“Practice?” John muttered. He looked at Hunter. “The slashes...yeah, they’re almost the same.”
“More than just the same,” Hunter told him.
“How so?”
He gave John a grim smile and looked back at Amy. “You can’t see it as much in the photos... Well, I saw the first girl in situ. I didn’t see the victim today, but Amy’s sketch shows something that the flatness of the photos didn’t.”
Both John and Amy studied him.
“You caught it clearly with your pencil,” he told Amy. “The slashes are enhanced—they weren’t just wild. Yes, quick slashes down the cheeks with a sharp blade. Dr. Levy suggested a scalpel might have been used for such clean, deep cuts. But see...on your sketch. That wasn’t done with one swipe. There are little hooks curved into the upper end, by the cheeks.”
They all studied Amy’s sketch. Even Amy, who had done it.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “They almost resemble...”
Her voice trailed; she was lost in a memory.
“What?” John pressed.
“I’m not sure if it’s relevant or not. I had a cousin who was rammed by a bull on the expressway,” she said. “West Broward ranch and farm country, at the time. Anyway, his description to me was he thought a demon was coming after him. All he saw at first were two red eyes and horns and...”
“The little curves look like they could be ‘horns’ sketched in, and if you look at your drawing, it’s almost like a dot on the eye in the center of the hook.”
“The eyes...the horns and eyes of a demon?” John asked.
“Possibly. It’s all possibly right now. We think the first victim was a street kid, engaging in sex work for survival—the kind of young down-and-outer who might easily do so for the leader or recruiters from a commune, or a cult. I believe the young woman today might have been basically seduced the same way.”
“Why not a single fanatical killer?” Amy asked.
He shrugged and grimaced. “The way the killing was done. and with what was done to the body... It was as if she was killed as part of a rite. To me, it has the markings of a cult.”
“But...the white horse?” Amy asked.
They were all seated at the conference table, and he leaned back, looking at them, studying them.
“The white horse—the first horse. I think we’re looking at someone who is playing on the fears of others, fashioning his own religion. And now he’s getting people to kill with great ritualistic savagery. He’ll be convincing them they’ll be saved, because the blood they reap is a sacrifice, and their victims will be cleansed by their actions. And because of it, they’ll be welcomed by God and heaven, and all must be prepared for the coming of the Four Horsemen and the coming of the Apocalypse. The first horse—pestilence and conquest. The pestilence might not be something as literal as locusts, but rather what lies in the mind or the body.” He hesitated. “Bear in mind that, sadly, there are people who believe themselves better than others, and anyone who infringes on them or their world might be considered no better than an insect or a pest. And there might be a leader who can convince others that sacrificing such interlopers can give them souls or raise them from the dirt to the clouds.”
“Yeah,” John said dryly. “They are out there—people who would squash others just as if they were bugs.”
John’s phone started buzzing and he answered it quickly. After listening a moment, he said, “Cool, thanks—can you bring it all on in?”
Whoever he was speaking with agreed. John ended the call.
“Can we put the pictures away while we keep discussing this?” he asked. “I’ve ordered a couple of pizzas. Sorry, I haven’t had a meal all day. This one here—” he nodded toward Amy “—seems to go on youth and adrenaline, but I need more. I have been at this a long, long time—still don’t like pictures out while we’re trying to enjoy Orlando’s finest pizza.”
John swept the pictures into his folder just as one of the office workers came to the door, lugging bags and two boxes of pizza.
Amy leaped to her feet to help, grabbing the bag that contained their drinks while John handled the boxes, bringing them to the conference table.
“Pizza!” Amy chastised. “John, you know that—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m supposed to be on a more healthful diet. I’m watching it, kid, I promise. Usually. This is just for today.”
Amy groaned, shaking her head as she looked at him.
“Just today!” he promised.
She dug into another bag, finding a cardboard box of coffee, cups, water bottles and paper plates and napkins. With his pictures carefully secured, Hunter set out a few of the plates.
Amy poured coffee, and they each took a healthy slice of pizza. Hunter noted that Amy watched John, worried, it appeared, over his healthy appetite for the greasy slices.
But John was undaunted. “Special Agent Forrest, please, fill us in on everything. Start with this Logan guy—now dead—who had followers who killed in the same way.”
“From the beginning. We were on the Alabama border—one of the bodies discovered had a limb across a state line, so both states wound up involved, along with the federal government. We’d already been in contact with Alabama. They’d found three women, all garroted, set against trees, bound by rope available at thousands of stores. The killing mechanism had been created from hangers, also available at thousands of stores and possibly found in just as many hotels. But the slashes on the face were like those found at the site just across the border in Florida. Naturally, we looked at all possible suspects, but Logan’s cult had been intriguing the DEA and the FBI for quite some time. One woman had managed to disengage herself from the cult before complete indoctrination. She didn’t know about killings, but she knew the man believed himself to be a great father. All children in the ‘most holy family’ must be his. He therefore had several wives. Men were welcome in the family, but if they had wives or girlfriends, they could only keep them if Logan granted them that right. Our witness only went to three meetings. She was due for her ‘baptism’ when she found out Logan had chosen her to be one of his brides, and she must have realized she wanted something else out of life.” He shrugged with an odd grimace. “Not that I’m judging, but she was young, and Logan, at the time of his death, was in his late fifties.”
“Did he have children? Could it be one of his actual family who might be doing this?”
“I doubt it. His children were young, all under five years old, and the five of them wound up being taken by child welfare services.”