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murders, and besides that, he didn t have any extra detectives for duty in
Southeast.
 I suppose you ve all heard about Nina Childs by now? Sampson asked the
other detectives. All of them had known Nina, and of course Jerome had been at
the murder scene with us.
 The good die young. Rakeem Powell frowned severely and shook his
head. Rakeem is smart and tough and could go all the way in the
department.  Least they do in Southeast. His eyes went cold and hard.
I told them what I knew, especially that Nina had been found with no ID. I
mentioned everything else I had noticed at the tenement crime scene. I also
took the occasion to talk some more about the rash of unsolved murders in
Southeast. I went over the devastating stats I had compiled, mostly in my free
time.
 Statistic like that in Georgetown or the Capitol district, people in this
city be enraged. Going ballistic. Be Washington Post headlines every day. The
president himself be involved. Money no object. National tragedy! Jerome
Thurman railed on and waved his arms around like signal flags.
 Well, we are here to do something about it, I said in a calmer voice. Money
is no object with us. Neither is time. Let me tell you what I feel about this
killer, I continued.  I think I know a few things about him.
 How you come up with the profile? Shawn Moore asked.  How can you stand
thinking about these kinky bastards as much as you do?
I shrugged.  It s what I do best. I ve analyzed all the Jane Does, I
said.  It took me weeks working on my own. Just me and the kinky bastard.
 Plus, he studies rodent droppings, said Sampson.  I saw him bagging the
little turds. That s his real secret.
I grinned, and told them what I had so far.  I think one male is responsible
for at least some of the killings. I don t think he s a brilliant killer, like
Gary Soneji or Mr. Smith, but he s clever enough not to be caught. He s
organized, reasonably careful. I don t think we ll find he has any prior
record. He probably has a decent job. Maybe even a family. My FBI friends at
Quantico agree with that.
 He s almost definitely caught up in an escalating fantasy cycle. I think
he s into his fantasies big time. Maybe he s in the process of becoming
someone or something new. He might be forming a new personality for
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himself. He isn t finished with the killing, not by any means.
 I ll make some educated guesses. He hates his old self, though the people
closest to him probably don t realize it. He might be ready to abandon his
family, job, any friends he has. At one time he probably had very strong
feelings and beliefs about something - law and order, religion, the government
- but not anymore. He kills in different ways - there s no set formula. He
knows a lot about killing people. He s used different kinds of weapons. He may
have traveled overseas. Or maybe he spent time in Asia. I think it s very
possible he s a black man. He s killed several times in Southeast - no one s
noticed him.
 Fuck me, Jerome Thurman said to that.  Any good news, Alex?
 One thing, and this is a long shot. But it feels right to me. I think he
might be suicidal. It fits the profile I m working on. He s living
dangerously, taking a lot of chances. He might just blow himself up.
 Pop goes the weasel, Sampson said.
That was how we came to name the killer - the Weasel.
Chapter Thirteen
Geoffrey Shafer looked forward to playing The Four Horsemen every Thursday
night, from nine until about one in the morning.
The fantasy game was everything to him. There were three other master players
around the world. The players were the Rider on the White Horse, Conqueror;
the Rider on the Red Horse, War; the Rider on the Black Horse, Famine; and
himself - the Rider on the Pale Horse, Death.
Lucy and the children knew they were forbidden to disturb him for any reason,
once he locked himself into the library on the second floor. On one wall was
his collection of ceremonial daggers, nearly all of them purchased in Hong
Kong and Bangkok. Also on the wall was the oar from the year his college crew
were Head of the River. Shafer nearly always won the games he played.
He had been using the Internet to communicate with the other players for
years, long before the rest of the world caught on. Conqueror played from the
town of Dorking in Surrey, outside London; Famine traveled back and forth
between Bangkok, Sydney, Melbourne, and Manila; War usually played out of
Jamaica, where he had a large estate by the sea. They had been playing
Horsemen for seven years.
Rather than becoming repetitive, the fantasy game had expanded itself. It had
grown every year, becoming something new and even more challenging. The object
was to create the most delicious and unusual fantasy or adventure. Violence
was almost always part of the game, but not necessarily murder. Shafer was the
first to claim that his stories weren t fantasies at all, that he lived them
in the real world. Now the others would do so as well from time to
time. Whether or not they really lived their fantasies, Shafer couldn t [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]