"Not the kind of visitors the chamber of commerce, or especially the residents, probably want to see here," I said. "Kyle, what the hell is going on? The killers are working right in our face. They're telling us something. They strike in beautiful cities. They murder in public parks, in luxury hotels, even in a cathedral. Do they want to get caught? Or do they believe they can'tbe caught?"
Kyle looked at the church spires up ahead. "Maybe it's a little of both. I agree, though. They are reckless for some reason I don't quite fathom. That's why you're here. You're the profiler. You're the one who understands how their sick minds work."
I couldn't get the thought out of my head that these killers wanted to get caught. Why did they want to get caught?
Chapter 47
Kyle and I got out of the sedan and hurried toward the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. A gold-and-white banner over the main door proclaimed, "One Faith, One Family."
The twin spires of the church rose high over the city of Savannah. The style was French Gothic: grand arches and traceries, impressive stained-glass windows, an Italian-marble altar. I was taking everything in — everything. But nothing had clicked yet.
The murder had been discovered less than two hours ago. Kyle and I were in the air minutes after we heard the news from the Savannah police. The story was already all over TV.
The sweet smell of incense was in my nose. I could see the victim as we entered the cathedral. I groaned and felt a little sick to my stomach. It was a twenty-one-year-old male, which I had known from the early reports; an art history major at the University of Georgia named Stephen Fenton.
The killers had left Fenton's wallet and money. Nothing had been stolen — except his shirt.
The cathedral was large and could probably hold as many as a thousand worshipers. The flow of light from the stained-glass windows created a pattern of colored patches on the floor. Even from a distance, I could see that the victim's neck had been torn open. The shirtless body was toned and sculpted, just like the others. It lay at the foot of a station of the cross, the thirteenth. The floor was stained with blood, but not much liquid remained.
Did they drink the blood here in the cathedral? Was this about sacrilege? Religion? The stations of the cross?
Kyle and I approached Stephen Fenton. A body bag was already laid out in the nave. Technicians from the Savannah Police Department stood by. They were restless and angry, anxious to do their work and get out of there. We were holding them up. The local medical examiner was doing his examination of the body.
Kyle and I knelt over the body together. I pulled on a pair of plastic gloves. Kyle almost never used them. He rarely seemed to touch evidence at a crime scene. I had always wondered why. His instincts were good, though.
But if we were both so good, why didn't we have any clue as to where the killers had gone or when they might strike next? That was the question that nagged me more and more at each murder site. What was this gruesome rampage about?
"They're so goddamn impulsive," I muttered to Kyle. "I suspect they're both under thirty. Maybe early twenties or even younger. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in their late teens."
"Makes sense to me. They don't seem to have any fear at all." Kyle spoke softly as he looked at the student's wounds. "It's as if a wild animal has been turned loose. Like the tiger. First in California. Now here on the East Coast. The problem is that we don't really know how far back the killings go, or how many killers are involved, or even if they're working out of this country."
"That's three problems. Three subsets that require answers we don't have. Your agents still talking to people at the Goth and vampire clubs? The Internet? Somebody has to know something."
"If anybody knows, they're keeping it to themselves. I have over three hundred agents full-timeon this case, Alex. We can't keep this heat up."
I looked up at the wooden station of the cross. It depicted Jesus being taken down from the cross and laid in his mother's arms. The crown of thorns. The Crucifixion. Piercings. Blood. Was blood the connection here? Eternal life? I wondered. In Santa Barbara, Peter Westin had mentioned that some vampires were spiritual. Was this a ritual killing or a random one? Should I talk to Peter Westin again? He seemed to know more about vampires than anyone else I'd met.
The victim was wearing khaki trousers and new Reebok sneakers. I examined the wounds to his neck. There were also gouges on his left shoulder and parts of the upper chest. One or both of the killers was very angry, close to a rage state.
"Why take the shirt?" Kyle asked. "Same thing in Marin."
"Maybe because it was blood soaked," I answered as I continued to look at the student's wounds. "These are definitely human bites. But they're attacking like animals. The tiger is a model, a symbol, something important. What, though?"
Kyle's cell phone sounded, and he flipped it open. I couldn't help thinking of the Mastermind — his constant calls to me. Kyle listened to whoever it was for about twenty seconds.
Then he turned to me. "We're going to Charlotte right now. There's been another murder, Alex. They struck again. They're already in North Carolina."
"God damn them! What the hell are they doing?"
Kyle and I raced toward the doors of the cathedral. We ran as if we were being chased.
Chapter 48
Every once in a while, a single murder, or a series of murders, horrifies us, catches the public's imagination in an almost obscene way. Jeffrey Dahmer's bizarre spree in Milwaukee; the murder of Gianni Versace and subsequent killings by Andrew Philip Cunanan; the Russian, Andrei Chikatilo, reputed to be the worst. Now this bloody rampage on two coasts of the United States.
It was fortunate that we had the FBI helicopter to get us out of Savannah and over to Charlotte. While we were still in the air, Kyle was in contact with his operators on the ground, who had surrounded a ramshackle farmhouse about fourteen miles outside Charlotte. I had never seen Kyle so animated and excited about a case before, not even Casanova or the Gentleman Caller.
"Looks like we caught a break," Kyle said to me. "No one will get out of that house until we get there. I like our chances."
"We'll see," I said. "I'm not convinced these are the same people." I had stopped making assumptions about the killers. Why Charlotte, North Carolina? This would be the fourth attack in the same city. Had everything been leading us to Charlotte? Why?
Kyle listened to another situation report from agents on the scene, then he related the relevant details to me. "The parents of a seventeen-year-old Charlotte boy were attacked in bed late last night. Both bludgeoned to death. A claw hammer was found at the scene. There were bites on the bodies. There's evidence that either a large animal attacked the two adults, or the assailant was wearing sharpened metal fangs." Kyle rolled his eyes. He still didn't have much truck with vampires.
"The boy then fled to an abandoned farmhouse near the Loblolly River outside Charlotte. As far as we know, the people loitering in the house are mostly teenagers. Apparently, some are as young as twelve or thirteen. It's a mess, Alex. Everything is on hold until we get there. The age of some of these kids is a real problem."
A little more than ten minutes later we landed in a wide meadow brimming with wildflowers. We were less than three miles from the house where the killer might be hiding. This was Bonnie and Clyde stuff. By the time we got to the thick woods surrounding the house it was past five o'clock. It would be dark soon enough.