Listen, Marx might be a jackass, but Lindo's good. A lot of the people working on this thing are good. Either way, that old man had the book. He was all over that book. You can't forget that.

She was right. Either way, Lionel Byrd had an album of photographs that could only have been taken by a person or persons at the scene when the murders were committed. A book and pictures Byrd and only Byrd had touched.

Starkey, let me ask you something. What do you make of the pictures?

As in, what do I think the pictures mean or why do I think he took them?

Both, I guess. What kind of person takes pictures like this?

She leaned on the rail, staring out at the canyon. Starkey wasn't a trained psychologist, but she had spent a large part of her time at CCS profiling bomb cranks. The people who built improvised explosive devices tended to be serial offenders. Understanding their compulsions had helped her build cases.

She said, Most of these guys, they'll take hair or a piece of jewelry or maybe some clothes as a way of reliving the rush. But pictures are a deeper commitment.

What do you mean?

These women were murdered in semi-public places. He didn't take them into the desert or some soundproof basement somewhere. They were killed in parking lots or near busy streets or in parks where someone could happen by. Grabbing an earring or a handful of hair is easy you grab it and run but he had to stick around to take the pictures. He chose high-risk locations to make his kills, then increased the risk by staying to take a picture when someone might see the flash.

Maybe he was just stupid.

Starkey laughed.

I think he got off on the complexity. He was tempting fate by taking the pictures, and each time he got away with it he probably felt omnipotent, the same way bomb cranks feel strong through their bombs. The rush isn't so much the actual killing it's the getting away with it.

Okay.

Did Lindo talk to you about the composition?

I shook my head. Lindo hadn't mentioned the composition, and I hadn't thought about it. The pictures had all looked pretty much the same to me.

A picture isn't a part of the experience like a more traditional trophy it's a composition outside of the experience. The photographer chooses the angle. He chooses what will be in the picture, and what won't. If the picture is a world, then the photographer is the god of that world. This dude got off by being God. He needed to take the pictures because he needed to be God.

I couldn't see Lionel Byrd feeling like a god, but maybe that was the point. I tried to imagine him stalking these women with the clunky, out-of-date camera, but I couldn't picture him with the camera, either.