The Bride Collector (3 page)

Brad read through the poem again.

The Beauty Eden id Lost

Where intelligence does centered

I came do her and she smashed da Serpent head

I searched and find the seventh and beautiful

She will rest in my Serpent’s hole

And I will live again

“He can hardly spell.”

Brad regarded the man. “I’m sorry, James, but I don’t see an imbecile.”

The SAC raised a brow and pulled out a chair to sit in. At times like this, Brad’s reputation proved useful. And he’d hailed
from Miami before dazzling the Four Corners. That made James Temple basically kin, at least in Temple’s mind. He would think
twice before dismissing anything Brad had to say.

“Is that right? Well, please…” He opened a palm of invitation. “Fill us in.”

Nikki shifted her gaze to the dark window, struggling to hide her frustration.

“I think Nikki’s assessment is right,” Brad explained. “We’re dealing with a highly intelligent individual who knows exactly
what he’s doing within the context of his own world.”

“Just because he knows how to drill holes and clean up after himself doesn’t mean he’s not barking mad.”

“No,” Nikki interjected, “but even if he is suffering from psychosis, it doesn’t mean he’s an animal.”

“I see motivation and intention,” Brad continued, nodding at the note on the screen. “But it would be a significant mistake
not to assume the author knew exactly what he was writing and why he was writing it.”

“You’re saying he’s broadcasting his next move,” Temple said, glancing back at the note. “How so?”

“Assume with me that this was written by a scholar; a poet with the intelligence of Hemingway. And written for our benefit,
with some bad grammar thrown in to make himself look less intelligent.”

“Grammar has little to do with intelligence,” Nikki said.

“I realize that. But go with me. What’s he really saying?”

“The beauty
of
Eden
is
lost,” Nikki read. “The fall of innocence.”

Temple closed his eyes momentarily in a show of impatience. “Fine. Something less obvious.”

Brad nodded at Nikki. She exchanged an inquisitive look with him, nodded her appreciation, and looked up at the screen.

“He’s saying that where once beauty, innocence, and intelligence were found, this Eden, it’s now lost. The serpent—read evil
or the devil—is responsible. Not sure about the third line—‘I came to her and she smashed the Serpent’s head’—doesn’t make
sense to me.”

She glanced at Brad.

“Motivation,” he said. “He, the serpent, destroyed beauty but was wounded in the process. He’s upset. Go on.”

Nikki nodded. “I can go with that. The last three lines seem straightforward. He’s after a replacement for the beautiful one
who fell, so he can live again.”

“He’s looking for a wife,” Brad said. “A new Eve.”

“And this helps us how?” Barth Kramer asked.

The SAC ignored him entirely, having stood again to pace. “Okay, I’m with you. Tell me more.”

Brad walked behind the conference table, keeping his eyes fixed on the words, written in the killer’s own hand. He could see
it all: The desk. Neatly arranged. Perfectly ordered. A pen poised over the paper just so, while the words he had recited
to himself a thousand times flowed through his mind, sung by a choir, a chorus in a symphony. A requiem that thundered the
truth, demanding to be heard.

Now such truth was reduced to mere words on a simple piece of white paper, for his greatest enemies to see. It was like being
stripped naked, both terrifying and thrilling at once. The killer was coming out. His whole life was here, on this piece of
paper.

Brad cleared his throat. “His killings are ritualistic, leading him to life. He’s not doing it out of anger. None of the crime
scenes has shown signs of rage.”

Local authorities had found the first victim three weeks ago in a barn just south of Grand Junction, in the arid Grand Valley
near the border of Utah and Colorado. Serena Barker had been twenty-three, and the police had assumed her to be a victim of
satanic ritual. She’d been dead for three days, and a coyote had gotten to her left foot.

The Denver FBI office hadn’t been engaged until the second body was found sixty miles northeast of Denver, in an apartment
near the plains cattle town of Greeley. Karen Neely, twenty-four. Again carefully preserved, nearly flawless in her final
presentation. Brad had been assigned the case and immediately requested copies of the file from Grand Junction. A studious
detective, Braden Hall, had meticulously documented the case. There was little doubt that they had a serial killer on their
hands.

