MURDER IS MY HOBBY

by

Jim Doherty

This story is set, very roughly, shortly after the 1979 sequence, “Murder - Starring Bony and Claudine,” and sometime before the 1981 sequence, “The Trials of B.U. Tiffil.”  I leave it to the reader to decide, with exact precision, where in the “official continuity” it should be inserted.

Inocencia Mitkiv exited the Homeville el station at 54th Avenue and Turner, and started walking south on 54th.  17 years old as of a week ago, Inocencia had the lithe, petite build and delicate features of her Latina mother, and the blonde hair and fair complexion of her Ukrainian father. 

It was almost one AM.  Quitting time at her part-time job at the Union Station McDonald’s in the City was midnight.  Fortunately, the nearest Blue Line el stop was only two blocks from Union, and her home only four blocks from the 54/Turner stop.  She was lucky that the City Transit Authority extended its elevated rail system this far beyond the city limits.  Otherwise, she’d’ve been forced to take a series of CTA and suburban PACE buses to get home.  But with the el so close to both her job and her home, she had a virtually direct connection between them.  

She’d decided that she was going to talk to her manager about getting more hours this summer.  Once school started again in September, she wouldn’t be able to keep the job.  It would be her senior year at G. Stirling Norton High School, and she wanted her senior year to be as free of encumbrances as possible.  After graduation, she’d start making the transition to full-fledged adulthood, going to college, starting a career, eventually getting married and having children.  This would be her last year as a kid, and she meant to enjoy it without the obligations of regular employment.  In the meantime, in order to enjoy that final year to the fullest, she needed to make as much money as possible, and that meant she had to persuade her boss to increase her hours.

As she passed West 22nd Place, she heard a door slide open behind her.  A van door.  At that hour, the street was almost deserted and the sound drew her attention.  She saw a man get out of the dark van parked by the curb at the corner.  Average height, perhaps even an inch or two below average, though still taller than Inocencia, as, for that matter, were most people.  He had dark hair, cut short, but in that light she couldn’t make out much more detail.  He didn’t seem threatening, and that was the important thing.

Not that she was scared. There was a time, from what her parents told her, back before she was born, when Homeville had quite a reputation for violence, but that time was long past.  According to her folks, about twenty years earlier, the newly-elected Town Council had imported some big-shot cop from the City and made him the new police chief.  Like some frontier lawman on one of those old western movies her daddy liked so much, he’d cleaned up the town.  

“Made it safe for decent people,” her mama had said.

So, while she often felt a bit uneasy when she was in the City, particularly on the late night two-block walk between Union Station and the Blue Line el stop on Clinton, she’d never in her whole life felt really scared here in suburban Homeville.  

Still, a girl had to be cautious, and when you heard a noise behind you on a deserted street, you just naturally turned around and made sure that noise didn’t represent a threat.  Satisfied, now that she’d seen the guy who’d gotten out of the van, that she was in no danger, she turned back south and continued on her way.

She got no more than three steps when she was grabbed from behind.  A strong left arm encircled her waist and pinioned both her arms.  A right hand held a cloth over her mouth and nose.  The cloth had an oddly sweet odor.  She tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound with her mouth covered.  

Suddenly he released her mouth.  She started to draw a deep breath so she could scream as loudly as possible, but as soon as she began to inhale, he shoved the cloth over her mouth again.  Without meaning to, she drew the fumes deeply into her lungs.

He continued to hold her there for a few more seconds.  She felt herself getting weaker.  He started to pull her back toward the van.  That was the last thing she recalled before she lost consciousness.

*

The first thing she realized, when she came to, was that she couldn’t move her arms and legs.  Her wrists and ankles were tied to the corners of the bed she was lying on.

The second thing she realized was that a cloth was tied around her mouth, preventing her from making any loud noises.

The third thing was that she was totally naked.

“Ah, you’re awake.  Good.”

She looked up at her captor.  In the light, she could see now that the short, dark-haired man from the van was Asian.  He was naked, too.  In his right hand he was holding one of those old-fashioned razors, the kind barbers use.

“I’ve been anxious for us to share an intimate encounter before our time together ended,” he said.  ”But it’s not nearly as satisfying when one of the participants is unconscious.”

He held up the razor.

“Afterwards, it will be time for the main event.”

Despite her gag, and despite the room’s being sound-proofed, Inocencia Mitkiv’s scream almost escaped the room.

Almost, but not quite.

*

Chief of Detectives Dick Tracy entered City Police Headquarters at 11th and State Streets, as he entered most places, with a confident, authoritative stride.  He’d walked from the Metra Electric Station at Michigan and 11th, as he normally did on nice days.  He and Tess had moved to the south suburbs, at Tess’s insistence, after their beloved home in the City had been burned to the ground, burned to the ground for the second time in their married life, by criminals Tracy had crossed.  To satisfy the residency requirements of the City Police, Tracy maintained a small apartment in the Loop, the City’s downtown area, and actually used it fairly often when late nights on duty made the commute home untenable.  But he spent as many nights as possible at the suburban two-story he shared with Tess, particularly now that they’d added a newborn son, Joseph Flintheart Tracy, to their family.

Tall, steely-eyed, with bony, ruggedly handsome features and a jawline that seemed almost impossibly firm, he was in his mid-40’s, but, with his trim, athletic build, and wavy, dark hair that betrayed no trace of gray or baldness, looked younger.  He’d forgone his customary trench-coat in the summer heat, but, with his piercing eyes, snap-brim fedora, and dark business suit, he still looked every inch the very picture of a tough, hard-boiled detective.  Indeed, it was clearly his natural look, rather than an affected, cultivated image.  One might almost think he’d unconsciously created that image for others to copy.

He paused for a moment at the Memorial Display in the lobby, where the stars of all City police officers killed in the line of duty were encased behind glass, and, as was his daily custom, offered a brief, silent prayer.

Showing his own star and ID to the officer on duty at the metal detectors, he was waved past toward the bank of elevators that would take him upstairs to his office.

“Tracy!” came a voice from behind him.

Tracy cringed.  The voice belonged to Wendy Wichel, the unabashedly cop-hating, left-wing sob sister whose thrice-weekly column for the highest-circulating of the City’s four daily newspapers was nationally syndicated.  He turned and saw that she was accompanied by a photographer with a video camera.  Wendy Wichel hated cops in general, but she hated Dick Tracy most of all.  To her Tracy was the living symbol of all that was wrong with American law enforcement, and she never lost an opportunity to let her readers know this.  Her readers and her viewers, because she was now headlining a nightly series, The Wichel Report, on the Strong News Network.  She’d apparently targeted him for an ambush interview to be used on that show.

“Any comment on the discovery of Inocencia Mitkiv’s body in Homeville early this morning?” asked Wendy Wichel, shoving a microphone toward his face across the barrier separating the public section of the lobby from the secured section leading to the elevators.

“I’ve never heard of Inocencia Mitkiv, Ms. Wichel.  I haven’t had a chance to read the inter-city bulletins yet.  I haven’t even gotten to my office.”

“She never got home from work last night,” Wendy said.  ”When she was found, she’d been raped, and cut in a dozen or more places, apparently with an instrument like a straight razor.  The manner of death was identical to that inflicted by the notorious ‘Suburban Slasher’ some twenty years ago.  Do you think the Slasher has returned?”

“Ms. Wichel, I can’t possibly answer that question in even a minimally informed way until I’ve consulted with the investigating officers.  And, in any case, Homeville has its own police department.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable commenting on a case outside of my own jurisdiction.”

“Homeville does, indeed, have its own police department, Tracy.  One you personally led twenty-odd years ago, roughly the same period the Suburban Slasher originally operated.  According to some sources, you were deeply involved in the case, even though the only murder the Slasher committed in Homeville occurred prior to your appointment as Homeville’s reform police chief.  According to those same sources, you’d even developed a so-called ‘Secret Suspect.’  And at just about the same time that the rumors of a Secret Suspect started, the murders suddenly and mysteriously stopped.  Did you in fact develop a suspect who, for some reason, you weren’t able to name?  Could he be back in circulation again?  Could he be responsible for Inocencia Mitkiv’s brutal murder?”

“All I can say is, though the murders stopped, the Slasher case was never officially closed.  But the lead investigator on the case was Reed Jackson of the Sheriff’s Office, not me.  I suggest you talk to him.”

“Oh, I already have, Tracy.  You’ll be able to hear what he had to say on my show tonight.  I suggest you tune in.”

*

Tracy was bone-tired when he walked up the steps to his front door that night.  He’d spent the day going to meetings, reading the inter-office correspondence that came in, signing the inter-office correspondence that was being sent out, responding to e-mails, talking on the phone, approving budgets, and otherwise performing tasks that had little or nothing to do with actually putting bad guys in jail.

It had been bureaucracy’s finest hour.

Notwithstanding his elevated position in the Department, Dick Tracy was, at heart, a street cop, not a desk jockey. After nearly a quarter century on the Job, he still found chasing some dangerous armed robber or outwitting an ingenious criminal scheme exhilarating.  That was why, when he’d been offered the top spot in the Detective Bureau, he’d insisted that he retain personal command of the elite, city-wide Major Crimes Unit. It was his way of keeping involved in hands-on, operational police work.

It was the damned paperwork that tired him out.  But the administrative duties that were necessarily part of his job as Chief of Detectives kept him office-bound more often than he liked.  He delegated as much of it as he could to the Deputy Chief of Detectives for Administration. But, there was only so much he could shove off on subordinates.  Some of it he just had to do himself.  That, he’d discovered, was the price of high rank.  

One thing was certain.  He’d never accept any rank higher than the one he already had.

There was a surprise waiting for him when he walked through the front door.

“Dad!” squealed a familiar voice.

His almost impossibly firm jaw dropped as his daughter, Bonnie, met him at the foyer, flung her arms around his neck and gave him a big kiss.

“Sweetie?” said Tracy after he’d regained his composure.  ”What are you doing here?”

“I’m attending a two-week education symposium out in the western ‘burbs,” replied Bonnie Tracy.  ”And it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to visit my mom and dad. And my brand new baby brother.”

Bonnie was working on her master’s degree in education out west at the University of Washington.  Still a teen-ager, she already had a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate, and was able to support herself while she completed her graduate studies by substitute teaching in Seattle, Tacoma, and other nearby communities.

Tracy looked at his wife, Tess, seated in the living room, feeding their new son, Joey.

“Did you know about this?”

“She called me a few days ago to let me know.  I thought it would be a nice surprise for you.”

“It’s a wonderful surprise.”

Tracy looked down at his 19-year-old daughter and then back at Tess.  In her late 30’s, Tess looked at least ten years younger.  When they were together, she and Bonnie, the very image of Tess at that age, were often taken for sisters.

Both were blonde, slender, classically beautiful women, with eyes a man could drown in.  Bonnie, always a bit of a tomboy when she was growing up, was more outdoorsy and vivacious than her elegant, more reserved mother.  Tess was bit taller than her daughter.  But, a few details like that aside, even considering that they were, after all, parent and child, the resemblance was remarkable.

“Go get ready for dinner,” said Tess.  ”We’ve got company coming.”

*

The company turned out to be their adopted son, Dick Tracy, Jr., himself an officer in the City Police, as well as one of the top forensic sketch artists in the nation, Junior’s three-year-old daughter Honey, and Tracy’s boss, City Police Superintendent Patrick Patton, who was almost as pleased to see Bonnie as her parents and big brother.

When Tracy was just starting out as a detective, he and Patton had been partners.  They’d saved each other’s lives more often than either bothered to count.  Pat owed his job to Tracy, who’d been offered the position first, but had turned it down, recommending his partner for the post.

Years later, Patton was now the longest-serving police chief (a title he preferred to the official designation “Superintendent,” which he found rather pretentious) in the City’s history, having survived several mayoral administrations.  And he regarded Tracy as, not only his closest friend, but his most trusted advisor.  In theory, there was a Deputy Superintendent of Investigative Services above Tracy, an Assistant Superintendent for Operations above him, and a First Deputy Superintendent above all of them.  In practice, everyone knew how much Patton relied on Tracy. The only reason Tracy wasn’t First Deputy himself was that he didn’t want that job any more than he’d wanted the top spot.  Most of the various assistant and deputy superintendents didn’t mind much, knowing how deep the friendship and trust between the two men ran, but the current First Deputy, Carl Climer, a transplant from Oakland, California, hired at the insistence of the mayor and the president of the City Police Board, was known to be livid over Tracy’s privileged status.

With dinner concluded, Patton graciously thanked his hostess, and said, “Dick and I’ve a spot of business to attend to.  Ladies, if you’ll excuse us.  You’ve a television in your private den, don’t you, Dick?”

“Sure,” said Tracy.

“Then we’ve a date with tonight’s episode of The Wichel Report.”

“Ah, Pat, not that!”

“You’re her feature story, so I’ve been warned, and I want to know what I’m facing from Mayor Knightley when he complains about the coverage tomorrow.”

“Well, you don’t have to go into the den to watch the show,” said Tess.  ”Let’s all watch it together in the living room.”

“That’s grand of you, Tess,” replied Patton, “but I thought you and Bonnie might want to visit, and inflictin’ that woman on either of you is no fit thanks for the fine meal you’ve served up tonight.”

“We’re Dick’s family, Pat.  If it involves him,” said Tess, “I’m sure all of us will be interested.”

*

“Tonight’s top story,” came Wendy Wichel’s voice from the big-screen TV, “murder in the suburbs.  Murder that, according to a number of sources, might signal the return of a serial killer long thought to be out of commission.”

“Where does the woman get her information?” said Tracy.

“She pays for it, just like us,” replied Patton.

“The question was rhetorical, Pat.  I was wondering who she paid.”

“Be quiet,” said Tess.  ”I want to hear what she’s saying.”

Wendy Wichel was standing in front of the Homeville el station.

“Some two decades ago,” she said, “sometime after midnight, a twenty-year-old girl named Eleanor Esproc got off an el train at this station in suburban Homeville, and started walking south on 54th Street.  Something she did five nights a week.”

A photo of Ellie Esproc filled the screen.  Over the photo, Wendy Wichel continued her commentary.

“She worked at a restaurant in the City, and commuted every day on the Blue Line el between her job and the apartment she shared with two roommates here in Homeville.”

She paused for effect.

“She never got home.  The next day, Ellie Esproc’s naked body was found a few blocks from here in nearby Norton Park.  She’d bled to death from a dozen or more deep gashes administered with what medical experts thought might have been a straight razor.  Ligature marks around her ankles and wrists indicated that she’d been tied up.  An autopsy found that she’d been raped, and that there were traces of anesthetics in her bloodstream.”

The screen cut back to Wendy Wichel, now standing in front of Homeville’s Town Hall, a building that included the police station.

“The Homeville Police Department was in a state of what might charitably be called transition.  I’ll go into the details of that in a moment, but for now, let’s just say that the Homeville Police weren’t equipped to investigate this vicious crime.  In a very short time, though, that wouldn’t really matter.

“Over the next few weeks, bodies of other young women began to turn up in various suburbs around the City.  All of them blonde, like Ellie, all of them attractive, all of them raped and slashed to death in a manner essentially identical to the way Ellie was murdered.”

The screen filled with photographs of six pretty young blondes.  The photo at the top left corner of the screen shot out from the group and filled the entire screen.

“The first was 23-year-old Cynthia Nials, whose nude body was found in the community of Central Stickney.  Like Ellie Esproc, she’d been slowly cut to death with a straight razor.  Like Ellie Esproc, ligature marks indicated she’d been tied up.  Like Ellie Esproc, an autopsy indicated that she’d been sexually violated and kept compliant with anesthesia.”

The screen cut away from the photo of Cynthia Nials to a shot of a burly man in a business suit exiting the Joseph R. Knightley Center, the county courthouse at Randolph and Washington across the street from City Hall.

“Since Central Stickney is unincorporated, Ms. Nials’s death brought this man, Investigator Reed Jackson of the Sheriff’s Police, into the case.  Now regarded as one of the top homicide detectives in the country, his investigations have been dramatized in such TV-movies as Fatal Marriage, To Seek the Truth, and A Murderer in Our Midst, in which he has been portrayed by popular actor Denny O’Brian.”

The screen filled with a very brief clip from one of the films, a scene with Denny O’Brian as Jackson.

“But twenty years ago Jackson was just one of many young investigators in the Sheriff’s Office.  With less than two years experience in Homicide, and without the high public profile he now enjoys, Reed Jackson was anxious to prove himself.”

The screen cut back to the six photographs of the young blonde women. The top middle photo shot out and filled the screen.

“Shortly after Jackson started his investigation, the body of this woman, 20-year-old Paula DeRedrum, was found in Evanston, just north of Howard Street, the border line between the City and this north suburb.”

A shot of a bucolic college campus filled the screen.

“Evanston, of course, is the home of Northwestern University, where Ms. DeRedrum was an undergraduate.  Really more of a college town than a standard bedroom community suburb, Evanston, adjacent to the City and home to many people who commute to the City for work, is nevertheless referred to as a suburb by residents of the City and of the larger metropolitan area. This third murder, identical to the first two, made it clear that a serial killer was operating in that metropolitan area.  A faceless, unknown killer who was soon dubbed ‘The Suburban Slasher’ by local media.”

The screen again cut back to the photos of the six victims.

“Over the next two weeks two more victims turned up.

The picture on the top right shot out.

“27-year-old Marie LaTrom’s body was found in Oak Park.”

Marie LaTrom’s picture shrank back to its spot in the top right corner.  The picture on the bottom left shot out to fill the screen in its place.

“And 18-year-old Hilary Dlik in tiny Forest View.”

The screen cut back to Wendy Wichel at the Homeville el station.

“The deaths of Ms. LaTrom and Ms. Dlik eventually brought the investigation back here to Homeville, because Investigator Jackson, only one of several officers the Sheriff’s Department had assigned to the case, had been the one to discover something all the victims had in common besides their youth and similar looks.  Though only one of the murder victims had been found here, every one of the victims had some strong connection with the Town of Homeville.”

The screen filled with a photo of Ellie Esrpoc.

“Ellie Esproc, of course, lived here.”

Cynthia Nials’s photo replaced Ellie Esproc’s.

“Cynthia Nials worked here as a clerk in grocery store.”

Paula DeRedrum’s face now filled the screen

“Paula DeRedrum neither lived nor worked in Homeville, but her father moved here after divorcing her mother, and Paula visited him here often.”

Marie LaTrom’s photo replaced Paula’s.

“Marie LaTrom, who’d never graduated from high school, was taking adult education classes at Norton College here in Homeville.”

And finally Hilary Dlik’s face came on screen.

“And Hilary Dlik’s great-grandmother was a resident at Lexerd Horizon Senior Living Center, and Ms. Dlik made a point of visiting her weekly.”

Now the moment everyone in the living room had been waiting for arrived, as Hilary Dlik’s face disappeared and was replaced by a photograph of Dick Tracy’s.

“Regular viewers of this show and regular readers of my column will recognize this man.  He’s Richard Tracy, arguably the most famous policeman in America. Indisputably, though inexplicably, the most decorated policeman in America.  And he became heavily involved in the case once Investigator Jackson had established the Homeville connection between all the victims.”

The scene cut from the el station to the Homeville Town Hall, where Wendy Wichel was standing in front of the entrance to the police station at the side of the building.

“If Reed Jackson had not yet achieved the celebrity he would enjoy in coming years, Dick Tracy, in just a few short years as a detective, had already made national headlines. Still only in his 20’s, Tracy had, in his first year as a detective, been personally responsible for jailing the infamous mobster known as ‘The Big Boy,’ at that time the single most powerful organized crime figure in the country.”

A police mug shot of Big Boy filled the screen.

 ”Tracy was not content to rest on those laurels. Among many other high-profile cases he broke in his early years were his pursuit of escaped convicts Edward ‘Stooge’ Viller and Stephen ‘The Tramp’ Brogan as they engaged in a cross-country murder spree, his exposure of mob-connected City Alderman James ‘Boss Jim’ Herrod whose corrupt political machine allowed organized crime to flourish in the City, and his apprehension of the notorious interstate bank robber Boris Arson.”

