The Tower

The hoe broke, sending splinters of wood scattering across the floor, and a group of people rushed past Jade, almost knocking him over. They surrounded Alex protectively, as they had on the lawn. Ms. Perkins was back, leading the charge. Jade resisted a smile as he thought about the reception she must have received from the agency men inside. Trying to run into a crime scene after an imaginary girl.

Her nostrils flared angrily and her hands were clenched. For a moment, Jade thought she might strike him. "This is entirely unacceptable," she said. "You will hear from our legal department, Mr. Marlow."

"You keep me away from that asshole," Alex yelled over her shoulder.

"You are not to see him again," she continued.

"That's fine," Jade said. "I don't need to." As Jade headed back to the house, the group remained huddled together in the shed as though they'd been caught in a storm.

Alex was a tough little bastard, Jade thought. After witnessing his own father's murder, he wasn't in shock. And that was the least of it. He was a fighter. Of course, he was extremely upset, but he wasn't the kind of kid to fold right away. He reminded Jade of himself at that age.

Jade bet it would have been difficult for Allander to keep full control over Alex. The whimpering brats at the first house weren't worth Allander's time. But he would have viewed Alex as a challenge. And Allander loved rising to challenges.

Jade stepped back through the sliding doors into the family room. The bloody letters on the window partially blocked the light shining through, causing it to fall unevenly across the room. He stared at the iron tangled around the woman's feet. It was covered with blood and wisps of hair.

Allander had had time to plan, but he hadn't brought any weapons to the crime scene. Again, they had been taken from the house. An iron, a shotgun, two knives. He was striking the family from within, killing them with their own tools. It was another way to show a family's repression and hypocrisy. All the tools for self-destruction lay behind their very own doors.

One of the forensics agents worked on the mother's body. He withdrew a swab from the corpse's vagina. "Looks like he didn't rape her," he said loudly to no one in particular.

Jade looked down at her and grimaced. "Would you?" he asked.

"That's completely inappropriate and unprofessional," Travers yelled from across the room. "Even for you, Marlow."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. He's a totally different animal. We shouldn't think like him," he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. "Let's hold him at arm's length while we try to run him down. Good thinking."

The forensics agents stopped mid-procedure and looked at one another uncomfortably. Jade sensed their unease and realized that his and Travers's tempers ran a lot hotter than he thought. It took a lot to make these guys uncomfortable.

"I just don't think of contemplated rape as casual conversation," Travers shot back.

Jade gestured to the surroundings. "Good. Then look around, sweetheart, 'cause this isn't a place for casual conversation. If we're gonna get to him, we're gonna have to think in ways that aren't pretty."

"I'm well aware of that, Marlow. You're not the only agent in town with field experience. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop talking to me like I'm two steps out of Quantico."

"Fair enough," Jade said. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop talking."

The same controlled anger that he had noticed at the meeting at FBI headquarters flashed behind her eyes. They faced each other across the woman's corpse, which looked up at them blankly.

"The weapons," she said. "Taken from the house. They're not a choice for power, not like Berkowitz's forty-four."

Jade nodded. "So where does he derive his power?"

"From the actions themselves. From a prolonged sense of control."

"But he doesn't enjoy the usual intimacy with the victims. Doesn't track them, lure them, keep them alive and savor them. Why not?"

"Because he's self-aware. He's committing patricides and matricides, but they're very conscious. He's not displacing. He knows he's implicating his parents. He knows his killings are symbolic-even illustrations of Freudian thought. That's why he thinks he's so much smarter than other killers. His killings don't divulge who he is. They affirm who he is. They're part of his self-definition."

"Bravo," Jade said. His tone was so genuine that Travers didn't even find him condescending. "And that's probably why he leaves the bodies in the house. The killings are about the family and home. But even though he's highly conscious of what he's doing and how he's going about it, it still doesn't put him that much ahead of us. He can't help himself. He acts as if he's leading us along, but that's only because he doesn't want to admit just how much he loves this. How much he needs it."

"How do you know?"