The Bride Collector killed his third woman a week later in Parker, south of Denver. Julia Paxton was twenty and had been found
less than eight hours after her death, a vision of twisted beauty glued to the wall of her own house.

All women under the age of twenty-five. All exceptionally beautiful. As of yet, only one murder had been publicized—that of
Julia Paxton, who was a well-known model for Victoria’s Secret. Other than the distinctive circumstances of death, they could
determine no connection among the women.

As for the killer, recovered evidence from the previous scenes put him at 180 to 200 pounds based on the depth of his shoe
indentations in soil. No DNA to run through CODIS—the Combined DNA Index System. No hair or cell samples. No saliva, blood,
semen, or latent prints tied to the killer.

He was essentially a ghost.

“His motivation is in finding life,” Brad continued, “not in delivering death. He believes he’s leading the women into life.”

Temple stared at him. “You see, now there’s where my psycho-nutcase warning bells start going crazy. Forgive me if I don’t
see torturing and killing someone ‘into life’ as nothing less than barking mad.”

“Psychotic, maybe,” Nikki said. “Mentally ill, maybe. But not necessarily less intelligent than any of us. The direct link
between psychosis and intelligence is well documented in some subjects. We should assume that the Bride Collector is more
intelligent than anyone in this room. If we don’t, we risk seriously underestimating him.”

“That’s your profile? Our man’s a genius?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

Temple crossed his arms and settled back against the desk. “Okay, I’ll let you go with that.”

“There’s more,” Brad said. “He wants us to know he’s going after beautiful women, that much is unmistakable in his writing.
I would say he knows we’ll see through his attempt to look unintelligent. He wants us to look for a supremely intelligent
person who has a penchant for killing beautiful women because he’s been jilted by one. In reality, that’s not the case. Sound
right to you, Nikki?”

Her blue eyes widened. She nodded, lost in thought. “Eerily right.”

Temple drummed his fingers on the desk. “Okay, so we play his game his way. We look for the most beautiful women in and around
Denver.”

“That’s what he wants us to do,” Frank said.

“I’m open to suggestions. In the absence of any, we keep him engaged, even if it means playing things his way. Keep it under
wraps. We don’t need everyone who thinks they’re decent looking in a panic. Any tire tracks lifted at the shack scene?”

“None.”

“Other evidence processed?”

“So far he’s clean. The fresh hair, bodily fluids, and fingerprints match the victim. Three other hair samples we’re running
now. Could be from anyone messing around in there.”

Temple nodded at Frank and glanced at the others. “Any other ideas?”

Nikki shifted off the wall and paced. “You want to play his way, start with all known cases of mental illness in Colorado.”

“So now he’s a wacko again?”

“You’re not listening. Again, being a genius and mentally ill are not mutually exclusive.”

“But you’re willing to concede that he could be nuts.”

She breathed out slowly. “I think our guy could be deeply disturbed, just not nuts. Maybe psychotic and delusional, maybe
suffering from acute schizophrenia, but he doesn’t slobber.”

“Then until we learn differently, we assume he’s both mentally ill and a genius. Fair enough?”

She nodded. “The ones that aren’t complete loners tend to congregate on the Internet, in psychiatrists’ offices, psychiatric
wards. It’s a starting point.”

“As of now we start looking for records of any anomalies or patterns in mental health facilities, residential care homes,
whatever.” Temple turned quickly to Brad. “Pull whatever resources you need, cross-check what we know of the Bride Collector
against the files of every known psycho released from any facility in the last”—he looked at Nikki—“ten years?”

“Too many cases. Mental illness is more widespread than you think. Nearly seven hundred thousand mentally ill are jailed each
year in this country. Start with a year.”

Temple looked stunned. Brad found it odd that the man wasn’t already familiar with this statistic. “God help us all.” He glanced
up at the wall clock, which was closing in on ten. “A year then. I have to go.”

Brad spoke before the man could move. “We should also assume he intends to kill seven women. The seventh and most beautiful
may refer to his final target.”

That brought a pause.

“Unless he’s killed three others without anyone’s knowledge,” Frank said.