Photos of Viller, Brogan, Herrod, and Arson each filled the screen in turn as Wendy Wichel ticked them off.

“Along the way, Tracy was involved in numerous gun battles, personally killing Philip ‘Crutch’ Reggirt, one of the Big Boy’s gunman; Jim Herrod himself in a blazing shootout at the City Hall; Beniamino Giorgio Spaldoni, the Big Boy’s personal attorney; Nora Arson, Boris Arson’s sister; and Charles ‘Cutie’ Diamond, Nora’s lover.  But these armed encounters also cost innocent lives.  Alex Revird, a cab driver caught in the crossfire between Reggirt and Tracy sustained fatal wounds.”

A picture of Alex Revird filled the screen.

“Oh, Dick,” said Tess.  ”That wasn’t your fault at all.  That poor man was killed when they opened fire on you.  It was an ambush.  And she didn’t even mention that you were wounded, too.”

“Don’t expect objective journalism from Wendy Wichel,” replied Tracy.  ”You’ll always be disappointed.”

“In Tracy’s gun battle with ‘Boss Jim,’ Mayor Frederick Turner was wounded by a stray bullet,” continued Wendy Wichel, “A few months later, Della Baker, the African-American personal caretaker of mining millionaire Henry Steele, was personally killed by Tracy when she shot at him after being convinced by ‘Steve the Tramp’ that Tracy meant to kidnap Steele’s small son, John.  Rather than try to determine the reason for the attack, Tracy, as would become his usual custom, simply shot first and asked questions later, and an innocent black woman died.  Tracy later did, in fact, adopt young John Steele, after the elder Steele’s death, renaming the boy Richard Tracy, Jr.”

A picture of Della Baker and Hank Steele with an eight-year-old Junior seated on Steele’s lap, filled the screen.

“That’s not how it happened at all,” said Junior.  ”I chose that name myself before I ever knew I was Jackie Steele.  And Della was shooting at Dick from behind cover.  Even if it was an honest mistake on her part, she probably would have killed him if he hadn’t’ve returned fire.  He had no way of knowing who was shooting at him.”

“We already know that, lad,” said Patton.

“Throughout his career,” Wendy Wichel continued, “the flamboyant Tracy has made a habit of endangering innocents.   As regular viewers of this program already know, less than a year ago, his own daughter-in-law became the most recent victim, killed in a car bomb meant for him.”

The screen filled with an image of Tracy’s Cadillac, burning and twisted, parked in front of the home of Junior and his wife.  The body of Junior’s wife, what was left of it, had still been in the car at the time that footage was shot.

“Ye gods!” said Tracy.  “Hasn’t the woman any sense of decency?”  

He glanced over at his son, whose face was contorted in rage, his left hand white-knuckled as it tightly gripped the arm of his chair.  Thankfully, Honey was sound asleep in his right arm, oblivious to what had just been broadcast.  Tracy turned back to the television.

“Tracy’s guns-a-blazin’ style of law enforcement,” Wendy Wichel continued, “inexplicably made him very popular with the public.  Popular enough that, when Waite Wright was elected mayor of Homeville on a reform ticket, he selected Tracy for a special assignment.”

A picture of Mayor Wright came on-screen.

“At that time Homeville had the most corrupt and incompetent police force in the metropolitan area.  Arguably, for its size, in the entire nation.  The Outfit, the local ‘family’ of the Mob, or ‘The Apparatus’ as it is referred to by some law enforcement officials, had already established a major presence there decades previously, and the Big Boy had largely relocated his headquarters to Homeville shortly after Tracy began making things too hot for him in the City.  After he went to prison for his involvement in the kidnapping of banking heir Buddy Waldorf, followed by the death of Herrod and his brother Sal Famoni, the latter in a yet another shootout with Tracy, his half-brothers Ralph and Herman Famon, aka ‘Cut’ and ‘Muscle’ Famon, took his place.”

Pictures of the Big Boy and his two younger brothers filled the screen.

“This was the situation Waite Wright and the newly-elected Town Council faced upon assuming office.  And they decided that Dick Tracy was just the man to handle that situation.  At Wright’s request, Tracy was given a leave of absence from the City Police in order to accept a short-term appointment as Chief of Homeville’s 75-officer police department.”

Tracy’s picture again filled the screen.

“Tracy hit the ground running, firing crooked or drunken cops, initiating a program of strict traffic enforcement that reduced accidents, and making raids on the ‘business establishments’ operated by the Famons and other Outfit members.  Making major headway against the gangster element he’d been hired to eliminate, he essentially let the Ellie Esproc case languish in the open file.  Her murder had, after all, occurred prior to his appointment, and in any case, the Sheriff’s Police, which was better equipped to conduct a major homicide investigation than Tracy’s small town force, had connected Ellie’s murder to the larger series that was occurring throughout the suburbs, and, on that pretext, was already vigorously looking into Ellie’s death even though it had been discovered within an incorporated municipality.  Tracy apparently felt he already had enough on his plate, and presumably thought there was no reason to duplicate the efforts of the Sheriff’s Office.  But when Investigator Jackson established that each of the victims had ties to Homeville, Tracy decided he had no choice but to take a hand.  In a moment, the story of Tracy’s mysterious ‘Secret Suspect.’“

The show cut to a commercial.  Patton turned to Tracy and said, “Well, she’s generally gotten her facts straight, once you get past her particular bugaboo about you.”

“She could have gotten what’s she’s reported so far from any one of a dozen true-crime books,” replied Tracy.  ”And no one involved in the investigation has ever confirmed that a suspect was developed, by me or anyone else.”  

“The ‘Secret Suspect’s’ become part of the folklore surrounding the case, though,” said Pat.  ”And any one of those same dozen books will have a chapter speculating on his identity.”

“I never knew you were the police chief in Homeville,” said Bonnie.  ”That’s quite a coincidence.”

“It was before you were born, Darlin’,” said Patton.  ”Before your folks were married for the matter of that.  What she hasn’t mentioned is that his appointment was what ultimately led to my being chief in the City.”

“What he means,” said Tracy, “is that I hated it so much I knew I’d never want to be head of a big metropolitan force, because there was too much desk work even in a small town.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Patton.  ”Your dad brought me along with him to Homeville to be his deputy chief.  That was where I got my first taste of administration, and it turned out I had a hidden talent for it, which was just as well, since, Lord knows, your dad had neither the inclination nor the patience.  When old Chief Brandon retired and they offered the job to your dad, he told ‘em I was much better suited for it than he was, and he pointed to the job I’d done in Homeville to prove it to ‘em.”

The commercial ended and everyone returned their attention to the screen.

“In his career, Dick Tracy has been involved in more fatal shootings than any other officer in the history of American law enforcement.  All persons of conscience must naturally be shocked and outraged by the violence in Dick Tracy’s record,” said Wendy Wichel, now shown to be standing in front of Homeville’s Town Hall.  ”Nevertheless, even Tracy’s severest critics will admit two things about this controversial cop.  First, that he is unswervingly honest.  Second, that he is, when all is said and done, a more than competent detective.”

Junior snorted in disgust.  ”‘More than competent.’  That’s like saying Shakespeare’s a more than competent playwright or Michaelangelo’s a more than competent sculptor.”

“Thanks, son,” said Tracy.  ”But you have to understand that, coming from Wendy, that’s a major concession.”

“According to sources,” Wendy Wichel continued, “once Tracy decided to insert himself into the case, he went at it along classic lines.”

“‘Insert himself?’“ said Tess.  ”A moment ago she was criticizing you for leaving the investigation to the Sheriff’s Police.”

“Baby, be reasonable.  Consistency would just get in the way of her bias,” said her husband.

“Tracy estimated,” continued Wendy Wichel, “that the number of people who could have had something in common with all four girls had to be relatively small.  Put together a list of those people, rigorously investigate each one, and you’d unearth the killer.  But, as Tracy began his investigation, the Suburban Slasher claimed two more victims.”

The screen again showed the pictures of the six victims.  The photos in the middle and the right of the bottom row shot out to fill the screen side by side.

“Amy Lieche, pictured on the left, a military widow and single mother was, at 36, the oldest of the Slasher’s victims.  Her daughter, Janice, pictured on the right, who had turned 16 only four months earlier, was the youngest.  Shortly after Tracy began investigating the case in earnest, they were discovered in the adjacent village of Berwyn, in Proksa Park a few short blocks from their home.  For the first time, he’d killed two victims simultaneously.  Aside from that single divergence, all other details of the perpetrator’s modus operandi and what some serial killer experts would refer to as his ‘signature’ were the same as in the previous murders.

 ”As with the earlier victims, Investigator Jackson was able to establish a Homeville connection.  Amy supplemented her government pension by accepting assignments as an office temp.  One of those assignments was a long-term engagement at a law office in Homeville that was still ongoing at the time of her murder.  Janice was a student at G. Stirling Norton High School, which served the community of Berwyn as well as Homeville.”

“Maybe she did get it all from books,” said Patton, “but I have to give her credit.  She did her homework.  That’s more than a lot of those TV so-called journalists do.”

“At this point,” Wendy Wichel went on, “the murders simply stopped.  It was not immediately obvious, of course, but when several weeks went by with no new victims being discovered it seemed to slowly become evident that Amy and Janice Leiche, the sixth and seventh victims, were also the last victims.  What had happened?  Had the Slasher, fearing detection, managed to master his brutal impulses?  Had he died in some unrelated incident?  Had he been jailed for some crime completely unrelated to the murders?  Or had he actually been identified by the police, who were able to somehow take him out of the picture without, for whatever reason, making his identity public?  Soon rumors started to develop that Tracy had identified a suspect, but was not willing to name him. Indeed, he was not even willing to publicly acknowledge that a suspect had been developed.”

At this point the footage of Jackson exiting the Knightley Center and starting to cross Knightley Plaza reappeared but continued past the point where it had freeze-framed when it was first shown.

“Earlier today we spoke to Reed Jackson, now a lieutenant in charge of the cold case detail at Sheriff’s Homicide, just outside the Knightley courthouse.  When asked whether he found Tracy’s sudden entry into the case a nuisance he had this to say.”

The shot of Jackson zoomed in to become a close-up of his face.  When a microphone was shoved into his face he said, “No, Tracy and I worked well together.  He was investigating the Homeville connections, once I’d established those connections, because he was in the best position to follow those leads up.  There was no professional or interdepartmental jealousy.  The priority, for both of us, was to solve the case, identify the killer, and prevent any more deaths.”

The picture freeze-framed on Jackson.

“However,” came Wendy Wichel’s voiceover commentary, “when asked about Tracy’s ‘Secret Suspect,’ Lieutenant Jackson was not forthcoming.”

The freeze-frame unfroze and Jackson continued.

“I’m not in any position to comment on that knowledgeably,” he said.

“Despite all the time that’s gone by,” came Wendy Wichel’s voiceover, “Tracy has also never confirmed the rumors of the ‘Secret Suspect.’  However, not everyone involved in the case was so reticent.”

The screen now filled with a picture of a sandy-haired rugged-looking man in a police uniform, seated in an office.  He looked vaguely familiar to Tracy.  After a second or so of studying the face he pegged him.  Wendy Wichel confirmed his recognition a moment later.

“Twenty-odd years ago, Michael A. Black was a rookie Homeville cop personally recruited by Tracy as part of his campaign to clean up the department.  Quickly becoming one of Tracy’s most trusted aides, he worked closely with his chief on the Slasher case.  Now, like his mentor, the chief of a small-town department, the Paxton Police in downstate Ford County, we spoke to him today via telephone and, in an extensive interview, he became the first law enforcement official ever to confirm that, in fact, a secret suspect was developed in the Slasher case.”

The photo, apparently an official portrait from the department’s website, or from the archives of a local paper, remained frozen.  The caption, “RECORDED EARLIER TODAY” appeared at the bottom of the screen and Chief Black’s voice came through.

“I guess it can’t do any harm now,” he said. “Yeah, Chief Tracy did identify a suspect.  And he and Jackson did manage to put him out of commission.  But that’s as much as I can say.”

“Damn it!” said Tracy.  ”He had no right to give that information up!”

“You’ve been known to let something slip to a reporter when you didn’t mean to,” said Patton.  ”So have I.  Working in a small rural town like that, it’s easy to get dazzled when a famous TV personality pays attention to you.”

“When you say ‘put him out of commission,’“ said Wendy, “do you mean that Jackson or Tracy did something illegal?”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Black.  ”Tracy and Jackson did absolutely nothing illegal or unethical.  All they did was investigate the suspect.  In a manner of speaking, it was neither Tracy nor Jackson who really put the suspect out of commission.  It was, well, let’s just say it was people close to him.  That’s as much as I can reveal.”

Black’s picture dissolved into one of Wendy Wichel, once more standing in front of the Homeville el station at 54th Avenue and Turner.

“Chief Black refused to provide further details.  But it now seems clear that the end of the series of murders roughly coincided with Tracy’s identification of a suspect and of that suspect’s being mysteriously ‘put out of commission,’ whether at the behest of Tracy and Jackson or not.  No one in official law enforcement has ever been willing to identify this Secret Suspect, and only Chief Black has been willing to admit that such a suspect even existed.  But whatever was done to put Tracy’s suspect ‘out of commission,’ it may not have been permanent.  Last night the events of two decades ago replicated themselves.”

The left half of the screen filled with the picture of yet another pretty young blonde, while Wendy Wichel remained the focus on the right side.

“Inocencia Mitkiv, 17 years old, returned from her job at Union Station in the City, just as Ellie Esproc did so many years ago.  She got off an el train at this same station, just as Ellie Esproc did.  She started walking south on 54th Avenue, just as Ellie Esproc did.  Like Ellie Esproc, she never got home.  Like Ellie Esproc, she was found, raped and slashed to death, in Norton Park, in approximately the same spot Ellie Esproc’s body was found.”

The screen now filled with a freeze frame of Tracy in the lobby of Police Headquarters.

“When I asked Dick Tracy, now City Chief of Detectives and commanding officer of the elite Major Crimes Unit, if he had any opinion about this latest murder, apparently at the hands of the Suburban Slasher, he had only this to offer to concerned citizens.”

The freeze frame unfroze and Tracy’s voice came from the TV.

“Ms. Wichel,” he said, “I can’t possibly answer that question.”

“See,” said Patton.  ”Even you make infelicitous statements to the press.”

“She cut out one small part of what I said and took it out of context!”

“Shh.  She’s finishing up now.”

“The murder of Inocencia Mitkiv brings up several questions.  If Jackson and Tracy were able to take the Suburban Slasher out of commission, was it permanently or only temporarily?  Did they even identify the correct suspect?  Has the Suburban Slasher returned?  And what do Jackson and Tracy intend to do about it?

“Lieutenant Jackson.  Chief Tracy.  Your admiring public expects more from you than ‘No comment.’“

Tracy got up and turned the television off.

“Well,” he said, “that was certainly pleasant.”

“Don’t let her get to you, partner,” replied Patton.

“What do you think the mayor’ll have to say about it?”

“What can he say?  This girl was killed in Homeville.  It’s not our problem.  That’s the one good thing you can say about the Suburban Slasher. At least none of his victims was ever found in the City.”

The phone rang.  Tracy went to pick it up.  

“Tracy,” he said.  He listened for a few moments, then said, “I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”

He hung up and said to Patton, “You spoke too soon.”

“How’s that?”

“That was Valer up in Area 3.  It looks like the Slasher just struck again.  And this time the body’s on our side of the municipal line.”

*

Lieutenant Rafe Valer, a tall, athletic black man in his early 30’s, was the commanding officer of the Homicide/Sex/Gang Crimes Unit for Area 3, which covered the northeast portion of the City, encompassing five district stations.  He greeted Tracy and Patton as they emerged from Tracy’s car.

“Superintendent,” he said to Patton, then turning to Tracy, he said, “Dick.”

“What have we got here, Rafe?” asked Tracy.

“Young blonde woman, naked, slashed to death, ligature marks on the wrists and ankles.  No ID yet, but we’ve taken her prints and if she’s anywhere in the system we should get a make soon.  She was found on the sidewalk here on Seeley, barely five feet south of Howard.  If she’d been found on the other side of Howard, it would’ve been Evanston’s headache.  It may still be at that.”

“What do you mean?” asked Patton.

“Well, apparently she wasn’t dumped here.  She died here, but judging by the trail of blood she left, she was actually dumped on the front lawn of an empty house on Elmwood Avenue, just north of Howard.   Thing is she wasn’t quite dead yet.  Somehow she found the strength to get up and move south, but she ran out of steam just after making it a few feet down Seeley, collapsed, and bled out right here.  Evanston detectives are canvassing the neighborhood on their side of Howard.  We’re processing the scene on this side.”

“So the question,” said Patton, “is whose case is this?  Seems clear to me it’s Evanston’s.  That’s where the offender dumped her and that’s where she would have been found if he’d made sure she was dead first.”

“Well, I disagree, Chief,” said Tracy.  In public, particularly in front of other officers, Tracy never addressed Patton by his first name, though he did allow himself the informality of calling him “Chief” rather than the more grandiloquent “Superintendent.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Chief, nobody’s more familiar with the original case than me, except for Reed Jackson.  This girl did us a favor by managing to get across Howard before dying.  It gives our department an excuse to get hands-on involvement in the case. And, since the Sheriff’s Police have countywide authority, I can bring Jackson in on some kind of interdepartmental mutual aid consultancy.  She died giving us that excuse.  Let’s make her last moments count for something.”

He turned to Valer.

“Rafe, you’re off the hook.  Once your guys are done processing the scene, MCU’s going to take this one.”

“It’s all yours, Dick,” said Valer.  ”And you’re more than welcome to it.”

*

Addressing his staff the next morning in the office of the Major Crimes Unit, Dick Tracy drew the attention of his detectives to the man standing next to him.  

“Several of you already know Lieutenant Jackson of the Sheriff’s Department,” he said.  ”And the rest of you, I’m sure, know of him.  Reed’s nothing except one of the best homicide cops in the country.  Because of his familiarity with the original case, he’s been detached, at my request, from his regular duties to work with us on the murder in District 24 last night.  For those of you who haven’t heard, we’re taking over that case from Area 3 Homicide.  We’ve identified the victim as Lisa Opfer.  She was 20 years old, and was a sophomore at Northwestern.”

“Why has this guy been inactive for more than 20 years?” asked Lizz Worthington, a stylishly lovely, raven-haired detective in her late 20’s.

“For the simple reason that it’s not the same guy,” said Tracy.  ”I’m sure of it, and so is Reed.  I’ll let him explain why.”

“The main reason we don’t think it’s the same guy,” said Jackson, “is that we’re dead certain, not just almost certain but dead certain, that the guy who committed the original murders is behind bars.  Of a sort, anyway.  We double-checked that to make sure there was no mistake.”

“Who’s that?” asked rumple-faced, middle-aged Sam Catchem, Tracy’s second-in-command.

“Well, we really can’t say.  Not that we don’t trust you, but we’re under a prior obligation.  I’ve already told you all more than I’ve told anyone else, in or out of law enforcement, in more than twenty years, including my wife.  I will say that Tracy and I will be talking to him later today.”

“When you say that’s the main reason, it implies that you have other reasons for being sure it’s not the same guy,” said Detective Johnny Adonis, a dark-haired, mustachioed, devastatingly handsome officer, recently transferred from Area 4’s Burglary, Robbery, and Theft Unit where he’d specialized in art cases.

“Yes, it does,” said Jackson.  ”Aside from having confirmed that the offender in the original series is still locked up, the two new murders aren’t simply crimes committed in the same way as the series from twenty years ago.  They’re careful replications of two of the original crimes.”

“What do you mean?” pressed Adonis.

