Read Online A Cruel Season for Dying by Harker Moore - Free Book Online
Authors: Harker Moore
Ads: Link
he believed that some essential element of his being had been forged
in those misplaced years on Hokkaido, that his
tamashi,
the core of his soul, was Japanese.
He realized he had been refolding the handkerchief in his hand, duplicating Hanae’s pattern. And now he tucked it back inside
his breast pocket. He reexamined the chalkboard, for what seemed the hundredth time, hoping to discover somewhere in the tidy
display of his writing, something of the spirit of his killer. Despite all manner of modern detection, was it not a man’s
tamashi
that must ultimately betray him?
If a serial killer had a soul? It was a question he’d once half jokingly asked at an after-hours bull session at Quantico
of the instructor who’d asserted in class that serial killers were not fully human. Serial killers had souls, Dr. French had
replied, but their consciences were undeveloped, and as sociopaths, they were as incapable of moral judgment as a two-year-old.
Sakura had not agreed, and yet her answer had disturbed him. It disturbed him now.
He was shaking his head again. There was more than enough that was troubling about this case without dragging in the intangible.
Like the ease with which the killer gained access to his victims. His boldness in killing them in their own apartments, where
he apparently remained for hours, performing a ritual that included cleaning and posing their bodies. According to Linsky’s
estimate, Milne had died late on Sunday night. Was it only luck of one sort or another that had prevented Jerry Greenberg’s
earlier than scheduled return from interrupting the murder of his lover?
The killer’s luck had held again last night. An electronic card system let residents in and out of Westlake’s building. The
model had been noticed by one of the other residents leaving at around nine o’clock. No one had seen his return. But with
no sign of forced entry, it seemed probable that the killer had been someone he’d brought back to his apartment.
Sakura picked up the jade disk from his desk, a good luck talisman, a gift from his uncle Ikenobo on his seventh-year
matsuri,
when he was brought to the local shrine to be blessed. Rubbing its smoothsurface, he swiveled in his chair to study the photographs tacked around the chalkboard’s wooden frame. Borrowed photos were
juxtaposed with crime scene close-ups of each of the three victims. Greenberg had provided a small color snapshot of David
Milne. Carrera and Westlake were represented by eight-by-ten black-and-white posed publicity stills. The gallery owner, the
dancer, and the model. If, as now seemed likely, all were victims of a serial killer randomly targeting gays, then what particular
set of circumstances had placed each of these three men in whatever territory their murderer considered his hunting ground?
And what was the unwitting set of cues that had pushed the killer over the line and made each man’s selection as a victim
inevitable? What had each man done or said that singled him out, fitted him for the passive role inside the killer’s fantasy?
Johnny Rozelli’s familiar laugh rang out in the squad room. Sakura turned from the blackboard and looked through the glass
that fronted his office. Talbot and Rozelli, two of the four detectives from his unit, were still working the keyboards. With
this third murder his Special Homicide Unit was being expanded into a task force, McCauley allowing him to handpick from among
the available officers. He was confident in his people, and yet there was still that void he always felt in moments like
this one. He was not himself immodest—he understood his own value well—but Michael Darius had something that went beyond ordinary
cop instinct, a gut-level ability to quantum leap the facts that had little to do with either logic or training. He looked
at the stack of files littering his desk. Would Michael see something in this jumble that he continued to miss?
He rose
in those misplaced years on Hokkaido, that his
tamashi,
the core of his soul, was Japanese.
He realized he had been refolding the handkerchief in his hand, duplicating Hanae’s pattern. And now he tucked it back inside
his breast pocket. He reexamined the chalkboard, for what seemed the hundredth time, hoping to discover somewhere in the tidy
display of his writing, something of the spirit of his killer. Despite all manner of modern detection, was it not a man’s
tamashi
that must ultimately betray him?
If a serial killer had a soul? It was a question he’d once half jokingly asked at an after-hours bull session at Quantico
of the instructor who’d asserted in class that serial killers were not fully human. Serial killers had souls, Dr. French had
replied, but their consciences were undeveloped, and as sociopaths, they were as incapable of moral judgment as a two-year-old.
Sakura had not agreed, and yet her answer had disturbed him. It disturbed him now.
He was shaking his head again. There was more than enough that was troubling about this case without dragging in the intangible.
Like the ease with which the killer gained access to his victims. His boldness in killing them in their own apartments, where
he apparently remained for hours, performing a ritual that included cleaning and posing their bodies. According to Linsky’s
estimate, Milne had died late on Sunday night. Was it only luck of one sort or another that had prevented Jerry Greenberg’s
earlier than scheduled return from interrupting the murder of his lover?
The killer’s luck had held again last night. An electronic card system let residents in and out of Westlake’s building. The
model had been noticed by one of the other residents leaving at around nine o’clock. No one had seen his return. But with
no sign of forced entry, it seemed probable that the killer had been someone he’d brought back to his apartment.
Sakura picked up the jade disk from his desk, a good luck talisman, a gift from his uncle Ikenobo on his seventh-year
matsuri,
when he was brought to the local shrine to be blessed. Rubbing its smoothsurface, he swiveled in his chair to study the photographs tacked around the chalkboard’s wooden frame. Borrowed photos were
juxtaposed with crime scene close-ups of each of the three victims. Greenberg had provided a small color snapshot of David
Milne. Carrera and Westlake were represented by eight-by-ten black-and-white posed publicity stills. The gallery owner, the
dancer, and the model. If, as now seemed likely, all were victims of a serial killer randomly targeting gays, then what particular
set of circumstances had placed each of these three men in whatever territory their murderer considered his hunting ground?
And what was the unwitting set of cues that had pushed the killer over the line and made each man’s selection as a victim
inevitable? What had each man done or said that singled him out, fitted him for the passive role inside the killer’s fantasy?
Johnny Rozelli’s familiar laugh rang out in the squad room. Sakura turned from the blackboard and looked through the glass
that fronted his office. Talbot and Rozelli, two of the four detectives from his unit, were still working the keyboards. With
this third murder his Special Homicide Unit was being expanded into a task force, McCauley allowing him to handpick from among
the available officers. He was confident in his people, and yet there was still that void he always felt in moments like
this one. He was not himself immodest—he understood his own value well—but Michael Darius had something that went beyond ordinary
cop instinct, a gut-level ability to quantum leap the facts that had little to do with either logic or training. He looked
at the stack of files littering his desk. Would Michael see something in this jumble that he continued to miss?
He rose
Similar Books
