A Cruel Season for Dying by Harker Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

denotative
     meaning. ‘
Kasyade. Jeqon
.’” Whelan literally sang the words.
    Sakura waited.
    “The
sound
of the words, Lieutenant. Perhaps it is the sound and not the meaning that is important. Especially if the words are attached
     to some ritual.”
    Sakura placed a folder next to the black-and-white shots of the walls. Although Whelan had been informed that his visit was
     connected with the recent homicides, he’d purposely withheld the photographs of the victims’ bodies. Now he opened the file
     and slid color prints of the two murdered men toward the language expert.
    The reaction was surprise, as though the professor were wondering if the range of human behavior could support such conduct.
     He frowned. “What besides murder is this man doing?” Then in answer to his own question, he blurted out, “Why, the devil’s
     making angels!”
    The cell phone sounded in Sakura’s jacket. He fished it out, flipped open the case. “Sakura,” he responded.
    “We just found number three.” Kelly’s voice in his ear.

    There was less street activity than might have been expected in front of an apartment building where murder had been committed
     only hours before. A single patrol car and a crime lab van stood parked near the curb. The uniformed officer who’d remained
     outside turned as an unmarked sedan pulled up, stopping in midstreet.
    The man standing outside the corner bistro watched as a tall figure exited from the front seat, holding a badge aloft, his
     identity obvious from media reports. In the failing sunlight his skin shone with the pale translucency of Asian flesh, his
     thinness lightly masked by a navy top-coat he’d worn against an afternoon grown blustery and colder. His black hair was stylishly
     cut, his eyes intent under delicate slashes of dark brow.
    There was an elegant deliberateness, a sense of concentrated intelligence that marked the detective’s actions. One leather-gloved
     hand pinned the badge to his coat, then reached to tame a maroon tie carelessly blown against the plane of his starched white
     shirt. He glanced over his shoulder briefly, then turned his attention to the entrance of the building.
    The man watched the detective mount the steps, his focus already moving into the interior, to what lay in the bedroom upstairs.
     Murder had thrice been committed. He had upped the ante on Lieutenant James Sakura.

    The third victim’s apartment, like the others, showed no evidence of a break-in. Sakura entered, thinking that there was terrible
     irony in serial murder. With each death came another layer of impressions, a new set of clues. Hope that at last there would
     be something that would lead to the killer. Yet nothing seemed different in Westlake’s apartment, except for
BARAKEL
written above the bed.
    The meticulous order of the bedroom was the same. So was the nude body, the wings splayed like blades of scissors. As with
     the first two victims, there was that quality that seemed to transcend death. He searched for something to ground the scene.
     But nothing could anchor what was in this room to any world he understood. Westlake’s features were relaxed, almost beatific,
     seeming to welcome what must have been a horrific death. The nude body appeared genderless, sterile, unviolated in what was
     usually a sexually motivated crime.
    Sakura reminded himself that the grotesque tableau was a map to the killer’s mind, a reaffirmation that the murderer himself
     was a kind of victim, a slave to the complex fantasy that was driving him to do the things that he did. He stilled his own
     mind, reducing his focus to the key questions: What had taken place here? Why had it happened the way it had? Who would have
     committed these crimes for these reasons?
    One of the techs, emerging from the bathroom with the black light, interrupted his thoughts.
    “The guy’s real careful, Lieutenant. He’s not taking off the gloves. But I think he might have spent some time in the john