“The first victim in the original series, Ellie Esproc worked in a restaurant here in the City, lived in Homeville, came home late every night on the Blue Line el, was apparently taken somewhere between the Homeville el station and her home, and was dumped in Norton Park.  The first victim in this new series, Inocencia Mitkiv, and the circumstances in which she was taken, killed, and dumped, match the Esproc murder in every respect.  This new killer wants to make sure we know that this series is intended to evoke the original Suburban Slasher murders, and he’s informed us of this by imitating, not merely the M.O. or signature, but the specific details of specific murders in the original series.”

Jackson went over to a map of the city and county that was hung on the wall.

“The murder of Miss Opfer last night is identical in almost every respect to the murder more than twenty years ago of Paula DeRedrum.  Both were students at Northwestern.  Both had a parent who lived in Homeville whom they visited often, Miss DeRedrum her dad, Miss Opfer her mother.  Both were dumped in front of a home here on Elmwood Avenue,” pointing to that spot on the map. “just fifty or sixty yards north of the city limits. That’s where we found Miss DeRedrum and that’s where would have found Miss Opfer if the killer hadn’t’ve screwed up and left her alive enough to get up and cross over that line into the adjacent municipality.  She probably had no idea where she was going, and she could have just as easily gone in the opposite direction, deeper into Evanston.  But she didn’t, and that gives your department, and your unit, the authority to, as Wendy Wichel put it last night, ‘insert itself’ into the investigation.”

“Why did he skip Cynthia Nials’s murder and go straight to number 3?” asked Detective Lee Ebony, an attractive African-American woman about the same age as Lizz.

“Your guess is as good as mine.  Maybe he doesn’t plan to replicate all six murders, just the ones that really interest him.  Maybe he couldn’t locate a potential victim who matched Miss Nials’s profile as closely as Inocencia Mitkiv matched Ellie Esproc’s or Lisa Opfer matched Paula DeRedrum’s.”

“You know,” said Adonis, “it seems to me I read about something similar a year or so back.  That Russian case from the ‘70’s or ‘80’s.”  He turned to the computer on his desk and started typing.

“You talking about that child-killer, Andrei Chikatilo?” asked Catchem.

“That’s the guy,” said Adonis.  ”Killed more than 50 people, most of them kids, like Sam says.  Here’s the website I was looking for.  Last year there were two murders in the southwestern part of Russia, around the city of Rostov, that were exactly like two murders Chikatilo committed years ago.  Just like our situation here.  Famous serial killer from the past.  Two cases from the original series duplicated by another killer.”

“They’re sure it was another killer?” asked Lee.

“Had to be.  Chikatilo was executed.”

“How’d you happen to come on this last year?” asked Tracy.  ”You worked Burglary, not Homicide.”

“Art theft’s an international crime, Boss,” replied Adonis.  ”I made a point of keeping tabs on art cases from other parts of the worlds.  You keep tabs on one kind of crime, you’re likely to get info on other kinds.”

“It makes you wonder whether our guy might have done this before.  Johnny, you see if you can put me in touch with someone from the Russian Police.  Lizz, I want you to run a ViCAP check.  See if there are any other instances of famous serial murder cases being duplicated anyplace else in the country.  Just for the hell of it, see if you can get the Mounties to do a similar check for Canada on their equivalent system.  What’s it called, again?”

“ViCLAS,” said Sam.

“Right.  ViCLAS.  Lee and Sam, talk to the family and friends of the victims.  Find out if they had any sense they were being stalked.  Apparently, if Reed’s theory’s correct, the killer carefully selected these particular victims, so he must’ve screened them for awhile before he struck.  Maybe they sensed that.  In the meantime, Reed and I will be talking to our Secret Suspect.  If he’s not personally committing these murders, maybe he’s directing them.”

*

“Ah, Tracy and Jackson, my perennial nemeses,” said the dark-haired man in the straitjacket, seated behind the thick plastic barrier.

It was scarcely three hours after the adjournment of the meeting at the MCU office.  Immediately after that adjournment, Tracy and Jackson had driven to the DuPage County Airport, boarded a Cessna 182 Skyline owned by the State Police and piloted by a state trooper, and flown to South Wolf Island in the northern part of the huge lake at the City’s eastern edge.  South Wolf Island, the larger of the two Wolf Islands, was situated between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas that comprised the mainland of the state on the lake’s eastern shore.  Two thirds of South Wolf was owned by a wealthy real estate magnate, the remaining third by the adjacent state’s government.  The ritzy hospital facility Tracy and Jackson were visiting was located in the private portion of the island.

“Doctor,” said Tracy, nodding at the strait-jacketed man.

“So, am I to be Hannibal Lector to your Will Graham or Clarice Starling?  Or are we evoking real life? Am I Ted Bundy to your Robert Keppel or David Reichert?  Have you, in short, come to consult me about the murders of the Misses Mitkiv and Opfer?”

“Not to consult.  Just to get some straight answers,” said Jackson.  ”We know you didn’t commit those murders personally.  But we need to know if you’re in contact with whoever did commit them.”

“I see.  Straight answers.  And why should I oblige?  You weren’t even able to prove I committed the original murders.  I grant that you were able to convince my family that I was responsible, so that they agreed to shut me up in this private Bedlam if you ceased your investigation, but that was merely a bluff on your part that paid off.  You had nothing that would prove my guilt in court.  And since, thanks to the very confinement to which you and my family consigned me, I have an absolutely airtight alibi for the current series, you’re even less likely to be able to prove any complicity in these new ones. I see no real incentive to provide you with such a valuable commodity as a straight answer.”

“How many times have I been up here since your family committed you?” asked Tracy.

“Only once,” said the dark-haired patient.  ”A few years after your marriage to the delectable Miss Trueheart, if I recall.”  He paused as his face tightened into an angry scowl.  ”And then only to threaten me.”

“And all I was threatening to do then was reopen the investigation unless the cards and letters to my wife stopped.  What we’re threatening now is to put you on Death Row back in our state unless you manage to come up with some truth.  And convince us that it is the truth.”

“Oh, come now,” said the strait-jacketed man.  ”You couldn’t prove it then.  How could you possibly prove it after the passage of more than two decades?”

“You’re a medical man, Doctor.  I’d think that would be obvious.  We took blood samples from you at the time.  All we were able to prove with them then is that you had the same blood type as whoever raped those six women.  Granting that it was a very rare blood type, it was still not absolutely conclusive.  But forensics has advanced quite a bit since then, and we still have those samples.  I took a tiny bit of those samples to a private lab and had them run DNA tests.  Perfect match.  Now we can prove you’re the original Suburban Slasher.  All I have to do is take what’s left, and there’s plenty left, and turn it over to the State Police Lab to get official results.  Then you’re bought and paid for.  So if you don’t want a needleful of lethal poison sending you to hell, answer some questions.”

“You made a deal with my family.”

“The deal was you’d be put someplace where you couldn’t ever harm anyone and, in return, the public would never know that Dr. Francis W. Reyals, wealthy physician and scion of the socially important and politically connected Reyals family, was the Suburban Slasher.  But when you send threatening notes to my wife, you’re not keeping up your end, which means the deal’s off.  And if you’re directing the actions of someone else who’s murdering people on the outside, you’re really not keeping up your end, which means the deal’s off.  Tell us what you know, and we might be persuaded to forget this breach of contract.  For the moment.”

Reyals’s face blanched.

“But I don’t know anything,” he said.  ”Really, that’s the truth.”

“Prove it,” said Jackson.

“How can I prove a negative?  I first heard about the case through the news media.”  The angry frown returned.  ”In fact, I was rather offended by the plagiarism.  Until the two of you came I didn’t even have the luxury of complaining to anyone that my work was being stolen.  One can’t exactly obtain a patent or a copyright on a murder, can one?”

Tracy looked down at what appeared to be a particularly high-tech watch strapped to his left wrist.

“Okay, Doctor.  We’ll double-check that, but, for the moment, we’ll accept what you say at face value.”

*

On the drive back to the airfield, Tracy pulled back his left sleeve and started talking into the watch-like device.

“Tracy to Smith.  Any results?”

The liquid crystal clockface on the device suddenly dissolved into a moving image of Diet Smith, multi-billionaire industrialist and one of the four richest men in the world.  And a close friend of Tracy’s ever since the detective cleared the business executive of a murder charge years earlier.  The friendship had been strained the last few months, but, since Tracy’s recent rescue of Smith from a kidnapper, was now stronger than ever.

“According to our PSE specialist, your subject was speaking truthfully, Tracy.”

“That was my take, too.  But it’s nice to have it confirmed by the latest technology.”

“Indeed.  Still, it seems cumbersome to have to send a broadcast of the subject over the two-way.  Perhaps in the next incarnation of our wrist communication device, we’ll incorporate a built-in Psychological Stress Evaluator.  Should be a simple matter of miniaturization.”

“A simple matter when all you’re doing is paying for it, you old robber baron.  You ought to try being the one who develops it.”

“Outrageous slander!” Smith blustered.  ”You know very well the foundation of this company were the inventions I personally created and designed.”

“Don’t strain your ulcers, Diet.  You know I’m just kidding.  Thanks for the help.  Tess wants you over for dinner soon.  You still haven’t met the baby, and Bonnie would love to see you while she’s visiting.”

“I’ll look forward to it.  Smith out.”

Jackson, looking down at Tracy’s Two-Way Wrist Television, said, “I sure wish the county was willing to spring for a few of those.”

“They’re great.  I can’t imagine doing without one.”

The communicator, much smaller and lighter than the cumbersome walkie-talkie worn on the belt by most police officers, yet with a much greater range, had started life as the Two-Way Wrist Radio.  Some years later, it had evolved into the Two-Way Wrist TV.  The latest model provided, not only two way radio communication on all police bands, not only two way video transmission between communicating parties, but was also a cell phone.  And now Smith was promising that, in its next iteration, it would link up to all police computer databases, and to the Internet, would be capable of certain rudimentary forensic chemical analyses, such as determining whether or not a suspected substance was an illegal drug, would be able to send and receive single fingerprints, and, if his latest idea bore fruit, would also include a built-in voice stress analyzer for use as an on-the spot lie detector.  Tracy wondered what the new device would be called.  Two-Way Wrist Computer, perhaps?

“I take it that whoever was listening to our conversation with Reyals was running what he said through a Psychological Stress Evaluator?”

“That’s right.  And Reyals passed.”

“How reliable are they.  I don’t really have any experience with them.”

“Supposedly, they’re more than ninety-six per cent accurate, which is better than polygraphs.  And I suspect that the results are even more accurate if the subject doesn’t know he’s being tested, because he won’t be defending against the test.  Of course, as with the polygraph, it all depends on the operator.  But Diet Smith hires only the best.”

“So you think Reyals is telling the truth?”

“You’re the homicide expert, Reed, and you’re probably a better interrogator than me.  What do you think?”

“My gut says he was being straight.  But, bottom line, Reyals is a psychopath, and you can never really tell with psychopaths.”

“I see your point.  But on balance, I’m with you.  I think he’s telling the truth.”

“And our instincts and the PSE aside,” said Jackson, “he is, after all, kept insolated in a cell, in a high security building, on a comparatively remote island.  There’s no ferry service from the mainland to island.  There are no docks or protected harbors.  For practical purposes, the only way to get here is fly in.  So how’s anyone going to visit him?  He’s not allowed phone calls or access to the ‘Net.  His incoming mail is screened.  He’s not allowed to send outgoing mail.”

“Of course, he did manage to get those threatening notes sent to my wife.”

“He bribed a hospital orderly to send them for him.  That guy lost his job and it’s never happened again.  Fact is, he’s a lot more secure than if he was on Death Row, because he’s denied a lot of things he’d have a legal right to if he was a convict instead of a patient.  So how’s he going to communicate with anyone?  Plus nobody knows who he is.  That’s a whole lot of fail-safes that would have to go wrong almost simultaneously.  It just doesn’t scan.  What we’ve got here is a signature killer whose signature is the forging of another killer’s signature.”

“Makes you wonder if the Suburban Slasher is his first homage, so to speak.”

“‘Homage?’”

“French for ‘rip-off.’”

*

Takahashi Ipok, “Tak” to his friends, or, more correctly, to his friendly acquaintances since Tak Ipok really had no friends, chuckled over the recording of Wendy Wichel’s broadcast from the previous evening.  He was a rather bland looking man.  Dark-haired, of medium height, with a build a tad on the chubby side, there was, aside from the Asian features he’d inherited from his Japanese mother and his Laotian father, nothing about him that really stood out, and his ethnic appearance was slightly noticeable only because he’d been born in a country where Asians were a minority.  In America, he blended into the background for the most part.  In Asia, or back in his home state of Hawai’i, he’d’ve seemed to disappear completely.    

In the practice of his, what should he call it?  His hobby, perhaps?  Yes, that fit.  Really, it was, after all, only an extension of his more “socially acceptable” hobby.  In the practice of his hobby, Tak Ipok had generally found his nondescript appearance to be a distinct advantage.   

It was the fourth time he’d replayed Wichel’s show.  He’d been alternating it with a recording of the special report on the discovery of Lisa Opfer’s body.  That had been a near thing.  So much success had been making him too casual, that was the problem.  He really should have made sure that the surprisingly durable little bitch was really dead before dumping her.  Her staying alive long enough to get across the city line had spoiled the symmetry of his reproduction.  Still, it had probably worked out for the best.

Thanks to her stubborn refusal to simply die, he was, for the first time, pitted against the detectives who’d actually worked the original case.  And not just any detectives.  But Reed Jackson, one of the most respected murder investigators in the country, and, better still, Dick Tracy, possibly the most renowned cop in the whole world. This promised to be interesting.

Tracy and Jackson were mostly right.  Ipok had not been in contact with Dr. Frank Reyals.  But he was aware of who Reyals was.  Ipok was not without his own resources and, after all, it wasn’t that much harder for him to winnow down the list of suspects who’d had contact with all the Slasher’s victims than it had been for Tracy.  Even easier, perhaps, since he had access to computer programs and databases that had not been available two decades ago.

Reyals had owned the building in which Ellie Esproc had shared an apartment with two other girls.  He’d shopped regularly at the grocery store where Cynthia Nials had worked.  He’d run a clinic at Northwestern University’s Student Health Service, where he could have come across Paula DeRedrum.  He’d taught an adult education class on health issues at Norton College, including one in which Marie LaTrom had been enrolled.  He’d consulted at the Lexerd Senior Living Center, where Hilary Dlik’s great-grandmother had been a resident.  He’d been a client of the lawyer in whose office Amy Lieche temped.  He’d given an annual health lecture at G. Stirling Norton High, where Amy’s daughter, Janice, was a student.  

And, shortly after the Lieche murders, Reyals’s family had committed him to that ritzy loony bin in the middle of the lake, after which the murders suddenly stopped.  

It all fit too well.  Reyals simply had to be Tracy’s Secret Suspect.

And, since he was confined, and the police knew he was confined, he was someone whose methods, and style, whose signature, Ipok felt free to use.

Ipok had originally intended to make the Opfer girl his last work in the style of Reyals, but the sudden entry of Dick Tracy added the frisson of a true challenge to the equation, something that had, heretofore, been lacking.  Perhaps he would try to reproduce one more Suburban Slasher crime.  The double murder of Amy and Janice Lieche had always been of particular interest to him.  A mother and her daughter simultaneously!  That must have been especially delicious.

Of course, finding a beautiful young mother with an equally beautiful, and nubile, daughter would be difficult.  He might have to settle for a facsimile.  There was a young girl he’d seen at Norton College in the last day or so, simply stunning, who had an equally lovely older sister he’d observed dropping her off and picking her up.  Siblings wouldn’t be quite the same thing as a parent and child, of course, but they undoubtedly would be just as enjoyable in their own unique way.  And he was sure the parallel would be clear to the authorities.  He’d make a point of observing the pair more closely.  And, after he was done with them, he could seek new prey elsewhere.

The San Francisco Bay Area, perhaps?  He seemed to recall that one of the oldest Renaissance Pleasure Faires was an annual event in Marin County.  And there was a certain earthy, yet elegant simplicity in the crimes of the Trailside Killer.

*

It was approximately two o’clock in the afternoon by the time Tracy and Jackson got back to the MCU office at Police Headquarters.  Tracy sat down at the desk he maintained in a corner of the room.  He had his own private office down the hall, of course, as befitted the Chief of Detectives, but he thrived best on the squadroom camaraderie.  He reserved his private office for those bureaucratic chores he despised.  Here was where he did police work!

As soon as he walked through the door, Johnny Adonis had given him the name of a detective in the local Militia at Rostov-on-Don, a Junior Lieutenant named Konstantinov, and Tracy had immediately placed a person-to-person international call.

“It’s a little after two PM here, Lieutenant.  What time is it in Rostov?”

“2300 hours, sir.  Eleven in evening,” came the voice of the Russian policeman.  He sounded jovial, but professional.  Tracy imagined him as short, and perhaps a bit overweight.  Of course, when he tried to imagine how people looked from their phone voice, he was often quite wrong.  

“Thank you for staying up so late to take my call, Lieutenant.”

“A great pleasure, Colonel Tracy.  I am on night shift, anyway.  ’Colonel’ is correct?”

“Actually, my rank is probably more closely equivalent to a brigadier general, but the correct mode of address is simply ‘Chief,’” replied Tracy.  ”Please feel free to call me Dick, though.”

“‘Dick’ because you are detective?”

“You’re familiar with American slang?  No that’s just a coincidence.  ’Dick’ because it’s a nickname for ‘Richard.’”

“Excellent.  Please call me Fedor.”

“One of my men tells me you recently had a series of murders that were similar to those committed by Andrei Chikatilo years ago.  Can you give me some details?”

“Not merely similar, Dick.  Identical.  There were only two murders, though.  Not quite a series, at least according to FBI definition.  First discovered twenty-six months ago, second a week later.  What was striking, as I said, is that they were not merely in manner of Chikatilo, but were both carefully detailed and precise  . . . what is word?  Reproductions, perhaps?  Reproductions of two Chikatilo murders.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“One of Chikatilo’s victims was named Anna Lemesheva.  We estimate she was Chikatilo’s twenty-fifth victim.”

Ye gods, thought Tracy.  Twenty-five victims, and the butchering monster wasn’t even half finished at that point.

“She was student,” continued Konstantinov, “20 years old, whose body was found in July of 1984 in Shakhty.  Shakhty is fairly large city some 70 or 80 kilometers northeast of Rostov, but still in Rostov Oblast.”

“‘Oblast?’”

“Large administrative area.  Roughly similar to state in USA or, perhaps, province in Canada.”

“So still in your jurisdiction, then?”

“Exactly.  Anna Lemesheva had disappeared six days before her body was found in woods half mile from Shakhty’s train station.  Cut and mutilated in terrible ways.” Konstantinov went on to describe horrific wounds in and around the victim’s sexual organs.  

“Finally,” he went on, “he slashed her eyes out.  Twenty-six months ago another young woman, Natalya Sergeyeva, 18 years of age, was discovered in same woods, approximately same distance from same station, mutilated in same way.  Like Anna Lemesheva, Natalya Sergeyeva had been missing six or seven days, and had been dead for approximately that time when she was found.”

“And the second murder.”

“Two weeks later.  Sofiya Kuznetsova, 19 years old.  She was found in wooded area on left bank of Don River, near Rostov City Beach.  Slashed exactly thirty-nine times.  This matched precisely number of wounds inflicted on Lyudmila Alekseyeva, 17 years old when she became Chikatilo’s twenty-eighth victim.  In August of 1984, she was found in same wooded area Sofiya Kuznetsova was found in twenty-six months ago.”

“Any ideas why the killer chose those two murders to replicate?”

“In some ways, these two murders were not typical of Chikatilo.  Twenty of his victims were children under age of 13.  Both boys and girls.  Of those victims who were grown women, most led what we call in Russia ‘disorderly sex life.’  But both Anna Lemesheva and Lyudmila Alekseyeva were fully grown, although still very young, and were both studious young ladies whose habits were fairly conservative.  So were victims of second killer, Natalya Sergeyeva and Sofiya Kuznetsova.  Perhaps those two particular victims of Chikatilo fit second killer’s preferred victim profile more closely than others.”

