"What do you mean?" said Florette.

"Well, usually killers choose victims within a certain radius of where they live-places where they feel comfortable. But these two locations are miles away, in different boroughs."

"So maybe he has a job that allows him to travel," Florette suggested. "Some kind of work having to do with churches."

"Or it could be an attempt to cover his trail so we can't use geographic profiling on him," Lee mused.

"That would indicate tremendous sophistication about crime investigation on his part," Nelson pointed out.

"What about the person who took a shot at you?" Chuck asked Lee. "Isn't it possible that's-"

"What?" Nelson growled, turning to Lee. "You didn't tell me about that."

Lee told him about the incident on Third Avenue. "But there may not be a connection," he added. "I don't see this guy as a shooter."

"Yeah, that would really change the profile," Nelson agreed.

"What else you got?" Butts asked, getting up to stretch his stubby legs. "Isn't there anything anything?"

"He doesn't fit neatly into any particular category of killer," Lee said, "which makes it harder to get a fix on him."

"But that's not that unusual," Nelson said.

"I'd call a sexual killer who's a virgin pretty damn unusual," Butts grumbled, plopping back down in his chair.

"That's another part of the puzzle, isn't it?" Florette responded, straightening his immaculate starched cuffs.

"Right," said Nelson. "With a guy like this, at some point sex and violence become linked in his mind-"

"-and to religion," Lee added.

"There's another angle on the altar motif," Florette pointed out. "It's where couples are married."

"Good point!" said Butts. He tossed an empty coffee cup toward the wastebasket and missed. With a groan, he heaved his bulky body out of his chair, plucked the cup off the floor, and deposited it in the basket.

"Yes," Lee agreed. "And I think there's little doubt that he's Catholic, since both bodies were found in Catholic churches."

"I'd agree with that," Nelson said, "but I'm not sure I go along with the virgin thing. He could just be sexually inadequate-impotent, maybe."

"What else can you say about him?" asked Chuck.

"He's likely to be of a similar socioeconomic level as his victims, a middle-class Catholic-which is one reason they'd feel comfortable around him," said Lee.

"But he's a virgin, huh?" Butts said. "So how old is this guy-thirteen?"

"Well, he's obviously arrested emotionally, but I'd put him in his early to mid twenties," Lee replied, "close to the victims in age."

"Right," Nelson agreed. "And he lives with-"

"With his mother or another female relative," Lee finished for him.

Chuck looked at Nelson, who was searching through the coffee cups on the desk for one that still had coffee in it.

"Of course, his chronological age could be older," Lee mused. "For example, if an offender spends time in jail, he can emerge after a number of years at the same emotional age as when he was incarcerated."

"You mean like Arthur Shawcross," said Nelson.

"Exactly."

Florette leaned back in his chair and frowned. "The Genesee River Strangler?"

"Right," Lee replied. "He was incarcerated for fifteen years for murder, and when he got out of prison he went right back to killing-with pretty much the same maturity level as when he went in."

"Jeez," Butts said. "So we could be lookin' for a middle-aged guy after all?"

"It's possible," Lee admitted.

"Shawcross was pretty stupid, though," Nelson pointed out. "This guy is much smarter."

"What about his method?" Chuck said. "Strangulation is a very up close and personal way to kill someone. I mean, there's rage there, but it's a pretty controlled rage."

"I know this is a stretch," Lee said, "but I think there's also a clue in the way he strangles them."

"Slowly, you mean?" Butts asked.

"Well, yes. I think there's significance to it."

"He wants to hold the power of life and death in his hands as long as possible," Nelson said.

"Yes, there's that," Lee said, "but I think it's also something to do with breathing."

"What do you mean?" asked Chuck, fishing a few bottles of water out of the small refrigerator next to his desk.

"Well, maybe he has trouble breathing-a chronic condition of some kind. I know it sounds odd, but he's suffering along with them even as he kills them."

"What kind of chronic condition?" Butts said, holding out his hand for a bottle of water, which Chuck tossed to him.

"I don't really know...bronchitis, allergies...asthma, maybe. He's too young for emphysema," Lee said.

"Interesting," Nelson mused, "but a bit thin on evidence, don't you think?"

"I told you it was a stretch. There's something else," Lee added.

The others turned to him expectantly.

"I know what he takes from them."

"Really?" Nelson asked, leaning forward.

"He takes the crosses they wear around their necks. Her boyfriend said that Marie always wore hers, but it wasn't on her body. And the same thing with Pamela, according to her friends. I'll lay odds that Annie O'Donnell wore one too."

"Taking jewelry from the victim is not at all uncommon," Nelson pointed out, taking the bottle of water Chuck offered him.

"He didn't take just any any jewelry," Lee said. "He took a cross. I think it's significant. It may relate to the victomology-how he chooses his victims." jewelry," Lee said. "He took a cross. I think it's significant. It may relate to the victomology-how he chooses his victims."

Butts took a swig of Poland Spring and frowned. "Yeah? How so?"

"He's after good Catholic girls who wear crosses around their necks."

Lee's cell phone beeped, indicating he had a text message. He fished around for it in his pocket, his heart pounding.

