The Night Serpent. Anna Leonard

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СКАЧАТЬ it was that he did, it meant a great deal to him. She admired that.

      “Animal abuse is—it’s one of the things we’re taught to look for in the background of suspects. I’m working on a particular theory that, if I can prove it, could lead us to a way to identify and stop potential killers. So, if a police department reports a notable case of animal abuse it pings on my radar. If there are certain elements to the case, I follow up.”

      “Certain elements?” The waiter came with her glass of wine and his soda. Lily nodded her thanks, but kept her attention on Patrick.

      “A level of ferocity, or indications of repetition. Something that suggests escalation.”

      “That whoever it is, is getting ready to move on to something bigger,” she guessed. “Like humans.”

      “Exactly. Abuse, especially of cats, is considered one of the ‘terrible triad,’of indicators that’s often found in the background of a serial killer. That, and arson, are historically two of the major warning signs of serial killers before they turn to human targets. It’s almost as though they’re trying to vent themselves on weaker beings, or—by some theories—are working up their nerve to go to the next level. Nobody really knows for certain. It’s an inexact science.”

      Lily was horrified, but fascinated. Everyone knew about serial killers, of course—even if you never watched the nightly news, you had to have heard of Silence of the Lambs. But she had never realized that there was a pattern, or a science, to it. Or that cats were so very much a target.

      “And you try to find them before then. But how do you know that they’re going to go to people next?”

      “I don’t. Most of the time they don’t, either. But if I can stop them before that line is crossed, that’s all that matters. Law enforcement isn’t all about punishment. It’s about being a deterrent, too.”

      She nodded. It made sense. “So this one incident brought you out here?”

      He hesitated, taking a sip of his soda before responding. “No. Not the one. This goes no further than this table, Lily.” He paused until she nodded her agreement. “Three years ago in the next town, there was a couple of scattered cases—cats being cut open and left, like some kind of sacrifice. By itself, that’s nothing, unfortunately. Wannabe Satanists, or just one kid with a cruel streak, or even a budding coroner who wanted to start small. They wouldn’t even have been entered in the system, except there was a small media fuss.

      “And that was nothing, until now. The reason they called me is that here have been two incidents prior to this in the past two months. All involving cats. All young males. None of them quite so…formalized as today’s offering. Whoever this guy is, assuming it’s the same guy from three years ago—he’s working out a pattern that satisfied him. If it was him three years ago…he’s on an evolving scale, an escalating one. And that’s a major danger sign.”

      “So you think…” She shuddered involuntarily. “You think we have a baby serial killer right here in Newfield?”

      She’d had nightmares about that; not often, maybe three or four times, but unlike most of her dreams they tended to stay with her even after she woke: of women dying, one after another, in terribly bloody ways. She hated those dreams, all the more so for never being able to figure out what caused them or how to prevent them.

      “No.” He shook his head, almost as though he regretted that lack of serial killerage. “The indicators I’ve seen so far suggest that he hasn’t crossed that line. I’m not sure that’s the direction he’s going in, either. His pattern is…Different. Odd. Intriguing.”

      Lily cocked her head and studied him. “You find strange things intriguing, Agent Patrick.”

      He accepted the jab with self-aware good humor. “Nature of the job, Ms. Malkin.”

      The conversation was interrupted by the delivery of their meals, and the resulting pause to sort things out.

      “No,” he said again once they started eating. “I don’t think he’s a serial killer. The specifics line up—cats, violence, repetition. That’s what pinged on my radar. But seeing it—the feel of it is all wrong.”

      “Intriguing?”

      “To a person with my background, yes. Serial killers have a variety of reasons for acting the way they do, by their standards. The files—” and he made a gesture with his fork to the file at his side “—the first two cases, and now this one, they don’t show the kind of…passion normal to a serial killer’s buildup. This was…”

      “Restrained.”

      He looked at her with surprised respect. “Yeah.”

      Lily didn’t know why she had said that, but when she thought about it, it was true. The violence had been contained, the cats carefully tended, the scene almost designed, like a stage set…

      Going back there made her insides queasy again, so she changed the subject. “So what’s the third thing? You said there was a—terrible triad? You said two, so what’s the third?”

      “Bed-wetting.”

      Lily stared at him. “Bed-wetting.”

      “It shows up often enough in established serial killers that it’s considered an indicator, yes.”

      She wasn’t going to laugh. It wasn’t funny. “But not a crime.”

      “No, not a crime. We don’t investigate anyone on the basis of soiled linens.”

      “I’m not laughing,” she told him.

      “Nobody ever does,” he assured her, his dark eyes creased around the edges with humor. “Joking is frowned on in the FBI.”

      Lily ate a few bites of her veal, letting the moment pass intentionally, and then looked up at her companion. “All right. You said you wanted to ask me something about the case. About the cats?”

      He took a bite of his own ziti, chewed and swallowed before responding. Good table manners, she noted. Another point in his favor, were she keeping any sort of list. Which she wasn’t.

      “Yeah. About the cattery that you said he had. You work in a shelter—it looks like you have a full house there?”

      “Always. Females, unless they’re fixed, breed regularly even when they have kittens already. Even if you could stop every stray from breeding tomorrow, there would be more cats in shelters than we could ever find homes for.”

      Lily felt guilt once again for not adopting one or two of her own. She had the room, and Lord knew she had gotten over her fear…but something held her back from bringing them into her own home. She still needed that distance, the place to retreat to, in case things went wrong.

      “So why was he breeding them, if there are so many out there to adopt?”

      “For color.” No hesitation in her mind now, not after what Patrick had told her. “He—we’re assuming a he?”

      “For now.”

      “All right. He used spotted tabbies with white paws, all seven of them. The cats before, they СКАЧАТЬ