I returned to the house about an hour later with the case and a promise from Brueger to leave me to my work. She said I could use their computers if I needed them. I told her I probably wouldn’t need them. Computers gave me a rash. But I might need her to make some calls for me. She agreed, but only if I kept her up to date on any progress. Whatever.

I made a gallon of coffee and downed some speed to get in the studying mood. It was some low-grade meth, probably made in some redneck’s basement in West Virginia. I swore to myself, speed was next on the quit list. I was getting too old to be doing hard stuff. One of these days my heart was just going to explode.

Once my scalp started to itch like it was covered with ants, I began combing through the files. The bodies had all been found on or near a jogging/walking path that ran through Runyon Park. They had all been killed the same way, and this was strange.

They had been drowned.

Runyon Park was as dry as a bone.

The medical examiner guessed they had been held under in a small pool of water such as a bathtub or even a large pan. Bruises found on three of the victims were on the backs of their necks from being forced into the water. The killer was strong. Either that or the victims trusted the killer.

There were no signs of sexual assault on any of them, no signs of robbery. If anything, the bodies were treated with extreme care. They were killed for whatever dark reason the killer had in mind, but something told me it wasn’t motivated by rage or hate. There was an odd sense of caring surrounding these jigsaw women.

Brueger’s report was good. It was solid. Everything seemed to be there. I doubted the Feds could do any better. I kept reading.

The victims had been cut apart and sewn together with surprising expertise, and this is where the case took the leap into weirdness that I needed: on all but one of the bodies, autopsy results showed that not only had the flesh of the bodies been put back together, but the bones and nerves had been, or attempted to be, fused together.

This was pretty advanced, sophisticated stuff. The killer was not only sewing, but doing considerably difficult surgery. I’ve had plenty of cases where some twisted fuck tried to make his own love doll out of dead bodies. Usually the flesh was bonded, but not much else. These women had everything mended; nerves, veins, bones. The works. They were being built to work.

I didn’t want to admit it; it looked like I had a mad genius on my hands, and what I call a Franken-Case.