say. She didn't know how to get those wide, empty brown eyes out of her head.
“Serial killers often send their trophies to people they're attached to, or people they want to impress,” Kathy said. “I haven't yet seen them send any to an early influence. Especially with a note. My God, Molly, do you know what this could mean?”
No question what it meant to Kathy. Her eyes suddenly glittered, and she couldn't seem to keep her hands quite still. The hunter had finally banished the quiet urban mom.
Well, that made Molly feel a hundred percent better. “It means I've become part of the fantasy,” she snapped.
But Kathy shook her head. “You've always been part of the fantasy. This has been part of the plan since he first met you years ago. Maybe to show you. Maybe to thank you. Who knows? The point is, we could find out vitally important information from this. The problem is that I don't know what pro-active behavior would guarantee the best results.”
“You mean, do we let the press know or not? Do we correct his spelling and send the note back? Do we just ignore him altogether?”
Kathy's smile was deprecating. “Something like that, yeah. But that's my problem. Yours is to try and figure out who this is.”
“But I don't have any children,” Molly objected. “I never had any relations with children. Hell, I never even had any over for the night. How the hell could I have affected anybody like that?”
“What about the kids from the hospital?”
Molly was already shaking her head. “I've always worked in an ED,” she said, “and we live there by the three-hour rule. You have three hours to be better, dead, or out my door. Not much time to build up a rapport.”
“What if he showed up more than once?”
Kathy was stealing Molly's breath again. “Well, in that case, we don't have a chance in hell of finding out who this guy is. I might have been able to identify somebody I know now. I couldn't tell you the name of one kid I took care of in the last thirty years.”
“Even if you went through the records?”
Molly laughed. “You know how many patients I averaged in a shift? I think we'd better concentrate on the here and now.”
“And if he hasn't shown his face lately? What then?”
“Hope he comes back to visit when the police are there.”
As if in punctuation, Molly returned her attention to her sadly decimated dinner, wiping up leftover egg as if it alone would hold off the problems at hand.
Kathy contemplated her own empty bowl and the smear of yolk left on Molly's plate. “Before we drive down to South Grand, you might want to talk about your other problem.”
Molly found herself looking at her empty plate, as if she'd forgotten something on it. What she'd almost managed to forget was the second part of this evening's joke. The fact that she'd been right all along. Trophies and threats usually didn't show up from the same address.
Giving in to the inevitable, she set down her knife and fork. “My other letter writer, you mean?”
Kathy didn't move. “Actually, I'd be more inclined to call him or her letter writer number one. I'd also have to say that in that case, you're definitely the target.”
Molly just sat there. “Delightful.”
Kathy's smile was a bit effacing. “I'm surprised one of the police didn't catch it sooner. If you look at all the correspondence together, it's obvious it doesn't fit. The only note that doesn't seem a direct threat is the one that came with the skull. It was also the only one that is meticulously printed, which probably means the sender understands forensics enough to try and camouflage his handwriting. Obviously a different correspondent, both in text and execution.”
“Been there, Kathy. Go on.”
Kathy nodded. “Your first correspondent hasn't taken the time to consider being caught. I'm afraid you've really fired somebody up, and they were mad before those bones started showing up.”
Molly's head was beginning to hurt. Much more of this and she'd enjoy a revisit from the pancakes she'd just enjoyed. “And the bomb?”
Kathy looked pensive. “The most interesting piece. Definitely not our killer. Once you have a serial killer at this level of proficiency, he's completely focused on his art. The idea that he'd take a jig over into bomb making is pretty far-fetched.”
“An angry note writer, on the other hand, might not be so averse to the idea.”
Kathy shrugged. “The tone of the notes didn't escalate, but the later the note the more rips there are in the paper.”
For a second Molly just closed her eyes. She thought about running away again. She thought about how much fun she had in store for her now. “Which means we're back at square one. Except we have two guys to look for.”
“Maybe a guy and a girl,” Kathy said. “Women are much more prone to those distanced forms of murder than men, you know.”
Molly opened her eyes. “Bomb making?”
She shrugged. “I'd have to check with ATF on that, but I do know that women account for a higher percentage of arson than other crimes.”
How liberating for our gender, Molly thought sourly. “How do you rig a bomb like that anyway?” she asked.
“You can learn it on the Internet, Molly. Where've you been?”
“In a perfect, Luddite world where computers haven't been invented yet.”
Kathy smiled and patted her mouth with a paper napkin. “You have any ideas who's mad at you?”
“I gave that list to the police a long time ago. It hasn't changed any.”
“What about somebody who's mad at both you and Frank? That was his car that blew up.”
Molly had been thinking about that. “With the assurance that he wouldn't be in it when it went.”
Kathy crooked an eyebrow.
Molly's smile was dry. “The point of a remote control car starter is that you aren't in the car when it starts. And the arson guy said the bomb was directed straight up. âNuts and knees,' he called it, which I'd think would limit damage to people standing alongside. Or, in fact, on the porch, which was where Frank usually is when he uses it.”
“So you think the bomb was rigged to go off to
prevent
injury?”
“Yeah,” Molly said, suddenly sure. “I do.”
“Which means it's just another, more impressive threat.”
Molly nodded. “Done with enough skill that the cops watching my house didn't realize there had been somebody messing around under Frank's car.”
Kathy actually looked uncomfortable. “Well, that might not be so surprising, since the cops were sitting out behind your house on Euclid.”
Molly almost let her temper go, until she realized the logic to it. Only on TV did cops have the manpower to do a thorough stakeout. So, if the police only had the manpower for one team, where would they put it? In close enough view of the area the killer had visited three times before, of course. The back of her house. Where the cops couldn't see Frank's car.
“They've, uh, increased the surveillance,” Kathy said with a small smile, which made Molly laugh.
“They don't have to. They have at least a dozen camera trucks doing it for them.”
“Which you're going to have to deal with,” Kathy said quietly.
Molly sighed. “I've done it before. Not on quite a national scale, of course ⦔
And not with an unpredictable teenager in the house. She wondered, in fact, how long it was going to be before Patrick slipped the bonds of good sense and trotted out to the
Inside Edition
van for a chat.
“If you're right,” Kathy said, absently stirring her own coffee, “you have to consider the fact that your bomber has been watching you. At least enough to know Frank's habits.”
Molly nodded, amazed she could feel worse. “We've had a peeper in the neighborhood.”
“Might answer.”
“In the meantime,” Molly said with sudden decision, “you want to see South Grand.”
Better than thinking of somebody waiting out in the shadows.
Molly had just waved for the bill when she saw a suspiciously familiar face in the doorway.
Finally, something to smile about. “You looking for me, little boy?” she demanded.