“Naked in full view of the road,” I said. “That would be risky even in the dark, because he’d have to use a flashlight to check himself and the dirt. On top of operating in the van using light. Someone could’ve driven by, seen it shining through the van windows, gone to check, or reported it.”
“The light in the van might not have been that big of a problem. There were sheets of thick cardboard cut to the right size for blocking the windows on the driver’s seat. Also streaked with arterial blood, so they’d been used during the cutting. Cardboard’s just the kind of homemade thing Mate would’ve used in lieu of curtains, so my bet is Dr. Death brought them himself. Thinking he was gonna be the trusser, not the trussee. Same for the mattress he was lying on. I think Mate came ready to play Angel of Death for the fifty-first time and someone said, Tag, you’re it.”
“The killer used the cardboard, then removed it from the windows,” I said. “Wanting the body to be discovered. Display, just like the geometrical wounds—like leaving the van in full sight. Look what I did. Look who I did it to.”
He stared down at the soil, grim, exhausted. I pictured the slaughter. Vicious blitz assault, then deliberate surgery on the side of an ink black road. The killer silent, intent, constructing an impromptu operatory within the confines of the van’s rear compartment. Picking his spot, knowing few cars drove by. Working quickly, efficiently, taking the time to do what he’d come to do—what he’d fantasized about.
Taking the time to insert two I.V. lines. Positioning Mate’s finger on the trigger.
Swimming in blood, yet managing to escape without leaving behind a dot of scarlet. Sweeping the dirt… I’d never encountered anything more premeditated.
“What was the body position?”
“Lying on his back, head near the front seat.”
“On the mattress he provided,” I said. “Mate prepares the van, the killer uses it. Talk about a power trip. Co-optation.”
He thought about that for a long time. “There’s something that needs to be kept quiet: The killer left a note. Plain white paper, eight by eleven, tacked to Mate’s chest. Nailed into the sternum, actually, with a stainless-steel brad. Computer-typed: Happy Traveling, You Sick Bastard.”
Vehicle noise caused us both to turn. A car appeared from the west, on the swell that led down Encino Hills. Big white Mercedes sedan. The middle-aged woman at the wheel kept to forty miles per while touching up her makeup, sped past without glancing at us.
“Happy Traveling,” I said. “Mate’s euphemism. The
whole thing stinks of mockery, Milo. Which could also be why the killer coldcocked Mate before cutting him up. He set up a two-act play in order to parody Mate’s technique. Sedate first, then kill. Piece of pipe instead of thiopental. Brutal travesty of Mate’s ritual.”
He blinked. The morning gloom dulled his leaf-green eyes, turned them into a pair of cocktail olives. “You’re saying this guy is playing doctor? Or he hates doctors? Wants to make some sort of philosophical statement?”
“The note may have been left to get you to think he’s taking on Mate philosophically. He might even be telling himself that’s the reason he did it. But it ain’t so. Sure, there are plenty of people who don’t approve of what Mate did. I can even see some zealot taking a potshot at him, or trying to blow him up. But what you just described goes way beyond a difference of opinion. This guy enjoyed the process. Staging, playing around, enacting the theater of death. And at this level of brutality and calculation, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s done it before.”
“If he has, it’s the first time he’s gone public. I called VICAP, nothing in their files matches. The agent I spoke to said it had elements of both organized and disorganized serials, thank you very much.”
“You said the amputation was clumsy,” I said.
“That’s the coroner’s opinion.”
“So maybe our boy’s got some medical aspirations. Someone with a grudge, like a med-school reject, wanting to show the world how clever he is.”