OBERT TROTTIER’S CONDO HAD BEEN LISTED FOR A YEAR AND A half.

“Guess things are slow in that price range.”

“I wouldn’t know, Ryan. I’ve never been there.”

“I’ve seen it on television.”

“ReMax?”

“Royal Lepage.”

“Ads?”

“He thinks so. We’re checking.”

“Sign outside?”

“Yes.”

“Damas?” I asked.

She, her husband, and three kids lived with his parents. The senior Damases had owned their home since dirt was invented. Would die in it.

I thought about that for a while.

“What did Grace Damas do?”

“Raised kids. Crocheted doilies for the church. Hopped around in part-time jobs. You ready for this? Once worked in a boucherie.”

“Perfect.” Who butchered the butcher?

“The husband?”

“Clean. Drives a truck.” Pause. “Like his father before him.”

Silence.

“Think it means anything?”

“The Métro or the listings?”

“Either.”

“Hell, Brennan, I don’t know.” More silence. “Give me a scenario.”

I’d been trying to concoct one.

“Okay. St. Jacques reads the real estate ads, picks an address. Then he stakes it out until he spots his victim. He stalks her, waits for his opportunity. Then the ambush.”

“How does the Métro figure in?”

Think. “It’s a sport to him. He’s the hunter, she’s the prey. The hidey-hole on Berger is his blind. He flushes her with the want ads, tracks her, then moves in for the kill. He only uses certain hunting areas.”

“The sixth stop out.”

“Got a better idea?”

“Why real estate notices?”

“Why? Vulnerable target, a woman home alone. Figures if she’s selling she’ll be there to show the property. Maybe he calls. The ad would give him an entrée.”

“Why six?”

“I don’t know. The guy’s nuts.”

Brilliant, Brennan.

“Must know the city pretty damn well.”

We chewed on that.

“Métro worker?”

“Cabby?”

“Utilities?”

“Cop?”

There was an interval of tense silence.

“Brennan, I wouldn—”

“No.”

“What about Trottier and Damas? They don’t fit.”

“No.”

Silence.

“Gagnon was found in Centre-ville, Damas in St. Lambert, Trottier in St. Jerome. If our boy’s a commuter, how does he handle that?”

“I don’t know, Ryan. But it’s four for five on both the ads and the Métro stops. Look at St. Jacques, or whoever this rodent is. His hole is right at Berri-UQAM, and he collected want ads. It’s worth some follow-up.”

“Yep.”

“Might start with the St. Jacques collection, see what the guy saved.”

“Yep.”

Another thought occurred to me.

“What about profiling? We’ve got enough to give it a try now.”

“Very trendy.”

“Could help.”

I could read his thoughts across the line.

“Claudel doesn’t have to know. I could poke around unofficially, find out if it’s worth pursuing. We’ve got crime scenes for Morisette-Champoux and Adkins, manner of death and body disposal for the others. I think they can work with that.”

“Quantico?”

“Yeah.”

He snorted. “Right. They’re so backed up they won’t return your call until the turn of the century.”

“I know someone there.”

“I’m sure you do.” Sigh. “Why not. But just an inquiry at this point. Don’t go committing us to anything. The request will have to come from Claudel or me.”

A minute later I was dialing a Virginia area code. I asked for John Samuel Dobzhansky and waited. Mr. Dobzhansky was unavailable. I left a message.

I tried Parker Bailey. Another secretary, another message.

I called Gabby to find out her dinner plans. My own voice asked for a message.

Called Katy. Message.

Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?

I spent the rest of the afternoon on correspondence and student recommendations, listening for the phone. I wanted to talk to Dobzhansky. I wanted to talk to Bailey. A clock ticked inside my head, making it hard to concentrate. Countdown. How long until the next victim? At five I gave up and went home.

The condo was silent. No Birdie. No Gabby.

“Gab?” Maybe she was napping.

The guest room door was still closed. Birdie was asleep on my bed.

“You two really have it rough.” I stroked his head. “Whoo. Time to clean your pan.” The odor was noticeable.

“Too much on my mind, Bird. Sorry.”

No acknowledgment.