Good thinking, thought Tracy approvingly.

“Any progress?” he asked.

“None to speak of.  When murders stopped, there were no new leads to follow.  The . . . how do you put it?  Powers-that-be?  They were afraid that murders would cause problems for tourist trade and weren’t anxious to publicize case with ongoing investigation.  When murders stopped, so, for practical purposes, did investigation of them.”

“I have to admit that I’m not all that familiar with your city, Fedor.  But I didn’t realize that tourism formed that big a part of Rostov’s economy.”

“We have many historic sites in Rostov-on-Don.  In fact, at approximate time of murders, there was big re-enactment event going on.”

“Re-enactment?  Like those Civil War things over here?”

“Precisely.  History enthusiasts who re-enact famous events.  Important battle of Great Patriotic War was fought here in Rostov in 1941.  Nazi tank division conquered city on 21 November but Soviet forces launched counterattack by crossing frozen Don on foot while simultaneously attacking from flanks.  City was liberated on 29 November.”

“How did they freeze the river in April?”

“I wondered same thing myself.  Apparently, this was simulated by simply launching re-enactment from point where liberating army had already crossed.  Still, re-enactors were very scrupulous about wearing winter uniforms in warm weather.”

“Well, if you get into a hobby like that, I guess you take it pretty seriously.”

“Precisely.”

“Anything else you can think of?”

“I recall talking about case to visiting detective from England.  He told me about similar murder in London about one year before ours.”

“I’ll check it out.  Thanks very much for your time and information, Fedor.”

“Pleasure was all mine, Dick.  Even in Russia your reputation is well-known.  It was privilege to confer with legendary colleague like yourself.”

“Thank you very much.  Perhaps we’ll have the chance to work together again.”

“It is very possible.  I have been studying law and will soon have degree. When I have earned it, I intend to apply for position as sledovatyel, criminal investigator.”

“I thought that’s what you were now.”

“I am syshchik, detective in Militsia, roughly like your local police.  A sledovatyel is investigator in Prokuratura, roughly Prosecutor’s Office.”

“So it’s like an investigator for the district attorney or state’s attorney over here?”

“That is probably closest analogy.  If I am fortunate, I will get transfer to Moscow increasing likelihood of conferring with international colleagues like yourself.  I may even get chance to work for Chief Inspector Porfiry Ivanov.”

“He’s well thought of?”

“He is legend in Russian law enforcement.  You could say Porfiry Ivanov is ‘Dick Tracy of Russia.’  Of course, in Russia, we would say that Dick Tracy is ‘Porfiry Ivanov of U.S.A.’”

*

Hanging up, Tracy looked over at Jackson who was closely examining a rather odd display on the opposite wall.  Five rows of six carefully spaced hat hooks had been attached to the wall, making a total of thirty.  Twenty-six of the hooks each had a bullet-damaged fedora hanging from them, said damage ranging from a single bullet hole in the brim of one hat to the entire crown of another all but completely obliterated by a charge of double-ought buckshot.  Several of the shot-up chapeaus, relics of incidents in which the slugs had hit more than just the hat, had bloodstains.  Over the entire display a large wooden plaque labeled “DICK TRACY’S FAMOUS GUN BATTLES” was attached.  Under each of the hats a smaller plaque was affixed, with a short description of the event in which the headgear had been ruined followed by the date of the incident.  The first hat in the top left row, from his first year in the Detective Division, was festooned with a row of bullet holes from a submachine gun, and had a notation below reading “AMBUSH BY ‘CRUTCH’ REGGIRT AND HENCHMEN,” with the date appearing just below the notation.  The most recent addition to the display, from less than year ago, had neat through and through holes in the front and back of the crown made by a single rifle bullet, with a plaque reading “SNIPER ATTACK BY PIERCE LOWB,” Lowb being a petty criminal who’d hoped to hit the big time by collecting on an open contract a fatally ill Big Boy had put out on Tracy after learning of his own impending death.  There were still four empty hooks waiting for any fedoras that might become damaged in future shootouts.

Tracy was somewhat ambivalent about the display, which had been started by Pat Patton some years earlier.  Although he had not been the one to put up the display, it smacked of vanity.  Worse, it seemed to make light of the many dangerous encounters Tracy had had with violent criminals over the years, like some twisted parody of the badge exhibit in the lobby downstairs.

On the other hand, the other members of the MCU seemed to like it, taking pride in the visual evidence of their commander’s proud and courageous record.  And, if nothing else, it was certainly incontrovertible evidence to the Wendy Wichels of the world that Tracy was actually getting shot at during those encounters.  Not that the Wendy Wichels of the world really cared much about evidence in the face of their rock-hard preconceptions.

“That Russian cop had an interesting story to tell,” said Tracy.

“Give,” replied the county detective, turning away from the display.

Tracy briefed Jackson on the info provided by Lieutenant Konstantinov.

“Do you think that London angle’s worth pursuing?” asked Jackson.

“I do.  And I may know just the person to contact.”

Tracy looked at his Wrist TV.  Along with its other features, it actually did tell the time.  The liquid crystal screen, now in its normal clockface mode, showed 2:33PM.  That would make it 8:33PM in London.  Long past quitting time.  But John Whitehall, like Tracy, was something of a workaholic.  It was just possible he’d still be at his office.  He’d try him there first.

“Whitehall,” came the familiar voice once the transcontinental connection had been made.

“John, this is Dick Tracy.”

“Dick!  Bloody hell, it’s wonderful to hear your voice!”

“Great hearing yours, John.  Listen, I need some help with a case.  I’m hoping you can provide it.”

“Anything I can do, chum.  Help of what sort?”

“We’re working on a kind of odd serial killer case here.  A copycat who’s committing unusually detailed duplications of the murders of a killer from twenty years ago.  I’ve just been talking with a Russian Militia officer who told me about a couple of similar murders he investigated about two years ago, replicating two specific crimes of Andrei Chikatilo.  He also told me that there was a similar case in London about three years ago.  Can you give me any details, or put me on to someone who can?”

“As it happens, Dickie, I’m personally quite familiar with that case.  Know it practically by heart.”

“Great.  Lay it out for me.”

Assistant Commissioner John Whitehall was the commander of Scotland Yard’s Specialist Crime Directorate, putting him in charge of, among many other things, all murder investigations being conducted by the London Metropolitan Police.  He and Tracy had met some ten years earlier.  He’d been a Detective Superintendent at the time, working out of the Yard’s Fraud Squad.  The two cops had both been pursuing the same international criminal when their separate investigations caused their paths to cross in the Caribbean. They’d saved each other’s lives more than once before the case was successfully concluded.  Since then, the two had remained close friends, depending on each other to get information quickly when going through channels took too much time, and occasionally exchanging visits when one or the other took time off.

“Are you familiar with a serial killer active during World War II named Gordon Frederick Cummins?” asked Whitehall.  ”He was known as ‘The Blackout Ripper.’”

“Yeah, that rings a bell.  Soldier wasn’t he?  Killed several women during air raids on London by using the blackout conditions for cover.”

“That’s the one.  He was a Leading Aircraftman in the RAF who, over a six-day period in February of 1942, murdered four women and attempted the murder of two others.”

“And three years ago someone was reproducing his crimes?”

“Only one of them, but the circumstances were so similar as to be unmistakable.”

“What was Cummins’s MO?”

“He’d strangle his victims, then inflict rather ghastly post-mortem mutilations with whatever was at hand.  In one instance, for example, he used a tin opener.”

“Which crime did your copycat duplicate?”

“Cummins’s fifth attack was on a young woman named Greta Hayward.  He tried to pick her up in a pub, and, when she rebuffed his advances, he followed her out of the pub, grabbed her from behind, forced her into a shop doorway in Piccadilly Circus, and began to strangle her.  He was none too careful on that occasion, and was actually seen leaving the shop doorway by a patrolling blackout warden, who took note of Cummins’s uniform.  That was what put the Yard on the trail of someone from one of the Forces.  What really nailed Cummins, though, was that he left behind a military-issued gas mask with a serial number that could be traced directly to him.”

“How similar was the recent attack?”

“In almost every detail save one.  The victim was named Sara Blake.  She had stopped at a pub near Piccadilly Circus after finishing work, something she did every night, where she allowed a man in an RAF uniform to buy her a drink.  However she snubbed him when he suggested that they repair to her flat.  He left the pub a few moments after she did, apparently grabbed her from behind, struck her in the face with his fist, and strangled her to death.  He then went so far as to make certain he was seen by a passerby, and even left behind a gas mask.  And he went Cummins one better.  Or worse, depending on one’s perspective.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, in the original case, Cummins’s attack on Greta Hayward was one of his two unsuccessful attempts.  But this new killer actually strangled Sara Blake to death, succeeding where Cummins had failed.”

“And he really went to the extent of dressing up in an Air Force uniform and leaving behind a gas mask?”

“And not just any uniform or gas mask, Dick.  It was a World War II-style uniform, and a World War II-era gas mask.  Though, regretfully, in this instance, the serial number did not trace back to our killer as it had in the original case.”

“The uniform was World War II vintage?  That makes no sense.  An outdated uniform would make him stand out like a neon light.”

“One would think so, wouldn’t one?  But as it happened, there was a World War II re-enactment going on at the time.  Reliving the Battle of Britain.  There were blokes wearing period military uniforms all over London. You know, living history and all that.  Rather like those Civil War hobbyists on your side of the Pond.”

“A re-enactment, eh?  And there were no other murders?”

“None here in London.  As it happens, there was a case up north, in Nottingham, about a year later that had some similarities.  It wasn’t our case, of course, but we looked into it because of the possible connection to the Piccadilly murder.  Ultimately, though, it was a dead end.”

“Why was that?”

“Well, the Nottingham murder did replicate the crime of a serial killer, as ours did. In fact, as with the London case, the crime replicated was a failed murder attempt that, in the replication, the new killer successfully completed.  But the criminal whose work was replicated was a different killer, you see, from a different era, with a completely different modus operandi and signature.”

“Do you know enough details to tell me about it?”

“Certainly.  Have you ever heard of a particularly nasty piece of work named Robert Black?”

“Don’t think so.”

“A Scot who made his living driving a lorry.  ’Truck driver’ to you Yanks.  And a vicious pedophile, as well.  Though I suppose that’s redundant.  Not as well-known as the Blackout Ripper, but he may have been a good deal more prolific.  Convicted of three different murders and two abductions, and suspected of at least a half dozen more murders here in the UK and over the channel in France.  And, while Cummins’s victims were usually prostitutes, Black, as you’ve probably surmised, targeted children.  Specifically, little girls who were bare-legged and wearing white ankle socks.  He had a very specific fetish, you see.”

“Okay.”

“In 1988, he attempted to abduct a 15-year-old student named Teresa Thornhill, who was walking home from school through a park in Radford, a district of Nottingham.  Black had the bonnet of his van open, pretending that there was something wrong with the motor, and called her over to help.  As soon as she was close enough, he grabbed her and attempted to force her into the van.  She began to scream and fight back, and one of her school chums came to her aid.  Faced with all the attention, Black just let her go and drove off as fast as he could.”

“And in the new case?”

“Identical in most respects.  Young girl named Christine Wells, 16 years old, coming home from school through the same park, came across a man apparently having trouble with his van, who called her over to help.  As with the first case, as soon as she was close enough, he grabbed her.  This time he was able to force her into the van before any of the witnesses could intervene.  A few days later her body was found in a small wooded area in the Midlands, more than 300 miles from she’d been abducted and within 25 miles of where each of Black’s previous victims had been found.  She’d been strangled and subjected to post-mortem mutilations, just as Black’s victims were.  Those he successfully murdered.”

“You said that Black preferred little girls, but both Teresa Thornhill and Christine Wells were teen-agers.”

“Quite so.  In fact, Teresa’s age initially kept us from connecting it with the three child murders that had occurred in the same area.  But a damned sharp copper who’d been put in charge of the investigation into those murders, Deputy Chief Constable Hector Clark of the Northumbria Police, took note of the fact that Teresa was quite small and looked much younger than her age.  He eventually developed a case against Black for the three murders.  Black was already serving time for another failed abduction.  When Clark arrested Black for the three murders, he also charged him with Teresa’s kidnapping.  Black was convicted on all counts.”

“Did Christine appear younger than her age.”

“No, not really.  She was certainly much more fully developed physically than Teresa.  But in other respects she matched Teresa quite closely.  About the same age, wearing the same sort of clothes, going through the same park at the same time, etc.  She matched Teresa in every respect save physical development.  Though, now that you mention it, she was not a very close match with any of Black’s other victims.  Only with Teresa, and with Teresa only in non-physical aspects.  That’s rather interesting, now that you’ve pointed it out.”

“One more question, John.  Was there some kind of re-enactment event going on in the area at the time Christine was kidnapped?”

“Funny you should mention that.  Only a few days earlier, there’d been a re-enactment of the Battle of Stoke Field in East Stoke, a small village in Nottinghamshire.  That was one of the aspects that led us to wonder whether there was a connection between Christine Wells’s murder in Nottingham and Sara Blake’s here in London.  Aside from both of them being replications of failed murder attempts by well-known serial murderers, both replications were successfully completed while the originals were thwarted, and both were roughly contemporaneous with elaborate re-enactment events going on in the same area.  In the end, though, as with the replication aspect, we had to chalk that up to coincidence.”

“Why’s that?” asked Tracy.

“The re-enactment events were too dissimilar.  Just as the methods and victim profiles of the two serial killers were not really alike in any significant way, the re-enactment events were much too much at variance.”

“How do you mean?  Weren’t they both re-enactments of military engagements?”

“Yes, but, Dickie, the Battle of Britain took place during World War II and was almost exclusively an air conflict.  The Battle of Stoke Field was the final scrap in the War of the Roses in 1487, and it was an infantry engagement fought with crossbows and swords.  As different as chalk and cheese.  Re-enacting, you know, is an enormously expensive hobby, and those who take it up invariably specialize in one particular era of history.  We thought it a great lead, at first, but it was a non-starter.”

“I wouldn’t count on that, John.  You’re familiar with that old saying. ‘Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; thrice is enemy action?’”

“Yes, of course.  I’ve heard it attributed to Churchill.”

“I’ve heard it attributed to Ian Fleming.  But it’s true, whoever said it. John, I’m going to strongly suggest that you get in contact with Junior Lieutenant Fedor Konstantinov, of the Russian Militia at Rostov-on-Don, and get the full details on the Chikatilo reproductions, because, based on what you’ve just told me, and what he told me earlier, I’m now sure, dead sure, that what we’re all facing is enemy action.  And right now that enemy’s here in my town!”

*

Tracy, put down his phone.  He looked at his watch.  It was now 3:15PM.  Lee and Sam had returned while he’d been talking to Whitehall, both reporting negative results.  If either Innocencia Mitkiv or Lisa Opfer had any idea that they were being stalked, they hadn’t mentioned their suspicions to their friends or family.

“Does anyone here know,” Tracy asked, “if there’s some kind of central worldwide association of re-enactors?  Or, better yet, a local association?”

“Why?” asked Sam.

“I want to find out if there’s a re-enactment event going on in or around the City right now?”

“There’s no actual event that I know of, Boss,” said Lee, “but there was a Re-Enactor Fest last weekend out in the ‘burbs.”

“What’s a Re-Enactor Fest?”

“Just a convention.  They held it out at the Westin North Shore in Wheeling.  It’s not an actual re-enactment, like they have at Gettysburg or Shiloh.  But attendees do dress up in the apparel of whatever era they’re most interested in, and there’re panels and exhibits and a huge dealer’s room where you can buy re-enactor equipment, everything from swords and shields to reproductions of period firearms.  It’s kind of weird really, but fun.  You walk in and it’s like you’ve gone through a time warp.  You’ve got Civil War cavalrymen interacting with Japanese samurai, Roman centurions, and World War II fighter pilots.  And that’s just the military re-enactors.  You’ll also find Old West gunfighters, Renaissance musicians, Dickensian pickpockets, New England pilgrims from the early colonial period, and Victorian royalty.  It’s a real hoot.  Reason I know about it is my sister’s a Janeite.”

“A what?” said Tracy.

“A Janeite.  A really dedicated Jane Austen buff.  She likes to dress up in empire-waisted gowns and sit around well-appointed Regency-era parlors waiting for Mr. Darcy.  This local Re-Enactor Fest is an annual event, and she goes every year.”

“And this year’s was held just last week?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I guess that clinches it.”

Lizz walked in at that point.  Tracy waved her to her desk then stood up and addressed all the members of his unit.

“Okay, so far, what we seem to have, what I’m now absolutely certain we have, is a series of murders, committed by a single offender, made up of several smaller series.  Call them ‘sub-series’ for the purposes of discussion.  So far we have four different sub-series.  We may have more once Lizz gets kickbacks from ViCAP and ViCLAS.”  

Lizz held up a print-out she’d been holding.  

“I’ve got ‘em here, Dick,” she said.

“Okay, hold those for the moment.  The four sub-series I’ve been able to link have these elements in common.  First, they all replicate crimes committed by famous serial killers of the past.”

He held up a second finger.

“Second, these crimes don’t merely copy the M.O. of the original killer.  They’re careful reproductions of specific crimes from the original series.”

A third finger.

“In each case the victim’s a young woman.”

A fourth finger.

“Finally, each sub-series roughly coincides with some kind of re-enactor event that’s occurring in the same general area as the reproduced murders.  There may be more common elements.  I expect each of you to study each of these sub-series to see if you pick up something I’ve missed.  In the meantime, Lizz, what have you got?”

“Five more possible cases.  One set of three murders in New York City copycatting David Berkowitz, the ‘Son of Sam,’ two in a residential neighborhood in Queens and one near the main campus of Columbia University.  One set of two murders in Southern California copycatting Harvey Glatman, the ‘Lonely Hearts Club Killer,’ the first in San Diego County and the second in Orange County.  One set of two murders in British Columbia, copycatting Clifford Olson, the ‘Beast of B.C.’  And three murders in Washington State and one in Utah that might all be related.  They’re months apart, but I’m linking them up as a single set because they’re both copycatting Theodore Bundy, the ‘Ted Killer.’”

“Good job, Lizz.  Sam, you worked in New York City for awhile, right?”

“I was a D.A.’s investigator in Brooklyn.”

“Well, these copycat Son of Sam murders took place in Queens and Manhattan.  Do you know anyone you can contact there who can get you information on this new series?”

“There’s someone I can probably reach out to, yeah.”

“And you were a deputy in the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for a couple of years, too?”

“Assistant Sheriff for Investigations.”

“Still got contacts there?”

“One or two.”

“Okay, I want you to follow up on those Son of Sam and Lonely Hearts Killer cases.  Reed, you’ve worked more basic homicide cases than anyone else here, so I’m assuming you know a lot of homicide cops all over the country.  You acquainted with anyone in Utah?”

“Yeah, I know someone down there.”

“I want you to follow up on the Bundy case there.  Johnny, you’ve got the international contacts. I assume you know a few people in the RCMP.”

“Sure.”

“See what info you can get on the British Columbia cases.  Meanwhile, I’ll talk to a friend of mine in Seattle and see what I can find out about those Washington murders.  Gentlemen, emphasis on two questions.  First, are these just basic copycat killings, or are they reproductions of specific crimes from the original series?  Second, was there some kind of re-enactor event going on at about the same time?  Lizz and Lee, ViCAP and ViCLAS are both dependent on local police agencies entering the data into the database.  If they don’t bother to do that, we never make the connection.  Just to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, get on the ‘Net and see if you can find any related cases by Googling.  It’s a long shot, but we may come up with some more leads from local news outlets.”

