Sigma Curse - 04 Read Online Free PDF Page A

way.”
    Teller clicked onto a new slide. Venn wondered why he was bothering. He was clearly in command of his audience, and they didn’t need the distraction of dense text on a screen. The slide was another page from the monograph on serial killers, this time listing demographic features of the assorted victims in various historical cases.
    “So,” said Teller. “We’ve spent the day examining the three victims. Three that we know of, by the way. There may be others who haven’t been discovered yet. All three of them are male, aged thirty and above. All three are, or were, white. And that’s about all they have in common. There’s no link as regards social class. Barnaby O’Farrell was blue collar, a ticket clerk for the New York subway. The John Doe we of course know nothing about, but we can assume his background was a humble one. Dale Fincher, on the other hand, is from affluent Connecticut stock. His mom’s a judge, as we know. His father died when Dale was four years old, but he was an Army major, a West Point graduate. There’s nothing obvious that these three men had in common with each other.”
    “And we need to be careful not to attribute too much significance to their gender, race, or age,” said Rickenbacker. “That may be coincidence, too.”
    “What about location?” said Venn. “All within the New York City bounds.”
    The two FBI agents looked at him.
    “I mean, that may be confining your thinking, too,” said Venn. “Have you started looking outside New York? There may be other victims elsewhere.”
    “Yeah,” said Rickenbacker abruptly. “We have, in fact, run the details through our national databases. But there’s no comparable MO in the recent past, nobody else who’s been killed in the same way, with the same symbol branded on their foreheads. But thanks for the suggestion.”
    Beside Venn, he felt Harmony shift angrily. He wondered at Rickenbacker’s sarcasm. He tipped his head, said nothing.
    Teller continued: “So far, the press hasn’t gotten hold of this. Either the fact that Fincher is the Judge’s son, or that there’s a serial killer angle. When they do, of course, it’ll be a feeding frenzy here in Manhattan. And we won’t be able to keep it under wraps for too much longer. We need to move fast on this one, and hard, before the media attention starts getting in the way. And before any nut job decides to start carrying out copycat killings. Doesn’t happen very often, thank God, but still.”
    Venn glance at the others, who looked mildly back. He wanted to ask a question, but knew he couldn’t. Just what do we bring to the party?
    Instead, he decided on an active approach. “Okay. I assume you have a plan of action. So before I hear what it is, let me tell you how I’d approach this. Bearing in mind that I’m not a federal agent, and that I don’t have experience in dealing with serial killers.”
    Teller folded his arms. “Go ahead.”
    Venn said: “First, I’d talk to the judge. Find out if she can give us anything about her son. She’s smart, she’ll have been thinking it through, even if she is overcome with grief. If there’s anything about her son, anything that might give a clue as to how he might have become a victim, she’ll know.”
    Teller nodded. “Okay.”
    “Next, talk to his Army buddies, and to his seniors at Fort Irvington. Find out what kind of a guy he was. See if he ever dropped any hints about fetishistic behavior. I’m not saying there’ll be anything, but it’s possible he was a willing participant in something, up to a point. Allowed himself to be tethered to the bed, which would explain why there’s no signs he was forcibly subdued.”
    “That’d be a tough one,” said Teller. “Seeing if any of his peers knew about his quirks. It’s the kind of thing he’d keep under wraps in the Army. He wouldn’t want something like that to screw up his career.”
    “Nevertheless,” said Venn. “It needs exploring.” He