Final Victim

H. F. DT. MI. 67-94 108.01

She knew that stood for "Homicide, Female. Detroit, Michigan." The sixty-seventh killing in that city in 1994. The 108.01 was a Uniform Crime Report number. All crimes were categorized by number, starting with criminal enterprise homicides at 100 and going all the way to group excitement homicides at 143. The decimal points were for sub-headings. The 108.01 stood for indiscriminate felony murder, which meant that the police in Michigan felt that it was a homicide planned in advance without a specific victim in mind.

Karen asked the computer for the case file… and in seconds she was looking at the face of a woman named Leslie Bowers, age thirty-five. She had been murdered in her house late at night. Leslie's house was at the end of a cul-de-sac. She had a similar narrow-blade knife wound in her chest. The angle and depth of the track indicated she had been grabbed from behind. The crime scene photos, and police and autopsy reports, showed that her legs had been amputated surgically, her face covered by a tablecloth. When they found her, she had been masturbated on. The perp was a secretor, and from his sperm they determined he had AB blood. A candlestick from a nine-foot-high dormer shelf had been jammed inside her vagina.

This, in Karen's opinion, was not an indiscriminate felony murder. The Michigan police had mislabeled it. She thought it was more likely a personal cause homicide. Karen also knew instantly that it was the work of the same killer when she saw the identical brand on Leslie Bowers's left breast.

The National Crime Institute said any series of more than three murders-that included a cooling-off period between crimes-represented serial murder. Karen was now sure The Rat was a serial killer. God knew how many others he had murdered and mutilated. For a case to be in the VICAP system, the local police department had to take the time to enter it. Often they didn't go to the trouble; that was the system's tragic flaw.

She picked up the phone and called Detective Stiner at home in Atlanta. She finally tracked him down at his house, where he was having dinner. He told Karen that the autopsy had proven that the cause of death had been the initial strike to Candice's chest with the narrow blade. And all of the mutilations had been post-mortem. He also confirmed what she had already suspected: When the coroner took swabs off Candice's body, he had found traces of semen.

"Was he a secretor?" Karen asked.

"Sure was."

"Was it AB blood?"

"How'd you know that?" he asked.

"There was another murder in Michigan, same kind of wound, same kind of surgical amputations, only he took her legs below the knees. Her name was Leslie Bowers. It happened in November of '94. She had semen on her and it was from AB blood."

"You know, you're pretty good at this, Miss Dawson," Stiner drawled. "I ever need any help on something, you mind if I send you some crime scene pictures and forensic printouts?"

"Anytime… Listen, Detective, this guy, I think he may be very, very big…"

"Where'd that come from?" Stiner said, his wife now glaring at him from the dining room table.

"The sexual substitute in this Michigan murder was a candlestick… The mate to it was on a nine-foot-high shelf… I doubt the UnSub would climb up to get it. It was a random choice; I think he just reached up and pulled it down."

"Nine-foot shelf? He'd have to be at least seven feet tall."

"I know. It's just a guess, but anybody that big might have been noticed… You should ask around. This UnSub spent a lot of time setting up Candice. That means he probably went up and checked the office, maybe pretending to be a deliveryman… or a messenger, or something. He'd want to get the lay of the land. You might ask if anybody saw a very tall man, perhaps disfigured. Maybe we can get an eyewitness description."

"Okay," Stiner said, and, seeing his wife's rising anger, he got off the phone.

Karen was alone in the basement, looking at the computer. The silence and her loneliness began to get to her. After a minute she downloaded the Leslie Bowers information, including all of the police reports and autopsy photos, then left the room.

It was nine o'clock when she got back tc her Washington apartment. She sat at her desk and read the rest of the Bowers file; it was full of unanswered questions. She finally pushed it aside and looked at her watch. She knew that Lockwood was in California by now and she found herself thinking of him. Three or four times she reached for the phone to call, but she didn't have anything except his beeper number and she wasn't even sure he had it with him. She promised herself she would do something to help Lockwood escape his pain. She would use her profiling skills to find this animal who had killed his wife. Maybe that would help mend him. It seemed like a project worthy of her huge intellect. She had somehow become attached to him in a very short time. It didn't feel like just sexual attraction; this was something else as well. John Lockwood presented a different equation. She had tried to understand it, but the more she analyzed it, the more it mystified her. It was emotional and chemical and very unsettling. She knew it might hurt or disappoint her, or even destroy guarded parts of her, but maybe it wouldn't bore her. She also knew she had a delicately balanced emotional and mental mechanism. It was all she could do to keep the twelve-cylinder monster in her head from attacking her.

The phone on her bedside table rang. She reached over and picked it up. "Hello…" she said hesitantly.

"If I asked for your help, would you give it to me or get me busted?" the voice on the other end of the line asked.

"Malavida?" She was surprised to hear from him.

"I fucked up, Miss Dawson… fucked up big. I got that lady killed." "I know," she said softly.

"I wanna run a campaign on the buster who did it. I think I can find out where he is. But it needs two people…"

"You still using my credit card?" she said, " 'Cause I canceled it yesterday."

"I maxed it out yesterday."

"Where are you?"

"You blow me in and I'm gonna go back to the joint for twice the time," he said. "Can I trust you?"

"You're too much. You called me," she said.

"I need to hear it, chica. Can I trust you? Tell me."

"Yes, despite the fact you played me like a mark," she said hotly. "I had to. I apologize. I couldn't go back."

"Where are you?" she asked.

"You got a cellphone?"

"Yeah…"

"Gimme the number…"

She gave it to him, and, while he was writing it down, she asked again, "Where are you, Mal? You're in Tampa, aren't you?"

"Yep. I'm gonna use the Snoopy Home Shopping Network to pick up what we need. Get on a plane and get down here. I'll call you at noon tomorrow and give you an address where we can meet."

She was silent. She wasn't sure what she was getting herself into.

"Have we got a deal?" he asked.

"Deal," she finally answered.