EIGHTEEN

FEBRUARY 28, 1999

"I wish you'd come to the station with me," Matt said restlessly, watching Abby pour herself a second cup of coffee.

"Any other Sunday, I would. But Anne can't be there today, and I have to play the organ. Matt, surely you aren't worried about me being at the church? There'll be people all around, you know that."

"Ivy Jameson was killed before she could get to church last Sunday."

"Well, you've already said you're taking me, so I should get there safely." She smiled at him. "And since you're taking me, you can come pick me up afterward."

"You don't have to worry about that."

Abby reached across the table to touch his hand. "I'll be fine, Matt. And you need to be at the station, we both know that. If what you suspect is right, you need to check all the notes on the first three murders."

"I don't know if it'll get us anywhere," he confessed.

"Maybe a step or two closer to understanding the son of a bitch. But I have to check it out."

Reluctantly Abby said, "And you'll have the autopsy report on the Ramsay girl to go over as well."

He grimaced. "I'm not looking forward to that. And I don't expect it to help us much. Even though she was left in pieces, you could still see the ligature mark on her neck. I figure the report will tell me Cassie was right about that as well. He strangled the girl with a garrote." "What about Cassie?" Abby said. "Are you still planning to ask her and Ben to come to the station?"

"If I'm right about the missing articles. Don't know that it'll help, but I think we need to talk over a few things. And maybe Cassie will be able to contact the killer." "What about Bishop?"

Matt shrugged. "It was what he noticed at the murder scene yesterday that got me started thinking. His expertise may come in handy, and at this point I'm not too proud to ask for help – as long as he doesn't drag the Bureau in with him. So, sure, why not?"

In fact, Matt called Bishop's motel room from his cruiser as he drove Abby to church, and the agent arrived at the station just minutes after Matt settled at his desk.

"Postmortem?" Bishop asked, noting the papers the sheriff was studying.

"Yeah. She was strangled with a thin wire or something similar. Cassie was right about that. And something else. He killed the girl while he was raping her."

Bishop sat down on the leather sofa. "A first for him, right?"

"Right. No established sexual contact with the first three victims – although Cassie says this sort of murder is always sexual, and the reading I've done seems to agree with her. You've seen the reports. What do you think?"

"She's right. It's about power, and that usually translates into sexual domination." The agent thought a moment. "A bit surprising that he apparently didn't attempt sexual domination with the first three, but he may well have achieved satisfaction observing their terror before and during the murders."

It was Mart's turn to consider. "Cassie also claims that when Jill Kirkwood was killed – third victim – the killer wore some kind of Halloween mask. We have no idea if he also wore one when he killed the first two victims – or the fourth, for that matter."

"He may have tried the mask to elicit more terror from his victim. If that's so, if he wore it only that time, and not before or after, then he may be only beginning to shape and perfect his M.O."

"What a cheerful possibility," Matt said.

"A reasonable one, I'm afraid. He kills because he likes to kill, and each experience gives him more ideas for his next murder." Bishop's voice was remote. "We may never know what triggered his compulsion, what pushed him over the line from fantasizing to acting out his fantasies, but whatever's driving him is obviously growing stronger and more complex. The first victim was not physically tortured, though we can assume he did his best to terrify her emotionally before he cut her throat. The second victim either fought him – with a certain amount of success – or else he fully intended to allow himself a bloody rampage just to find out how it felt."

"Christ," Matt muttered.

"Interesting that he followed that indulgence with a much calmer and quieter murder, and that he may have worn a mask expressly designed to terrify his victim. He was undoubtedly exhausted after killing the Jameson woman, yet he was obviously unsatisfied."

Matt snorted. "Ivy probably never satisfied a man in her life – even with her death."

Bishop smiled faintly. "Yes, she's the victim who stands out among the rest, doesn't she?"

Matt leaned back in his chair. "Are you saying that might mean something?"

"I wouldn't be surprised. The other victims ranged in age from fifteen to thirty-two – Jameson was considerably older. The other victims were quite attractive by any yardstick – Jameson was not. She was the only one killed in her home, and she may have let the killer into the house. And while the Ramsay girl was dismembered in an apparently violent rage, it's important to note that he killed her first. Jameson died in the struggle that left the crime scene a bloody mess."

"So he may have had some reason to hate Ivy in particular, which is why he chose her – is that what you mean?"

"It's a possibility. The other three victims seem to have been chosen by some combination of appearance and vulnerability, but Jameson doesn't fit into that. Wouldn't hurt to try to figure out why."

Matt nodded." Okay. I'll send a few of my people out to question the neighbors and her acquaintances one more time. Ivy pissed off people on a regular basis though, so narrowing the field might take a while."

"In the meantime, have you found out whether there were missing items from the first three victims?"

"Yeah, it looks like there are – and I could kick myself for not asking sooner."

"It won't make any difference until you have a viable suspect. It probably won't tell us anything helpful about the killer, or offer any indication of where we might look for him. But it will provide a few nails in his coffin once we have him in custody."

"If we ever do." Matt paused, then went on briskly.

"We can't be absolutely positive, but last night and this morning I've had my people double-checking with the families and, in the case of Jill Kirkwood, searching her home. Becky Smith, according to her mother, almost always wore a thin gold chain. It wasn't found on the body and isn't in her jewelry box at home. Ivy's mother claims she always wore a peacock pin to church, and there's been no sign of one. Panties are missing from the Ramsay girl's effects, so we can assume that he took something from Jill Kirkwood as well, even though we have no clue as to what that is."

"Trophies," Bishop said. "He'll have the items in his possession, probably in a drawer or box."

"Like you said, it'll help. If we catch him." Matt sighed.

"You'll catch him. The one mistake he's consistently made is to operate in a small area within a close-knit community. Sooner or later he'll have an identifiable connection to one of his victims."

"Yeah," Matt said. "But how many victims will he get before we get him?"

There wasn't a lot of traffic on the roads because of a night of sleet and a cold, overcast morning, but that was all to the good. And he doubted they would be expecting anything so soon, so that was good as well.

But the best thing of all, he thought, was that they would never, in a million years, expect him to lure his target from such an unquestionably safe haven.

The church bells began to ring, and he smiled.

They spent most of Sunday morning in bed, getting up around ten only after Max insisted, in canine terms, that enough was enough. But it wasn't until they had finished their late breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen that Cassie reluctantly brought up a touchy subject. "I really should try again."