Driscoll followed Margaret up the two rickety steps that led into the trailer and opened its aluminum door. Pushing aside a beaded curtain, the pair emerged inside a narrow reception area. A teenage girl, her hair styled in a Mohawk, waited there anxiously, dragging on a joint. Driscoll put aside the impulse to handcuff her.

"Want a hit?" the girl asked, offering the joint to Driscoll.

"No thank you," he replied.

The Lieutenant stared at the tapestries of torture that blanketed the trailer's walls. One featured a tonsured monk, stripped of his habit, stretched across the rack. Tears welled, frozen in the cleric's eyes, as the hooded executioner wielded the iron rod. A second depicted a medieval beheading in progress. A third displayed the body of a nubile young girl impaled on the lance of an armored knight.

A seam down the center of that particular tapestry opened, and a huge man entered the reception area. A leather apron draped him like a breastplate.

"Lester Gallows?" Margaret asked.

"I am. And you must be cops. Another license violation? I assure you-"

The teenager scooted toward the exit and disappeared.

"This isn't about a license," Driscoll answered.

"What, then?"

"Suppose we ask the questions," Margaret said. "It's about this." She showed him the ring.

"Where'd you find that?"

"You just answer the questions," Driscoll said. "Does the ring look familiar?"

Gallows took the ring from Margaret's hand. "It's mine all right."

"Do you remember who bought it?"

Recollection flashed in his pupils. "Yeah, I remember...blond bombshell...a little skanky...Wanted to try out the ring right after I put it in her. I told her she's gotta let it heal first, but she wanted to get it on right then and there. So I balled her. What the hell. Then she wanted me to put in another one. I told her I'd make one to match. The bitch never came back."

The audacity of this man offended Driscoll. Driscoll thought of his daughter, Nicole. How could this man speak so cavalierly about a young woman? He'd seen a lot on the job, but this type of irreverence he found disdainful.

"What did you do with the other ring?" Margaret asked.

"Still have it."

"We'd like to see it."

"It's in the back."

"Let's go get it."

Driscoll and Margaret followed Gallows into the back room. A bloodstained dentist's chair sat in its center.

"Some operatory," Margaret grimaced.

Gallows opened drawers, then unsealed cardboard boxes, porcelain jars, and metal canisters. "Where is the damn thing?" he grumbled.

"Better be here," said Driscoll.

The man's hand reached for a Russian doll. Snapping back its head, he emptied the contents of its hollow chest into his massive palm. Out popped a gold crucifix, a penis-shaped pen, a miniature knife, and the ring. A smile formed on Gallows's face.

"Did you get her name?" Margaret asked.

"Monique."

"Monique what?"

"Beats me. She paid cash."

"Wha'd you know about her?"

"Not much. Only in here once."

"When was that?"

"About two months ago. She told me what she wanted, and I fitted her with the ring. No anesthetic for this one. She seemed to get off on the pain. I told her to come back in a week so I could take out the sutures, but she didn't want to wait. Like I said, she insisted I do her then, right there in the chair." Gallows studied Driscoll's stare. Realization registered. "Someone killed her. That's what this is about. Right?"

"Been to the beach lately?" Driscoll asked.

"I hate the beach."

"What's not to like?" asked Margaret.

"I'm a hemophiliac. The sand is littered with jagged shells and broken glass."

Driscoll's mind raced. Had something ugly ensued between Gallows and the girl to turn him into a killer? Or was he merely an opportunist gaining profit on a new wave of exhibitionism, and nothing more?

"I know what you're thinking," Gallows said. "But I don't get off on murder. I get off on scarification."

"When do you know when to stop?"

"Hemophiliacs don't do homicide. That's for real, man. You can look up the statistics."

Driscoll continued to stare at the man. He had done the piercing and had gotten off on the intimacy with the girl. That was for certain. But did he kill her? His instincts said no.

Chapter 19.

Colm saw red: the blazing red nail polish that painted the brunette's fingernails, the crimson adorning her toes, and a spot of red marring the waxy white of her eyes. In her fevered attempts to free herself from her bindings, a vein had exploded, flooding her retina with blood. Both eyes now teared, screaming of the atrocity committed on her flesh, while the sheen of those eyes reflected the frenzy of her executioner. But Colm was immune to the mute cry for clemency that her gaze transmitted.

Her resistance to the paracin trichloride and parasolutrine mixture was unnerving. His Casio flashed 2:48 A.M A.M. He had waited the required fifteen minutes for the 20 cc's to perform their wonder, but to no avail. He reloaded the syringe and injected her vein with another dose of the elixir. It was now 2:51 A.M A.M. The second dose did the trick.

Colm's heart stirred. He picked up her pocketbook and scrounged inside.

"Amelia Stockard," he read from a credit card. "Such a classy name. Let me tell you, Miss Stockard, your e-mails were more amusing than most. And to think you once dated the late Charles F. Brunner, a former Sanitation Commissioner of Hoboken. Well, that entitles you to one hell of a resting place, young lady."

He grinned at his unconscious captive, then hoisted her over his shoulder and headed for the meat hook that hung suspended from the crossbeam in the center of the operatory. Once there, he turned her body to face him, and lining up the hook with the third and fourth rib, he pressed her body against its point. The steel pierced the right lung on its way to the heart, which it entered at the left ventricle. A spasm rocked his hostage. Her lungs flooded with fluid, and she began to gurgle. Blood dribbled from her nose and trickled onto her fuchsia blouse.

