Free Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

really down . . .”
    “What?”
    “She would have been sitting on the couch. If someone came up behind her . . . no, the front of her face is smashed in,” I muttered discontentedly. “You’re sure no windows were broken?”
    “Yeah. No picked locks either. And the neighbors didn’t hear anything. And there wasn’t any surveillance video either.”
    I backed up and leaned against the wall near the TV, where I had leaned just the night before.
    “Shit,” I said.
    I’m good, I thought.
    “You don’t see anything I don’t?” he asked.
    I shook my head. He sighed and ran his fingers tiredly through his hair.
    “Normally, I’d say that the murderer was a friend, since there were no picked locks or anything, but since this is a serial killer, I guess we can rule that out,” he said, thinking aloud. “It’s the same every time. A perfect murder, simple and clean, with no clues and no witnesses. And every time, a letter.”
    “You’re never going to solve it,” I muttered.
    “What?”
    “It’s nothing.”
    “But it’s interesting. He’s a strange serial killer. Most serial killers have a way of doing things, a way they murder all their victims. But the Perfect Killer’s modus operandi is different every time. The only similarities the murders have are their perfection and the letters.”
    “But they’re all too perfect to be a series of copycats.”
    “Exactly.”
    I was silent for a moment. I couldn’t tell him the answer to his very legitimate question. I wished I could. I knew I couldn’t make him understand, but it might be interesting to try. It was because I wasn’t psychotic or bloodthirsty, didn’t depend on a consistent modus operandi to keep my sanity. It was because I treated murder as a job.
    “What did the letter say?” I asked curiously.
    “Something about blackmail and her fiancé hating her. I haven’t read the whole thing, I haven’t had a chance yet.”
    “Poor girl,” I said. “And poor bastard who wrote it.”
    Alex tilted his head and sighed.
    “Most of the time I find the Perfect Killer disgusting,” he said, and continued in a breathy voice that he let only me hear, though the room was swarming with police officers. “But other times I wonder why we aren’t congratulating him.”

Chapter 7
    M aggie and I walked into my house to the smell of something cooking in the kitchen.
    “Hey, Mom,” I said, closing the door behind us. “I’ve brought company.”
    From the kitchen, my mom laughed cheerfully. No trace of the morning’s tired melancholy was left in her voice; she was bright and beautiful now, just like usual, having had a day’s rest.
    “Finally. You’re beginning to be like me,” she chirped.
    “Hello,” Maggie replied meekly.
    Maggie and I walked to the kitchen door and looked inside to see her surrounded in smoke that billowed around her head as she cooked something on the grill part of the stove.
    “Mom, this is Maggie. Maggie, this is my mom.”
    My mom stepped away from the stove and held out a hand to shake, which Maggie took lamely.
    “Hello, Maggie.”
    “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Ward.”
    “Lovely to meet you as well. I’m glad you’ve become friends with Kit. She doesn’t often bring people over.”
    “Ah . . . thank you.”
    Maggie stood gawkily for a moment before I realized that I should take charge of the situation again.
    “Oh.” I laughed. “Maggie, let’s go to my room. It’s way up on the top floor. Don’t know why I picked it, but I like it.”
    “Okay,” Maggie said with an agreeable smile.
    The two of us started out of the room toward the stairs, Maggie going first.
    “Kit, can I talk to you alone for a moment?” my mom called after me. I stopped and walked back into the kitchen as Maggie waited, looking rather lost, sinking deep into the Turkish rug at the bottom of the stairs. My mom beckoned to me, telling me to come closer, closer, closer, until our faces were only about a foot away and I could see