He returned her gaze steadily but remained silent, and her stomach kind of bottomed out.
“So therehavebeen others.”
Silence.
“Shit.Tellme.”
Silence.
“If you won’t talk to me, I’m going to your wife, and Iwilltell her what happened between you and me all those years ago. I’ll tell the congregation. It’ll be the end of you and your silence,Pastor.”
He heaved out a sigh, looked away, got up, paced. Then he reseated himself and drew his hand down hard over his mouth. “Okay,” he said softly. “There was a kid once, named Allison Fernyhough, who was assaulted in the same manner as you were. She was pretty messed up by it and ended up doing drugs on the street for a while, and she bunked here some nights, which is how I came into contact with her. She told me, and I suggested she tell the police, given your earlier experience. She did, but it was too long after the fact. There was no evidence they could use, and they weren’t able to help. Allison said there were rumors on the streets about other victims, too, but I never heard more than that.”
“And you never mentioned this to me?”
“Like I said, I met Allison well after your attack, Merry. And then no more. It all stopped. Like he disappeared.”
“When, exactly, did this happen?”
“Two years after you.”
She surged to her feet, grabbed her wet coat.
“Where are you going?” he said, getting up. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get him. I’m going to find this sick fucking bastard and nail his dick to the wall, and I’m going to use my crime blog to do it. For Faith, and for those other girls, and for myself. I’ve got a freaking huge following now. Even if the paper does fire me, I won’t need them in order to finish this. I don’t need theCity Sun’s bureaucracy and editorial board shit. I’ll do this on my own.”
I’m not going to let him drive me back into using, not going to let all my hard work go to waste. He will not put me back in the gutter ...
“Merry, youcannotdo this on your own.”
“You know what? Ican. No one has ever been there for me. Apart from you, that is. You picked me out of the gutter and wrung me out. Save the good girls, you said. You helped me after I was assaulted—you sold me your sorry story of a light at the end of the tunnel, and of God and heaven and all that, and for a while I actually believed you because it was all I had. But it was my own smarts that got me out of that hole I was in and cleaned me up. My own determination that stuck me through the night classes, and kept me holding down those fast-food jobs, and kept me studying for my journalism diploma at the same time. My own ability that swung me a nighttime gig on theSuncrime desk, because Iknewthe streets and where to find a goddamn good story, and I clawed up one rung at a time. And you know what else? Now I know you for what you are.” She glowered at him, breathing hard, anger and hate and bitterness twisting through her body.
“There’s always another path, Merry. A high road instead of the low road.”
She snorted. “I was born to the low road, Pastor. Just like you. And I don’t trust those cops. Clearly they couldn’t help this Allison Fernyhough, and I know things about some of them. One of them is using me and my position at the paper, and I’m gonna use him straight back.”
She dumped his sorry-ass thrift store sweater onto the floor, punched her arms into the wet sleeves of her own coat, and made for the door.
CHAPTER 32
Dr.Reinhold Grablowski peered at the task force members with coal-black eyes set deep into sockets under thick brows. With his hooked nose, narrow face, and long neck, he reminded Angie of a vulture, a predator himself, picking at the brains of sick offenders. Her dislike for the doc was instant. But on some level, she knew that no one inside this room was much different from Grablowski. They all in one way or another tried to inhabit the brains of heinous villains in an effort to hunt and catch them. For whatever their personal reasons.
“From the evidence,” Grablowski said with a slight Germanic accent that she couldn’t quite place, “we’re not looking for a rapist who kills his victims in order to avoid being identified, but rather a lust-based predator for whom the act of killing, and the associated ritual and sexual paraphilia, fulfills a psychosexual fantasy. In other words, these victims”—he pointed to the photos of the young women on the whiteboard—“didn’t just happen to cross his path. They’re not victims of opportunity or chance. They were chosen. Hunted, trapped, assaulted, and killed because these victims fit his psychosexual fantasy. He’s also a psychopath—sadistic and organized. Methodical, cunning. The cruelty of his act excites him, and he may engage in torturing his victims. He will usually take a souvenir from his kills—a trophy, like the locks of hair—in order to relive his fantasy until the need grows so great that he is compelled to hunt again.”
Way to go, genius ... like none of us have already deduced that ...If Buziak had let her finish speaking the other day, she’d have said almost the same.
“Statistically, the man you are looking for is likely to be of above-average intelligence, and a loner. He’s more likely than not to own a car in good condition, so he’s mobile, and he’s also likely to travel longer distances than the average person. This offender is capable of using his verbal skills to manipulate and gain control over his victims until he has them within his comfort zone. However, his colleagues, if he has them, might consider him odd or somewhat socially inept.”
The doc reached for the glass of water on the table in front of him and took a slow, deep swallow, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in his long neck. Again, he reminded Angie of a strange predatory bird.
He set down the glass. “Most of his victims will share common traits. In this case, it might be physical appearance and age range. These victims”—again, he motioned to the board—“were all in their early teens at the time of their attacks. All are Caucasian and have long, dark hair. They were probably strangers to the offender, and for some reason he identified them as women he could control, either through verbal manipulation or strength. Above that, they are ‘right.’ They fit his psychosexual fantasy. Thus, victimology in these cases becomes paramount, as in: Who were these women? What was going on in their lives at the time of the event? How did they first come to the attention of their assailant? Answers to these questions, and where the information intersects, will help narrow in on the subject.”
“Wiseass,” Leo whispered behind Angie. “Welcome to Homicide 101.”
“All human sex is initiated through fantasies,” Grablowski said. “Mental images that involve fulfilled or unfulfilled desires. We all have what is called a paraphilic love map, and these love maps begin to develop shortly after puberty. But the sexual predator, clinically speaking, has developed a love map where his lust is attached to fantasies and practices that are either socially forbidden, disapproved of, ridiculed, or penalized. And his fantasies usually involve aggression, domination, control. He becomes aroused by mere thoughts of sexual aggression, which he reinforces by using sadistic porn or fantasy stories that feature sexual sadism. In turn, he reinforces these stories, or porn, with masturbatory activities. This eventually forms a ‘template,’ or what we refer to in law enforcement as the signature of the offender.”
He paused, took another sip of water, his wet lips shining, and Angie’s mind went to her own love map—“love” was a dumbass word for this stuff, anyway. It should be called a lust map. There was no “love” in these sick, sadistic, violent acts of which the shrink was speaking.
