chapter thirty-two

“I. Have had. Enough!”

Hours later, Paul was skulking around doing whatever he did when he wasn’t freaking George out, and George, Emma Jan, and I were in one of the conference rooms, hip deep in files. Nothing like a morning of reading autopsy reports to make you want to skip lunch.

George shoved away the pizza box (autopsy reports had no effect on his appetite) and began drumming his hands and feet up and down like a toddler trapped in the body of a grown man. I sighed in relief.

“We’ve got photos and stats and reports coming out the ass and we’re no further with this fuck! And I’m getting a headache because we’re out of coffee!”

“Tell the truth,” Emma Jan teased, “which one bothers you more?”

“The headache, for Christ’s sake!”

Black George was on his feet and pacing around the conference table, which was fine with us. Emma Jan even got comfy, leaning back and lacing her fingers behind her head as she watched. Her jeans, tan flats, and comfy Tar Heels sweatshirt made her look less like a banker and more like a banker on a Saturday.

We didn’t mind the tantrum because it was a welcome break from reading quietly. We’d been buried in paper all morning; maybe we needed a new way of looking at things.

“These people are linked!” George was still yelling, as if the conference room were the size of a ballpark instead of a conference room and if he didn’t shout, we wouldn’t hear him. “Just because we don’t get it yet doesn’t mean they aren’t.”

“Okay,” Emma Jan said.

“They are absolutely linked. Our guy was drawn to them; this was not random. Don’t get caught in the trap of looks or sex or race: there are all kinds of triggers for all kinds of serial killers.”

“Right,” I said. We both pretended we didn’t already know what he was yelling. “That’s not a trap I want to get caught in. Good call.”

“If your vics are male and female, rich and poor, white and black, et cetera, they have something that called to their killer. They all have that exact something. Find it.”

“Oh, sure.” I whipped out my cell phone and began tapping away. “Adding it to the list. One, Pick up dry cleaning. Two, Find link to serial killer’s vics. Three, Buy toilet paper.” I looked up, thumbs still wiggling. “Good thing you paced and yelled. ‘Find it.’ Awesome. That’s the one thing we wouldn’t have thought of. Can’t thank you enough, Black George.”

He slumped into his chair. “I hate it when you’re like this.”

“I know I’m the new kid on the block, Cadence, but when have you ever been like this?”

“Moving Day,” George and I said in unison. I went on: “I think we’re going at this backwards. We’re looking at what Sussudio’s done … let’s look at what he might do. We’ve got three vics: he cut one—”

“Wayne Seben,” Emma Jan said.

“Yes, and we’ve got one he hanged in her kitchen—”

“Rita McNamm.”

“And one he drowned in her tub.”

“Carrie Cyrus.”

“Yeah.” George was flipping through reports. “All killed in their own homes in ways they could have used to kill themselves.”

“All right. So. Methods of suicide. Obviously—”

“But you’re still gonna say it,” Emma Jan teased.

“—we’ve seen hanging, drowning, bleeding. What else is there?”

“Asphyxiation,” Emma Jan suggested. “But not by hanging. Suicide bag.”

“Yes. OD’ing, carbon monoxide poisoning. And jumping. Shooting yourself. And suicide by cop.”

“Some cops get all the luck.” George sighed. “Can you imagine? Fatally shooting some idiot and there are no consequences?”

“Except moral ones,” Emma Jan pointed out (she was so cute).

“Right! So, none.”

“Let’s stick with methods people can use in their own homes. So…” I thought for a minute. “Poisoning themselves. Drinking drain cleaner or something.”

“Immolation,” Emma Jan said.

“Right right,” Paul said from the doorway. “Those are all blue. The scenes, though, the pictures—” He pointed to the stacks and stacks of files. “They’re blue. That’s it, that’s the problem, it’s been the problem, he’s trying for orange and he’s getting blue.”

How wildly unhelpful I thought but did not say. “Paul, we need a bit more from you than that.”

“Suicide is one color, murder is another.”

We all sort of sat there as that thunderously simple concept sort of rocketed through our minds. My mind, for sure—and from the look on George’s and Emma Jan’s faces, probably all our minds.

“Oh…”

Fuck me, I guessed.

“… fuck me,” George groaned. “Is that what it is? Is it that fucking simple?”

“He’s not just making murders look like suicides.” Emma Jan had a look on her face I knew well—it was on my own now and again. She was thinking hard, feeling her way along a new idea, and talking out loud as she did it. “He’s going there … to help them? Is that what he thinks he’s doing?”

“Shit, yes! He’s the good guy, right? They’re letting him down. They’re … he’s seeing them before he kills them. Like with Wayne Seben—he’s maybe trolling Dr. Gallo’s group, maybe other groups, too. He sees them, feels for them—thinks he does, anyway, the deluded shit.” It was hilarious to hear one sociopath disparage another one. “And then he … he…”

“It’s like what we already knew,” I said. The idea was too big for my body to stay in one spot; I pulled a George and got up out of my seat. Instead of pacing like a caged hedgehog or prowling like a confused leopard, I sort of wandered around the table, touching the chairs while I thought out loud. “What our vics had in common. It wasn’t about race or sex or body type; it was their mind-set, how they viewed the world. They viewed the world as people who want out of the world. Our guy does, too, or thinks he does … or wants to. Kindred spirits, right? That’s what he thinks. That’s why he’s drawn.

“So our guy, he meets them. He either makes up his mind about them right away or he hangs around getting to know them—if it’s the latter, that’s how we’ll get him.

“So he decides about them, and goes to their homes to help them. Like George said, he thinks he’s the good guy in the scenario. He’s the hero. He’s there to help, and then the person he’s going out of his way to help backs out of the deal.” I shook my head. “I can’t even imagine how that must enrage him.”

“Ohhhh boy,” Emma Jan said, and George nodded and followed my train of “logic,” if it could ever be called that. “He’s going to their homes to help them do this wonderful noble thing. Then they pussy out. Then he loses his shit. They broke their promise, right? This solemn sacred thing he was gonna help them do, and it’s turned to shit. So he kills them the way he was going to help them suicide, except he’s mega-ticked. That’s the rage we keep seeing.”

“It’s also why neighbors aren’t seeing anything or hearing anything. The vics are letting their killer in! And once he’s inside, it’s easy enough to muffle sound.”

“The victim thinks up to a point that they truly want to kill themselves.” Emma Jan picked up the narrative. “They know there’ll be consequences for anyone who helps them die—Dr. Kevorkian did prison time for helping patients kill themselves, terminal patients who were going to die anyway. They threw his ass in jail for it. So these guys, they’re motivated to help the killer. They’re sneaking him inside and making sure he can get away safely. They’re thinking they don’t want the poor guy to get caught. So when it goes bad…”

“… they’ve already set up their killer’s escape route.” The thought. The thought of what must have gone through their minds when they realized they were going to be murdered, and that their killer would get away. I shuddered all over and looked down … the hair on my arms was trying to fluff up.

George was rubbing his forehead. “I think that’s what Shiro meant.”

“What?”

George looked at me. No. Through me. “Come on out,” he told me (?). “You know you want to.”