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exist and future victims didn’t rely on him and other homicide
detectives in the Wichita Police Department to save them.
    Finished with his initial examination of the torso, Lionel
shifted his focus to the victim’s hands. Two fingers on each hand were missing,
severed by crude knife cuts between the second and third knuckles. “Tell me
this was done postmortem,” Lionel said.
    Perry’s stern look from behind his glasses reflected the
coldness of the victim’s body. Lionel wondered why he bothered to voice his
thoughts to Perry. The previous victims were all tortured while they were
alive.
    “I wanted you to see the hands before the autopsy,” Perry said.
He waved at the crime scene technician, who stopped his photographs. “Get
someone over here to bag the hands and recover the fingers.”
    Lionel turned his attention to the ground beside the body. The
yellow weeds were absent of any blood, confirming Perry’s statement that the
murder occurred in another location. It didn’t take but a moment for Lionel to
spot the victim’s four missing fingers tossed next to her hip, nothing more
than a brutal reminder of the killer’s penchant for torture. The killer didn’t
take souvenirs. Whatever fingers he removed from the body during torture were
left with the body. Either he wanted no reminders of what he did or he wanted
no evidence lurking around that might point to him.
    Shawn gestured toward the victim’s left thigh. “It’s got to
be the last letter of the message.”
    Lionel leaned over to get a better look. The erratic, slanted
strokes of the capital “E” were carved into the victim’s skin toward the inside
of her left thigh. The victims were all branded with a different letter, sliced
into their skin in the exact same location. The running theory was that the
letters were a message for the police. Just as Shawn said, the “E” on this
victim seemed to complete the killer’s message.
    “I hope that means he’s done,” Lionel said, though he knew
better. “Perry, you’ll let us know before you start the autopsy? And make sure
to run a rape kit please, even though we know it will probably come back
negative like the others.”
    “I always do,” Perry said. “I can give you something
different about this one right now if you would like, unless you’d rather wait
for the autopsy.”
    Lionel arched a brow. This killer held to a specific routine
when killing and the previous victims had revealed nothing new. Something different
could give them a much-needed clue.
    Perry pointed to the “E” carved into the victim’s thigh. “That
was done postmortem.”
    Though unsure what it could add to their investigation, the
small change in the killer’s ritual piqued his interest. “Are you sure?”
    “Of course I’m sure,” Perry said, as if Lionel called his
abilities into question. “Lack of blood in the wound. There’s no way he did
that before she died.”
    Analyzing the new information, Lionel frowned at his partner.
    “Except to clean the bodies and move them, he’s never
touched them postmortem,” Shawn said.
    Lionel pushed up from the ground, grimacing at his creaking
knees. “Maybe something spooked him.”
    “I don’t know and I don’t care,” Perry said, without looking
away from the victim. “That’s your job to figure it out. I just tell you what
he did and when.”
    “Thanks, Perry,” Lionel said. He and Shawn started away from
the crime scene.
    “First the change in ethnicity, and then he branded her
postmortem,” Shawn said.
    “I don’t think the ethnicity part means much,” Lionel said. “There’s
never been a connection between the victims. Age, appearance, social circles. It’s
all changed with every one of them. No reason to think he would stick to the
same ethnicity every time.”
    “Serial killers don’t tend to cross ethnic boundaries. There’s
a reason why they choose their victims, but this one has no apparent reasons
for choosing any of these