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It was nine in the morning and Sweeny's eyes were bloodshot from the lack of sleep. It seemed almost as if sleep had become something foreign to him ever since Wraith had decided to make his life a living hell. Like it was some sort of abstract thought that could not quite be brought into focus. He had been up all night searching for Wraith's latest victims. Every available patrol car had been sent out to look for bodies and get people off the streets. It was almost as if they had locked down the town.
So far they had found four murdered women. Susan Beatty had been found with her head completely removed and placed in the goal of a soccer net at Canyon View Park. The rest of her body had been laid spread eagle and naked in the center of the field. One of her shoes had been shoved into her open neck and the other one and been inserted into her rear end. It had not been a pretty picture by any means, but at least it was not as thorough of a massacre as Wraith typically performed.
Heather Mayfield was found suspended by her intestines from the monkey bars of Nisley Elementary School. She too had been stripped of all her clothing. It seemed to be a theme with Wraith. The only reason that identifying the women had been so easy was that Wraith had left their clothes nearby in piles with their identification on top. It was as if he was trying to make it easier for the police. Taunting them was what he really was doing. He did not care if they knew who he had killed or who had done it.
Jessica Sanders had been an awful one. Wraith had taken her to a subdivision that was being constructed in Clifton and used the sheep's foot compactor to roll over the top half of her body after shoving a shovel handle so deep inside her vagina that only the head protruded out. Sweeny had not seen the autopsy report, but he suspected that Wraith had inserted the handle before he killed her by crushing her with the large roller. Not much had been left of her upper body, but identification had been easy due to the bundle of clothes.
Samantha Shears was the last one that had been discovered. Apparently Wraith decided to take her last name a little too literally. He had broken into a sheet metal shop and used their industrial shears to slice her to pieces. None of the patrol officers had found her. It was the owner of the shop that had come to open up in the morning that had stumbled onto this little treat. Sweeny was not sure if the man was ever going to stop vomiting. He really did not seem to have the stomach for that kind of thing. Not that anybody really had the stomach for what Wraith did to his victims.
That meant that the only two victims that Sweeny knew about that had not been found yet were Kate and Katie. It seemed somewhat ironic that they should be last since their names were essentially the same. With Wraith's need for chaos, Sweeny was actually surprised that he had been willing to kill two women with the same name on the same night. But then he did say that they were not at all the same in appearance. Sweeny rubbed his tired eyes and looked across his desk at an equally tired Miles Hook.
"Do you think he stopped with the Kate’s?" He asked, reaching for a half empty cup of coffee.
"Hard to say." Miles said. "Just because he called you when he was about to kill the second one, doesn't mean that he decided to stop there. But then again, you put the town on lockdown mode right after you got off the phone, so he may have had a hard time getting another victim."
"Wraith doesn't have a hard time with anything." Sweeny said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he walked right in here, shot one of our officers in the head and walked right out again without repercussions."
"I think that may be a little extreme even for him." Miles said. His eyes were still intensely green in spite of how tired he appeared to be. He had not been up with Sweeny all night in search of murder victims, but it looked like the investigation had still been taking its toll on him. Obviously he had not been getting a lot of sleep lately either. When he had joined up with the detective in the early morning hours, he looked as if he had been drug through hell and back.
"You need to get some rest." Sweeny said, looking at his friend with genuine concern.
"I think that would be the proverbial pot calling the kettle black." Miles replied. "Have you seen yourself? I bet you haven't gotten more than a couple hours worth of sleep in the last couple of days. How do you expect to catch our boy when you can't keep your eyes open?"
"How do you expect to help me when you can't either?" Sweeny responded.
"Touché." Miles said. "So what are we going to do now?"
"Keep looking." Sweeny said. "It really is the only thing that we can do. Keep looking for the victims. Keep looking for Wraith. Keep looking to see if James is somehow able to leave his apartment without being seen by our officers watching his place. I hate to say it, but right now Wraith has us by the balls. Until we find a way to get to him, we are stuck waiting and watching."
"Those files I gave you don't give you any of your famous insights, huh?" Miles asked.
"They give me plenty of insight into what drives him to kill, but they are not helpful other than that." Sweeny said. "In fact, they make me think that getting my hands around his neck is going to be extremely hard. He is not predictable. He can strike anywhere for any reason or just vanish off the scene for a long time. He is not limited to time or money. He has no addictions that he must feed. He does not have any close friends that could give us an upper hand on him. The only person we know of that has had any sort of connection to him got her throat slit by some glass."
"Maybe that is our angle. Maybe this April woman can give us a clue without actually speaking to us." Miles said.
"What on earth are you talking about?" Sweeny asked tiredly.
"We haven't gone to her place yet." Miles pointed out. "She might have had something that we could use. Maybe she had a way of contacting him. Maybe we could get our hands on some of his DNA finally. He seems to be able to go about on his killing sprees without leaving any sort of trace. He might not have been on his guard around somebody of a similar mindset."
"Jesus, why the hell haven't I thought of that?" Sweeny smacked himself in the forehead. "I guess I really am too tired. That should have been at the forefront of my mind on a case like this."
"So you want to go check it out?" Miles asked, reaching for his jacket.
"Let's go." Sweeny said as he stood up. "We sure as hell aren't doing anybody any good by sitting around here. If it looks like we might have something, we can send for a forensic team to come and tear the place apart. Hot damn, Miles. I think you just might be on to something."
"We can always hope." Miles said. "Who knows? It may turn into nothing. I just don't think we can afford to leave any stone unturned."
With that, both men left the office in hopeful expectation. Too bad Sweeny did not notice that Miles was just a little bit taller today.