Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(60)

“If you have any trouble, I hope you’ll come to me.”

“I’m here now. But I’m okay.”

And wanted to close that particular door.

“McEnroy was a predator,” Eve continued, “and it would have satisfied me to take him down, to see him live out the rest of his life in a cage. Pettigrew? Weak, greedy, a liar, but there’s no evidence he physically harmed anyone. Just cheated and cheated on his spouse, then continued to cheat on the woman he cheated with. Maybe a crappy human being, but not one who deserved what happened to him. I can stand for both of them.”

“All right. I’ll tell you you’re looking for a mature, goal-oriented killer. A female, at least thirty, probably somewhat older. Controlled until she has her target subdued. Controlled enough to stalk, to research, to plan, to prepare, to lure him. Once she has him bound, unable to defend, that control is let off the leash. She has the endurance to physically torture her victims for hours, the emotional distance to ignore their screams or pleas, as there’s no sign they were silenced during the torture.”

“She’d want to hear them beg and scream.”

“I agree. Their punishment sustains her, their pain feeds her. The castration is the last stage, unmanning them, literally. And allowing them to hang, from the medical examiner’s report, like meat, until they succumb to blood loss.”

“Why does she bring them back to their residence? She could dispose of the bodies altogether, or dump them—since she has to have transpo—miles away. But she risks, in both cases, bringing them back, leaving them outside, taking the time to leave them, and the poem, in plain sight.”

“She wants them found, and quickly. Doesn’t it show their loved ones who they were? What they were? It shows the city, the world they were punished for their deeds. By her. I believe she’ll be both pleased and upset that she’s now being hunted by a pair of female cops. She’d appreciate your power—female power is essential to her psyche. And she’ll be unhappy that, as women, you don’t see she’s doing what needs to be done when she would consider you colleagues.

“I suspect she has no man in her life now, nor does she wish to have that sort of connection. She may have female friends or companions, but men? Animals to be butchered, predators to be hunted. She believes in what she’s doing, and so is only more dangerous.”

“She’s not done.”

“No, I don’t believe she is. If she has a job at this point, it’s likely something she can do alone, or where she can flex her hours.”

Shifting, Mira uncrossed, recrossed her legs. “As you noted in your report, she must have a place, a private area where she can carry out her torture, where she can take these men without being detected. I also agree with Morris. She has some medical skill or has practiced the castration. The amputations were much too clean and precise for them to be done by a novice. Additionally, our ME’s belief that a ceremonial-style blade was used says the castration—the unmanning, as you put it—is the main mission.”

With a slow nod, Eve thought it through. “The hunt, the lure, even the torture, those are as much for her entertainment as punishment. The purpose, the point, is severing their manhood, removing that, taking that, so they die without it. Sexless.”

“Yes.” Mira smiled as if at a clever student. “Exactly that.”

“She’s able to project the persona, the image of what each of her victims wanted. That’s part of the game, the entertainment,” Eve added. “She’s the attractive, available redhead McEnroy would invite into his privacy booth. Then the type of LC Pettigrew favors so he let her into his house. I think with Pettigrew it would have been quick. Hi, come on in. But with McEnroy there had to be some flirtation, some verbal foreplay. This wasn’t a business transaction. She had to be what he was looking for. And even though it was quick, she had to be what Pettigrew expected.”

“She studies them, adapts.”

“Acts?” Eve leaned forward. “I’m wondering if she has acting skills, experience, abilities. She has targets, and not just these two. They won’t all be quick and done like Pettigrew. She has to entice, lure, meet specific expectations to put the men she selects into the situation where she can take them out.”

“That’s certainly possible,” Mira agreed. “But she believes in her mission, her goal. She prepares—that’s the control. She becomes—that’s part of the preparation. No doubt she practices. She has time, she has the space and the means. The wardrobe, for instance, the hair, whether wigs or styling, the transportation, the drugs. All that takes means. She’s made an investment.”

Mira tilted her head. “Does this, too, apply to Darla Pettigrew?”

“Yeah, the means, the acting skills—potentially. The shoes.”

“Shoes?”

“One of the other women told me she came off rich—expensive shoes. She’s got the private home—a big one where she lives with her grandmother. The grandmother’s recovering from an illness, and in addition you can see they’re tight. That’s the shaky corroboration on the shaky alibi.”

“And does Pettigrew have acting experience?”

“Not that shows, but the grandmother does. Big-deal actor. Eloise Callahan?”