“Where’s Gabby?”

Blank stare. Stretch.

I replaced the litter. Birdie acknowledged by using it, pawing a large portion onto the floor.

“Come on, Bird, try to keep it in the pan. Gabby’s not the neatest bathroom mate, but do your part.” I looked at her jumble of cleansers and cosmetics. “I think she cleaned up a little.”

I got a Diet Coke and changed into cutoffs. Plan dinner? Who was I kidding. We’d go out.

The answering machine blinked. One message. Me. I’d called around one. Hadn’t Gabby heard it? Had she ignored it? Maybe she’d turned the phone off. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she wasn’t here. I went to her door.

“Gab?”

I knocked softly.

“Gabby?”

Harder.

I opened the door and looked in. The usual Gabby mess. Jewelry. Papers. Books. Clothes everywhere. A bra hung from the back of a chair. I checked the closet. Shoes and sandals tossed in heaps. Amid it all, the neatly made bed. The incongruity of it struck me.

“Sonofabitch.”

Birdie slithered past my legs.

“Was she here at all last night?”

He looked at me, jumped to the bed, circled twice, and settled. I dropped next to him, the familiar knot tightening in my stomach.

“She’s done it again, Bird.”

He spread his toes and began to lick.

“Not so much as a stinking note.”

Birdie focused on inter-toe spaces.

“I will not think about this.” I went to unload the dishwasher.

Ten minutes later I had calmed enough to dial her number. No answer. Of course. I tried the university. No answer.

I wandered into the kitchen. Opened the refrigerator. Closed it. Dinner? Reopened it. Diet Coke. Wandered to the living room, set the new Coke next to the earlier can, clicked on the TV, surfed the channels, chose a sitcom I wouldn’t watch. My mind raced from the murders to Gabby to my garden skull and back, unable to fix on anything. The cadence of dialogue and canned laughter provided background noise as my thoughts bounced around like atomic particles.

Anger at Gabby. Resentment at letting myself be used. Hurt that she would do it. Apprehension about her safety. Fear for a new victim. Frustration over my helplessness. I felt emotionally bruised, but couldn’t stop beating myself.

I’m not sure how long I’d been there when the phone rang, the sound sending adrenaline pouring from wherever it rooms when not on duty.

Gabby!

“Hello.”

“Tempe Brennan, please.” A male voice. Familiar as my Midwest childhood.

“J.S.! God, am I glad to hear from you!”

John Samuel Dobzhansky. My first love. Counselors. Camp Northwoods. The romance outlasted that summer and the next, thrived until our freshman year of college. I went South, J.S. went North. I chose anthropology, met Pete. He trained in psychology, married, divorced. Twice. Years later we’d reconnected at the Academy. J.S. specialized in sexual homicide.

“You got that Camp Northwoods feeling?” he asked.

“Up in my head,” I finished the line from the camp song. We both laughed.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to call at home, but you left the number so I figured I’d try.”

“Glad you did. Thank you.” Thank you. Thank you. “I want to pick your brain about a situation we’ve got up here. If that’s okay?”

“Tempe, when will you stop disappointing me?” Feigned hurt.

We’d had dinner at Academy meetings, the possibility of a fling hanging heavy between us at first. Should we tamper with teenaged memories? Was the passion still there? Nothing verbalized, the idea waned bilaterally. Better to leave the past intact.

“What about the new love interest you were telling me about last year?”

“Gone.”

“Sorry. J.S., we’ve had some murders here that I think are tied together. If I give you an overview, can you opine on whether we have a serial?”

“I can opine on anything.” One of our old pet phrases.

I described the Adkins and Morisette-Champoux scenes, and outlined what had been done to the victims. I described how and where the other bodies were found, and how they’d been mutilated. Then I added my theories about the Métro and want ads.

“I’m having trouble convincing the cops these cases are connected. They keep saying there’s no pattern. They’re right to some extent. The victims are all different, one is shot, the others aren’t. They lived all over the place. Nothing hooks together.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Slow down. You’re going about this all wrong. First of all, most of what you’ve described has to do with modus operandi.”

“Yes.”

