Page 56 of Girl, Reformed

‘Appreciated.’

‘You get his height, weight, identifiablemarks?’

‘He was on the small side. Maybe twentypounds overweight. Hair was buzzed. No tats or anything that I saw.’

‘Got it. Chief, keep the bloodhounds atbay? Me and Hawkins need to take a closer look.’

'Yeah, yeah.' Harland's eyes cut to therubbernecks, still gawping at the police line. 'You do your thing, I'll handlethe peanut gallery.

She nudged Luca and strode back into thelion's den of flashing bulbs and fetid stone. He fell into step as themonstrosity amongst this admittedly-crude sculpture came into full view.

Up close and personal with this modern artmonstrosity masquerading as murder, the wrongness of it smacked Ella rightbetween the peepers. With the other stiffs it was the stocks, the mockingye-olde punishment vibe the unsub got his rocks off to.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Lucaasked. ‘Did we interrupt his staging?’

Luca was right. This was off-script. Lazy.Like he’d been caught with his pants down and had to improvise.

No stocks, just a pair of bargain-basementhandcuffs chaining the vic to the fountain like an afterthought. The intentionwas the same, but the presentation lacked the loving attention to detail of theprevious kills. The sick artistry that made Ella's gorge rise and her triggerfinger itch.

She knelt down, peering at the victim’swrists cuffed awkwardly above his head. He was hanging limply, knees brushingthe ground, like a waiting sacrifice for some otherworldly demon.

Luca crouched beside her and squinted atthe vic's neck. ‘Abrasions to the neck. Same M.O. as the others.’

‘Ambushed, strangled, then rigged up likea scarecrow,’ Ella finished. She tilted her head, considering. Something wasn'tsitting right in her craw. ‘But why no stocks this time? What's with the switchto cuffs and chains?’

‘Maybe…’ Luca ventured, ‘Maybe the stocksaren't what's important. Not for this one, anyway.’

Ella shot him a look. ‘Explain.’

Luca shrugged, sheepish. ‘Dunno, exactly.But we know our unsub had this all planned in advance. He brought those twostocks months ago. He doesn’t do impulsive.’

‘So there’s something else about thisplace that’s important to him.’

‘Maybe, but what?’ Luca asked. ‘ChucklesFountain. Did we ever stop to consider that the locations might be significant?Park, alleyway, now a fountain.’

Knock her over with a feather, becauseLuca might be onto something. ‘Hold that thought,’ she said and looked back tothe gaggle of uniformed officer. ‘Macklin, get over here.’

The officer sauntered over. ‘Everythingokay?’

‘This fountain,’ Ella asked, ‘what is it?’

Macklin nodded at the sculpture. ‘It’s amemorial for a guy named Chuckles. Some local celebrity, before my time.’

‘Who was he?’

‘A comic. Poor man’s Charlie Chaplin.Quite a tragic story, apparently.’

Luca asked, ‘How so?’

‘I’m no Dover historian but legend goesthat he was doing a show one night, but the audience started booing him,heckling him, because he was putting on a poor show. Turns out the guy wassick, and he ended up having a heart attack onstage.’

Ella processed the story, filed thedetails away. ‘Poor Chuckles.’

‘Poor Chuckles, alright.’ Macklin gesturedat the fountain. ‘And all he got for his efforts was this dumpy piece of shit.’

'Thanks, Macklin,' Ella said, then wentback to the display. She shelved the information for later, then pulled a pairof latex gloves from her pocket.

Luca said, ‘Nothing scarier than when agirl puts the gloves on.’

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