Singularity by Kathryn Casey

Author:Kathryn Casey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-07-30T03:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

Nothing in my years as a Texas Ranger prepared me for what awaited us on a quiet street in Fort Worth. The house was a massive redbrick colonial in the city's premier old-money neighborhood. Cynthia Neal sobbed silently in the kitchen, attended to by her personal physician and her adult daughter. The impeccably dressed woman in her sixties had discovered the body upon her return from a performance of the Fort Worth Symphony. Her husband had complained of a cold coming on and decided not to attend, so at the last moment she invited a friend.

We arrived just after 4 A.M. The two-story living room, arching into a cavernous cathedral ceiling, radiated heat, as yellow-blue flames licked the gas logs in the green Italian marble fireplace on the far wall. That's where he'd posed it, above the mantel, nailed to the burled walnut paneling. Arms extended, legs straight, feet overlapping, head drooping to his chest, there hung the cold naked corpse of Dr. James Neal III.

It was a crucifixion.

"Do you think our guy did this?" I whispered, as we stood below the body.

After a pause, David nodded. "Yeah, it could be."

For the most part, serial killers don't drastically vary their killings. They know what turns them on, what pushes the right buttons to escalate their excitement, how to get the biggest thrill out of each and every gruesome kill. They are creatures of habit. As their hunters, we count on that. Their patterns help us not only link their killings but offer windows into their minds. These recurring details define the killers and eventually help us find and stop them. But sometimes, and apparently this time, their fantasies escalate. The wounds in the hands and the feet of the previous victims, it appeared now, hadn't been torture. He'd been experimenting and toying with the bodies, working up to Dr. Neal, who bore the stigmata of Christ.

"I know this doesn't match your other cases exactly. Hell, what could match this?" asked Detective Les Maddock, an avuncular man with a thick head of graying hair and washed-out blue eyes. When we failed to answer, he went on. "I still figured I'd call. It reminds me enough of your cases with the bloody crosses to make it worthwhile to take a look-see. Doesn't it?"

After the briefest pause, he again jumped in. "That cross cut on his chest, for one thing, that's similar," said Maddock. "Another's the wounds in the doc's hands and feet."

"Our victims had small knife wounds not nails driven through their hands and feet," I said, slowly. "This isn't the same, but. . ."

"Hell, maybe it's not one of yours," said the detective, pushing back the sides of his faded navy-blue sport coat. He thrust his hands in the pockets of baggy tan slacks. "Sorry I called you two in the middle of the night. Guess all I accomplished was depriving you of some well deserved sleep. You might as well be on your way and leave this mess to us."

Neither David nor I moved.

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