Free Creatures of Appetite by Todd Travis

and I want a whiff. Johnson, get me a car.”
    “Uh, the captain said …”
    “I don’t care what the captain said, Johnson, get me some fucking transportation!” Thorne snapped. Johnson looked to the troopers for help. Technically, he’d been assigned to the troopers by Forsythe to act as their assistant so it was their call, but most everyone walked in fear of offending the captain, and helping the fibbies was one definite way of doing it.
    “Come on, Bill,” Gilday said. “It won’t hurt if they take a look with us. We’ll all go together. We can follow up with CSU while the captain deals with Mitchell. Get some keys and we’ll get going.”
    Thorne put on his coat and made one more move on his chessboard. He checked his weapon and walked off without looking behind him.
    “Let’s rock and roll, kids,” Thorne rubbed his hands together and Kane would swear that he was almost gleeful at the prospect of what lay ahead.

Chapter Thirteen

    B ill Johnson nervously guided a police van through the dark county roads of Nebraska on the way to Brainard, Gilday, Scroggins, Kane and Thorne in the back.
    “Janis Jacobson, eight years old,” Kane read out loud from the printed report. “Playing in her front yard with her dog. Mother turns her back for a moment, girl is gone and the dog is dead.”
    “Crime of opportunity,” Scroggins said.
    “Dog was stabbed, right?” Thorne asked.
    “Throat cut.”
    “The Iceman never killed any dogs,” observed Gilday.
    “This guy isn’t him by a long shot. Biggest difference between this guy and the Iceman is how this guy leaves the bodies. His cuts are more jagged and rushed. He’s obviously stimulated by the kill and gets a little messy despite himself. If the Iceman is messy, he doesn’t let us see it.
    “With this guy’s other four homicides, you found the body within forty-eight hours. He’s impatient as hell and that means this one will turn up soon and not far from where she was abducted,” Thorne said. “He parts them out, but not nearly to the extent that the Iceman does. You’ve found most of the parts buried not far from the bodies on these four. Never happens with the Iceman, when you find part of a body, that’s the only part you ever get. You never recover anything else after the initial discovery. Most of the Iceman’s vics you never recover. You’ve gotten every Brainard girl.
    “Two more major differences,” Thorne continued. “First one is the panties. This guy loves to play with the panties, once they were tied to a tree nearby, once stuffed in her mouth; he likes to be funny with the panties. Iceman doesn’t do that. Second major difference is that Mr. FunnyPants doesn’t like to be watched. He covered the eyes of his victims with something, all four times. He has to. That’s his signature.”
    “Jesus Christ, why didn’t somebody say something before this?” Scroggins asked.
    “Why didn’t you notice it, sport?” Thorne asked.
    “Hey …”
    “You’re right,” Gilday interrupted Scroggins before he could get going, “we should have caught that. What else do you got?”
    “This guy, FunnyPants, he lives in the area. You’ve probably interviewed and looked at him already. He’s white, eighteen to twenty-five, unemployed high school dropout. History of depression and probable suicide attempts, he’s been in a mental institution at least once and currently taking prescription medication. No driver’s license, probably lives with a single relative who looks after him. I would say he has a deformity on his face, a cleft lip or a scar, something significant that draws negative attention.”
    Scroggins and Gilday looked at each other.
    “Holy shit,” Scroggins said under his breath, “that sounds like …”
    “Someone you know?” Thorne asked.
    Scroggins’s cell phone rang and he answered it.
    “Yeah,” Gilday replied, “someone we looked hard at. He had a rock-solid alibi, though.”
    “What? No shit?” Scroggins