“And now these two killings are here,” Christopher said. “I wonder if that’s because our copycat lives here, or if he’s killing here as some kind of tribute to the original murders?”
“Probably the former,” Paige guessed. “Copycats tend to kill in a place that’s convenient for them, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the original killer. The guy who copied the Zodiac Killer did so in New York, when the original murders were around San Francisco. If he’s killing in D.C., it’s because he’s from D.C.”
Paige kept looking at the files, trying to see any differences between the old murders and the new. The truly worrying thing was that she couldn’t. Everything about the murders, everything, matched. It was almost as if the same guy who had killed all of the first set of victims had simply continued his work.
That was impossible, though.
“This isn’t right,” Paige said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What isn’t?”
“These murders are all too close to the originals. They don’t get anything wrong.”
Christopher frowned as she said that, obviously not understanding.
“I thought the point of a copycat was to be as close to the original as possible, particularly if they’re going in for some kind of tribute act, rather than just trying for the fame,” Christopher said.
“Yes, but this is murder, not music,” Paige explained. “It’s not like going onto the internet and learning a bunch of a band’s songs note for note. The average copycat is working with what they can find out in the press, and that often gets misreported, or details are held back. This killer is copying Ingram exactly.”
“So this guy is too perfect?” Christopher said.
Paige nodded. “Copycats get the general shape of a crime right, but they usually mess up the details. This killer has gotten the details right. They couldn’t have gotten closer to it if Lars Ingram had talked them through the murders himself.”
Paige found herself looking over at the photograph of Ingram up on the board, wondering if maybe, just maybe, there was some way that he had done exactly that.
“The only way that would be possible would be if the current killer had some kind of contact with Ingram,” Christopher said, obviously understanding where Paige’s thoughts were going.
“It’s not the only way,” Paige said. “It’s possible that the reporting had enough details for someone to put this together, but… if there has been that contact, we might be able to trace it back to find the killer. At the very least, we need to know about the people around Ingram, to see if he ever had any acolytes or admirers.”
The idea that a killer might have either was kind of sickening, but Paige knew that plenty of killers had both. There was something about the danger and transgression of what they did that attracted a certain kind of person.
“You know what that means we’ll have to do?” Christopher asked. He sounded slightly worried, and Paige guessed that it was on her behalf.
Yes, she knew exactly what they needed to do next, and the thought of it made her swallow back a lump of fear in her throat. She was going to have to do something that she hadn’t done since Adam Riker’s escape. She was going to have to sit across a table from a serial killer and try to understand him.
“I know,” Paige said. “We’re going to have to go speak to Lars Ingram.”