‘OK, over the desks you’ll find everything we had on the old case,’ the captain continued. ‘Hunter, you should be familiar with those. The computers on your desks have a T1 internet connection and each of you have a separate telephone and fax line.’ He walked towards the photographs on the corkboard. ‘This case is to be discussed with no one inside or outside the RHD. We need to try and keep this as quiet as possible for as long as possible.’ He paused and looked at both detectives with a hawk-sharp glare. ‘When this case goes public I don’t want anyone to know that we might be dealing with the same psychopath that did this,’ he said pointing to the victims’ photographs. ‘So, I don’t want anybody referring to this case as the Crucifix Killer. For all purposes, the Crucifix Killer is dead, executed about a year ago. This is a brand-new case, is that understood?’

Both detectives looked like school kids being reprimanded by their principal. They nodded and looked at the floor.

‘You guys are exclusively on this, nothing else. You better live, breathe and shit this case. I wanna report of the previous day’s events on my desk every day by 10:00 a.m. until this killer is caught, starting from tomorrow,’ Captain Bolter said, walking towards the door. ‘I wanna know everything that’s going on in this case, good or bad. And do me a favor, keep this fucking door locked, I don’t want any leaks.’ He slammed the door behind him, the loud sound reverberating inside the room.

Garcia walked over to the photographs and stared at them in a macabre silence. This was the first time he’d been presented with the Crucifix Killer’s police evidence. This was the first time he’d ever seen any of the killer’s original evil. He studied them feeling faintly ill. His eyes taking everything in, his mind trying to reject it. How could anyone be capable of this?

One of the victims, male, twenty-five years old, had his eyes compressed into his skull until they’d burst from the pressure. Both of his hands had also been crushed to the point of pulverization of the bones. Another victim, this time female, forty years old, had her abdomen sliced open and disemboweled. A third victim, another male, African American, fifty-five years old, had a laceration that ran the length of his neck; his hands had been nailed together as in a prayer position. The other pictures were even more gruesome. All that pain had been inflicted on the victims while they were still alive.

Garcia remembered the first time he’d heard about the Crucifix killings. It had been over three years ago and he hadn’t made detective. Research has shown that there are around five hundred serial killers active at any one time in the United States, claiming something in the region of five thousand lives every year. Only a very small number of them get media recognition, and the Crucifix Killer had gotten more than his share of it. At the time, Garcia had wondered what it would be like to be a detective in such a high-profile investigation. To follow the evidence, analyze the clues, interrogate the suspects and then put everything together to solve the case. If only it was that simple.

Garcia became a detective shortly after the first victim was found and he followed the case as closely as he could. When Mike Farloe was arrested and presented to the media as the Crucifix Killer, Garcia had wondered how could someone that didn’t seem to be intelligent had managed to evade the law for such a long time. He remembered thinking that the detectives assigned to the case couldn’t have been very good.

Looking at the pictures on the corkboard, Garcia’s feelings were a mixture of excitement and fear. Not only was he now a lead detective in a serial-killer investigation, he was one of the lead detectives in the Crucifix Killer’s case. Ironic he thought.

Hunter fired up his computer and watched the screen come alive. ‘Are you gonna be OK with all this, rookie?’ he asked, sensing Garcia’s uneasiness at the pictures.

‘What? Yeah, I’m good,’ Garcia turned and faced Hunter. ‘This is some different kind of evil.’

‘Yes, I guess you can say that.’

‘What would motivate a person to commit crimes like these?’

‘Well, if you go by the textbook definition of why someone would commit murder, then we have: jealousy, revenge, to profit, hatred, fear, compassion, desperation, to conceal another crime, to avoid shame and disgrace or to obtain power…’ Hunter paused. ‘The basic motivators for serial crimes are manipulation, domination, control, sexual gratification, or plain simple homicidal-mania.’

‘This killer seems to enjoy it.’

‘I agree. Gratification, but not of the sexual kind. I’d say he loves watching people suffer.’

‘He?’ Garcia questioned.

‘Judging by the nature of the crimes, the logical conclusion is that the killer is male.’

‘How so?’

‘To start with, the overwhelming majority of serial killers are male,’ Hunter explained. ‘Female serial killers have a tendency to kill for monetary profit. While that can also be true their male counterparts, it’s very unlikely. Sexual reasons top the list for male serial killers. Case studies have also shown that female killers generally kill people close to them, such as husbands, family members, or people dependent on them. Males kill strangers more often. Female serial killers also tend to kill more quietly, with poison or other less violent methods, like suffocation. Male serial killers, on the other hand, show a greater tendency to include torture or mutilation as part of the process of killing. When women are implicated in sadistic homicides, they’ve usually acted in partnership with a man.’

‘Our killer works alone,’ Garcia concluded.

‘Nothing indicates otherwise.’

Both detectives fell silent for a while. Garcia turned around and faced the photographs once again. ‘So what do we have on all the old victims, what sort of connection?’ he asked, eager to get started.

‘None that we’ve found.’

‘What? I don’t believe that,’ Garcia said, shaking his head. ‘You’re not trying to tell me that you guys spent two years investigating this case and you haven’t come up with a connection between the victims?’

‘Well, believe it.’ Hunter got up and joined Garcia in front of the corkboard. ‘Look at them and tell me this – what would you say the age bracket of the victims was?’

Garcia’s eyes moved from picture to picture, pausing on each one for only a couple of seconds. ‘I’m not sure, early twenties to mid-sixties I guess.’

‘Kind of broad, don’t you think?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And what would you say is the main type of victim, old, young, male, female, black, white, blond, brunette or what?’

Garcia’s eyes were still studying the pictures. ‘All of those judging by these.’

‘Again, kind of broad, isn’t it?’

Garcia shrugged.

‘Now, there’s something else you can’t get from these pictures, and that’s their social class. These people came from all different walks of life – poor, rich, middle class, religious and non-religious, employed and unemployed…’

‘Yes, what’s your point, Robert?’

‘My point is that the killer doesn’t go for a specific type of victim. With every new victim, we spent days, weeks, months trying to establish some sort of link between any of them. Work place, social clubs, nightclubs, bars, universities, lower and high school, place of birth, acquaintances, hobbies, family trees, you name it, we’ve tried it and we came up with a big fat zero. We’d find something that would link two of the victims together but not the others, nothing would stick. If we managed to start a chain with two victims, the link would be broken on the third and fourth one sending us back to square one. From what we know these people could’ve been chosen completely at random. The killer might as well have flipped through a phone book. In fact, if the killer hadn’t carved his symbol on the back of their necks these could’ve been seven different victims from seven different killers – eight with our new one. Nothing is the same, except the level of pain and torture he puts them through. This killer is a new breed of serial killer. He’s unique.’