Paige came closer, a look of worry on her face. “Ella, I’m getting really worried here. This guy is moving so fast, almost like a mass murderer. Four victims in five days. That’s not normal, is it? When did that last happen?”
“As far as serial killers go, thirteen years ago. This is the fastest-moving unsub I’ve dealt with so far. No, it’s not normal. We’re on countdown here, and something tells me this guy isn’t going to stop. He’s going to keep this sequence going for as long as he can.”
“Why has he suddenly started killing in public? Why has he gone for an older woman? I just don’t understand it. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can’t think like him.”
“No one can think like him. No one should think like him. His worldview is completely distorted, alien to any sane individual. But that doesn’t mean we can’t catch him.”
“How?” Paige shrugged. “We thought we were getting closer, but he was probably doing this while we had Calvin in interrogation. How do we know we’re not miles away from catching him?”
Ella pulled out her car keys and watched as the forensic officers suited themselves up. With any luck, they might find some fibers from the unsub’s trunk, but Ella doubted that fortune was in their favor.
“Let’s leave these guys to do their job. We gotta head back.”
“Shouldn’t we see if they find anything useful?”
“Reed will do it. But we already know how to catch this person. We just didn’t listen closely enough.”
Paige scrunched up her face. “What?”
“Come on. I’m getting sick of this city. Let’s put an end to this once and for all.”
***
Back at the Lancaster PD precinct, Ella began scrawling on the whiteboard again, but she quickly found out that she couldn’t express her theory through text and diagrams alone. Paige paced up and down the room, probably experiencing the same lows that Ella had felt a thousand times already.
Ella started at the beginning, ensuring that everything connected. She left no stone unprofiled.
“We were right. Our killer is detached from reality, but not in the sense that he lives in a complete fantasy world where he doesn’t understand right from wrong. I’m certain of one thing, and that’s that these victims all represent someone who was close to him. There are details in every scene that reference this person, and that’s what we need to zone in on. This surrogate in our unsub’s life is a combination of all these victims in one form or another.”
“I’m listening,” Paige said.
“But there’s a lot more. Our unsub is skilled, capable, and above everything else, obsessed. Obsessed to the point that he’ll murder for what he believes is right.”
Paige stopped pacing. “Obsessed with what? Explain.”
“Deranged minds can often take abstract concepts and transpose them allegorically. It’s very rare, but not unheard of. Our unsub is obsessed with two concepts: connection and separation. I don’t know exactly, but it could be something like he was separated from his family at birth and has longed to reconnect with them this whole time. It could be that he lost a family member, a young child, a partner, and now longs to right that wrong. See what I mean?”
“No,” Paige said. “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
“Because all the evidence is there, and it’s tied together by his bizarre ritual. This isn’t about sexual fulfillment or leg fetishism. It’s a symbolic gesture of his desires. He separates the leg, then connects it to the next victim in line. That’s how he addresses his trauma. He recreates the scene that caused his anguish so he can control and manipulate it – something he couldn’t do when the real event actually took place.”
“I’m trying to put it together but I’m having a hard time,” Paige said. “Couldn’t he just be a weirdo?”
“No, because that’s not the only way he connects his victims. They’re all connected by an ever-changing modus operandi. Remember when I said that not all serial killers maintain the same M.O., signature, or ritual their entire spree? This guy is the perfect example.”
Paige nodded. “But hasn’t his M.O. been the same? Women, killed, dismembered, leg appears at the next scene, continue?”
“No, they’ve all been different. He simply walked into Cassie Sullivan’s home and killed her. He hid in Teri Harper’s attic. He hired the services of Kate Sutton. He blitzed Irene Quimby. All vastly different approaches. He even changed how he severed the legs after his second victim too.”
“So other than the legs, what connects the victims?”
“In every case, there’s been at least one thing that’s carried over into the next crime scene,” Ella said. “Cassie Sullivan was his first. 25 years old, born in November. Teri Harper was his second, also 25 years old, also born in November. We also believe he cut off a section of Cassie’s leg, like a joint of meat, then left it beside Teri Harper’s body.”
“We still don’t know why,” Paige said.
“We do. What did Teri say her job was?”
Paige’s eyebrows jumped up her forehead. “Chef. Oh, damn.”