Page 8 of Pure Killers

Chapter two

We know approximately when he's going to strike; we know it’s got to be pulled from a small pool of people. Why can't we nail anything down?

The meeting room has become our permanent office these past two months, another two whiteboards rolled in, stationed on either side of the one mounted on the wall. We've stuck pictures of them into the network of lines and arrows, the past Needler victims and the potential next ones.

We've got two weeks left until his next kill. It’s starting to be that just walking into this room gives me a headache. Even Chloe seems to be losing enthusiasm thanks to our lack of progress.

I rub my temple. "Okay, again, who are the potential victims?" Dirk, looking like an unlikely schoolteacher, uses a stick stolen from some other purpose to gesture at the row of names and pictures up on the left board. "Okay, we've got the Cocooner, obviously, but the Needler hasn't hit him yet, so it seems unlikely."

"Let’s take him off the possibilities, then."

"And next we've got our construction site killer… could be a good candidate. Then there's Tartan Butcher-"

"He's only killed twice, right?" I ask, too tired to dwell over two murders being a time to use the word 'only'. Why do I stay here? Why does anybody? Nowhere else to go. We all believe it won't be us.

"Yeah, so maybe not high-profile enough for Needler. Next, we've got the Masker and Nurse."

"Okay, who do we think…"

"Masker," Chloe says.

"Why?" I frown at her.

She shrugs. "Well, he's not as careful as the others. There are suspects, just not the evidence, right? Needler has to find out who these guys are too, but he probably has other contacts. He might know what we don't."

"That’s not exactly conclusive."

"Well, if your theory that he’s doing it for public praise is also right, Masker is still a good candidate. Like the Strangler, he targets young women, sometimes teens, pretty ones. People society feels it should protect. Plus, his method is like Cocooner’s, probably inspired by it. Except…"

Here she wrinkles her nose, looking down at her notebook.

“He only covers their face,” I assert for her.

"Hm," Dirk hums. "So we assume it’s going to be him. What does that mean for us?"

I lift my head a little more, taking a long breath. "We can track him, like Needler. We know the Maker uses basements. Supposing Needler knows that too, that’s where he’ll probably make the catch. If we cross-reference every Crennick-area basement on record with the Needler's main haunts, maybe we can catch him before the strike."

Dirk tilts his head. “It’s a plan.”

“It’s the best we’ve got.”

***

Rain pounds on the roof, punctuated only by the heavy trickle from the places where it's found a way in. The crime scene tape is drooping into the mud now.

We're back in the office where the Strangler was found, though it's stripped bare now. The chair and the screen which took most of the blood splatter have been taken into evidence. A narrow stream of water falls consistently from the corner, running across the tilted floor and into the crack at the deepest point. It’s the kind of rain that is here to stay for a while, a proper Tregam monsoon. Even the temperature rises, making the usually cool city stew in humidity until the front passes.

Dirk runs a hand through his hair. He still hasn't gotten that haircut, and droplets stick to the ends. "Why are we back here, again?"

"Because by our calculations, the Needler is striking again next week. And we're no closer to having any idea where."

"So what, you think we all missed something?" Dirk asks, but he’s playing along. He crouches over the crack in the floor, picking through what used to be a phone book, plastered to the cement.

"All the things he leaves, the framed pictures, the newspapers. And his weapons… he must store them somewhere. Probably in Crennick. Maybe at whatever building he plans to use for the next kill."

"Seems thin. He could also just live alone."

I am fully aware that it’s thin. By the window, I peer closely at the fogged glass, trying to see through. But there's no chance someone saw. The suburb is abandoned. And anyone who was here sure as hell is unlikely to want to talk to cops. "I doubt it. He's careful. He wouldn't keep anything in his home."

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