“Similarities in MO can be useful, don’t get me wrong, but disparities are extremely common. A perpetrator may gag or tie his victim with the phone cord at one scene, then bring his own rope to the next. He may stab or slash one victim, shoot or strangle the next, steal from one, not from another. I profiled one guy who used a different kind of weapon at every scene. You still there?”

“Yes.”

“A criminal’s MO is never static. It’s like anything else, there’s a learning curve. These guys get better with practice. They learn what works and what doesn’t. They’re continually improving their technique. Some more than others, of course.”

“Comforting.”

“Also, there are all kinds of random events that can affect what a perpetrator does, regardless of his best-laid plans. A phone rings. A neighbor shows up. A cord breaks. He has to improvise.”

“I see.”

“Don’t misunderstand. Patterns in MO are useful, and we use that. But variations don’t mean much.”

“What do you use?”

“Ritual.”

“Ritual?”

“Some of my colleagues call it a signature, or a calling card, and it’s only seen at some crime scenes. Most perpetrators develop an MO because once a plan works a couple of times they gain confidence in it and believe it lowers their risk of getting caught. But with violent, repetitive offenders there’s something else operating. These people are driven by anger. Their anger leads them to fantasize about violence, and eventually they act out the fantasies. But the violence isn’t enough. They evolve rituals for expressing the anger. It’s these rituals that give them away.”

“What sort of rituals?”

“Usually they involve controlling, maybe humiliating the victim. You see, it isn’t really the victim that’s important. Her age, her appearance may be irrelevant. It’s the need to express the anger. I did one guy whose victims ranged from seven to eighty-one years in age.”

“So, what would you look for?”

“How does he encounter his victim? Does he jump her? Does he use a verbal approach? How does he control her once he’s made contact? Does he assault her sexually? Does he do it before or after he kills her? Does he torture his victim? Does he mutilate the body? Does he leave anything at the scene? Take anything away?”

“But can’t those things be affected by unexpected contingencies also?”

“Of course. But the critical thing is he does these things as part of his fantasy enactment, his anger dissipation ritual, not just to cover his ass.”

“So, what do you think? Does what I described have a signature?”

“Off the record?”

“Of course.”

“Absolutely.”

“Really?” I began taking notes.

“I’d bet my ass on it.”

“Your buns are safe, J.S. Do you think it’s a sexual sadist?”

I heard a rattling as he switched the phone. “Sexual sadists are turned on by their victim’s pain. They don’t just want to kill, they want their victims to suffer. And—and this is critical—they’re sexually aroused by it.”

“And?”

“Part of your pattern says yes. Insertion of objects into the vagina or rectum is very common with these guys. Were your victims alive when this was done?”

“At least one. Hard to tell with the other two since the bodies were so decomposed.”

“Sounds like sexual sadism is a possibility. The real question remains, was the killer sexually aroused by his actions?”

I couldn’t answer that. No semen was found on any of the victims. I said this.

“Useful, but doesn’t rule out SS. I had one guy who’d masturbate in his victim’s hand, cut it off, then grind it up in a blender. Never found semen at the scenes.”

“How’d you get him?”

“One time his aim wasn’t so good.”

“Three of these women were dismembered. We know that for certain.”

“That may show a pattern, but it’s not proof of sexual sadism. Unless it was done before the victim’s death. Serial killers, whether sexual sadists or not, are very cunning. They put a lot of planning into their crimes. Postmortem mutilation doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a sexual or sadistic component. Some cut the body up just to make it easier to hide.”

“What about the mutilation? The hands?”

“Same answer. It’s a pattern, it’s overkill, but it may or may not be sexual. Sometimes it’s just a way of rendering the victim powerless. I do see some indicators, however. You say the victims were unknown to their killer. They were savagely beaten. Three suffered object insertion, probably antemortem. That combination is characteristic.”

I was writing furiously.

“Check whether the objects were brought to the scene or were already there. That could be part of this guy’s signature, planned as opposed to opportunistic cruelty.”

I noted it, starred it.

“What are some other characteristics of sexual sadism?”

