Trujillo tapped his chin. “Let’s consider that where the bodies were dumped might have nothing to do with where they were killed. He might have pulled them from the same area and then scattered them around the city to stay hidden, or simply to throw us off.”
There had to be more than that. I knew it. The killer had written us two letters—he had to have given us a clue, even if it was only by accident.
“We didn’t see an obvious link between their home or work addresses,” said Ostler, “but maybe their commutes take them along a similar path? Or they cross at a specific point? I’ll have the police look into it, but we need something stronger. I won’t let this man eat anyone else.”
Eating. It was right there all along.
I dug in my pocket for my copy of the first letter, now worn smooth by my pocket, and sharply creased along the edge. “What were the new victim’s stomach contents?”
“You think those matter?” asked Nathan. It was a typically snarky question from him, though his face seemed more confused than confrontational. “Is that really a thing—a killer that targets people who eat the same foods?”
“Not the same foods, but at the same places,” I said. I pulled out the letter and unfolded it, bending the creases backward to help it lay flat. “In the first letter he told us Stephen Applebaum’s stomach contents, to prove he was the real killer, but then he also mentioned that he watched him eat. Here it is: ‘His stomach contents, as I assume you’ve been informed, will have included two slices of pizza—I was too far away to see the toppings.’ He picked a mark, watched him eat, and then killed him after. Probably very soon after. These letters are constructed so carefully—that’s got to mean something.”
Ostler considered this a moment, then walked to the examination room and opened the door. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but have you examined the stomach contents yet?” I heard murmuring, but couldn’t make it out. “And what were they?” More murmuring. “Thank you.” She closed the door and turned to face us. “Pizza. Diana, I want you to get in Detective Scott’s face and find out exactly where both victims ate dinner the night they were killed.”
“Yes ma’am.” Diana left immediately, and Potash stood up. Ostler walked slowly back to our misshapen circle.
“We can’t monitor every person who eats at a pizza place for the next several weeks. It’s impossible.”
“We can put someone on the restaurant itself, though, right?” asked Nathan. “I mean, that’s better than nothing. At the very least we can watch for anyone eating there who matches our team’s demographics.”
Ostler looked at me. “What else does this letter tell us?”
It took all my willpower not to glance at Trujillo, gloating in petulant triumph that she’d asked me instead of him. “He’s given us the biggest clue yet,” I said. “He named himself.”
“We already know his name,” said Nathan. “Or … maybe. We don’t know if the cannibal is Gidri or one of his thugs, but either way the name’s not going to help us.”
“His real name wouldn’t,” I agreed, “not with Brooke still too upset about Gidri to talk to us. But this letter has something even better: he picked a name for himself. He could call himself anything in the world, and he chose The Hunter. That speaks volumes.”
“And that’s meaningful how?” asked Nathan. “It’s just the same old metaphor about lions and antelopes.”
“In that metaphor he called himself a predator,” I said. “A hunter is different. Whether he intended to or not, he’s telling us that the hunt itself is important—not just eating the victim, but finding them, chasing them. Matching wits with them. He sees himself as a hunter.”
Nathan raised his eyebrow. “And his quarry is a bunch of slobs at a pizza place?”
Trujillo’s voice was grave. “His quarry is us.”
“I think we can get more specific than that,” said Ostler. “If the demographic theory holds, the two victims so far represent two of the three people who killed Mary Gardner.” Her eyes fell on me. “You were the third, and he already knows your name.”
9
There was an old park on the outskirts of Fort Bruce—a wide lawn and a little playground, now piled with snow and empty for the winter. The picnic area held a few tables and pair of state-sponsored barbecue grills: thick metal boxes, rusted orange with age, each one sitting on a rusty metal pole. The boxes were open on the top and the front, with a heavy metal grill that could fold up and down. Snow sat on top of them in lumpy drifts, sagging into the gaps between the grill bars. I set my box of store-bought firewood on a snowy picnic table and used a broken plank to clear the snow from the nearest grill, pushing it away in long, even strokes, and then rattling the board between the clanging metal sides.
Boy Dog whined and crawled under the picnic table, crouching in the cavelike hollow that had formed where the snow couldn’t reach.