CHAPTER SIX
Paige buried her face in her notes while Ella did the driving. The journey to victim number one’s family home had been mostly silent aside from Agent Dark’s mumbling, which Paige was beginning to realize Ella was blissfully unaware of. Paige tried to review what she’d learned about this offender so far, but the scene of her vomiting in the autopsy room had been playing on a loop in her brain since the incident.
It was one of those memories she’d replay on those nights she couldn’t sleep, the nights her mind would wander to the most embarrassing, upsetting moments to validate her shame. She filed this memory straight into the humiliation library, available to rent whenever she felt her most vulnerable. Ella must have thought she was completely useless.
“I’ve got no excuse,” Paige said. “The idea of him eating raw meat. Raw human meat. I just lost my guts.”
Ella turned the radio down. “You know how many times I’ve ralphed on this job? More than I can count. I’m surprised I’ve got any organs left.”
Paige wasn’t buying it. She was starting to think Ella was just telling her what she wanted to hear rather than providing constructive criticism. “You? Puking at the sight of bodies?”
“Absolutely. Pretty sure I saw Ripley hurl her guts up once too. It’s normal,” Ella said. “I know why you did it too. It’s not the bodies or the decomposition or the mutilations that make you retch. It’s the visceral contrast. Life and death. You’re seeing something in an alien state. It’s only natural you react that way.”
The comments went a long way to reassuring Paige, but first impressions had now been and gone and they hadn’t been positive. If she wanted to convince Ella she had the gonads for this job, she needed to impress. From now on, no more vomiting. No more holding back. Opportunities like this were rare and she had to seize them. That was how success stories always started, by grasping the nettle.
Before they got to their next task, Paige had a couple of questions on her mind. She thought about what Ella had said about the unsub possibly eating a portion of the victim’s leg.
“Ella, what’s the deal with the cannibalism? How did you reach that conclusion?”
“These victims are important to him. Everything about this screams intimacy. Private locations, strangulation, retaining body parts. These aren’t just disposable women. They mean something, signify something.”
Paige got that part. “How does eating them play into that?”
“Cannibals don’t eat human flesh for taste or sexual gratification. They do it to keep the victims with them forever. Loneliness and insecurity are at the core of cannibal psychopathology. I think our unsub has a similar mindset.”
Paige would never have made that leap. “That’s interesting.”
“Some cannibals do it because the victims have traits they desire. Armin Meiwes ate a man because he wanted to possess the man’s outgoing personality. Issei Sagawa ate a woman because he wanted to consume her beauty. It’s a twisted mindset and I’m convinced our killer is acting out of the same compulsions.”
Paige made a mental note to research the cannibal profile when she had a minute to spare. They pulled up outside the modest suburban home in Conestoga Woods, the home of Cassie Sullivan’s mother. Ella spent a minute scoping the scene.
“What do you think is going on here?” Ella asked.
“In the house?” Paige asked.
“No. The whole case. We’ve got an unsub who cuts off legs, preserves them, and leaves them with different bodies. And there’s a chance he ate a part of the flesh, possibly raw. What does that say to you?”
“It suggests that the legs are the sole focus of his ritual, but I don’t know why.”
“Think beyond the surface,” Ella said. “Forget the severed legs for now. Look at everything else.”
Paige leafed through her notebook again, more for effect than anything else. She was hoping Ella might save her more embarrassment and just reveal her theory herself.
“I don’t know. None of it makes sense,” Paige said, deciding on the honest approach. “What do you think?”
Ella killed the engine. “The answer is in these victims. These aren’t just random, opportunistic kills. He targeted these girls specifically, and the fact he linked the crime scenes together means they’re connected to each other somehow.”
“It couldn’t just be a calling card?” Paige asked. “Like confirmation that he was responsible for both murders?”
Ella shook her head. “The dissection alone is enough for that, not to mention they happened within five miles of each other within three days. No one would doubt they were done by the same hand. There’s something else at play. A kind of twisted obsession, maybe even love.”
“Love?” Paige asked. Ella exited the car and her partner followed suit.
“I can’t be sure. We need to know more about these victims.” They walked up the driveway and knocked on the door.
“Are you doing the talking?” Paige asked as they waited.
“No. We both are. Team effort,” Ella said.