*

During his first twenty-odd years on the Job, Sam Catchem’s police career had been marked by an apparent inability to settle down anywhere.  Before a newly-promoted Chief Patton had convinced him to come to this City and paired him up with Tracy, Catchem had worked in more than a dozen different police agencies across the country, never staying in any one place for more than a year or two.  The job in the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office had come shortly after a stint of military duty as a warrant officer in the Army C.I.D., where, among other things, he’d qualified as a fingerprint expert.  A young J.A.G. officer Catchem’d shepherded through a couple of complicated courts-martial, one of which had gotten national attention, had come out of the service with a big reputation as a prosecutor, and had managed shortly afterwards to get himself elected as District Attorney of Brooklyn.  Catchem had mustered out a few months later, and his friend had immediately contacted him and offered him a spot on the D.A.’s investigative staff.  

Since NYC encompasses five different counties, or boroughs as they’re popularly known, there are five different district attorneys, one for each borough, and, whereas a member of the NYPD has authority in all five boroughs, a D.A.’s investigator is limited to the borough that employs him.  Catchem’s beat during his tenure as a D.A.’s man had been Brooklyn and only Brooklyn.

Fortunately, there are two kinds of cops who worked out of the five D.A.’s Offices of New York City.  D.A.’s investigators like Catchem, directly employed by the borough, and NYPD detectives working out of each borough’s D.A.’s Squad, assigned to the district attorney but employed by the City of New York.  And one of the guys who’d been assigned to the Brooklyn D.A.’s Squad at the same time Sam had been working in the Brooklyn D.A.’s Bureau of Investigation was, the last time Sam had heard, now assigned to a special unit at One Police Plaza, NYPD’s headquarters, that was precisely the place that had the information Sam needed.

“Homicide Analysis Unit.  Detective Kelly,” came the voice at the other end of the phone line.

“How’ya doing, Kelly?  This is Sam Catchem.”

“Sammy?  Forget about it!  How’re things out west, Sammy?  Heard a lot about you since you started working with that hotshot Tracy.  How long you been out there now, anyway, fifteen years or more?”

“A bit longer than that, actually.”

“No kidding?  Where’s the time go, anyway?  Man, I never thought you’d light in one place that long, Sammy.”

“What can I say?  I spent all those years looking for the right job, and I finally found it.  Listen, I’m working a homicide case out here might tie into one some cases that came up in Queens and Manhattan last year.  Your unit keeps all the homicide stats for all five boroughs, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we’re working a multiple homicide out here.  A guy who’s copycatting an old serial case from more’n twenty years ago.  We did a ViCAP check and found you had some cases done in the style of that Berkowitz guy.”

“Yeah, I remember those.  The first was in Queens.  Two high school kids were walking home from a movie.  As they walked toward the building one of them lived at, somebody walked over and opened up on ‘em with a .44 revolver.  You probably remember that this Son of Sam guy used a Charter Arms .44 Bulldog.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a summary of the case up on the computer screen right now.”

“Hold on a sec.  Let me pull up that info.”

Catchem could hear the faint sound of Kelly typing away at his keyboard as he waited.  After a few moments Kelly said, “Yeah, here it is.  A Saturday night in June, more than a year ago.  The two girls were named Margarita Rodriguez and Miriam Haddad, both 17 years old.  They were standing outside of the building where the Rodriguez family lived.  Whoever it was shot Margarita in the face three times, and Miriam in the face twice.  The Bulldog only holds five shots, so if this dirtbag was using the same kind of weapon, he emptied it into the two vics.  They were probably both dead before either of them hit the ground.”

“That sounds like he was replicating the DeMasi and Lomino attack.”

“Exactly right, Sammy.  Donna DeMasi and JoAnne Lomino, also in Queens, also standing in front of the home of one of the girls after going to a movie together.  One big difference, though.  Berkowitz screwed up.  Neither girl died.  JoAnne Lomino was crippled for life, but both victims survived.  Also, in the original case, both girls were Italian descent.  In the second, one was Latina and the other Middle Eastern.  But they were physically similar.  Dark hair.  Olive complexion.  From a distance, all four girls might have been taken for the same ethnic group.”

“And the Manhattan case?”

“Just a few days later.  The following Tuesday, in fact.  Her name was Dorothy Dawlish, an undergrad at Columbia.  She shared an apartment a few blocks from campus with three other girls.  She was walking home from school and had just reached her street when she was shot in the face three times by someone less than a few feet away, using a .44 revolver, the same one that killed Rodriguez and Haddad according to ballistics.”

“Just like Virginia Voskerichian.”

“Just like.  Both Columbia students.  Both living near campus.  Both walking home from school.  Both shot in the face.  Both dead.  Hell, they even both had names that alliterated.”

“Okay, one last question, Kel.  Was there any kind of re-enactment going on in the area at the time.  Either in the Five Boroughs or anyplace else in the Metropolitan Area?”

“Whaddaya mean ‘re-enactment?’”

“You know, like those guys who dress up in Civil War uniforms and go down to Gettysburg every Fourth of July.”

“Geeze, I don’t know, Sammy.  It’s New York.  There’s always something going on.  A couple of battles in the American Revolution were fought hereabouts, ya know.  Seems like I’ve heard of some kind of re-enactments of those at one time or another.  But whether there was anything like that going on at the time of the murders, I just can’t say.”

Catchem thanked Kelly, promised to stay in touch, then pulled up an Internet article about Harvey Glatman, the Lonely Hearts Killer, and looked up a phone number in his Rolodex.

The highest rank Catchem had ever held in his career, though it had only been for a short time, was Assistant Sheriff in charge of Criminal Investigations for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Like the Brooklyn job, he’d gotten this one through an old Army buddy, another C.I.D. agent.  Shortly after mustering out, his friend, Dave Case, had settled in Orange County, California, where he’d gotten a job as the chief of a small city police force there.  When the previous sheriff died in office, the County Board of Supervisors appointed him Acting Sheriff for two months until November, when a special election was held to fill the remainder of the unexpired term.  

Case had run unopposed in that election, and, as soon as his appointment had been confirmed by the voters, he’d contacted Catchem and offered him a spot on his command staff.  Enticed by the higher pay and the chance to run the entire detective bureau of a good-sized department, Catchem had accepted, turning in his resignation to the Brooklyn District Attorney and moving his whole family 2500 miles west.

Although he’d enjoyed the new job, it had not lasted long.  Two years later, during the regular election, Case, no longer running unopposed, had been voted out of office, and his entire command staff, including Catchem, had had to find other positions.

He still had some buddies in the Sheriff’s Office, though, and, last he’d heard, one of them had been promoted to sergeant and put in charge of the Homicide Detail.  Catchem dialed the number on the Rolodex card.

“Homicide.  Sergeant Parker.”

“Jeff, this is Sam Catchem.”

“Yessir,” said Parker.  Sam could picture him snapping to behind his desk, coming to attention as much as one could while in a sitting position.  He chuckled silently.  Parker had been a damned good investigator when he’d been working for Catchem, and undoubtedly still was, but he’d always been a little intimidated by brass.

“Stand easy, kid,” said Catchem.  ”You might just outrank me, now.  You’re running a unit and I’m just a second-in-command.”

“Sorry about that, sir.  What can I do for you?”

Catchem described the case they were working on and the possibility that it might relate to the two murders in Southern California that seemed to have been imitating Glatman’s murders from the late 1950’s.

“Yessir,” said Parker.  ”The second of those cases was in our county.  The first one was south of here in San Diego.”

“Can you give me the details of that first case, or recommend someone in San Diego County who can?”

“I know the basic facts.  Andrea Beaumont, 34, a single mother with two kids, met a guy at a singles club she’d joined shortly after her divorce.  They’d made a date.  He came to pick her up.  He never took her home.  A couple of days later her body was found in San Diego County, in the desert just outside of Anza State Park.”

“Which is exactly where Glatman killed Shirley Bridgeford, also a single mother with two kids, back in 1958.”

“That’s right.  A week later the second murder occurred here in Orange.  I’ve got the file right here.”

“Tell me about that one.”

“Her name was Darla Chan, age 26.  She was a nurse who did part-time work as model for an agency in Los Angeles.  A guy claiming to be a professional photographer hired her through the agency for what he told her were going to be cover shots for a small specialty magazine.  He picked her up at her home and started driving south on the Santa Ana Freeway toward Anaheim.  As they were approaching the Tustin Road exit, he passed a CHP unit patrolling that sector.”

“Motorcycle cop?”

“No, just a guy in a one-man black-and-white.  His name was Matt Daniels.  But I see where you’re going.”

“What happened?”

“He seemed to deliberately speed up so that Daniels couldn’t help but notice him.  Daniels started to pursue.  The car, with the victim inside, took the turn-off, the Chipper unit close behind.  It was dark, late at night, and Tustin Road isn’t very heavily traveled at that time.  Daniels and the suspect vehicle were the only cars on the road.  The suspect vehicle pulled over, and Daniels pulled up behind him.  He saw the victim exit the car from the passenger side and start running toward him.  She had a gun in her hand and was yelling that the guy in the car had tried to kill her.  She wasn’t holding the gun around the handle or anything, and she didn’t seem to know how to make it work, so Daniels assumed, correctly as it happened, that she meant him no harm, got out of his unit, and started toward her.”

He paused and Catchem heard the sound of a page turning.

“She handed him the weapon and pointed back at the car.  By this time driver had gotten out of the car and started toward them, looking sheepish and embarrassed according to Daniels.  Daniels told the woman to get behind him, unsnapped his weapon, and told the driver to stop where he was.  The driver said he was sorry, it was all a misunderstanding, just a lover’s quarrel.  She’d found the gun in the glovebox and gotten scared.  It wasn’t even real, just a stage prop he used for his magazine photos.”

He paused again to turn another page.

“Daniels looked down at the gun the girl had handed him.  It was a phony.  While he was distracted, the driver pulled another gun from behind his back, fired twice, and blew apart both of Daniels’s kneecaps.  Daniels immediately collapsed.  Then the suspect walked up to him and put another round in his right shoulder, and a fourth in his right hand.  He told the girl to stand still, that he had one more round left and he’d use it if she tried to run.  Then he disarmed Daniels, ordered the girl over to him, pulled out some rope he had in his jacket pocket, and tied her up and gagged her right in front of Daniels.  Then he told Daniels he wasn’t going to kill him, but he was going to kill the girl, and he wanted Daniels to remember that he’d had the chance to save her and didn’t.”

“Good Lord,” said Catchem, in a manner that made it sound less like a mild profanity and more like a prayer.

“The next day, we found Darla’s body in the eastern part of the county, near the Santa Ana Mountains.”

“Sounds like this mope was duplicating the kidnapping of Lorraine Vigil,” said Catchem.

“Yessir.  Only Lorraine Vigil was rescued and Glatman was caught and arrested.  By a CHP motorcycle cop just like you remembered,”

“What happened to the Highway Patrolman in this case?”

“He’s still in rehab.  His career was ended.  His right hand had to be amputated.  They saved his legs, but he’ll probably only walk with difficulty.”

“What a thing to live with,” said Catchem.

“The injuries or the guilt?”

“Both.  Do they know how the two vics were killed.?”

“Yeah.  Mainly because we got movies of them dying.”

Catchem paused and waited.  When Parker didn’t add anything, Catchem said, “You’re not kidding.”

“No.  Remember Glatman took photos of his victims.  First in captivity.  Then as he killed them.  This guy went Glatman one better.  He took videos and he sent the police copies.  And he killed them just as Glatman did, tied them up, looped a rope around their ankles, rolled the girls on their stomachs, tied the other end around their necks tight enough so they’d have to arch their backs to keep from choking, then calmly took movies while he waited for them to slowly strangle themselves to death.”

“Glatman never sent photos to the police.”

“Yeah, but apparently this guy wanted to make sure we knew he was imitating Glatman, both in the murder method, and in the fact that he took pictures.”

“And he made a point of involving a C.H.P. officer just so he could overcome him.  This is one bold guy.  Was Daniels able to give a description?”

“Average height.  Average weight, maybe a little bit overweight.  Hat covering his head, so no hair color.  Dark glasses despite its being nighttime, so no eye color.  White, or Hispanic, or Asian, or light-skinned black.  Take your pick.”

“What kind of gun did he use?”

“.44.  Probably a Charter Arms Bulldog according to the ballistics guys.”

“Really?  You still got the rounds?”

“Of course.”

“Let me give you the number of a guy in the NYPD.  He’s got some slugs you might want to compare with yours.”

*

Dick Tracy hung up the phone after concluding a long conversation with Detective Joe Sampson of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office in Washington State.  Sampson worked out of the PCSO’s Major Crimes Unit which, unlike Tracy’s identically named detail set up primarily to target career criminals, was basically a county-wide violent crimes squad.

The conversation had been a little awkward, at least from Tracy’s perspective, though it was possible that Sampson had been unaware of Tracy’s discomfort.  Joe Sampson, after all, was not merely a homicide cop in the area surrounding Tacoma.  He was Bonnie’s boyfriend.  And, although Bonnie used phrases like “just friends,” it was clear to Tracy that the romance was serious.

Tracy had a hard time putting his finger on just what made him uncomfortable about the relationship.  He certainly had no objections to Sampson personally.  He was a fine man and a fine cop.  When you came right down to it, Sampson reminded Tracy a lot of himself when he’d been that age.  Further, it was clear that his intentions toward Bonnie were, to use the old-fashioned phrase, strictly honorable.  Fact is, he and Tess’d liked Sampson enough that they’d even named their new son, Joey, after him.

Sampson was a full-blooded Yakima, but Tracy could honestly say that didn’t bother him at all.  After all, an Indian was actually pretty mundane compared to the girl Junior’d married.  Besides, it was just possible that Tracy himself might be part Native American.  His father had been from Oklahoma, after all, from a small town called Pawnee, and it sometimes seemed as if just about everyone from the Sooner State was part Cherokee or Chickasaw or Seminole or some other tribe. Or at least claimed to be.

Perhaps, knowing what Tess had gone through being married to cop, he was reluctant to put Bonnie through that sort of hardship.

Or perhaps, knowing how hard Bonnie had worked, he was afraid that she’d wind up sacrificing her career if she married so young.

But, if pressed, Tracy’d have to admit that what really bothered him was that Bonnie was 19, and Sampson was 32.  He was closer to Tess’s age than he was to Bonnie’s.  Hell, he was almost closer to Tracy’s age than he was to Bonnie’s.

Bonnie’d grown up too damned fast as it was.  An honor student without seeming to have to put any effort into it, she’d graduated from high school when she was barely 16, had earned her bachelor’s degree and a teaching credential by the time she was 18, and now was already teaching and working on a master’s degree.  It wasn’t bad enough that she’d decided to go all the way out to the Pacific Northwest for college, cheating him out of those last few precious years of having her at home.  Now she was seriously involved with a guy just a half-dozen years shy of being twice her age!

Thinking of all that had made it hard to concentrate on the information Sampson was passing on to him.  And that information was troubling.

Three murders, all college co-eds, all matching the physical characteristics of the victims so carefully chosen by Ted Bundy in the early to mid 1970’s, slender, attractive girls with dark, shoulder-length hair.  And all three murders careful duplications of crimes Bundy’d committed.

The first had been Sheila Favelli, a UW undergrad who shared a house with four other women students.  The killer, in emulation of Bundy’s first confirmed attack, entered her bedroom after midnight, beat her mercilessly, raped her both literally and with a metal rod, and left her dead in her own bed.

“It matched the attack on Joni Lenz in almost every respect,” Sampson had said, “except one.”

“Let me guess,” said Tracy.  ”Joni Lenz didn’t die.”

“That’s right.  She suffered permanent brain damage, but she lived.”

The second victim had been Robin Connelly, a pre-med senior at UW, who’d been kidnapped out of her basement studio apartment in Seattle a few blocks from the main campus.  City police had found a blood-stained sheet on the bed, and bloodstained pajamas hanging from a hood in the closet.  He’d apparently entered while she was sleeping, beat her, dressed her in street clothes, and carried her out of the room.  The topsheet was missing from the bed.  The killer’d apparently used this to cover the victim as he removed her from her apartment.

“A few days later,” Sampson had told him, “there was anonymous phone tip telling the cops to look in Taylor Mountain.   Robin’s severed head was found there.  The rest of her body’s still missing.  Except for the phone tip, and not waiting a month after the first attack, it was a perfect match for the murder of Lynda Healy.”

“And the phone tip was probably because he wanted you to find her skull in the same place Bundy had hidden Lynda Healy’s just so you’d know how close a match it was,” said Tracy.

Victim number 3 had been Pauline Toland, a graduate student at Seattle Pacific University, working on her Master of Divinity degree.  She’d been walking from her boyfriend’s dorm to her own after a late night study date.  Witnesses had reported seeing a man with his leg in a cast attempting to load something into a VW bug.  Pauline had been seen to stop and help.  She was never seen alive again.  Her body was found in a shallow grave near Lake Sammamish State Park, following another anonymous phone tip.

“A few details aside,” said Sampson, “it matched the murder of Georgann Hawkins in most respects.  Pauline went to SPU rather than UW, she was a graduate student rather than an undergrad, she’d been walking from one campus dorm to another rather than from her boyfriend’s frat to her own sorority, and she was a light-skinned black girl rather than white.  But the parallels were obvious.”

“These all happened within Seattle’s city limits?”

“Yeah, Sheila’s anyway.  As for the other two, the abductions occurred in Seattle, but no one knows where the actual murders occurred.  The bodies were found in unincorporated King County, so we’re helping out.  But Seattle PD’s the lead agency.”

And there was one more reason Tracy hadn’t like the idea of Bonnie’s living in the Pacific Northwest.  The region seemed to spawn so many serial killers.  Maybe it was something in the water.  More likely it was the combination of fast-growing urban centers where prey could easily be stalked, surrounded by lush undeveloped wilderness areas where bodies could be conveniently dumped.  Whatever the reason, Ted Bundy was just the best-known of a large group that included, among many others, Jerry “The Lust Killer” Brudos, Randy “The I-5 Killer” Woodfield, Harvey “The Want Ad Killer” Carignan, and Gary “The Green River Killer” Ridgeway.   Washington State was just not a safe place for a beautiful girl to be living.

“One last question, Joe.  These all occurred in a four week period this past February.  Do you know if there were any re-enactment events going on in the Seattle area at that time?”

“Re-enactment events?  You mean like recreating battles or something like that?  Nothing comes to mind, but it’s not really my thing, unless you count the occasional pow-wow.  Wait a minute.  February’s Black History Month.  There’s a group here in King County, the Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle, that takes part in the parades and re-enacts drills and stuff like that.  The real-life buffalo soldiers were members of all-black cavalry regiments in the years following the Civil War, so this group is particularly active during February.  Seems to me other military re-enactors show up in support.  Why do you ask?”

*

When Reed Jackson reached Chief Investigator Brig Cowley, the officer in charge of the Utah State Bureau of Investigation’s Special Investigations Section, the first thing Cowley told Jackson was that neither his unit, nor, for that matter, anyone in his agency had been involved in the investigation of Brittany Kramer’s murder.

“Well, can you put me in touch with someone who was involved, or at least fill me in on the highlights?”  

Though Jackson had a lot of law enforcement contacts throughout the country, Cowley was the really only guy he knew in any branch of Utah’s police service.  And even that was a pretty casual acquaintance.  They’d met some years ago at a criminal profiling symposium in Florida, had exchanged business cards, and had kept in sporadic touch since then.  If Cowley didn’t know anyone, or have some inside knowledge of the case, Jackson was going to have to go through channels instead of the “Old Boys’ Network,” which would use up all the time that the OBN was supposed to save.

“Well, the lead agency was the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office, and they didn’t call us in, but we did get a few bulletins and such.  How much do you know about Brittany’s death?”

“Just that it’s similar to crimes Ted Bundy committed in your state.”

“How much do you know about Bundy’s crimes here?”

“I’ve read several of the books about him.  I might not be able to give you chapter and verse, but I recall the gist of most of the cases.”

“Recall a victim named Carol DaRonch?”

“Sure.  If Bundy’d been a fisherman, she’d’ve been the big one that got away.  Bundy kidnapped her by impersonating a cop, but she managed to escape.  He was tried for her abduction, while Washington, Oregon, and Colorado were trying to tie him to murders in their states.  He was convicted, but broke jail.”

