Miles Hook had gone home for the night, but Sweeny just had not been able to pull himself away from the files. The more he read the more disturbed he became. He knew that there was no way he was going to get much sleep after reading about this psychopath's work, so he just kept plugging away. Miles had cautioned him that he would not be able to do much without a clear head. A clear head is only attained by getting the much needed rest for an exhausted mind, but Sweeny just couldn't stop. The more he learned about this man that James referred to as the wraith, the more upset he grew.
He simply could not handle the thought that somebody this sick and twisted was running loose in his city. He was supposed to be a good homicide detective, and yet one of the most depraved killers of all time was roaming his backyard freely. A lot of people had died by this man's hands, and if Sweeny did not do anything about it, a lot more people would die. Not only would they lose their lives, they would lose them in such a horrendous fashion that Sweeny felt ill just to think about it.
The senator had been one of the lucky ones. Apparently the killer had been more concerned with stealth at the time than putting the politician through as much torment as possible. At least that is what the autopsy report said. The cause of death had been determined to be a bullet fired from a gun fitted with a sound suppressor. The autopsy did not determine that the gun had been fitted with a sound suppressor; it was just that in spite of a number of shots having been fired that night, nobody in the hotel had heard gunfire. That added to the theory that stealth had been of a higher priority than pain. This was most likely because the wraith had wanted to have as much time as he needed to make out the display of the senators insides.
The other victims generally had not fared nearly so well. In a number of cases, the cause of death had not been readily determined due to the overwhelming number of potential causes. It was as if this man considered himself to be an artist and torture was his medium. There had been people that he had literally ripped apart using ropes and pulleys. There had been people that he had crushed one bone at a time.
The paths that each victim took on their way to death were almost all different, so it took the FBI a long time to assign them all to the same person. Having the advantage of looking at all the files together, Sweeny could see the pattern they had eventually recognized. Every single one of his victims had some sort of message that came with their death. Generally it was a hot button political issue and stirred up a hornet's nest in its wake. This supported Sweeny's theory that the guy was an anarchist, especially since a number of the messages he sent were contradictory to each other.
One death would have an anti-abortion message and another would declare pro-choice. One death would be against gay marriage and another would be a statement about the rights of two people who love each other to exchange vows. One death would declare the need for health care reform and then another would support maintaining the current system. All of the deaths were ingeniously convincing. The different sides of the issues were instantly fighting with each other and nobody gave thought to the fact that somebody might be in the middle, stirring things up.
The other thing that all the deaths had in common was that they were all excessively morbid. Nobody was merely killed in order to send out these messages. They were all savagely destroyed. The first responders to these scenes often found themselves losing the contents of their stomachs in spite of the fact that they had been around death for a long time. There was death, and then there was what the wraith did to people, both before and after their demise.
This was what had really clued the FBI to contact Miles Hook and get him involved in Sweeny's case. The level of brutality that all of the victims had undergone was part and parcel with the killer they had been pursuing for quite some time. Since it seemed that these killings were of a more personal nature and all centered around one location, which also happened to be where the killer got his start, it seemed as if they had a good chance of finally bringing this man to justice.
The wraith did not realize it, but he had slipped the noose over his own neck when he had decided to target James Harper. He was doing too much killing in one area. In the past, he had struck all over the place with no particular pattern. Now he was keeping himself in one location, and the dragnet was moving in on him. As long as James remained alive, they had a chance of getting their hands on this man.
This raised another issue in Sweeny's mind. James had requested protection, but he had told the young man that this could not just be thrown at him over his word alone. After the recent events, the detective had been thinking about giving him that protection after all, but he had been hesitant. Now he was even more hesitant to do so. He needed to dangle James out like a carrot for the wraith. He had felt that this was a necessary evil before he had known the full scope of the man's deeds. Now that he realized just how big this was, he could not afford to lose this man by taking James off the menu.
