Free Every Wickedness by Cathy Vasas-Brown

jewellery — bought a Stairmaster the week before she died.”
    “See? Not just attractive. Worked at it.”
    “So we’re after a killer who hates women because they treat themselves to a few niceties? Come on.” As soon as he’d uttered the statement, Kearns realized where Fuentes was going.
    “Maybe the killer sees these women as selfish.”
    Kearns let the idea settle, then nodded. “Could be something there.”
    “Abducted on different days of the week,” Fuentes continued, “on average once a month since April. It’s like some bizarre menstrual cycle. ’Cept he missed his period in May.”
    Kearns nodded. It was thought that some serial killers operated on a kind of hormonal timetable. “Kept the women alive for three to eight days. And no one anywhere reported hearing any screams.”
    “Not yet, anyway. The women bled to death either in silence or in isolation. Where’s he getting the anticoagulants?”
    “We’ve been through that,” Kearns said, frustrated. “No report of theft from any of the hospitals or pharmacies.”
    “He could have access — he could be a doc. Or work in a drugstore.”
    “Or, like you and me, visits his local hardware store for a supply of water-soluble rat poison.” Kearns changed tack. “Why were victims’ bodies dropped or made to roll downhill?” This was a new twist, something neither had thought of. “Natalie Gorman was
displayed
in a fountain. Ironic, considering her profession. The only body not toppled from some height. But what if the killer hadn’t intended to leave her there? Maybe he planned to drop her down the Filbert Street steps.”
    “Or the Greenwich Street steps.” Fuentes’s eyes lit up. Both sets of stairs led from the Coit Tower parking lot. The Spiderman had been successful in dumping Lydia Price on the opposite side.
    “But something went wrong.”
    “The Filbert steps are narrow,” offered Fuentes. “Body wouldn’t roll far without getting stuck. Not the effect he’d be going for.”
    “Too many houses near the Greenwich stairs. Lots of picture windows,” Kearns recalled, having scouted the area after Price’s death. “He’d be seen. So he drives around to the bottom of the hill and leaves her in Levi Plaza.”
    Fuentes’s index fingers tapped rhythmically at his temples. “What would that do to you, Jimmy,” he said, clearly agitated, “if you were a killer, a stylist with a plan, a vision, and you had to settle for something less than your best …”
    “I’d be pissed off,” Kearns said simply. “I’d plan the next one better, cruise around for a perfect spot, make sure the act, from beginning to end, fulfilled my fantasy.”
    “Right. And if this guy’s sticking to schedule, we better get our shit together. It’s already October. Can’t afford to let his homicidal PMS kick in again.”
    “Time to get back to the phones and follow up on our countless leads, you know, the ones we keep telling everyone we have.” He heard the bitterness in his own voice. Kearns didn’t relish another chunk of time spent calling crackpots, but he was fresh out of creative alternatives. He felt the energy drain from him, fatigue settling on him like a wet shroud. “Like we’re not busy enough,” he added, “now I find out there’s another nut on the loose.”
    “Yeah? Where?”
    “Someone’s writing nasty letters to Beth Wells. Signs ’em ‘the Spiderman.’”
    “And?”
    “So I had to check it out.”
    “Personally? Why not send one of the plebes?”
    “She’s a nice lady, Manny. A … friend. And she was freaked out.”
    Fuentes removed his feet from Kearns’s desk, his expression full of concern.
    “What’s that look?” Kearns asked.
    “Listen,” Fuentes began, “don’t take my head off. One, the Spiderman’s huge news. Two, you’re the big cheese at the centre of the investigation, a local celebrity. Three, Beth Wells wouldn’t be the first woman to fall for a big, strong heroic type like