‘But the question is – why kill him?This guy looks a few months from the grave as it is.What’s he got to do with two girls in their twenties and a guy in his late-thirties?’
‘You’re asking me.It’s like using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.’
The victimology was as inconsistent as any Ella had seen in her career.Age and gender were cast to the wind, so trying to find a pattern in this patchwork was death was like trying to crochet with barbed wire.If there was one thing killers stuck to it was a routine.Once they found a groove that worked, they rarely deviated.They occasionally upped the ante in terms of experimentation, but if anything, this victim choice and killing method were regressions.From beating a middle-aged man to death with a blunt object to strangling a frail old man with his bare hands.
This unsub was only a spree killer by definition, not by psychological makeup.He was someone playing the part of a spree killer and getting it wrong.
It was almost as if this wasn’t was his choice.Like someone else was guiding his hand.An unwilling serial killer.
But perhaps there was an answer here.Buried under the cobwebs and dirt, just waiting for her to dig it out and polish it.Ella straightened herself and raked her eyes over the shed’s gloom as she hunted for God only knew what.
Not much to look at.
But then amongst the rusty tools and brown handles, she caught a splash of color hiding beneath some papers on the victim’s desk.Ripley caught her look and scooped one up with a gloved hand.
‘Pill bottles,’ Ripley said.
‘Not surprised this guy needed pills to keep upright.What are they?’
‘Donepezil, galantamine, memantine.Heavy hitters.’
Ella narrowed her eyes at her.‘Heavy hitters?You know what memantine is?’
‘Yeah.Do you?’
‘No idea.Enlighten me.’
‘Alzheimer’s drugs.Or dementia.’Ripley set the bottle back down.‘Nasty business.This poor guy was really feeling it.Surprised he could still work.’
Ella stared at her, taken aback.It wasn’t like her partner to be so easily versed in the varieties of geriatric pharmacology.‘The hell do you know that off the top of your head?’
‘My mom had the same thing.I could rattle these names off in my sleep.’
‘Sorry.I didn’t mean to bring it up.’
‘You didn’t.The point is our vic here wasn’t just old, he was on the way out.If he’s on forty milligrams of memantine a day, he must have already lost his mind.’
Lost his mind.The words ricocheted and struck sparks behind her eyes as pieces long scattered began to drift together.Lost his mind.
Lost it.
Conversations replayed in her head.Some throwaway comments and half-formed musings coalesced into a shape she’d been too pigheaded and preoccupied to see.Amber Holloway’s mother had said:Amber walked away with nothing but her clothes and a pile of debt.Rose Michaels’s sister had sat numb with rage as she laid out Rose’s losing battle with the family court.Sheila Foxall had crumbled to ash in the back of a squad car as she spoke of her husband’s brush with cancer and the way it had ruined their chances of having children.
The common thread woven through each life.
Amber Holloway had lost her home.
Rose Michaels had lost her child.
Eddie Foxall had lost his manhood.
And now, Earl Parsons had lost his mind.
Ella thought she might choke on the fluid rising in her gorge becausehowhad she not seen it?How had something so goddamn obvious slipped right past her and left her grasping at straws with blood on her hands?
‘Ripley, I know what’s going on,’ she cried.All of these victims.They lost something.’
‘Come again?’
