On the other side of the guarded door I could hear a muted voice. At first I thought it was two people talking at once, then as Norris cracked the door I realized it was one voice speaking at an impossibly fast speed. It sounded like an auctioneer on crack.

I glanced at Brueger. She stepped by me and pushed the door open all the way. Inside was a plain gray room with a table. There were two empty chairs and a small, skinny man sitting on the other side, handcuffed, his lips moving like a hummingbird’s wings. His face was long and thin with a bizarre patch of hair right on top of his pointed head. He wore tan old-man pants and a red short-sleeved shirt. His arms were covered with either freckles or age spots.

He stared straight ahead at his own reflection in the two-way mirror. If he knew we were there, he gave no indication.

“That’s all he does,” Brueger said. “Any clue what the hell language he’s speaking?”

I listened to the furious babble of the skinny man for a second and then glanced at Norris. The language, if you want to call it that, reminded me of the speed-English ghouls spoke in when they talked to each other. This was different. Brueger noticed me looking at the ghoul-cop. I quickly looked away. I knew how hard it was for the dead to blend with the living. I didn’t want to blow his cover.

“Are you recording this?” I asked Brueger.

She nodded.

“Show me.”

I followed Brueger to the room on the other side of the mirror. Inside a female officer, human, monitored the recording equipment set up on the table. Brueger introduced us quickly and then handed me off.

“You noticed the rhythm?” I asked.

The female cop nodded. “Yeah, whatever it is, he’s saying it over and over.”

“Have you tried playing it backward?”

The female cop looked at me and turned as red as I’ve ever seen someone turn.

“No sir,” she said.

I smiled. I wasn’t trying to show her up. Sometimes the simplest fixes are the last ones you try.

After a couple clicks on her keyboard, the cop played a piece of the skinny man’s babble backward. The voice was strange, high-pitched, but it was English.

As we listened to the excerpt I stared at the suspect through the glass.

“. . . I killed them all and took their skin to my house on Moorpark right at the corner of Ponca. Tell me if you like what I did. I worked very hard. . . .”

That was it. The same strange phrase over and over. Why he had blurted out my name was anybody’s guess, but my guess was he was a fan. That’s what I called the freaks who came after me since I’d become better known for doing what I do.