Free Total Victim Theory by Ian Ballard

pretending the thought never happened.
    “Did your guys sort through any of this stuff yet?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at Silva.
    “We did. There are clothes and shoes for each of them.”
    “Including the girl?”
    “Yeah, except we only found one of her sandals . . . but the pile yielded one more biggie. I was kind of saving it as a surprise.”
    I want to say I've had enough surprises for one day. But “Do tell,” is what comes out instead.
    “The killer left a wallet in the back pocket of each pair of pants. Wallets with IDs.” Silva smiles. “We don't have anything on the girl, but we've already got all six of the men matched with names.”
    “Holy shit,” I say. “That ought to put this one on the fast track.”
    “Almost seems like he's daring us to catch him.”
    “He's been at it a long time,” I say. “Maybe he's ready to hang up his spurs.”
    “You mean his ax,” Silva says.
    I give a half-hearted laugh, glancing around at the bodies. “What have you found out about the six? Do we have anything on the disappearances?”
    “We didn't find the wallets till a few hours ago. A couple of detectives are making calls as we speak. We should know more by tomorrow morning.”
    I keep thinking about the burns on the bodies and about my own burns. And about who these people are. And then, right then, a strange thought wedges its way into my brain. “Do you have those IDs handy?” I ask Silva.
    He wrinkles his brow. “I think Detective Montalvo is following up on them. Why? What is it?”
    “Just had a thought,” I say. “An idea I wanted to test out.”
    “Gimme a sec,” Silva says and walks over to one of the other detectives who's standing on the far side of the heap. Silva and the other man exchange a few words, and then the man hands Silva a yellow legal pad, which he'd been holding under his arm.
    A moment later Silva returns. “I’m not sure if you need to see the IDs themselves,” he says, holding out the pad, “but here’s a list of the names and addresses for the six of them. Will that work?”
    “Yeah,” I say. “I just want to see their names.”
    He hands me the pad and I look it over. I run my finger down the yellow sheet, reading the list of first and last names slowly, syllable by syllable, in my head:
    Marcos Villarreal
Miguel Robles
Juan Estrada
Carlos Jimenez
Gregorio Soto
Mateo Marquez
    After reaching the end of the list, for a moment I don’t react. An inner voice assures me what I'm seeing's impossible—that I must have misperceived or misread something. These denials work to head off any hysterical impulses I might have otherwise felt. Again, I read over the list, as if expecting the words to recant themselves.
    “What is it, Jake?” Silva asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “I think maybe I've seen six of them,” I reply.
    Silva frowns and waits for me to explain.
    I hesitate. My intestines have curled themselves into a question mark. Sure, what I want to tell him is just an observation, and strictly speaking, it's a fact, but it's not the kind of thing an agent typically blurts out at a crime scene—at least no agent who wants to be taken seriously by his colleagues. It’s a notion that smacks of something unsavory. The metaphysical or the occult. At the very least, it signals the complete abandonment of the scientific method.
    Then again, Silva's a friend of mine and if my thoughts later prove demonstrably insane, I'll no doubt be extended some friendly latitude.
    “What’s going on, Jake?” Silva repeats.
    I draw a deep breath, hold it in for a long time, and let it out. “You remember how I told you about that ledger—that one that showed up on my doorstep a few months back?” I ask.
    “Of course I remember. You went on and on about it.” Silvastudies me. “What does the ledger have to do with
this
?” he asks, waving an arm at the crime scene around us.
    “Probably nothing,” I say. “But it seems like today's given