The sight of the blood staining her blouse disturbed him. He unbuttoned the garment, removed it, and tossed it into the kitchen sink, which he had filled with warm water and a squirt of Woolite.

Her Playtex bra was now blood soaked as well. He used a small scissors to slice it free, and tossed it in with the blouse. Her skirt, stockings, and panties followed. He positioned a bucket under her feet to catch the remaining blood. How ashen white she had become, in contrast to her scarlet flow.

Once she was bloodless, Colm unhooked her and loaded her onto the meat-cutting block, where the surrounding sawdust gave off a brassy smell.

The boning knife was pitiless to the muscles surrounding the humerus, hacking away the resilient tendons without scoring the bone. He turned his attention next to the brunette's hindquarters, then on to her lower extremities.

After decapitation by cleaver, he dunked her head into the vat of sulfur trioxide and watched its jubilant effervescence. It was less toilsome to dislodge the flesh from the skull with the acid solution. It avoided nicking the gentle veneer of the bones. Past mistakes had taught him that facial bone was more subtle and could be easily damaged by a sharp tool. The hands and feet would be next.

Ray Orbison's "Pretty Woman" blared from the surround-sound speakers. It was the perfect accompaniment for the meeting of blade to flesh. He had chosen well. His musical taste was impeccable.

Chapter 20.

The fibulas and tibias of the brunette's legs just fit the kiln. It was designed to fire clay pottery, but was quite adequate for drying human bones. It was important that all of Colm's relics be dehydrated and preserved. Without moisture they'd survive the insult of time, like those Inca kings who emerged intact after centuries buried in the dry sands of Peru. Colm stood by, motionless, embraced by the searing heat that permeated the small room, while the kiln performed its magic.

The ring of the oven's timer shattered his reverie. He opened the kiln door and stared at his trophies, appreciating their purity. The bones were whiter than white, chalky. He longed to hold them, but he'd have to wait until they sufficiently cooled. Only then could the fondling commence.

A buzzer sounded, profaning the solemnity of the ritual. Colm shivered like a night creature in his burrow, narrowing his eyes to tiny cracks, straining to detect the slightest stirring from the outside world.

The buzzer sounded again. The resonance was unmistakable. He had a visitor at the gate. He turned on the security monitor. The image of a young girl filled the screen. She was no more than four feet tall. Her blue blazer and plaid, pleated skirt draped a thin frame. She had a curious smile, and she was alone.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked, his voice crackling through the outdoor speaker of his palatial estate.

"Would you like to buy some shortbread cookies?"

"Cookies. Now there's a thought."

Colm buzzed her in. The gate unlocked. He had plenty of time before she reached the door. Swiftly, he turned off the heat and headed for the vestibule. The doorbell sounded. He opened the door and invited her in.

"And you are from Saint Agnes Elementary," he said, eyeing the insignia on her blazer.

"Sister Mary Sean is collecting for our missions in San Salvador."

"Our missions?"

"Yessir, because of the war there are many orphans."

The girl, perhaps twelve, looked more fragile in person than she did through the security monitor. Her glassy eyes revealed signs of malnutrition. Poverty was etched all over her skin.

"I do have a sweet tooth," he said.

"The cookies have been blessed by Monsignor Carlucci."

"Delighted."

"Smells like something's burning," she whispered, sniffing the air.

"You've got me there. I'm an awful cook."

Colm disappeared, leaving her in the vast, well-appointed living room. When he returned, she was nowhere in sight.

It was going to be a room-to-room search, was it? All twenty-two of them, throughout the mansion? The thought intrigued him. He had never hunted a Catholic schoolgirl before.

"What took you so long?" she grinned, emerging from behind an Oriental screen, her snooping interrupted.

"I thought, for a minute, you wanted to play hide-and-seek," he replied.

"No time for that. I'm here on a mission," she said. "And that is to help the missions. Gee, I made a joke." She giggled. "Anyways, it's really, really important to help our missions, so can I count on you to buy some cookies? Please?"

The vision of her skeleton, her bones, like twigs of malnourished brush, exhilarated him. But her ashen skin told of unnamed deficiencies and genetic defects. She'd make a pale trophy in a room full of glorious relics.

"Would you like to taste one of the cookies?" she asked, opening the near-empty box with spindly fingers.

Colm envisioned the bones below those fingers, like white pebbles chiseled and polished by the tide. The urge to suck them was compelling. His craving became intense.

"I'd like that," he murmured.

She approached, offering a chocolate-covered shortbread like a priest dispensing the Eucharist. The proximity of her fingers was maddening. "Come on, take a little bite."

He quickly took hold of her hand, his lips avoiding the shortbread and nibbling her pinkie instead. His head lolled in bliss. To mask his perversion, he gulped the cookie whole.

"Those are three dollars and fifty cents," she stammered, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She withdrew her hand and gawked fearfully at the tip of her pinkie finger. "Maybe I should go now."

"Feed me another."

"I'd hafta open a new box."

"Please do. I'll pay for it."

With trembling hands, she unwrapped the box's cellophane and exposed row after row of glazed cookies. Reluctantly, she brought a second one to his lips.

This time, desire emboldened him. He slid his tongue into the hollow of her hand. She didn't budge, frozen now in fear.