re those vulnerable and wounded came. He knows how to access it, it’s familiar. Why find another place that’s not so well suited?”
“I hope you’re right about that.”
“If he had to relocate, for some reason, he would’ve found a place in his new area. But so far I haven’t found any like crimes. And damn if I think he could create another mausoleum.”
No, she thought, he didn’t pull this off a second time.
“This one basically fell into his lap,” she pointed out. “There can’t be that many opportunities like it.
“Still, there are spaces in that theory,” she admitted over a mouthful of syrupy toast. Take Lemont Frester. He’s made some money, travels all over. If he’s a sick-fuck predator he could be carrying on his sick-fuck predatory ways all over the world—and off it.”
“Happy thought.”
“I’m taking a look at him, but for anyone to pull this sort of thing off for this long? And someone like him, who puts himself in the public eye? It’s hard to swallow it. Not impossible, but it doesn’t go down easy.”
“You’ll interview him today.”
“On my list. Along with nagging DeWinter and her team, notifying Lupa Dison’s next of kin, and getting what I can there, maybe another pass through HPCCY and blah blah blah. Top of the list is ID the nine we have left. So I better get started.”
She rose to go to her closet.
“The black jean-style trousers. The snug ones,” he added, “with the black jacket, the cropped one with the leather trim and the zippers on the sleeves, black tank with a scoop neck, and the black motorcycle style boots. Wear the pants inside the boots.”
She’d paused at her closet to listen to him as he reeled off the wardrobe.
“You’re telling me to wear all black? You’re always trying to paint me up with color.”
“In this case it’ll be the lines and the textures, as well as the unrelieved black. You’ll look just a little dangerous.”
“Yeah?” She brightened right up. “I’m all about that.”
“I’ll be in my office when you’re done.”
She grabbed what he’d listed, dressed, then curious, glanced in the mirror. Damned if he hadn’t hit it again, she thought. She did look just a little dangerous.
Half hoping she had a chance to put the look to use, she went to her office.
Sitting at her desk, she called up the results of her auto-search.
She scanned the remaining sixty-three names, found four deceased within a year of the murders, and separated them as possibles.
She separated any who’d done time, with a subset for violent crime.
With all, she looked for any indication the subject had skill or interest in construction, then crossed them with the staff Peabody and Roarke had run.
“Could’ve been a team,” she said when Roarke came in. “One to kill, one to clean up, or both together. I don’t like that as much as it’s a damn long time for two people to suppress the urge to kill, and for two people to keep their mouths shut about it.”
“One or both could be dead or incarcerated.”
“Yeah, it’s an angle. Pairs like that usually have a dominant and a submissive.” She drummed her fingers. “Older, trusted staff member exploits boy’s dark side. Maybe. Maybe, but again it means keeping a secret for a long time, and two people don’t keep them very well as a rule, especially when one of them’s in a cage. Still, teamwork’s efficient. You’ve got to get the girls, kill the girls, hide the girls. It’s a lot of work.”
“It’s not work if you enjoy it.”
She looked back at her board. “No, it’s not, and he must have. You don’t keep doing something unless you like it—or are compelled—until someone, something stops you.”
She gestured to her screen where she’d put up three faces, three names. “The three chronic runaways. At least one of them. The odds again, but at least one of them is probably in DeWinter’s lab. I’m going to send them to the reconstructionist, in case it helps.”
“Why don’t you give me a portion of the male residents to look at more closely? I can do that off and on today when there’s time.”