The Stranger You Seek Read Online Free PDF Page B

comfort them
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    The papers have called me a monster. I think you know better. What have your profilers told you? That I am intelligent, able to blend into the outer world, and sexually functioning? A pity their methods do not offer you a better yardstick with which to measure mine
.
    You have withheld certain information about the crime scenes from the newspapers. Did you know their constant and incorrect speculation would compel me to respond? And what does your experience tell you about this letter, this new tool for your investigation? You have either concluded that I am a braggart as well as a sadist or that I have a deep and driving need to be caught and punished. And you must certainly be wondering if I am, in fact, the stranger you seek. Shall I convince you?
    The day was hot by ten that morning and the air inside that kitchen was heavy and damp from a pot of boiling cabbage. I felt a
breeze from the open window as I stood at the table looking down at her on the floor. She was quiet by then and still and seemed so tiny when I turned her over to make my marks
.
    The last sound she heard above her own whimper was the click of my shutter and the tiny crack of her neck, like a wishbone snapped in half
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6
    H e broke her neck,” I said quietly, and sank back in my chair. I held the photo in my hand of Lei Koto twisted up and bloody on her own kitchen floor, her head bent too far left to be natural.
    “Cause of death,” Rauser answered. “The wishbone reference. What do you make of it?”
    I pushed through a jumble of emotion. I pushed through it as I always had and I found my trained self, my detached self, and I answered, “Power, domination, manipulating the victim, the victim’s body.”
    “Letter’s accurate right down to the cabbage on the stove. We never released cause of death or any scene details to the press. Original’s in the lab. Hopefully, he left a print or licked an envelope or something. We don’t have much so far.”
    “You have a letter from a killer. You don’t get handed this kind of behavioral evidence every day.”
    Rauser nodded. “It’s a different kind of case, Keye. Motive isn’t understood. The scene isn’t understood. Physical evidence is practically nonexistent. I get that the way we find this guy is to understand what he’s playing out at these scenes.”
    A tiny alarm was sounding somewhere deep inside me. I felt that familiar tug to unravel the pathology, to contemplate the violent acts of violent offenders until I got one step ahead. Yes, this one is different, I was thinking, and epinephrine shot through my system. My palms feltsweaty.
They all want some peace in the midst of chaos
. “She wasn’t the first,” I heard myself saying to Rauser. Yes, this one is different. This killer’s not just some opportunist, not some thug, but something else, something cruel and hungry that schemes and feeds off fear and anguish.
    “Four victims we know of.” Rauser’s gray eyes were cold as winter rain. “ViCAP linked them. Detective down in Florida got assigned to cold cases a few months ago and started entering old scenes in the database. ViCAP matched two scenes down there to one here in the northern suburbs, then the flags went up again when we entered the Koto scene two weeks ago. No doubt about it. Same MO. Same signature elements—positioning, multiple stab wounds, staging, lack of physical evidence. Also, the victims are always facedown, legs spread, premortem stabbing to various areas of the body and postmortem stabbing to specific areas, inner and outer thighs, buttocks and lower back. Bite marks on inner thighs, shoulders, neck, and buttocks. Same weapon, serrated blade, something like a fishing knife, four to five inches long. Bite marks are consistent for the same perpetrator.”
    “No DNA?”
    Rauser shook his head. “He’s using rubber or latex barriers, maybe a dental dam. We’re checking medical supply houses, dentists, medical assistants, doctors.” He