Page 17 of Girl, Reformed

Ella fished a pair of latex gloves fromher pocket and tossed them to her new partner. ‘Rule number one. Don’t add anyprints to the scene.’

Luca fumbled the catch, nearly droppingthe glove in the dirt. Ella bit back a smirk.

‘Understood,’ he said.

They snapped on their gloves and got downto business, circling the stocks like sharks scenting blood. Ella ran acritical eye over every inch of the contraption, pressing a gentle finger tothe apparatus, testing its rigidity. The thing was solid as a rock.

‘Good craftsmanship for somethingamateur.’ Luca must have read her mind.

The damn thing was clean as a preacher'ssheets, Ella thought. No bloodstains, no tangled hairs in the hole designed forher head. Even the ground around the base was undisturbed, like the stocks hadjust materialized out of thin air.

She crouched down, examining the base ofthe stocks. The top section, the part that would have locked the victim's headand hands in place, lay on the ground a few feet away. Like it had been tossedaside in haste.

Ella straightened up, dusting off herhands. ‘Chief. This bit here. Was it like this when you found her?’

Harland ambled over, thumbs hooked in hisbelt loops. 'We had to take that part off to get her out. The damn thing wasn'teven locked in place. Just sort of slotted in.'

Luca asked, ‘No padlocks? No screws?’

‘Nope,’ Harland said.

Ella's brow furrowed. ‘So our vic wasalready cold by the time he trussed her up. He did the dirty work somewhereelse, then transported them here for the big reveal.’

Harland spat into the dirt. ‘Freak.Parading them around like some kinda trophy.’

Ella barely heard him. She was too busychasing the thread, unraveling the skein of the unsub's twisted logic. ‘He'sstaging them,’ she murmured. ‘Posing them just so, like mannequins in adepartment store window.’

‘But how’s he getting all this stuffhere?’ Luca asked. He gestured around. ‘It’s not like he can drive a car allthe way up here. Nearest parking space is…’

‘A hundred feet away,’ Harland jumped in.‘I’ve been asking the same questions.’

‘Piece by piece,’ Ella said.

‘That might explain this weird device, buthow’s someone get a body here without anyone seeing?’

Ella considered it and could only conjureup one likely answer. ‘Witnesses found this in the early hours, so chances arehe snuck in here in the dead of night. Never explain with conjecture what canbe explained with blind luck.’

Harland shifted uneasily. ‘So you thinkthis guy snuck this device in, set it up, then went back and hauled a body heretoo?’

‘I don’t see any other way. He didn’t killthe victim here, so he had to transport her here. This park’s open twenty-fourhours?’

‘Yup.’

‘Then it has to be that. We need any CCTVfrom the surrounding areas. Parking lot, roads leading into this place.Everything.’

‘Already on it,’ Harland said. ‘Forensicshave been and gone, so we’ll have a report within a couple of hours.’

‘Excellent.’

Ella turned back to the skeleton of thestocks, her eyes tracing over every joint and plane. Imagining their victimsplayed out in this thing, limbs askew, head lolling obscenely. A grotesquepuppet, dancing to their killer's tune.

But why here? Why this place, thisparticular slice of suburban hell? There had to be a reason. With theatricaldisplays like this, there was always a reason, always something that harkenedback to a traumatic incident. Even if it all only made sense in the funhousemirror of their own twisted psyche.

‘Alright,’ Ella said, stepping back fromthe bandstand. ‘Let's think about this. Our boy goes to a lot of trouble tobring his victims here. Sets up this whole tableau, makes a real production ofit. Why?’

Luca shrugged helplessly. ‘To show off? Toget attention?’

She looked out at the park, at the soccermoms and dog walkers already starting to drift back in now that the initialshock had worn off. Chautauqua Park. Where families came to frolic and oldfolks fed the pigeons. Norman Rockwell Americana, right down to the duck pondand the ice cream truck.

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