“Well, the murder of Brittany Kramer paralleled the abduction of Carol DaRonch in every respect except that Brittany didn’t escape.  Brittany even resembled Carol to an amazing degree.  She was approached while shopping in the Fashion Place Mall in Murray, a suburb of Salt Lake City.  That was the same mall Carol was kidnapped from.  The man who approached Brittany identified himself as a Murray police officer, informed her that someone had tried to break into her car, and asked her to come see if anything was missing, exactly the same ruse Bundy used on Carol.”

“This was all seen?”

“By other customers and clerks in the store Brittany was shopping at.  She was later seen out in the mall’s lot, examining her car with the ‘officer’ standing behind her.  She then went off with the ‘officer,’ entered his car, a VW bug, and was driven off.  Her body was later found near the Wasatch Mountains, where Bundy had dumped two of the Utah victims he succeeded in killing.  She’d been beaten to death by repeated blows to the head by some blunt object, probably a crowbar.  Ligature marks around her wrists indicated that she’d been handcuffed.”

“What did the suspect look like?”

“The usual.  Average height and weight.  He was wearing a ball cap, so it wasn’t clear what color his hair was.  He was wearing dark glasses, so no eye color.  The VW was light blue.  The Highway Patrol later found an abandoned light blue VW.  Turned out to’ve been stolen and to’ve had phony plates attached.  The inside and outside of the car was wiped clean of any trace evidence.  It looks like the killer took it just to get one more detail of the Bundy series right.”

“Okay, thanks for everything, Brig.  One more thing.  Was there any kind of historical re-enactment going on in the Salt Lake area at the time of Brittany’s murder?”

“Well, sure.  There’s one all summer long at Ogden.  That’s where the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869.  There’s a huge re-enactment of the driving of the Golden Spike every year on May 10th, the anniversary.  Then there’re smaller scale re-enactments every Saturday for the rest of the summer.”

“That fits,” said Jackson.

*

Johnny Adonis had just finished his call to Inspector George Mackean of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team for “E” Division, the massive chunk of Mountie manpower deployed in British Columbia.

Yes, there’d been two murders some months earlier in apparent emulation of Clifford Olson.  No they had not been mere imitations, but careful duplications of crimes from the original series.

The first had been Laura Bishop, 17, who had been hitchhiking on the Fraser Highway near Surrey.  She’d, apparently been picked up, and was never seen alive again.  Although Olson’s fourth victim, Sandra Wolfsteiner, had also been abducted while hitch-hiking on the same highway, no connection to the Olson series had been made at first.  Disappearances of teen-aged hitch-hikers were not, after all, so uncommon, or so unique to Clifford Olson, as to automatically suggest a copycat killer.  But then the RCMP got an e-mail telling them that Laura’s body would be found near Chilliwack Lake, the same place Sandra’s body had been found years earlier.  

“And I’m not charging $10,000 for this info,” the message had read.

Adonis wondered out loud what the ten thousand dollars referred to.

“Not the Force’s proudest moment, I’m afraid,” Mackean had responded.  Olson, Mackean had explained, had proposed a deal when he was arrested.  He’d reveal where he’d hidden his victims’ bodies if his family was paid ten thousand dollars for each corpse unearthed.  The deal had been accepted.  That was how the skeletal remains of 16-year-old Sandra Wolfsteiner had been found.  

In this case, the still-unknown killer was revealing where the body was hidden without the monetary reward, but his reference to that reward in his message made it clear that Laura’s murder was supposed to evoke the Olson series.  When Laura Bishop’s body was found, it was discovered that she’d been killed by a blow on the head from behind, probably from a hammer, just as Sandra had been.

A week later, 19-year-old Jasia Majewski, a foreign student at Vancouver Island University, had been seen hitch-hiking near the town of Coquitlam.  She, too, was never again seen alive.  This time, with the connection to the earlier series already established in the case of Laura’s murder, a few cops looking into Jasia’s disappearance noticed that it resembled in many respects the abduction, and subsequent murder, of Sigrun Arnd, Olson’s ninth victim, an 18-year-old German tourist who’d also been kidnapped while hitching a ride near the same town.  

“Jasia was Polish rather than German,” said Mackean, “and in Canada on a student visa rather than just visiting on holiday, but the similarities were obvious.”

Sigrun’d been found buried in a remote area of the City of Richmond.  Jasia’s body was found in same approximate area.  Like Sigrun, she’d been beaten to death by repeated hammer blows to the head.

In the months since the discovery of Jasia’s body, no further homicides duplicating Olson’s murders had occurred.

Was there, Adonis wanted to know, any sort of re-enactment event going on in B.C. at the time of the murders of Laura and Jasia?

Re-enactment event?  Well, Mackean had replied, surely Detective Adonis was aware that Fort Steele was a popular attraction in British Columbia.

*

Once all the calls were completed, and Catchem Adonis, and Jackson had reported what they’d learned, Tracy told Lee and Lizz to stop their computer research for the moment and join the meeting.  

“Okay,” said Tracy, “we’ve established that all the copycat killings reported to Lizz through ViCAP and ViCLAS were not just in the style of well-known serial killers, but were careful, deliberate duplications of specific murders.  Were we able to establish that some sort re-enactment event was going on in each location?  Sam?”

“Neither of the guys I talked to in New York and California knew of one.  But I did a little checking on my own.  I couldn’t find a re-enactment event in any of the Five Boroughs, but there was something going on nearby.  Monmouth State Park in New Jersey puts on a re-enactment of a major engagement from the American Revolution, the Battle of Monmouth, every year in June.  The park’s only about forty or fifty miles from Midtown Manhattan, less than an hour on the Jersey Pike.  And it was going on a week or so before the Son of Sam duplications.”

“And on the Coast?”

“El Cajon, in San Diego County, has a museum devoted to some famous cowboy artist, Olaf Wieghorst, which puts on a Western Heritage Days festival each year.  Indian dances, stagecoach rides, musical performances, and lots of historical reenactments.  It was held the weekend after the first Glatman duplication.  The second happened a few days later.”

“Johnny?”

“Fort Steele’s a big attraction in B.C.  A whole community devoted to historical re-enactment, kind of like Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.  It’s open all year round, including when the Olson imitations occurred.  Visitors who are into re-enacting are encouraged to participate.”

“Okay,” said Tracy.  ”Reed’s already told me about the Golden Spike celebration in Utah. And there was a military re-enactment event going on in Seattle in conjunction with Black History Month.  If thrice is enemy action, we’re already way past that.  We can now take it as a fact, not merely a supposition, that someone’s traveling the world, attending various historical re-enactment events, and that, while he’s at these events, he’s replicating the crimes of famous serial killers that took place in that same general location.”

He looked at the assembled members of his team.  

“Reed’s a trained, experienced criminal profiler,” he said, “but all of us are seasoned detectives, which means that, instinctively, we’re all better profilers than we may realize.  I want us to try to brainstorm a profile on this guy, this re-enactor, whoever he is.”

“That’s probably what the media’ll end up calling him,” said Jackson, “when they get wind of this.  ’The Re-Enactor.’ Not quite the punch of ‘Son of Sam’ or ‘The Zodiac,’ but it has a certain ring.”

“Right now I’m more interested in figuring out who he is, not what super-villain nickname to give him.  So what can any of you tell me about this guy?”

“Well,” said Sam, “he’s probably rich.  And it’s most likely inherited wealth.”

“Why’s that?” asked Tracy.

“It’s like your buddy at Scotland Yard said.  Historical re-enactment is a damned expensive hobby, even if you’re specializing in one very specific era of history.  This guy’s all over the time stream.  The Civil War.  The American Revolution.  The Renaissance.  World War II.  The Old West.  The building of the railroad.  And he can afford to go all over the world, at any time he wants, just to indulge this hobby.  Clearly he’s got the money to spend, which means he’s rich, and he’s got the leisure time to spend it whenever and wherever he wants, which means it’s probably inherited.”

“Why’s that?” said Lee Ebony.  ”Why couldn’t he have just made his pile and then decided to sit back and enjoy it?”

“Because most guys who make their piles that fast are driven.  The money stops being the point after awhile.  It’s just a way of keeping score.  Look at guys like Trump or Gates, or earlier guys like Ford or Rockefeller.  They made more money than they could ever spend in their lives very early, but they just kept on trying to make more.  Improving their product, thinking up new innovations, building new buildings, sinking new wells.  Diet Smith’s a great example.  But people who inherit their wealth don’t have the same sense of purpose.  They’re the ones you see becoming playboys, getting into gambling, drugs, booze, fast cars, and fast women, always seeking the next big kick.  And most of the time they just had their money handed to them.  This guy gets his kicks by pretending to live in another time period.”

“And, apparently, by pretending to be serial killers from other time periods,” said Lizz.

Tracy took a marker and wrote on a whiteboard “RICH (PROBABLY INHERITED).”  He turned back to the group.

“What else?”

“One thing that sticks out for me,” said Jackson, “though it’s not obvious at first.  He’s got a very specific victim profile, and, as far as I can determine, he’s never deviated from it.”

Tracy nodded.  The same thing had occurred to him, but he let Jackson run with it.

“Seems to me,” said Adonis, “that there’s a fairly wide range.  Teen-agers to women in their 30’s.  White, black, Asian, Latina, Middle Eastern. Tall, short, medium height.  Blondes, brunettes, redheads.”

“But all of them female.  I admit that’s not particularly unusual in itself.  With rare exceptions, like Dahmer or Gacy, serial killers tend to target women.  Nevertheless, while our offender seems to have a wide range, he’s very consistent within that range.  All his victims are young women, late adolescent to early adult.  None below the age of 16, none above the age of 34.  True, there’s no specific physical type, as with Bundy, for example, and no specific ethnic group.  But they’re all quite attractive.  All slender, whatever their height.  All very pretty, even beautiful by most standards.  And one more thing.  They all seem to be, for lack of a better word, nice.  Wholesome, girl-next-door types.  The kind of lady you bring home to meet the folks.  Students, or young mothers, or women working legitimate jobs.  No evidence of drug use or alcohol abuse.  Maybe not virgins, but certainly not promiscuous.”  

“Yeah, but he was imitating other killers,” said Adonis, “which means he’d have to pick the same kind of victim they were selecting.”

“That’s the most interesting thing.  Many of the killers he’s emulating had victim profiles that were very different from his.  Olson and Black both targeted young children, and Olson targeted both sexes.  Chikatilo targeted children of both sexes and women with loose reputations.  Cummins, like a lot of serial killers, targeted prostitutes.  Yet when our guy selected specific crimes from the series of those killers, he chose the exceptions, the ones in which they stepped outside of their preferred victim profiles. And what makes that particularly intriguing is that, in doing so, he was making things more difficult for himself.”

“What do you mean?” asked Catchem.

“Why do serial killers target children and hookers?  Because they’re pedophiles or they like to think they’re punishing sluts?  Maybe.  But children and hookers have this in common.  They’re especially vulnerable and controllable.  If you like killing people, a victim who’s easy to acquire and easy to control is a premium item.  Who else besides little kids are as susceptible to a charming line of patter?  Who else besides hookers regularly, several times a night, get into the cars of total strangers who’re bigger and stronger than they are?  If you’re a serial killer, even if your particular fetish isn’t little kids or women who sell sex, the very vulnerability of children and prostitutes make them attractive targets.  Our guy, by way of contrast, wants females; he wants them young but full-grown, or at least nearly full-grown; he wants them pretty; and he wants them to be what he thinks of as nice, sweet, and decent.  And he’s willing to work hard to get them.”

“Work hard?” asked Lee Ebony.

“Take risks, I mean.  He’ll stalk his intended victims, taking a chance on being spotted over time.  He’ll break into their bedrooms when they’re asleep to attack them or capture them.  He’ll let himself be seen by witnesses when he’s impersonating a cop.  He steals cars to commit his abductions, which, I grant you, gives him a vehicle that’s hard to trace back to him, but which is also a pretty high-risk activity all by itself.  If he was willing to lower his standards, so to speak, all he’d have to do is cruise an area that’s heavy with streetwalkers, pick one up, and kill her at his leisure.”

“He’s right,” said Tracy.  ”That young lieutenant in Russia made the same point.  Of all the victims Chikatilo killed, our guy picked the two out more than fifty that didn’t fit the pattern.  And he’s done that all along.  The guy he’s emulated the most is Bundy, and I suspect that’s precisely because Bundy’s victim profile is so similar.”

“So what does his victim profile tell us?” asked Lee Ebony.

“One thing it may tell us,” replied Jackson, “is that he’s probably not quite done imitating the Suburban Slasher.”

“Because the Slasher’s victim profile, like Bundy’s, is also very similar,” said Tracy.  He went to the whiteboard and wrote a short description of the killer’s victim profile.  

“What else?” he asked.

“You know,” said Lee, “we don’t know really what he looks like, not even his ethnic background.  We know he’s got kind of tanned skin, but that could mean anything from a W.A.S.P. with a suntan to a light-skinned African American.  But it occurred to me that he might be Asian.”

“Why’s that?” asked Tracy.

“The only times he’s been seen, he was wearing dark glasses, even at night or indoors.  It’s a big speculation, I know, but very often the eyes are the feature people remember best.  So maybe there’s something distinctive about his eyes that he wants to hide.  If you’re Asian or Asian descent, and you’re living in a country where Asians are in the minority, the epicanthic fold that most Asians have might be that something distinctive.”

“Have there even been Asian serial killers?” asked Lizz.

“Lam Kor-Wan in Hong Kong,” said Jackson, “Raman Raghav in India.  Sataro Fukiage in Japan.  Charles Sobhraj in Thailand.”

“You really are a homicide expert, aren’t you?  But I meant American serial killers of Asian descent.”

“Charles Ng out in California,” said Catchem.

“Andrew Cunanan, too,” added Jackson.  ”But Lizz has a good point.  There really have been very few Asian American serial killers.”

“But isn’t that partly because there are so few Asians in the United States at all,” said Lee.  ”I mean they’re only, what, four per cent of the total population.  And it’s not like there are really that many serial killers around.  Maybe the low number of Asian American serial killers reflects the low percentage of Asian Americans period.  The fact that the two who have surfaced both come from a state with a higher percentage of Asians in their population might be indicative.”

“Good point,” said Tracy.  ”Let’s at least agree that there might be something distinctive about the killer’s eyes that he wants to keep hidden.”  He wrote on the whiteboard, “DISTINCTIVE EYES (ASIAN?).”

“One thing that stands out for me is his sheer arrogance,” Tracy said after he’d finished writing.  ”He doesn’t just emulate all these famous serial killers.  He improves on them.  Time and again, the crime he picks to duplicate is one where the original killer failed to actually kill his victim.  But our killer always succeeds when he re-enacts a failed murder.  In one case, he even made a point of contriving a violent confrontation with a cop, just so he could overcome him, something the original killer wasn’t able to do.  He wants to prove he’s better than any of the big names.”

“Seems to me he is proving that,” said Catchem.  ”He has been successful every time he’s duplicated a failed crime.  What’s more, he’s managed to stay off law enforcement’s radar, even after gunning that Chipper.  Every jurisdiction that he’s operated in has realized that someone was duplicating the crimes of a famous serial killer, but, up until now, no one’s connected any of the sub-series to any of the other sub-series, except for Whitehall’s team at Scotland Yard.  They’re also the only investigators before now who’ve made the connection with the re-enactment events going on at roughly the same time in roughly the same place.  Then they punted away their chance to score.  Having made the connection, something no other involved police force did, they discounted it all as a coincidence.”

“England was the only country up ‘til then in which two different sub-series had occurred,” said Tracy.  ”Except for the States, and England’s a lot smaller.  He was pretty bold committing those two murders in a relatively small country, which is more evidence of his arrogance.  Damned lucky for him that they did discount it.  And in fairness to those London cops, they were dealing with two different paradigm shifts at once.  Serial killers don’t change their M.O. and signature so radically between crimes, and re-enactors don’t re-enact more than one historical era.  I can easily see us making the same mistake.  The main reason we didn’t is because he’d been active for a longer time when he started operating in our beat, which gave us a much broader canvas to examine.”

“It’s too bad,” said Johnny Adonis, “that the Suburban Slasher was such a successful killer.  If he’d screwed up just one of his murders, we’d have a better idea which one of the Slasher’s crimes our offender was planning to replicate.”

“I think we probably have a better chance identifying our killer than we do identifying his next victim.  I only hope we manage to do it before he picks out that next victim.”

“How are we going to do that?” asked Lee.

“Old-fashioned police work.  Find out who went to each of these re-enactor events, make a list of people who were at all of them, which I’m guessing will be a list of no more than one, and see if that one fits the profile we’ve just developed.  But remember a profile is just speculation.  Don’t let it give you tunnel vision.  Anyone who’s been to all these events is automatically a prime suspect.”

*

Tak Ipok had already picked out his next victim.  Or pair of victims.  The two stunning blonde sisters he’d seen on the campus of Norton College.  It was the younger sister who was actually attending classes here.  The older girl just stayed long enough to drop her off and then came back later pick her up.  

So, how to manage it, then?  Should he take them both at once as they arrived on campus?  Risky, because the place would be crowded with students and staff ready to start the day.  Take the younger sister sometime during the day, then wait for the older sister and take her when she arrived to pick her sibling up later in the day?  But then he’d have to keep the girl quiet and controlled all day long on campus, or else take her all the way back to his special place, and leave her there alone and unguarded while he returned to seize the older one.  Perhaps follow them home and take them there?   No telling who else might be living at home.  In fact, they might not necessarily share a home.  The older sister was apparently married, since she always had a baby in the car with her when she came to pick up the younger one.  Maybe the older one shared a home with her husband and baby, and the younger one lived someplace else.  But then why did the older one always drop her off and pick her up?

Taking them one at a time seemed safest, but the “apprehensions” should occur closely enough together so he’d have roughly the same advantages as if he took them simultaneously, but fewer of the risks.

He’d think about.  A plan would undoubtedly come to him.

“So what’s your symposium about, Bonnie?” asked Tracy.  He was seated at the dinner table with his daughter.  Tess was in the kitchen fixing dinner.  It had been a long day, but Tracy was exhilarated.  The thrill of the chase, the scent of the quarry, had gotten his blood racing, as it always did.  He felt like he could have stayed up all night chasing down leads.  But, realistically, there was nothing more he could accomplish that couldn’t wait ‘til tomorrow, and Bonnie was only going to be here for a short time.

“‘Education and Native American Women,’” answered Bonnie.  ”I was invited to give a presentation about teaching elementary grade school students, particularly girls, based on my job at the Yakima Reservation this summer.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to incorporate it into my thesis.”

“Sounds interesting.  And it sounds like something you’d be perfect for.”

“An unbiased opinion, Dad?”

“I’m a trained investigator.  My conclusions are invariably based on an impartial, objective analysis of the evidence.”

Tess entered the dining room with dinner.

“I talked to Joe today,” said Tracy as he served himself.

“Joe?” said Bonnie.

“Joe Sampson.  I needed some information on a case that connected to something he was working on out there.”

“Oh.  Did you talk about anything else?”  

“Not really.  He did say he missed you and looked forward to your getting back.”

“Well, that’s nice.”

“I told him you missed him, too.  You haven’t said so, but it seemed like a reasonable supposition.”

“I miss him a lot.  That doesn’t really bother you, does it, Dad?”

“Oh, a bit, I guess.  I imagine it would bother every father.  I don’t guess I’d ever feel anyone was quite good enough for you.”  

“We’re just friends, Dad.”

“That’s what your mother used to tell her folks about me.”

“Okay, we’re more than just friends.  But you don’t really dislike him, do you, Dad?

Tess spoke before Tracy could answer.  ”Dislike him?  Bonnie, we both think he’s great.  It was your father’s idea to name little Joey after him.”

“I know.  It’s just that I sense this, sort of, discomfort.”

