Free Slaughter by John Lutz Page A

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    â€œLooks like he went from point to point, killing and dismembering the women, then starting or feeding the fires.”
    â€œThose women didn’t run because they were terrified,” Pearl said. She looked angry, but calm.
    Quinn, reading further, said, “And with their Achilles tendons sawed through, right above their heels, there was no way they could stand up, or even crawl, out of a bathtub. Then, when the fire reached a certain point, the killer quickly finished his butchery and moved on in search of more victims.”
    â€œHow did he find them?” Pearl asked. “Look in every bathtub?”
    â€œListening for screams or calls for help,” Harold said. “Bathtubs are where lots of people trapped by fire take refuge. They fill them with water, climb in, and hope for the best.”
    â€œAnd have their pleas answered by a gremlin with knives and saws,” Pearl said. “Nightmare stuff.”
    Helen studied the postmortem report. “A figure of authority heard their calls and appeared, probably a fireman in a slicker and helmet. That’s why they didn’t run. They thought a rescuer had arrived. One of the first things he did was saw through their Achilles tendons. Then they couldn’t stand up or climb out of the tub. He’d have had to waste a move disassembling them as they got weaker and weaker from loss of blood. He probably eviscerated them last and then unwound and stacked their intestines.”
    â€œThink of it without the blood,” Harold said, “and he sure does neat work.”
    â€œNeat enough to be a doctor or a med-school student doing extra homework,” Sal said.
    â€œLike a project,” Harold said.
    Nobody spoke for a moment, thinking that one over.
    â€œNift says no,” Quinn said. “Our killer doesn’t possess that level of efficiency.”
    â€œAnd there’s no sign of him having used power tools,” Fedderman said.
    â€œOur guy wouldn’t do that,” Helen said. “That would depersonalize it.”
    â€œPower tools might be noisy, too,” Harold said, and made a buzzing sound with his mouth to demonstrate.
    Sal gave him the look, cautioning Harold not to get on a roll.
    â€œThe killer in Florida might have used the surf to cover up the sounds,” Jerry Lido said with a sideways glance. He’d been working on his computer while the others talked.
    â€œDrowned them out,” Harold said.
    â€œAnd the murder in Florida had an element of cannibalism.”
    â€œDinner is surfed,” Harold said.
    Sal came within an inch of telling him to shut up.
    â€œNot the same as the murders we’re investigating,” Sal said with raspy moderation. “The killer six years ago wasn’t nearly as proficient with his instruments as our killer.”
    â€œOur gremlin tinkers,” Fedderman said. “Like he’s taking apart a robot to see how it’s put together.”
    â€œHow do we know he tinkers?”
    â€œThat’s what gremlins do,” Helen said. “And he was in a hurry, so he had the victims get in their bathtubs for him to protect themselves from the fire. In a rush, our Gremlin, as if he was on an assembly line doing piecework.”
    â€œA sexual thing?” Fedderman asked.
    â€œGadgetry and efficiency as applied to flesh and bone,” Helen said. “We’ve all known people who’ve conducted stranger secret sex lives.”
    Harold looked at her. “We have?”
    Pearl said, “Shut up, Harold.”
    Fedderman said, “I knew a guy with an enormous collection of Barbie dolls, and each one had a—”
    â€œForget it, Feds,” Pearl said.
    â€œYou guys,” Helen said, “are pathetic.”
    â€œBut they might be right,” Quinn said. “Especially when you put firebugs in the mix.”
    â€œThe hell with firebugs,” Sal grated in his bullfrog voice.
    Quinn made an effort not