“Patterned MO. Use of a pretext to make contact. A need to control and humiliate the victim. Excessive cruelty. Sexual arousal from the victim’s fear and pain. Keeping victim memorabilia. The—”

“What was that last one?” I was writing so fast my hand was cramping.

“Memorabilia. Souvenirs.”

“What kind of souvenirs?”

“Items from the murder scene, pieces of the victim’s clothing, jewelry, that sort of thing.”

“Newspaper clippings?”

“Sexual sadists love their own press.”

“Would they keep records?”

“Maps, diaries, calendars, drawings, you name it. Some of them make tapes. The fantasy isn’t just the kill. The stalk before and the reenactment afterward can be a big part of the turn-on.”

“If they’re so good at avoiding detection, why would they keep that stuff? Isn’t it risky?”

“Most of them think they’re superior to the cops. Too smart to get caught.”

“What about body parts?”

“What about body parts?”

“Do they keep them?”

Pause. “Not common, but sometimes.”

“So what do you think about the Métro and want ad idea?”

“The fantasies these guys act out can be incredibly elaborate and very specific. Some need special locations, exact sequences of events. Some sexual sadists need specific victim responses, so they script the whole thing, force the victim to say certain things, perform certain acts, wear certain clothes. But, Tempe, these behaviors aren’t just typical of sexual sadists. They characterize a lot of personality disorders. Don’t get hung up on the sexual sadist angle. What you want to look for is that signature, that calling card that only your killer leaves. That’s how you’ll nail him, regardless of how psychiatrists classify him. Using the Métro and newspaper could figure into your boy’s fantasy.”

“J.S., based on what I’ve told you, what do you think?”

There was a long pause, a slow expulsion of breath.

“I think you’ve got a real nasty one up there, Tempe. Tremendous anger. Extreme violence. If it is this St. Jacques character, his using the victim’s bank card bothers me. Either he’s incredibly stupid, and it doesn’t look that way, or he’s getting sloppy for some reason. Maybe sudden financial pressure. Or he’s getting bolder. The skull in your garden is a flag. He was sending a message. Maybe a taunt. Or, it’s possible that at some level he wants to be caught. I don’t like what you’re telling me about how you figure in. And it looks like you do figure in. The picture. The skull. Based on what you’ve told me, looks more like he’s taunting you.”

I told him about the night at the monastery and the car that had tailed me.

“Christ, Tempe, if this guy’s refocusing on you, don’t play games. He’s dangerous.”

“J.S., if it was him on the monastery grounds, why didn’t he just kill me then?”

“It goes back to what I was saying before. You probably surprised him out there, so he wasn’t prepared to kill in the way he likes. He wasn’t in control. Maybe he didn’t have his kit. Maybe the fact that you were unconscious robbed him of the rush he gets at seeing his victim’s fear.”

“No death ritual.”

“Exactly.”

We chatted for a while, other places, old friends, the time before murder became part of our lives. When we hung up it was after eight.

I leaned back, stretched my arms and legs, and went limp. For some time I lay there, a rag doll recalling its past. Eventually, hunger roused me, and I went to the kitchen, warmed a tray of frozen lasagna and forced myself to eat it. Then I spent an hour reconstructing from my notes what J.S. had said. His parting words kept coming back to me.

“The intervals are getting shorter.”

Yes, I knew that.

“He’s upping the stakes.”

I knew that too.

“He may now have his sights trained on you.”

At ten I went to bed. I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, feeling alone and sorry for myself. Why did I carry the burden of these women’s deaths? Did someone have me in the crosshairs of his psychopathic fantasy? Why wouldn’t anyone take me seriously? Why was I getting old, eating frozen dinners in front of a television I didn’t watch? When Birdie nestled at my knee, that tiny bit of contact triggered the tears I’d been holding back since talking to J.S. I cried into the pillowcase Pete and I had bought in Charlotte. Or, rather, I had bought while he stood around looking impatient.

Why had my marriage failed? Why was I sleeping alone? Why was Katy so discontented? Why had my best friend been inconsiderate of me again? Where was she? No. I wouldn’t think about that. I don’t know how long I lay there, feeling the emptiness of my life, listening for Gabby’s key.