“Like I said, that’s something any father would feel about anyone who had serious feelings toward his daughter.  I’ve got some specific problems with Joe, true, but nothing against his character.  And if it was someone else, I’d undoubtedly have a different set of specific problems about him.”

Turning to his wife, he changed the subject.  ”I also talked to Diet today.  I thought we could have him over to dinner while Bonnie’s here, if that’s OK with both of you.”

“Of course, Dick,” said Tess.  ”You know how much I like Diet.”

“Does he still have that ulcer problem?” asked Bonnie.

“Oh, yeah.  He wouldn’t be Diet Smith if he didn’t have an ulcer problem.”

“So Mom’ll have to fix something special.”

“I can fix something he can eat that the rest of us will like without going to any real trouble.  And Diet hasn’t seen you since you moved West.  You don’t mind him visiting, do you?”

“Of course not.  I just thought I could handle dinner.”

“We’ll both handle it.  We haven’t done a dinner together since you were in high school.”

The phone rang.  Tracy went to pick it up.

“Boss, this is Lee.  I’ve been running some computer checks and making some calls, and I think I’ve got a really strong suspect.  I’ve tied him to three of those events, including the Re-Enactor Fest out in Wheeling.”

“How’d you do that?”

“I got a list of attendees from the Fest operators.  They were a little reluctant, but persuadable.  I didn’t know how many complete guest lists I’d be able to get from any of these events.  Some people just show up.  But I found one guy who fits the profile we put together in most respects.  His name is Takahashi Ipok.  He’s the rich son of a deceased toy designer of some kind.”

“Takahashi Ipok, eh?  Which of the other events have you placed him at?”

“The Old West thing in California.  They don’t have a guest list, but he bought some items at the museum’s gift shop on the date of the event and it came up on a credit card check.  I tied him to that Fort Steele place in B.C. the same way.  Anyone can walk in to the fort without registering, but he bought a meal and some other items on his plastic on a date that places him there during the same period as the Olson duplication murders.  I haven’t tied him to any others yet, but, like you said, ‘Thrice is enemy action.’ If he’s been to three of them, he’s probably been to the others, too.”

Tracy felt a little abashed.  Evidently there were investigative steps that could be taken tonight rather than waiting ‘til tomorrow.

“Excellent work, Lee!  You did really good.  Were you able to find if he’s still in the area, and where he’s staying if he is?”

“He’s still registered at the Westin North Shore.”

 ”Great.  Go on home now, and we’ll all start fresh in the morning.”

“Roger that, Boss,” said Lee, and hung up.

Tracy replaced his own phone in the cradle and returned to the table.

“What was that about Tak Ipok?” asked Bonnie.

“Just someone who might be able to help us on a case.  You know who he is?”

“Sure.  His dad was a puppet maker from Laos.  He designed the face mold for the Star-Spangled Sweethearts doll line.  Tak Ipok gets a cut from every single Star-Spangled Sweetheart sold.  He doesn’t have anything to do with the line, but he still gets paid for his father’s design.”

“Star-Spangled Sweethearts, eh?  He must be pretty rich, then.”

“Heck, yeah!  He’s swimming in it.  He lives a pretty dull life, though, from what I’ve heard.  Not like a lot of those trust fund kids.  You don’t see his name in gossip columns very much.  But people who are into the Sweethearts know who he is.”

Bonnie was one of those people who were into the Sweethearts.  The line had been founded as a mail-order business right here in the City back in the ‘80’s by a teacher and children’s book author named Cheerful Oaralight, who thought that a series of dolls representing different eras of U.S. history would inspire interest in that subject in little girls.  A core set of a six dolls, from six different eras, representing a variety of backgrounds from Seminole Indians to Irish Catholic immigrants, had been the initial products.  Soon new dolls were added, along with clothes, novels about the characters of each doll, movies about those characters, a quarterly magazine, and a hugely successful chain of stores, the Star-Spangled Sweethearts Shop.  Leaving aside all the ancillary products, the sales of dolls alone amounted to more than ten million units.  And, at about a hundred dollars a doll, that was more than a billion gross.  If Ipok was getting as little as a half a per cent on each doll sold, he was a millionaire five times over.

Bonnie’d been an avid collector.  While she was growing up, she’d acquired all six of the core dolls, plus several of the transitory “Annual Dolls,” plus one specially customized to resemble her, plus dozens of the novels (being a detective’s daughter, she’d had a decided preference for the mysteries in the series), plus a magazine subscription, plus videos of the films.  Her beloved Sweethearts collection had gone up in smoke when the Tracy home was burned down in the second fire-bombing, shortly after Bonnie’d gone away to college.  Tracy, blaming himself for the loss of his family’s home and possessions, had taken it on himself to try to replace every single item in Bonnie’s collection.  Right now, that set of replacements was lovingly displayed in the room Tess had set aside for Bonnie to use on her too infrequent visits to their new suburban home.

“Takahashi doesn’t sound like a Laotian name,” said Tracy.

“It’s Japanese.  His mother was Nisei, born in Hawai’i, where his father settled after he escaped from Laos. They met, married, and had one son.  His first name was her maiden name.  She died a year or two after Tak was born.”

“Tak, eh?  You’re on a first name basis with the guy?”

“Well, that’s how the magazine always referred to him.  His dad died ten or so years ago, and he’s been the beneficiary of the copyrighted image ever since.  He also got a percentage of the price when Cheerful sold out to Hariot Toys.”

Reportedly, Hariot, the largest toy company in the world, had bought the Star-Spangled Sweetheart line for seven hundred million flat.  Just a half a percentage of that, combined with a half cent on each doll sold, would put Ipok’s net personal worth at something close to ten million.  And all he’d done was have the good luck to be the only son of a guy who’d been hired to design a doll’s face.

“What time is it?” asked Tracy.

“About eight thirty,” answered Tess.  ”Why?”

“I’m trying to figure out what time it is in Honolulu.”

*

The five hour time zone difference meant that it was three thirty in the afternoon in Honolulu which meant that Haku Kou would still be at work, and, most likely, still in his office.  He looked up the number in the personal directory by the phone and dialed it.

“Major Kou.”

“Hi, Haku.  This is Dick Tracy.”

“Likeke!” said Kou, addressing Tracy by the Hawai’ian version of his name.  ”Aloha, bruddah!  How things on the Mainland?”

Like many people born and raised on the Island State, Hugo “Haku” Kou was an amalgam of perhaps a dozen or more ethnic strains.  He was more Native Hawai’ian than anything else, but with generous dollops of Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Irish, and light dustings of Filipino, Korean, French, and Scandinavian, among several others.

It was unclear to Tracy exactly how Haku had gotten his Hawai’ian nickname.  Partly, of course, it was because “Haku” was phonetically similar to “Huko,” the Hawaiian version of “Hugo.”  But because the Hawai’ian word “haku” has several different meanings, there were a number of different explanations for how this particular phonetically similar word had come to be applied to Kou, none of which Kou’d ever confirmed.

He was a very tall, muscular man, six feet six in his bare feet, which gave him a particularly aristocratic bearing, and there were rumors that some of Kou’s Native Hawai’ian blood was royal.  One meaning of “haku” is “lord,” and one explanation for Kou’s nickname was that he’d been dubbed “Haku” because of his lordly appearance and his possible lordly ancestors.

Another story was that Kou had boxed during his stint in the Marines, and that he’d been a wide-open slugger rather than a finesse strategist.  Supposedly, some of Kou’s military buddies had dubbed him “Rocky,” after the real-life heavyweight champ, Rocky Marciano, and the fictional counterpart made famous in the Sylvester Stallone movies, whose boxing styles Kou had emulated.  ”Pohaku,” sometimes shortened to “haku,” being the Hawai’ian word for “stone,” Kou’s military nickname, according to this version, had simply been translated once he was back in civilian life.  Tracy was inclined to seriously doubt this account, since the Hawai’ian translation of the proper name “Rocky,” as distinct from the hard collection of minerals “rock,” is “Loluki.”

Yet a third explanation was that Kou had worked his way through college as a musician, playing the ukulele and performing his own songs in clubs, restaurants, and  luaus.  The phrase “haku mele” means “poet,” “songwriter,” or “composer,” and, supposedly, Kou’d gotten the nickname during his short career in show business.

But the version Tracy leaned toward was that it was a nickname he’d acquired early in his career in the Honolulu Police, when he’d been the department’s top undercover agent.  ”Haku’apa” is a phrase that means “fabricator,” “deceiver,” or “liar.”  Generally it is regarded as an uncomplimentary description, but in this case, according to the story, it was applied to Kou in recognition of his gift for developing convincing identities that easily deceived the criminals he brought down from the inside during his deep cover assignments.  Kou had been on just such an assignment years earlier, an assignment that had brought him to the Mainland, and to Tracy’s City, when his path and Tracy’s first crossed.

But Kou’s undercover days were long past.  Since then he’d worked his way up the promotion ladder very quickly.   He’d recently been promoted to major and assigned to command HPD’s Criminal Investigation Division.  

But the nickname, however he’d gotten it, remained.

Tracy politely responded to all of Kou’s inquiries about “the lovely Keki” (Tess), “Likeke’opio” (Junior), “Poni” (Bonnie), “Elikapeka” (Lizz), and “Kamuela” (Sam), and then told him about the new addition to the family.

“That’s wonderful, Bruddah!  What’re you callin’ him?”

“Joe.”

“Ah, Lokepa.  Good name for a boy.  Means he’ll be a good father someday.  Now what do you need, bruddah?”

“I need to know anything you can tell me about a resident of your city.  His name is Takahashi Ipok.”

“Tak Ipok, eh?  Winner of the Star-Spangled jackpot.  Yeah, we know him, all right.  Listen, Likeke, what we say here’s confidential, right?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I got nothing official on this kolo is why.  So anything I tell you could legally be construed as slander, on account of just at the moment, I can’t prove any of it, and, even if I could, the Prosecuting Attorney would probably just say the statute of limitations has passed.”

“What’s he done that you can’t prove?”

“Whole lot of stuff. But it’s all just rumors and hints.  One story’s he liked to mistreat animals as a kid.  Another’s that he liked to set things on fire.  There’s another puts those two together, says he set fire to a kitten.”

Childhood cruelty to animals and obsession with fire.  Two thirds of the so-called “MacDonald Triad,” the supposed warning signs of a serial killer in the making.  If there were rumors that he wet the bed past the age of 5, thought Tracy, they’d have the whole trifecta.  Or at least rumors of a trifecta.

 ”One thing we’re pretty sure he really did,” continued Kou, “was rape a young girl.  Rape’s always nasty, but this was seriously nasty.  This was a real nice girl.  Sweet and kind of naïve, you know?  He took her out to a dance at her school.  Sometime during the evening, he managed to get her to take some kind of drug, maybe that Rohypnol or something similar.  That was bad enough.  But he took movies of him doing her.  Next day he sent her a copy of the movie, then called her up and told her what he’d done.  He said he’d used a condom and then bathed her afterwards, while she was still out, so the only evidence was the movie.  But he’d make sure, if she ever accused him, that the movie would be spread all over the ‘Net.”

“Nice guy.  But if she wasn’t talking, how did your people find out about it?”

“She confided in a friend and the friend came to us.  I even talked to her personally.  I was Captain of Violent Crimes at the time.  She wouldn’t make an official complaint.  Neither would her parents.  We know what he did and he knows we know what he did, but we can’t prove it.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“About five years ago, maybe.”

“So the statute would have run out.”

“Probably.  Statute’s only three years for second degree sexual assault, which is what he’d most likely be charged with since he used drugs instead of physical force.  If we could nail him on first degree, the statute’s six years, which’d give us another year to work with.  What you like him for?”

“He’s suspected of being a serial killer.”

“In your town?

“Yeah.  And at least five other towns on two continents.  All his victims have been young women.”

“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me.  This guy’s seriously evil, bruddah.  Real loko’ino.  And seriously arrogant, too.”

“Haku, I’m certain this is the guy we’re looking for.  But proving it’s going to be hard.  It would be a lot easier if he had a record of violence toward women.  Do you think it would do any good to make another try at persuading your victim to press charges if you told her Ipok’s been killing women all over the world?  If she’s kept the video, a conviction will be a slam dunk.”

“Worth a try, I suppose.  But she’s gonna be tough to convince.  Having a video of your rape on the ‘Net’s gotta be as bad as getting raped in the first place.  Hard sell, Bruddah.  Particularly since the statute’s probably run out.”

“Yeah, but if he can make that threat, it stands to reason he’s kept his own copy of the video.  He’s out of state right now.  Perfect time to serve a search warrant before he has a chance to download it onto some website.  And that way you can prove rape and extortion. And the extortion’s been ongoing, so the statute doesn’t apply.”

“Like I said, Likeke, worth a try.”

“See how soon you can get it done, Haku.  It’s about time I met this creep face to face.  If I can tell him he’s about to be charged in Hawai’i, it might rattle him.  And I need him rattled.”

“Do my best, Likeke.  I’ll call you tomorrow when I know something.  Aloha.

“I’ll be waiting for that call, pal.”

*

The best-laid plans of mice and men oft’ get screwed up.

At first, things went well.  It was still only late afternoon in Hawai’i, and Kou went right to work.  This time, he was able to persuade Ipok’s rape victim to make a complaint.  And it turned out that she’d kept the video he’d sent her all those years ago.

“She wanted to throw it away,” Kou told Tracy when he called him the next morning, “but she felt it might be useful someday if she kept it.  Couldn’t say why.  Just a feeling she had.”

Armed with the video and the victim’s signed complaint, Kou was able to get an arrest warrant and a warrant to search Ipok’s Oahu home.  The search turned up Ipok’s own copy of the video.  Proof that he’d been using it to blackmail his victim into silence.

“And here’s the best part, Likeke,” Kou had said.  ”The movie shows that, after he had her knocked out with the drug, he tied her to the bed.  The drug might just count as ‘sexual penetration while physically helpless.’  That’s second degree, which means the statute would have run out and all we could get him on is extortion.  But tying her up makes it ‘penetration by strong compulsion.’  That’s first degree, Bruddah.  Means the statute hasn’t run out yet.”

“And Hawai’i will extradite from the Mainland?”

“You bet it will!”

“Is the warrant entered into NCIC?”

“Entering it now, but who knows when it’ll show up in the system?  We’ll fax you a copy of the warrant with a notice of the State’s intention to extradite.”

So far, so good.  With a certified copy of the warrant in hand, they could now pick him up and get him sent back to Hawai’i.  Once he was safely under lock and key, facing a rape conviction, Tracy and his MCU could work with all the involved jurisdictions on nailing him for at least a few of the murders.  

But what they hadn’t counted on was the loyal old family retainer letting their suspect know what was going on.  The caretaker at Ipok’s home (he called himself an “estate manager” which was a little bit pretentious considering that the house, big though it was, was on a lot that consisted of only three acres, hardly amounting to an estate) slipped outside while the search was going on, reached Ipok by cell phone, and informed him that the police were ransacking his home.

Ipok immediately checked out of the Westin and was in the wind by the time Tracy and Jackson arrived there to serve the warrant.  Flight’s evidence of guilt, and, when they finally caught up with him, his running away could be used against him.

The problem, of course, was that they’d have to find him first.

*

Ipok was safely ensconced in his, what could he call it?  ”Hideout” seemed so mundane, like someplace an ordinary bank robber or burglar would hole up in ‘til the heat was off, and, in the first place, Ipok wasn’t ordinary, and, in the second place, that wasn’t why he’d obtained the place at all.  

“Laboratory” was a bit overwrought, and not really on point, since you couldn’t really call what he did here experiments.  

“Hunting lodge” perhaps?  Closer to the mark.  A true crime writer he was familiar with, a fellow named Newton, had once described what he and others like him did as “hunting humans.”  

If murder was, as he’d lately begun to think of it, his “hobby,” then “hobby room” might fit, except that it was a reasonably large house with several rooms.  ”Hobby house,” then.  He was safely ensconced in his hobby house.

He’d known Tracy was good.  He hadn’t realized how good.  Because he had no doubt that it was Tracy who’d managed to dig up his little sexual peccadillo from five years ago and persuaded that sub-cretin Major Kou to push forward and find proof.  And if Tracy was trying to nail Ipok on something, it must mean that he’d already managed to connect him to his Suburban Slasher re-enactments.  How had he done that?

No matter.  If he’d connected him to the Slasher re-enactments, it was almost certain that he’d also connected him to at least a few of his earlier projects.  Connected him, but, apparently, not gathered sufficient evidence to charge him, which is why he must be leaning on Kou to dig up that old rape case back in Honolulu.  The little bitch had suddenly grown a new set of guts and decided to sign a complaint despite the threat that doing so would result in her becoming the star of the most popular free porno movie on the World Wide Web.  Well, now that the police undoubtedly had his copy of that video, and probably his computer as well, he wouldn’t be able to make good on that threat, so the question was what should he do now?

The safest course was simply to get out of the States and make his way, as quickly as he could, to the nearest country with which the U.S. had no extradition treaty.  Somehow, though, he was loath to do that until after he’d finished his Slasher re-enactment.  He’d so looked forward to spending an enjoyable evening with those two scrumptious sisters, had planned so carefully and made such detailed preparations.  He hated to leave before completing what he’d started.

Well, the cops had no idea where he was.  They had no idea what he was driving.  And he still had his uncanny ability to blend into the background.  

If he was careful, he had no doubt that he’d be able to seize the two young ladies, have his wicked way with both of them, leave their dead bodies in that park in Berwyn, and escape undetected.

The pleasurable rewards would be he was sure, well worth the risk.  And, after all, what was life without a bit of risk?

*

A little before 3PM, Ipok was parked on the curb of West 39th Street in Homeville, just east of South Homeville Avenue.  His van was pointed west.  His motor was running.  His eyes were fixed on the driver side rear-view mirror.  He was waiting for a certain Cadillac convertible to come into view.  

At a minute or so after three, the Caddie passed him.  Ipok shifted into “DRIVE” and pulled out into traffic behind it.  

She was behind the wheel.  The older sister.  Her pattern, which he’d observed over several days, was to park in a corner of the campus parking lot on 39th Street at South Central and wait for her younger sister in the car.  Ipok had decided that the safest course was to take the older one first, then wait for the younger one.  He’d be able to take them one at a time, reducing the risk that would necessarily come from trying to take them simultaneously, but transport them to his hobby house together.

As expected, she turned right, into the parking lot, and pulled the Caddie into a corner space, away from the other cars.  Trying to avoid scratches no doubt.  Perhaps her husband was a Cadillac enthusiast.  His dad had been, after he’d made his fortune from designing the Star-Spangled Sweetheart face.  Before he’d died he’d acquired a half-dozen classic Cadillacs.  Cars weren’t Tak Ipok’s thing, though.  To him, they were just a means of getting from one place to another.  

But, while he wasn’t a car enthusiast himself, he had to admit that his prey’s auto, a fire-engine red El Dorado, probably from the late ‘60’s or early 70’s, was a particularly fine-looking vehicle.  Not as fine-looking as its driver, though.  Dressed in a floral-patterned halter sundress that was simple yet elegant, her hair blowing in the wind, yet giving the impression that not a hair was being blown out of place, she radiated class without even trying.

Almost as soon as she pulled into her space, Tak pulled into the space next to hers.  He could imagine how annoyed that would make her, after she’d taken the trouble to park away from any other vehicles.  He twisted off the driver’s seat and opened the sliding door on the passenger side.

The stunning blonde woman turned in surprise when the door opened and Ipok jumped out.  She was, he could see, still irritated by his parking next to her, and seemed about to say something, but before she could form the words, the stun gun was in his right hand, held against her neck.  The short charge made her limp, unable to move or talk.  Ipok looked in the back seat of the car.  Her baby was there, safely strapped into a car seat.  Well, that was just too bad for the kid.  He unstrapped the woman from the driver’s seat, opened the driver side door, and, lifting her out, walked her into the van.  Laying her down on the floor of the vehicle, he took a hypodermic needle from a kit by the driver’s seat, and injected a light anesthetic into her thigh to keep her out once the effects of the stun gun wore off.  Then he tied her hands tightly behind her, tied her ankles and knees together, and gagged her with a long, silk scarf.  The gag was not really necessary, since she was unlikely to awaken before he had both her and her sister back at the hobby house, but he liked the way it looked.  A beautiful woman’s attractiveness, he’d discovered, is enhanced when her appearance of helplessness is increased.  He allowed himself a moment to caress her splendidly shaped derriere, then went to the back window to watch for the approach of the younger sister.

