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“Maybe, but then we might be able to find that event.” No, that idea didn’t make a lot of sense to Paige. If there had been something in the recent past that might have triggered all of this, then surely, they would have found evidence of it? It wasn’t a certainty, but Paige was willing to bet that this was all down to something more recent.
“The problem with the more recent searches is that there doesn’t seem to be anything serious enough,” Christopher pointed out.
“So, we’re left with the criminal records and the psychiatric ones,” Paige said. She knew that Christopher must have guessed that much, simply because of the way he’d pulled up those records.
“What are we looking for in those?” Christopher asked.
“First, it needs to be someone who has significant enough problems that they might actually do something like this,” Paige said. She discarded several files from the list on the screen out of hand. “These ones appear to be artists suffering from depression. That’s not going to potentially turn them into a killer. We’re looking for signs of a personality disorder instead. Particularly any psychopathic tendencies.”
Searching for those meant going through files one by one. It was easier to establish which potential suspects weren’t viable, either because their pathologies didn’t fit with the kind of violence that the killer had displayed or because there were aspects of their files that didn’t seem to fit. They were looking for someone controlled, someone who could plan the killings and execute them precisely, setting out the scenes exactly so that they resembled famous paintings.
That ruled out a whole other subset of people, reducing the pool of suspects still further. Not enough, though.
“I was thinking that maybe we might be looking for someone who has been released from prison or from an institution recently,” Christopher suggested.
That was a good thought, one that might explain why the killer had only just started to murder his victims. Maybe he’d been building up to it before he’d been sent to prison, but only had the chance when he got out again?
“If we look for ones who were released in the last three months, that should narrow things down a little,” Paige said.
In fact, it narrowed things down a lot, to a list of just four people: Greta Harlan, James Marsh, Lucien Alban, and Peter Eustace. It was a small enough number to start looking into each one.
Greta Harlan was first. According to her police file, she’d been an artist in the town who had slowly become more and more obsessive about her work. There were examples of that work in pictures in the file, each more disturbing than the last. There were twisted portraits that seemed more of demons or monsters than of people. There were abstract pieces that seemed like images of storm clouds in black and grey.
Paige didn’t discount Greta Harlan just because she was a woman; what she’d found out about the Exsanguination Killer showed that much. Yet this was a killer who subdued their victims physically using strangulation. To Paige, that seemed more like the kind of thing a man might do.
There was another issue too: according to the reports, Greta Harlan’s last known address was down in LA. She’d moved away from Arnville as soon as she’d been released.
There was no address noted in James Marsh’s file, but therewasa number for a case worker assigned to him after he was released from the secure hospital in which he’d been held. Paige called that number and got a reply after a few rings.
“Martha Tanner. How can I help you?”
“Hi, this is Agent King with the FBI.” Paige had to remind herself that she would still be that even after this case. She was applying for a transfer, not quitting completely. “I’m calling in relation to James Marsh.”
“Is he in some kind of trouble?”
It was a natural enough assumption given that it was the FBI calling.
“Am I right in thinking that James was diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder after attacking a woman?”
“I can’t really discuss details of his case.”
“Then how about I tell you what’s in his case file?” Paige said. “He said in his interviews with the psychiatrists who assessed him that the woman he attacked was his muse, and that she betrayed him after he painted her close to a hundred times by sleeping with someone else. With her boyfriend. As a result, he was imprisoned in a psychiatric facility until two months ago, when he was judged to no longer be a threat to others.”
“All of that is in the file, yes.”
“I need one thing thatisn’tin the file,” Paige said. “I need to know where he is now. Is he still in Arnville?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “What is this in relation to?”
“My partner and I . . .” Christopher is still her partner for now, at least, “. . . are looking into several murders in the town, all of which appear to be the work of someone who considers themselves an artist.”
“Ah, I see,” Martha said on the other end of the line. “Well, I think I can set your mind at rest about James, Agent. He didn’t return to Arnville after his release. It was too painful for him. Instead, he now resides with his brother in Wisconsin.”
Again, that meant that there was almost no chance of it being him.
That left two potential suspects.
“Christopher, can you run DMV searches for Lucien Alban and Peter Eustace? It might be quicker than calling their probation officers or case workers.”
