Free Little Girls Lost by Jonah Paine Page A

completely. It could be that he had two victims of two murderers in two completely unrelated cases. Still, there was something about it that bugged him, and forced him toward a conclusion.
    "First, I don't like coincidences."
    Sundquist nodded. "Neither do I. Coincidences are what you find in bad movies. In life, every act is singular and uniquely meaningful. What else?"
    "The victims were too similar. They were the same gender, roughly the same age, and they even kind of looked alike. They were the sort of victim who would appeal to the same sort of killer."
    Sundquist gave him the half-smile that Sam was beginning to realize was the psychiatrist's signature expression. "And what does that tell you?"
    "That there are certain possibilities. First, that we have two convicted murderers, returning to the game at the same time in the same town. "
    "Which would be very coincidental."
    "Which would be very coincidental, and so very unlikely. Second, that these same two murderers are working together for some reason."
    The doctor gave a snort. "Unlikely. The sexual sadist almost never works with an accomplice. The same terrible forces that drive him to kill also force him apart from others. Have you ever asked yourself why the neighbors of an axe murderer always tell the reporters how quiet and shy he was? If a serial murderer was the sort of person to share his innermost thoughts with others, he would have been locked up long before he got around to killing anyone."
    Sam nodded. "The third possibility is that there is one killer, who killed his first victim in one way and his second victim in a very different way."
    Sundquist quirked his head to the side, considering the question. "Possible. It is certainly true that a killer's method evolves over time. He tries new methods, new places, new devices, looking for what feels right. Until he finds his own true method you will see him shifting through imperfect intermediate states. Do the markings on the second victim seem to you like a modification of the first?"
    Sam shook his head. "Completely different," he said.
    "Then that, too, is unlikely," the doctor concluded. "That would be like an artist executing two works, one in watercolors and the other in crayon. It is far more likely that you are looking at the work of two artists."
    "Fourth," Sam interjected, "there is one killer who's learned from other killers. He's a copycat and has adopted their methods as his own."
    The doctor weighed the possibility. "That would not be unknown, but you should still expect convergence in future victims. A killer's method is a very personal thing. Your murderer will be searching for a signature technique."
    A final possibility occurred to Sam, one he hadn't considered before. "Fifth, the killer might be a student of killing, one who knows that people like me hunt him by looking for patterns. But he likes what he does, and he doesn't want to get caught, so what he does is get a book on serial killers and he copies one killer's method with one victim, and another killer's method with another victim."
    Sundquist considered him for a long, silent moment. "In that case, Detective, you might have your ultimate adversary. Because you hope to find him through a pattern that, if you're right, does not exist."
    "It's possible, though?"
    He shrugged. "It's possible. Mind you, this hypothetical killer would have his own reasons for killing—he's not doing it just for the joy of confounding the police, there's something much deeper driving him. But it's possible that, if he's exceptionally self-aware, he might do as you suggest and hide the true pattern guiding his efforts beneath the false pattern of those other killers' methods."
    "So it's possible."
    "It's possible, but is it helpful? How does it aid your investigation to know that, even after two murders, you still know next to nothing about the person who is responsible?"
    Sam got up to go. "The lack of pattern is a pattern, Doctor. This bastard is