So he had to care about them too.He didn’t just show them the respect due to a worthy opponent.He showed them compassion by making sure they didn’t suffer.
He liked the attention too.He liked that Paul’s discovery had caused a sensation in the news.He wanted that again.Faith didn’t think he chose the sites specifically because the bodies would be found easily, but the shallow graves certainly had something to do with that.If he truly wanted his victims to rest, he’d bury them deeply and conceal the graves so they wouldn’t be disturbed, but he’d done the exact opposite of that.
He wanted people to know what he was doing and ask themselves why.He wanted them to wonder what his message was.He wanted people to talk about these killings.
In a way, it reminded her of West.West didn’t give a shit about his victims.He’d told Faith that he considered humans to be cattle.But he wanted people to notice the Copycat Killer and by extension the Donkey Killer.He wanted them to fear him as a devil.He was the proof that they weren’t really safe, that wolves lurked in daylight as well as darkness.
This killer’s motives were different from West, but his need to be seen was the same.He wanted people to know that he was out there killing these traumatized veterans and burying them in ancient battlefields.
She still didn’t know who he was, though.That was the problem.If he continued with his pattern, he’d leave more and more clues at each successive crime scene until the law finally caught on and arrested him, and he’d have a chance to talk at length about his mission.
But Faith couldn’t just let him kill people until his desire to be caught outweighed his desire to kill.She had to find him before then, and that brought her right back to the need to find a connection between the victims and the killer.
And the battlefields.They were the key.They were what made this killer different.
She sighed and shook her head ruefully.When she and Michael first read about Paul Martinez, they thought this would end up being a simple and mundane case.The guy gets stabbed and buried in the woods.Pretty damned run-of-the-mill.
Silly Faith.You don’t get the easy cases.There’s always something complex hidden beneath the surface.
That pulled her thoughts to the Messenger, the crazed woman who had released a near-constant stream of profanity while trying to crush Faith’s skull with a hammer in front of her dying dog.What was hidden beneath her surface?
She was easily among the most unhinged killers Faith had ever met, up there with the hyper-religious and sexually oppressed Demon of Morgan County who dropped attractive women down wells to deal with his guilt at desiring them or the Caveman in Western Idaho who lured hikers into an abandoned mine then murdered and mutilated them.She was also among the most violent, easily outstripping the brutality of both Trammell and West.Faith was reminded of a saying she’d overheard one of her fellow agents use talking about his son.What the parents do in moderation, the children do in excess.
The Messenger definitely exceeded Trammell and West in brutality, if not yet body count.But while Trammell was a mentally ill giant who tortured people like they were small animals and West had a god-complex and needed people to know he was better than them, the Messenger didn't seem to be motivated by anything other than rage.Faith wasn't even sure the attraction to West was genuine.She had a feeling that if West had never existed, the Messenger would still have become a murderer.
Her phone rang.Michael.She put the Messenger aside and answered.“Hey, what’s up?”
“We have a lead.”
The excitement in Michael’s voice lifted Faith’s spirits.“Yeah?Tell me.”
“Dr.Marcus Sullivan.He’s a former professor at New York State University who trespassed several times on the colonial dig site before Patricia Norbury threatened to call the cops on him.She said she didn’t tell Dr.Cuthbert because she didn’t want him to worry.I get the impression she has a bit of a crush on him.”
“That seems to be common among grad students,” Faith said drily.“What about the Hancock site?”
“Get this.No record of him showing up at the site, but the Delhi campus said that he called nine times asking for an exclusive interview with Dr.Winters before they stopped answering his calls.”
Faith smiled.“Good work, Michael.”
“Thank you, madame,” Michael replied.“He lives in Monroe, about halfway between New Haven and Danbury.Meet you there?”
“Send me the address.”
“Will do.”
He hung up, and Faith turned to Turk.“Okay, boy.We’re gonna get some exercise.Let’s run back to the hotel.”
She called a rental car company on the way and had them deliver a full-size sedan to the hotel as soon as possible.Thoughts of the Messenger were gone from her mind.She was on the hunt for a killer once more.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dr.Sullivan lived in a modestly sized German Colonial style home in a neighborhood of similarly constructed houses on a quiet street set well apart from the main thoroughfares of Monroe.It looked exactly the sort of home that a bookish historian would inhabit, and that’s exactly the impression faith got of Marcus when he answered the door.
He was big enough to be their killer.Faith guessed him at six-foot-five and an easy two-fifty, a healthy portion of it carried in powerful shoulders and a broad chest.Other than that, he seemed about as far from a killer as Faith was from a shaman.
He wore wire-rimmed glasses that he still squinted through, and his weak chin and round face clashed with his powerful build.He was balding, and the hair that remained was combed over his bald spot in a horrid fashion—or rather lack thereof.
Actually, now that she thought about it, he looked exactly like a serial killer.
