Unfortunately, the connections between the two women hadn’t turned up another viable suspect, not one with the characteristics to implicate him in the murder of all the others as well.
The benefit—Malone used the word loosely—of having ten murders was that patterns emerged. The most glaring consistency was that all the victims had been found headless. The men weren’t all emasculated, and they weren’t all dismembered. The women were, though, every one of them. But they were all decapitated.
Malone added another thing to his list of consistencies. They had all been found naked, though Edward Andrassy had still been wearing his socks.
They weren’t all the same age, sex, or race. Rose Wallace had been the outlier on race. But none of them were old and none of them were children. Between twenty and forty seemed to be the general age range. That was a pattern, though a minor one.
Most had been found in and around the Run, but not all.
The only other thing that remained consistent across the ten dead was that all of them appeared to be alone in the world. It might be argued that Andrassy was the exception, with a family who loved and mourned him, but he too was alone, if only due to his habits and his choices.
More than anything else, and it was something Malone kept circling around, the murders didn’t feel personal. Vicious, yes. Horrific, absolutely. But he didn’t think the murders were about the slain themselves. They were nobodies. To the killer, they were nobodies, chosen specifically for that one detail.
The Butcher killed the people he killed because he could. Because no one would really care if they were gone. And after Andrassy, he’d never made the same mistake again; he’d never killed anyone with a family who might come looking for them, raise a fuss, or even know they were missing.
No, the murders weren’t about the victims. Malone was convinced the murders were about the killer himself.
10
Malone put the lists away, needing space and perspective, but he didn’t want to sleep. Instead, he took out his gun and the rifle he’d brought back from France. It’d been at Molly’s with his suits, and he’d brought it along for the hell of it. He hung his white dress shirt to keep it from getting stained and sat in his trousers and his undershirt, taking his weapons apart before he cleaned and reassembled them. He put his revolver away but took his rifle apart and reassembled it once more, this time faster. It was something they’d done in the army. It narrowed his focus and emptied his head, allowing him to stew without thinking and relax without drinking. He hadn’t held the rifle in years, and he enjoyed getting reacquainted.
Snap, click, click, snap. Crack, snap, bang, smack. He repeated the process over and over again until a tapping at his door pulled him out of his rhythm. He put down the rifle and checked his timepiece with a frown.
It was midnight.
The tapping came again. He rose, walked to the door, and opened it reluctantly. His suspenders were still keeping his pants up, but his undershirt was a little informal for company.
Dani stood on the other side, covered from neck to toe in a pale blue dressing gown, even more informal than he was. Charlie the cat was in her arms, a witch and her familiar with matching gazes.
“Do you think you might be done soon?” she asked hesitantly. Her hair was a tangle of coppery curls, and he was reminded of the girl who’d greeted him the morning after her parents died. Her multicolored eyes had been just as heavy then, and he felt instant remorse. Her room was above his, and he hadn’t tried to be quiet.
“I’ve kept you awake, haven’t I?” he asked. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
She nodded, acknowledging his apology, and turned to go back up the stairs. The cat had other ideas. He bounded from her arms, shot through the open door, and disappeared under Malone’s bed.
“Charlie,” Dani groaned, her arms falling to her sides.
“I’ll get him,” Malone said, but when he kneeled down and peered beneath the bed, he couldn’t make out a thing, and the cat didn’t budge. When Dani knelt beside him and tried to coax the stubborn beast to come, cooing into the darkness, Charlie ignored her too.
“He goes wherever he pleases. I’m sorry.” Dani sighed. “If I don’t get him now, he’ll yowl at your door in a few hours, demanding to be let out.”
That sounded unpleasant. Malone wouldn’t sleep a wink if the cat was in his room. The cat reminded him a little of Zuzana.
“You could sleep with your door open,” Dani suggested. “Then he could just let himself out.”