‘How skilled are we talking?’Ripley asked.‘Could anyone with a whittling knife do this?’
Marguerite shook her head.'Not to this standard.The carving is clean, the proportions are balanced, the paint application is close to professional.This isn't someone's first attempt.Whoever made these has experience working with wood and paint at a fine scale.It could be a hobbyist with years of practice, or someone with a background in decorative arts, restoration work, or model-making.Either way, this isn't amateur hour.'
‘Antiques?’Ella said.‘Could someone in the antiques trade have this kind of skill?’
‘Absolutely.Restoration work on music boxes, automata and carved figures is bread and butter in this business.You learn to replicate period styles and match paint techniques and work to very precise dimensions.Someone who’d done that kind of work professionally would find these pieces trivial to produce.’
Ella thanked her and Ripley gathered the evidence bags.Marguerite watched them go with the expression of someone who wanted to ask questions but had the good sense not to.
‘So the chain starts with the music box,’ Ripley said, ‘but it doesn’t stay there.He used the snowman because it was available.It came with the box.But the rest he’s making himself.’
‘Which means the music box might be where he got the idea, but it’s not the whole picture.He’s a craftsman.He makes these things to order, one for each victim, and each one points to the next target.’
‘A craftsman with a knowledge of antiques.’
‘Or restoration.Or model-making.Or all of it.’Ella unlocked the car and stood with her hand on the door, not getting in yet.The heat pressed down on her scalp.She squinted against the light bouncing off a windshield across the street.
She didn’t know what this killer wanted.That was the thing that had kept her staring at the hotel ceiling until three in the morning.She could read his method but she couldn’t see his reason.Amber Holloway, Rose Michaels, Eddie Foxall — a Dollar General worker, an unemployed single mother, a theatre manager.There was no obvious connection between them beyond the figurines he was threading through their deaths.
She needed to get back to the precinct and pull records on anyone with a criminal history connected to antiques, be it theft, fraud, forgery, restoration scams.It was a long shot, but long shots scored the best goals.
‘Come on,’ she said to Ripley.‘We’ve got work to do.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ella had already spent an hour on the figurine from Eddie Foxall’s hand before changing tactics.The wooden man with the oversized key, standing on his flat base with the blue line along the edge.She’d photographed it from every angle and run image searches online for anything resembling it.She’d tried every combination of search terms she could think of and come back with nothing useful.Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t mass-produced.It wasn’t in any catalogue.It had been made for a specific purpose by a specific person, and the internet had never seen it before.
Which meant the answer wasn’t online.It was in the NOPD database.
‘Time to go digging,’ Ella said as she navigated to the NCIC system and pulled up the regional crime records.She flexed her fingers until they all cracked in unison, then caught Ripley staring at her in disgust.
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that.’
‘And I wish you’d make me a coffee.What are the odds of that happening?’
‘Low.’
Ella input her search parameters: theft from antique shops, estate sales, auction houses, domestic burglaries where antiques had been stolen, and fraud or forgery connected to antique appraisal or restoration.
The first search returned over five thousand results across Louisiana.
‘Good lord.I’ve started at four figures across the whole state.’
‘That’s too broad.’
‘I know.’Ella narrowed the geography to Orleans Parish and the surrounding parishes.Then she filtered by gender – male – and age range, twenties to fifties.She added a secondary filter for any record that mentioned specialist knowledge, tools, or skill-based offences.
The suspect pool narrowed to a still eye-watering 2,132.Apparently this part of Louisiana had more than its fair share of sticky-fingered scumbags.
Still too many.She added a time filter – offences in the last ten years – and cross-referenced against anyone with a prior criminal record.
1,216.
Next came a more realistic location.So far, the unsub’s killing radius had stayed within ten miles, and historical reflection told Ella that serial killers tended to live within five miles of their first crime scene.And someone this self-aware would never commit homicide on ground they were unfamiliar with.
Five hundred and three.
Ripley pulled a chair over and sat beside her.‘Forward me half.I’ll start from the bottom.’