When he read the message, though, it simply said: Hey, Boss, when can we meet?

Relief flooded his veins like a sweet river. It was only Eddie. He had completely forgotten Eddie was trying to reach him. He was a little surprised to see Eddie sending text messages-it didn't seem like his style-but he was glad to hear from him.

"Okay," Butts was saying. "So all we have to do is find a loser who fantasizes a lot and lives with his mother. Why don't we just go hang out at a Star Trek convention? You know what we got on this guy? We got bupkes-that's what."

Nelson smiled at him, but it wasn't really a smile-it was a challenge.

"Well," he said, "we'll all just have to work harder, won't we?"

Chapter Twenty-six

Chuck Morton walked down the long cold corridor of the city morgue, his footsteps sharp as gunshots. Of all his duties as a cop, he hated this one the most. As he approached the middle-aged couple at the end of the hall, huddled together, desperately clinging to one another, he recognized the body language. He'd seen it more times than he cared to remember. He took a deep breath as he got closer. The woman was transfixed on the plate-glass window in front of her, but the man turned his head toward him as Chuck approached. On his face, ravaged by worry, was written an unspoken plea Chuck had seen too many times: Tell me this isn't happening-isn't it possible you've made a mistake Tell me this isn't happening-isn't it possible you've made a mistake? Chuck looked through the window at the sheet-draped body on the steel gurney and braced himself for the inevitable flow of grief that would follow.

"Mr. O'Donnell?"

"Yes?" His voice was wary. He was tall, with thick sandy hair.

"I'm Detective Chuck Morton. We need you to-"

The woman interrupted, her voice shrill with pain. "It can't be her! Not Annie-who would want to hurt her?" She clung to her husband's arm, as if that were the only thing preventing her from collapsing onto the floor. Her eyes searched Chuck's face for any hint of reassurance. Her curly dark hair-just like her daughter's-was in disarray, and she looked as if she hadn't slept for days. Her skin was pale, and under the green glow of the fluorescent lights it was a pasty, unhealthy color.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. O'Donnell," he said. His voice felt disembodied, as if it were coming from someone else. "But we need you to identify your daughter."

The husband turned to his wife. "Look, Margie, if you'd rather not, I can-"

"No!" She cut him off sharply. She turned to Chuck. "I'll stay with my husband."

Chuck nodded to the medical examiner's assistant, who had been waiting next to the body. He was a young Asian man with thick dark glasses. His straight black hair, plastered to his skull, gleamed wetly under the fluorescent lights. He pulled back the sheet, revealing the girl's face. Chuck was relieved to see that he avoided showing any of the rest of her mutilated body. Those details had not been released to the public or to any of the parents.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Mrs. O'Donnell, and silence for several moments-and then it started, a low, keening wail that began at the bottom of the scale and slid up to the high notes in one long gliding crescendo.

"No-o-o-o-o! No-o-o-o-o! No-o-o-o-o! Not my Annie, not my girl, my baby, not her! No-o-o-o-o!" Not my Annie, not my girl, my baby, not her! No-o-o-o-o!"

Chuck looked at Mr. O'Donnell, who had folded his wife in his arms as if she were a child. He stood there, rocking her, whispering to her, while Chuck watched miserably, hands at his sides. He hated the sheer senselessness of it all and the impotence he felt, but most of all he hated being a witness to these people's grief. It felt like an invasion of their privacy, as if they were being violated all over again. It ran counter to his own deep longing for privacy, his reticence toward any public display of emotion.

He laid a hand gently on the man's shoulder.

"I have to go-stay as long as you like, and someone will see you out. I'm so sorry."

O'Donnell looked at him with glazed eyes, clearly in shock. Morton knew this, but he also knew there was nothing more he could do for them now-except to find their daughter's killer.

Chuck's cell phone rang.

"Excuse me for a moment," he said, grateful for the interruption, and ducked around the corner to answer it. "Morton here."

"Chuck, it's Lee."

"What's up?"

"There's a new twist-"

"What is it?" Chuck said in a lowered voice. The last thing he needed was the victim's parents to overhear his conversation.

"The priest found blood in the communion wine."

"What?"

"The priest at Saint Francis Xavier went in to prepare for the service tomorrow, and when he went to fill the communion wine carafe, he noticed something odd about it. Turns out there was blood in it."

"Oh, Jesus. So CSI never vetted that-"

"Well, they searched the whole church, but that room was way in the back, and it was locked, with no signs of tampering. I mean, they can go back and dust for prints, but if he didn't leave them at the crime scene, I doubt he got sloppy when he tampered with the communion wine."

"Good lord. Send it to the lab for DNA analysis to find out if it's her blood."

"Butts already did that." There was a pause. Then, sounding reluctant, Lee added, "You know what this means."

"What?"

"He's evolving."

Chuck clicked off his cell phone and looked around at the shiny, antiseptic walls of the morgue, his forehead burning with rage. For the first time, he thought of the killer by the name Butts had picked out for him. You sicko You sicko, he said under his breath. You goddamn psychopath Slasher...I'm coming for you, ready or not You goddamn psychopath Slasher...I'm coming for you, ready or not.