“As long as we’re assuming the worst, he has three more to go.” Eyes on Nikki. “And being the smartest mind in the room, he
knows that
we
know that. He wants us to know that he’s going to kill three more women.”

“It fits.”

Brad pushed on quickly. “He’s going to go again in a few days. If it takes him a few days to kill, then he’s likely already
engaged. It’s a short cycle for a pattern killer who kills to satisfy compulsion. But our guy’s method is based on reason,
not raw compulsion.”

They stared at him, arms crossed.

“Okay. I gotta go.” Temple grabbed his cell phone and walked toward the door. “We assume our guy’s out there now, outwitting
us morons, stalking a beautiful woman he intends to kill in the next few days.” He turned back at the door. “For the love
of all that is holy, stop him.”

QUINTON GAULD WAS
his name, and at the moment he was preparing to enjoy a thick, juicy, prime-cut rib eye at Elway’s steak house at the corner
of 19th and Curtis, just one block from the FBI building on Stout Street, downtown Denver, Colorado, USA, North America, World,
Universe, Infinity.

The thought of being so close to the only humans capable of ruining things put him in a calculating mood. It was a time for
reflection and self-examination, soaking in the fluids of truth.

And upon such introspection, Quinton was feeling abundantly satisfied.

The waiter, a tall blond man with a slightly protruding belly and sharp elbows, set a ceramic plate down using a cream-colored
hot pad folded over the dish’s rim to protect his palm and fingers from being seared like the steak. His name was Anthony.

“Be careful, it’s hot.”

“Thank you, Anthony.”

“Is everything to your satisfaction?”

“I’ll let you know in a moment.”

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything else? Vegetables? Bread?”

“I am all set, Anthony.”

“No drink?”

“I have water, Anthony. Water washes steak down quite nicely after so much bloodletting.”

The waiter offered a coy smile, signifying his appreciation for Quinton’s choice of words to describe a cow’s being slaughtered.
But Quinton was speaking of Caroline, not the cow. Caroline wasn’t a cow, and she hadn’t been slaughtered.

She was one of God’s favorites, and she’d been drilled. And then bled.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Quinton picked up his fork and held it in his large, bony hand. He paused for a moment, staring at the gold cuff link that
buttoned the sleeve of his shirt. An inch of white, and then the blue Armani suit, reserved for special occasions.

He never worked in a suit and tie because he found them too constraining, preferring instead nakedness encumbered only by
black briefs.

He was momentarily fascinated by the chrome fork in his fingers. Larger than many forks. A real man’s fork. His own fingers
were larger than most by as much as an inch in length. By his hands alone, one might guess him to be nearly seven feet tall.
In reality, he stood only six foot four.

He twisted his wrist, caught up in the sight of flesh against metal, such a harsh surface in the embrace of soft flesh. He’d
once considered his hands too large and gangly, alien appendages on the end of long bones. So he’d decided to take special
care of his hands and in the process had come to truly appreciate them. They had a unique beauty, a subject about which he
knew far more than most. He’d allowed various women from Asia to give him manicures and pedicures twice a week for nearly
a year now, and the results were impressive.

Quinton moved his forefinger. Then he did it again, trying to trace the messages that spread across neurons in his brain at
a rate of six hundred per second before being shot down his nerves to the muscles in his hand. Little bundles of energy were
racing from his brain to his hand with clear, precise directions at this very moment, yet he was completely unaware of how
or when his brain began or ended the cycle. How decision became instruction. How instruction became movement.

The brain was a mystery for most humans, and as of yet for Quinton Gauld.

It occurred to him that his moment of exploration into the finer things of life had stretched on a full minute or more. Not
a bad thing, for after all, he was here to enjoy himself. No enjoyment could exceed the power of the mind to amuse itself.

And the whole time he had been contemplating his hand and the utensil in that hand, he was in perfect tune with all else in
Elway’s place of feeding.

The bartender with silver earrings who had apologized after spilling beer on a customer’s hands. He offered the woman a free
drink. She declined, but she despised him for his carelessness. She was a real cow who’d been convinced by inner delusional
voices that her black polyester slacks were not too tight despite the fact that she had gained ten pounds in the last three
months, thanks to her meds. He would say depression was her demon.