The phone rang and jolted Sweeny out of his contemplations. He looked at it, and then at the clock. It was getting late, or rather early. The clock let him know how long he had really been at this. It was seventeen minutes after midnight. A rather strange time to be receiving calls. Sweeny couldn't help but scratch at the side of his face as he picked up the phone.
"Sweeny." He said gruffly. Anybody calling this late at night did not need anything resembling a formality.
"Detective Sweeny, what a delight it is to speak to you." A familiar, yet disturbingly strange voice said sweetly into his ear.
"James?" Sweeny asked. "Why are you calling so late?"
"Ah, I see the imposter has you fooled as well." The voice laughed into the speaker with scorn. "No, I am not James. At least I am not the James that you know. Tell me, what do you know me as? The Thrasher, or something equally as lame?"
"No, we refer to you as the psychopath." Sweeny said, cluing into who he was really talking to. He wished that he could get a trace on the call, but there was nobody to signal for this. He was the only person here damn it. Of course, why would this man be calling if he was not confident that no trace could be established? "Sometimes we call you the wraith because that is how James described you."
"The wraith?" The voice laughed again. "Now that is truly impressive. It is almost as if your little boy James is telepathic. Just between you and me, that is exactly how I refer to myself. So now, detective, how may Wraith serve you?"
"For starters you can turn yourself in." Sweeny grumbled. This man was toying with him and he knew it. Cocky little shit. "I promise I will only break a few of your bones if you take this option. Otherwise, I cannot promise anything."
"Tut tut. That is hardly what I would call an offer I can't refuse." Wraith said. "I have a different idea. I will continue to kill whoever I please whenever I please, and you will stay out of my way. If you do not take this option, well, I can't promise that I won't end up displaying you in a similar fashion to your buddy Detective Anderson."
"Listen here you son of a bitch, I am going to find you, and when I do I am going to shove my gun halfway down your throat before I pull the trigger." Sweeny spat into the phone. He did not like letting this creep know that he was getting to him, but he could not help it. He forced himself to calm down even though he could hear laughing on the other end of the line. "While I have you on the phone, how about you answer some questions for me?"
"An interrogation? How exciting. Go ahead and ask. I may just humor you with an answer or two." Wraith said while grinning from ear to ear. This was fun.
"I see that you like to send out messages with your victims." Sweeny said carefully. He did not want Wraith to know that the FBI was involved in this as well. "I understand the message you sent out with the deaths of the golfers, and I realize the significance of the hands over James' mother's mouth. She obviously knew something that you did not want him to know. I don't suppose that you would tell me what that was?"
"No."
"I didn't think so." Sweeny said. "What I would like to know, however, was the significance of the way you displayed poor detective Anderson."
"I suppose I can oblige that." Wraith answered. "It just so happens that he died while making love to my girlfriend. I, therefore, had to remove his penis. It would not do to let him keep that after he had it inside of her. His eyes had seen her naked body and therefore needed to be removed as well. His legs had carried him through her front door so they could not remain attached. His hands had touched her body, but I did not remove them simply because they needed to be fixed on the steering wheel in the proper place. He was a member of law enforcement after all. It wouldn't be proper to have a policeman without his hands at ten and two."
"Okay, I can understand all of this." Sweeny said. "I may not agree with your methods, but I suppose there is a certain meaning to it. But none of this answers why you removed his insides and placed them in the car with him."
"Mostly that was just for fun." Wraith said. "You see, I have always wanted to dissect somebody while my girlfriend made love to the corpse. After I was finished, I did not see any point is keeping his innards, so I gave them back. I hope you'll understand that I did not want to take the time to put them back inside him."
"One more thing." Sweeny said. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Talking to me."
"Simple. I wanted to have some fun." Wraith said. "You do not have a shot in hell of stopping me. I have eluded much better men than you. After I hang up, I know that you are going to go insane trying to figure out how you are going to be the one to bring me down. I like that idea. By the way, tell special agent Hook hello for me. Goodnight."