“Dear God,” I said.
Downstairs in the Homestead Club, a band was playing jazz, but the audience was small and the music was not too loud to talk over. Connie had taken Lucy to a movie, leaving Wesley and me at a table in a deserted corner of the dance floor. Both of us were sipping cognac. He did not seem as physically tired as I was, but tension had returned to his face.
Reaching behind him, he took another candle from an unoccupied table and set it by two others he had claimed. The light was unsteady but adequate, and though we did not get long stares from guests, we did get glances. I supposed it seemed a strange place to work, but the lobby and dining room were not private enough, and Wesley was much too circumspect to suggest we meet in his room or mine.
“There would seem to be a number of conflicting elements here,” he said. “But human behavior is not set in stone. Waddell was in prison for ten years. We don’t know how he might have changed. I would categorize Eddie Heath’s murder as a sexually motivated homicide while, at first glance, Susan Story’s homicide appears to be an execution, a hit.”
“As if two different perpetrators are involved,” I said, toying with my cognac.
He leaned forward, idly flipping through Robyn Naismith’s case file. “It’s interesting,” he said, without looking up. “You hear so much about modus operandi, about the offender’s signature. He always selects this type of victim or chooses this sort of location and prefers knives and so on. But, in fact, this isn’t always the case. Nor is the emotion of the crime always obvious. I said that Susan Story’s homicide, at first glance, does not appear to be sexually motivated. But the more I’ve thought about it the more I believe there is a sexual component. I think this killer is into piquerism.”
“Robyn Naismith was stabbed multiple times,” I said. “Yes. I’d say that what was done to her is a textbook example. There was no evidence of rape – not that this means it didn’t occur. But no semen. The repeated Plunging of the knife in her abdomen, buttocks, and breasts was a substitute for penile penetration. Obvious piquerism. Biting is less obvious, not at all related to any components of the sexual act, it is my opinion, but again a substitute for penile penetration. Teeth sinking into flesh, cannibalism, like John Joubert did to the news delivery boys he murdered in Nebraska. Then we have bullets. You would not associate shootings with piquerism unless you thought about it for a moment. Then the dynamics, in some instances, become clear. Something penetrating flesh. That was the Son of Sam’s thing.”
“There’s no evidence of piquerism in Jennifer Deighton’s death.”
“True. This goes back to what I was saying. There isn’t always a clear pattern. Certainly, we’re not talking about a clear pattern here, but there is one element that the murders of Eddie Heath, Jennifer Deighton, and Susan Story have in common. I would classify the crimes as organized.”
“Not as organized with Jennifer Deighton,” I pointed out “It appears the killer attempted to disguise her death as a suicide and failed. Or perhaps he did not intend to kill her at all and got carried away with a choke hold.”
“Her death before she was placed inside her car probably wasn’t the plan,” Wesley agreed. “But the fact is, it appears there was a plan. And the garden hose hooked up to the exhaust pipe was severed with a sharp tool that was never recovered. Either the killer brought his own tool or weapon to the scene, or he deposed of whatever it was he found at her house and used. That’s organized behavior. But before we go too far with this, let me remind you that we don’t have a twenty-two bullet or other piece of evidence that might link Jennifer Deighton’s homicide with the homicides of the Heath boy and Susan.”
“I think we do, Benton. Ronnie Waddell’s print was recovered from a dining room chair inside Jennifer Deighton’s house.”
“We don’t know that it was Ronnie Waddell who pumped slugs into the other two.”