“No,” Alex responded immediately. “Our suspect’s a killer. That already makes him or her a member of an extremely small percentage of the human population. And a double murderer who’s not a sexual sadist predator falls into an even smaller percentage of an already small percentage. So again, who is this asshole? Because right now, we’re not understanding this killer. And yet, he, she or it is getting to us just fine.”

D.D. thought she knew what her husband meant. “I paid a visit to a funeral home today,” she spoke up. “Thinking along the same lines, that we’re investigating a predator who commits incredibly macabre murders, except he doesn’t seem that interested in the actual killing part. It’s the postmortem mutilation that appears to drive him. Which made me think of someone who might feel more comfortable with dead people than living people, which made me think of people who work at funeral homes.”

“The Norman Bates syndrome,” Neil murmured from the love seat.

“Yeah. Except, when I interviewed the embalmer, he emphasized that successful funeral home directors excel at empathy. Not exactly how I’d describe our killer.”

Neil sighed, sat up. “Much like you, I’ve spent the day contemplating necrophilia.”

“This from the guy who spends all his time in the morgue,” D.D. muttered.

Neil scowled, clearly not in the mood. “Here’s the thing. On the one hand, our killer seems most comfortable with his victims postmortem. On the other hand . . . he or she or whatever is still not that into them. No sexual assault. Meaning by definition he’s not a necrophiliac—which just for the record, once again does not exclude our perpetrator being female. I ran across five or six case histories of female necrophiliacs just to ensure my research was icky enough.”

“Industry has a number of female embalmers, too,” D.D. added. “Just saying.”

“Meaning back to Alex’s point,” Neil continued. “We have two dead bodies and still no idea what’s driving these crimes. If these aren’t murders of pain, passion or punishment, what are they?”

“I think I might know the answer to that one,” D.D. said. “Given the lack of pain and punishment, I think it’s fair to say our killer isn’t driven by bloodlust. I think, in fact, our killer is not that into killing at all. Instead, he, she, it, may be driven by compulsion. Say a deep-seated desire to add to a very unique, very personal private collection.”

“What kind of collection?” Phil asked.

“Strips of human skin.”

The room fell quiet. Then Neil made a face. “Ed Gein, anyone?” he muttered.

Now everyone grimaced; Ed Gein was a notorious serial killer who’d once made a lampshade from human skin.