She is his tenth sacrifice, and still no one has recognized his work. No one even knows he is here at all. But he has a plan. If this dead harlot doesn’t capture the attention of the police and the press, he knows what will. He has something more dramatic in mind, something much more dramatic.
CHAPTER FOUR
Wednesday, July 25, 8:00 AM
“This motherfucker must be crazy!” Detective Juan Gaudet said. “He kills this poor girl and dumps her body half a motherfucking mile from police headquarters.”
They were looking down at the naked corpse of another woman, this one under the South Jeff Davis overpass.
“Headquarters is just another empty building now,” Murphy said.
Gaudet took a deep breath. “Still…”
Murphy glanced at his partner. “Who are you talking about, anyway?”
“Don’t play with me, goddamnit. You know exactly who the fuck I’m talking about.
So you’re back with me on this?
I never left you on it. It just ain’t worth getting transferred to the Seventh District night watch over.
You agree this is the same guy?”
Gaudet squatted close to the dead woman’s midsection. His face tightened. “Look what he did to her, man.”
She lay on her back spread-eagled, with a rusty piece of steel rebar protruding a foot from her vagina. Her hands were missing.
“There’s not much blood,” Murphy said. “There’s a good chance she was dead when he did this.”
Gaudet stood. “This motherfucker is sick, you hear me, sick.
He’s a serial killer who mutilates women. He’s a fucking psycho.”
An hour ago a patrolman leaving lockup had spotted the body. The crime scene was a small patch of urban wasteland, in the middle of the city but out of sight from just about everywhere.