“This was a rage-filled, frenzied attack,” Bogan said, producing a knife. “This knife is similar to the one used in the homicide. Now, here’s the thing. You see, many homicides involve a struggle. Attackers can be injured, too: blood splashes, things get slippery.” He gripped the knife. “The attacker hits bone, it stops the blade suddenly, and the hand gripping the handle slips onto the blade. I’ll show you.” Bogan demonstrated with his hand, sliding down the blade, then tracing with a pen the spot on his palm where his wound would be. “It’s called self-wounding. Hold out your palm, Jeff.”

Jeff hesitated, then held out his palm, showing the now-faded cut on his right palm in the same area as Bogan’s pen mark.

“You said you cut yourself slicing an apple,” Bogan said. “But you can see how our version of your self-wounding is consistent with the homicide.”

“Jeff,” Reddick said, “maybe you didn’t mean for things to turn out the way they did, but—this is where it gets worse—we’re investigating some other homicides that Agent Morrow here will tell you about.”

Case by case, while showing Jeff photos from her tablet, Morrow recounted The Collector murders, beginning with the first in Pittsburgh and ending with the most recent prior to Miami, the case of Maylene Marie Siler in Cleveland.

“We checked with Asgaard-T-Chace, had them go through records,” Morrow said. “And with the warrants, we also reached back over the years into your credit-card and bank-card records. Jeff, we can put you in most of the locations within the time frame of the other attacks.”

Jeff stared at the photos of Vida Warren, the images of the other murders, then the investigators.

Morrow was not finished. “We’ve recently learned from Cleveland PD and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department that the woman murdered in metropolitan Cleveland used illicit drugs for a time and once shared the same supplier as Vida Warren and the two women met at a party attended by people known to you.”

She looked into Jeff’s eyes.

“You see where we’re going with this, Jeff,” she said. “A little six degrees of separation. You resided in Cleveland at the time Siler disappeared. Then you moved—or should we say fled—Cleveland for South Florida. But Vida Warren, with all her problems, followed you, bringing your monstrous past with her.”

Bogan shoved a stick of gum into his mouth, then tapped the most gruesome photo of Vida’s savaged corpse.

“That left you with no choice, Jeff.”

83

In the same complex where Jeff was being held, Perez continued his work in the Crime Scene Investigations Identification Section.

He was endeavoring to separate the overlapping prints on Loften’s serrated knife, a difficult process.

Perez was under pressure because FBI investigators needed to compare every print Miami-Dade had collected with the partial print left by The Collector in the Kentucky attack.