She arrived in less than ten minutes.  She was wearing a blue denim skirt and a light blue cotton workshirt, rolled at the sleeves to her elbows, and tied at the midriff over a red tank top, her golden hair loosely pulled into a pair of long pigtails that enticingly brushed against each of her shoulders.  The young lady’s natural style was clearly more casual than her more elegant older sister’s, but, though her look was less refined, it was no less attractive.

“Joey,” he heard her say to the baby.  ”Where’s your mom?”

She looked around, an expression of distress on her face, but her attention was drawn back to the car by the kid.

He slid open the side door again.  She was leaning into the backseat, trying to comfort the squalling brat, who’d begun crying as soon as he’d awakened and found that his mother was nowhere about.

She turned at the sound of the door opening, but he electronically stunned her before she could say anything.  He pulled her into the van, and soon had her anesthetized, tied up, and gagged, just like her sister.

Once his two captives were safely secured, he strapped himself into the driver’s seat, started the van, and pulled out of the parking lot.

The baby was still crying in the back seat, alone and abandoned, as he pulled away.

“Major Crimes Unit.  Detective Worthington,” said Lizz.

“Is Mr. Tracy there?” came the voice at the other end of the line.  ”His office said he might be there.  This is Chief Beel of the Norton College Safety Department.”

“What’s the problem?”

“A car registered to him was found in our public parking lot with an abandoned baby in the back seat.”

“Hold on a second.”  Lizz looked over at Tracy’s desk.  ”Dick, I think you’d better take this.”

Tracy picked up his phone and punched the button for the general MCU line.

“Tracy,” he said.

“Yessir.  Chief Beel, Norton College Safety Office.”

“What can I do for you, Chief?”

“Do you own a red 1972 Cadillac El Dorado convertible?”

“Yes,” said Tracy, puzzled.

“One of our officers found it a few minutes ago, parked in our public lot.  The roof was lowered, and there was a baby in a car seat strapped in the back.  No adult was around.”

“A baby?  Was it a boy?”

“Uh, yes,” said Beel.  ”Yes, my information is that it was a boy.”

“Is he okay?  He’s not hurt or anything?”

“Apparently he was a little dehydrated, but otherwise he was all right.”

“And his mother wasn’t anywhere around.”

“No adult was around at all.”

Junior entered the office at that point, with a sketch he’d prepared for another case, just in time to hear Tracy ask about the baby’s mother.  He looked at Tracy with a questioning expression.

“Just a second, Chief,” said Tracy.  He covered the phone and said to Junior, “Campus security at Norton College just found my car.  Joey was strapped into the backseat, but Tess was nowhere around.  She’d never leave Joey like that.  What would she be doing at Norton College anyway?”

“That’s where Bonnie’s seminar is being held,” said Junior.  ”Tess probably drove out there to pick her up.”

Tracy felt the blood drain from his face.  That’s what Bonnie meant when she said his having been Homeville’s police chief was such a coincidence.  If he hadn’t’ve been so focused on this case, if he’d just asked his daughter a few more questions about that damned seminar, he’d’ve realized that she was in harm’s way.  A beautiful blonde attending a course at a college campus located right in the hub of the murder series.  He’d asked a few polite questions, but hadn’t thought to ask precisely where the event was being held.  ”The western ‘burbs” was all she’d said, and he, great detective that he was, had left it at that.

“Dear Lord,” said Tracy to his son, “Ipok’s got Tess and Bonnie.”

*

Junior naturally wanted to be in on the search for his mother and sister, but he knew that Tracy had the rank and the clout to get things moving fast.  The best thing he could do for his family was make sure his baby brother was safe.  He volunteered to head out to Homeville and supervise the team of crime scene techs Tracy had sent out to process the scene, and to take charge of Joey and the car ‘til Tess and Bonnie were located.

Figuring out how to locate them was the subject of the discussion going on in the MCU office.

“How can you be so sure he has them, Boss?” asked Lee Ebony.

“It all fits,” said Tracy, who, unable to keep still in his agitated state, was nervously pacing back and forth, opening and closing his fists, his jacket off, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up, his Colt Trooper protruding from the shoulder holster under his left arm.  ”A mother and daughter, both blonde, both beautiful, both together in Homeville.  And they are beautiful, you know.  I’m not just speaking as a husband in love or as a proud father.  I know, objectively, that Tess and Bonnie are both remarkably beautiful women.  And we all figured Ipok was probably going to try to replicate at least one more Slasher crime.  Now we know it was the murders of Anne and Janice Lieche that he was planning to replicate.”  

“But why would he pick two victims who were related to you?” asked Adonis.

“Who’s to say he knew they were related to me?  He might not even know their names.  But they’re as close a fit to the Lieche women as Ipok is likely to find in Homeville.  A college campus is a great place to troll for attractive young women.  That’s why Ted Bundy used them as hunting grounds so often.  Damn!  We should have thought of that. We should have had that campus staked out.”

“We’ve been on this case for less than two days, Dick,” said Lizz.  ”We couldn’t think of everything.  He’s been doing this for years, all over the world.  But we identified him.  Lee identified him.  Something no one else did.  Don’t beat yourself up for not doing more.”

“We’ve got to do more. Otherwise Tess and Bonnie will be . . . ,” he couldn’t bring himself to actually put it in words.  It would make it more real, and it was too, too real already.  ”We’ve got to do more.”

The office went silent.  Tracy was right.  Clearly they had to do more.  But what?  There was no lead on Ipok’s location.  This County was more populous than most states.  Even if every single cop on every single department in the County joined in, they couldn’t even begin to mount a house to house search.  Legal questions aside, it would be a logistical nightmare.  And that was assuming he even had them in this county, and not one of the adjacent suburban counties, like DuPage, Lake, McHenry, or Kane.  They had to focus.  But on what?

It was Sam Catchem, the oldest and most experienced detective in the room, who came up with something to focus on.

“You know,” he said.  ”One thing’s been bugging me about these Slasher re-enactments.  It occurred to me after we worked up that profile.”

“What was that?” asked Lizz.

“It doesn’t fit with the other sub-series.  At least it doesn’t seem to.”

“What do you mean?” asked Adonis.

“Think about it.  What do Bundy, and Berkowitz, and Chikatilo, and Glatman, and all the others have in common?”

“They’re all serial killers,” said Lee. “We already know that.”

“Okay, let me put it this way,” said Sam.  ”What do they not they have in common with, say, Jack the Ripper, or the Zodiac, or Bible John, or the Texarkana Phantom, or the New Orleans Axeman?”

Jackson, the homicide expert, got it.

“They’re all known,” he said.  ”They’ve all been identified and either imprisoned or executed.”

“Go to the head of the class,” said Catchem.

“But so’s the Slasher,” said Tracy.

“Yeah, as far as you and Jackson are concerned.  But to the rest of the world, it’s one of those unsolved serial killer cases.”

“What’s your point?”

“In every other series that Ipok’s re-enacted, the original killer’s been identified.  That’s part of his pattern.  So, for this series, either Ipok’s changing his pattern or . . . “

“Or he’s figured out who the original Slasher is!” said Jackson.

“Bingo,” said Sam.  ”If he knows who the Slasher is, then he knows the Slasher’s locked up, and if he knows the Slasher’s locked up, then, in his mind, he’s not really deviating from the pattern.”

“Swell,” said Tracy, obviously not encouraged.  ”Where does that get us?”

“Well,” said Sam, “If he knows what you know, then it follows that you know what he knows.  What else do you know about the Slasher, aside from who he is, that the public doesn’t know?”

Tracy suddenly stopped pacing.  The fists that he’d been nervously opening and closing suddenly closed and tightened.  His eyes lit up.  He looked at Jackson.

“The murder house,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Jackson.  ”He’s got to be taking them somewhere to do what he does.  Why not the same place?”

*

Tak Ipok felt the familiar erotic tingle as the older woman, spread-eagled on the bed, began to stir.  The younger woman, still unconscious, was tied in the same manner to a second bed, adjacent to the first.  

Ipok had stripped the first victim in his current series of re-enactments, Inocencia Mitkiv, while she was still unconscious.  For the second, Lisa Opfer, he’d waited until she’d come to.  Aside from enhancing his pleasure by adding to the sense of anticipation, her fright was increased by her being stripped naked after she was awake, which enhanced his pleasure that much more.  Each new murder was a learning experience, a step forward on the learning curve.  His technique was being perfected with each re-enactment, and he also gained a better understanding of what added to his enjoyment of the process.

The woman was fully awake now.  Absolutely lovely in her floral sundress.  And, he had no doubt, she’d be absolutely lovely in the raw, too.

“Good morning.  Although it’s not really morning, but that does seem to be the appropriate greeting when one has just awakened, doesn’t it?”

The woman tried to scream through her gag, but very little sound escaped.  It was largely a matter of form.  The finished basement of his hobby house was sound-proofed, so even a high-pitched scream would be unlikely to be heard outside the house.

“Yes, I know.  You’re undoubtedly wondering what you’re doing here.  Well, I’ll be happy to explain.  I’ve brought you here to viciously and repeatedly rape you, after which I’m going to slowly kill you by administering a series of deep and painful cuts all over your body with a barber’s straight razor.  Do you have any questions?”

The woman again tried to make intelligible sounds.

“Oh, I’m sorry.  Allow me,” he said, bending forward and untying the gag.  ”It’s not really necessary.  I rather like the way it makes my guests look, though.  It’s a classic picture of helplessness, as I’m sure you’re aware.  There.  Now, what were you trying to say?”

“Where are my children?”

“Children?  Well, the baby you had in the back seat is probably still there, unless someone’s found him since I acquired you and your sister.”

“Sister?”

“The other young lady.  The one you were picking up at Norton College.”

Suddenly, he realized why she seemed puzzled.

“She’s your daughter, isn’t she?  Oh, that’s simply wonderful.  I thought I was compromising, you see.  Oh, my compliments, madam.  I know it’s a cliché to say you look young enough to be her sister, but really, I have nothing to gain by passing out phony praise.  You really do look too young to have a fully grown daughter.  This is a pleasant surprise. You see the murder I was re-enacting was of a mother and daughter. When I began focusing on you and the other young lady, I felt a pair of sisters was as close as I was going to get, but it turns out that the two of you are a much more precise match than I imagined.  My instincts are so good!”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m an evil man and I enjoy doing evil things, particularly when it’s for no other reason than the pleasure it gives me.  That’s what’s always fascinated me about serial killers.  They have no reason to kill except for the fact that they enjoy it.  They aren’t killing out of vengeance, or to escape punishment, or to eliminate witnesses, or because they were paid.  All they get out of it is personal pleasure.  Even good people can understand most of the common motives for murder, but to cold-bloodedly kill a person one has nothing against for no other reason than the enjoyment one derives from it?  That’s beyond the comprehension of most decent people.  That’s truly evil.  And I’m a truly evil man.”

“You’re saying you can’t help it?”

“Perish the thought!  I’m quite capable of helping it.  I’m making a free choice, not giving into a compulsion I’m powerless to resist.  I’m evil, not possessed.”

“Then why?”

“I’ve just explained.  I enjoy it.  I know it’s wrong.  I know it will cause untold pain to those who love you.  But I care more about my own transitory pleasure than I do about the pain it causes others.  In fact, that pain heightens my own enjoyment.”

“It will do more than cause pain for the people who love me!”

“How so, dear lady?”

“You have no idea who we are, do you?  You don’t know who my husband is or who my daughter’s father is.”

“Should I?”

“It would really be in your best interests, Mr. Ipok.”

He frowned, and asked, “How do you know my name?”

“My husband figured it out.  The murders you’ve already committed have made him pretty highly motivated as it is.  You kill us, and ‘highly motivated’ is going to become ‘obsessed.’”

“Oh, my goodness, your husband’s Dick Tracy, isn’t he?  Oh, really, this is just too delicious!  Dickens himself couldn’t have come up with a more fortuitous coincidence.  Even granting that there isn’t exactly an oversupply of blonde hotties with blonde hottie daughters, the odds against my acquiring, by pure chance, Dick Tracy’s wife and daughter have to be astronomical.”

“Well, you’ve beaten the odds.  And when Dick catches up to you, every single iota of pain you’ve caused him he’ll pay back tenfold.  So if you don’t want the odds to beat you, you’ll just let us go.”

“I don’t really think that will be necessary.  You husband can’t possibly have any idea where we are right now.  I’m sure I’ll be able to complete this . . . project and make my way out of the country in relative safety.  And now that I know who you are, you’ve resolved a dilemma I’d been facing.”

“Dilemma?”

“Very often the precise details of the murders I recreate are sketchy.  And, in this case, since the identity of the Suburban Slasher has never been made public, the details are even sketchier than usual.  To a large degree, I’ve had to simply improvise.  I had no idea, you see, which of you I’d degrade and dissect first, because I had no idea what order my predecessor followed.  Left to my own devices, I could be a hog and start with the one who was more desirable, or I could show some discipline and save the best for last. In this case, however, that’s really a tough call since you’re both so beautiful.  But now that I know that she’s your daughter, I’ll start with her.”

“Why?  Why would you do that?”

“Losing a parent is hard, but we all expect, at some deep level, that we’ll outlive our mothers and fathers.  Losing a child, though, that must be the most terrible torment of all.  And to watch her being ruthlessly violated and then slowly and painfully cut to death, and to be unable to do anything to stop it, that would be truly awful.  It would cause you far more pain than simply being the first to go.  And, as I said, I derive pleasure from causing pain.  When your daughter comes out of her anesthetic, I’ll begin.”

*

The Village of Forest View, a few miles southwest of Homeville and Berwyn, has a population of less than 800.  Its police force has only eight full-time officers, and another twelve part-timers.  The head of that force holds the title of Director of Public Safety, and is responsible for running the fire department as well as the police.  Regretfully, neither the Director, nor the deputy police chief who generally handled the department’s day-to-day operations, was available, one being on vacation, and the other at a law enforcement conference in the next county.  In fact there were no ranking officers on duty at all, not even a junior sergeant.  The person in charge seemed to be a 23-year old patrolman who, notwithstanding his youth, was a full-time officer and, therefore, senior to the part-timer who was the only other policeman on duty.  And he was pretty intimidated by having to suddenly confer with a squad of tough, big-city detectives led by the most famous cop in America.

“Look, Officer Smith,” said the most famous cop in America, “time’s of the essence here.  We’re certain that two kidnap victims are being held in a house in this town.  The kidnapper is also a serial killer, that Suburban Slasher copycat you’ve probably been hearing about on the news, and those two women are running out of time.  I can give you all the details that lead us to this conclusion later, but for now I’m asking you to take my word, and trust my judgment, when I tell you we’ve got both probable cause and exigent circumstances.”

“Jones,” said the young patrolman.

“Come again?”

“My name’s Jones, sir.  Not Smith.  Bruce Jones”

“I’m sorry, son.  I’m pretty distracted right now.”

“Yessir.  What was the address again?”

“3698 Highland Avenue.”

Reyals had bought the place just before the original Slasher series began.  It made no sense, since he already owned a condo in Oak Park.  He didn’t rent it out.  It wasn’t a convenient location for a spare house, the way an apartment in the Loop would have been.  Forest View was a suburb, not a resort, so it had no value as a vacation home.  But it was perfect for someone who needed a private place to commit a series of vicious murders.  Unfortunately, at the time of the original murders, the State’s Attorney hadn’t believed there was enough probable cause to get a search warrant, so they’d never gotten a look inside.  Once Reyals’s family had gotten him committed, they’d taken over the house, cleaned it from top to bottom, and had, in the ensuing years, arranged to have it leased.

“Well, that’s just two or three blocks from here, but I’m just not sure about this, sir.  I mean I don’t know how the chief will feel about it.  And I can’t reach him or the deputy right now.  That house is owned by a pretty prominent family, you know, even though they don’t actually live there.  And you’re out of your jurisdiction.”

“Listen, Officer,” said Jackson.  ”The rest of these folks are City officers.  They are out of their jurisdiction.  But I’m with the Sheriff’s Police, and I’ve got countywide authority.  What Chief Tracy is telling you is true, and if your bosses give you any flack for going along with him, I’ll take the responsibility.  Which would you rather look bad for, kicking in a door when it wasn’t necessary, or not kicking in a door and letting two innocent women get cut to death?”

“Well, I guess when you put it that way, Lieutenant, it’s a pretty easy choice.”

“Then let’s get going.”

“But if the kidnap victims are there, this could turn into a hostage situation, couldn’t it?  Shouldn’t we get a SWAT team or something?”

“Forest View have a SWAT team, kid?” asked Catchem.

“Uh, no, sir.”

“So that means we’d have to get one from another agency. The Bureau can’t send one ‘cause there’s no federal offense involved.  Tracy can’t just order one in from the City because our SWAT teams can’t operate in another municipality unless the ranking local officer on duty, which is you, authorizes it.  If you want to do that now, we can get one started this way.  In the meantime, Lieutenant Jackson here’s already arranged for the Sheriff’s Office to send a Hostage/Barricade/Terrorist team, and I’ve requested a Tactical Response Team from the state troopers.  But no matter where we get one from, they’re gonna take time, time that we don’t have, to get here.  This guy didn’t snatch those women to take ‘em hostage.  He snatched ‘em so he could rape ‘em and then slowly cut ‘em to death with a razor.  If we got any chance of stopping him we gotta move now.”

The young cop frowned a moment, then nodded.

“Okay,” he said.  ”Follow me.”

The six detectives piled into their cars and peeled out after Officer Jones as he pulled his marked squad car out of the parking lot of the police station.

*

Tess could hear Bonnie beginning to stir.

“It won’t be long now,” said Ipok.

Tess groaned and grunted, but was unable to form any intelligible words since Ipok had replaced her gag.

“You look quite lovely in that sundress, Mrs. Tracy, but I’ve been really anxious to see how you’d look without it.”

He unfolded the straight razor and approached her bed.

“Please don’t flinch, my dear.  I only want to cut your dress, not you.  Not yet.”

With that, he reached for the halter strap looping around her neck, effortlessly cut through it, and pulled the top down.  Tess, exposed and helpless, felt her spine turn to ice as Ipok stepped back, looked down at her, and grinned lasciviously.  

“You really are a breathtakingly gorgeous woman, Mrs. Tracy.  I hope you won’t think me presumptuous if I call you ‘Tess.’  Considering what we’ll share over the next few hours, continued formality seems rather silly.”

“I think it would be better if you continued to address her as ‘Mrs. Tracy,’” came a voice from the stairway.

Tess recognized the voice, but could hardly believe it.  She looked over at the stairwell entryway.  Her ears had not deceived her.  It was Dick, looking like the embodiment of an answered prayer.  He was holding his Colt Trooper in a two-handed isosceles grip.  His leather badge case was folded open, held under the revolver, his star visible beneath the barrel.

“Tracy,” breathed Ipok.

“That’s right. And, just to observe the niceties, I’m a police officer.  You’re under arrest.  Drop that razor or I’ll shoot.”

Ipok took a step toward Tess’s bed.

Tracy fired once.  The slug took Ipok in the right shoulder.  His right hand opened and the straight razor dropped to the floor.  He grabbed the wound with his left hand.  

“How did you find me?” he hissed.  ”There’s no way you could have known I’d be here.”

“We thought it was likely that you’d identified Dr. Reyals as the original Suburban Slasher.  If you could figure out who Reyals was, it stood to reason you could figure out where he had his murder house.  And, being so obsessive about sweating the details, it made sense that you’d to use this house for your re-enactments of his murders.  After all, you could afford it.”

Tracy took his left hand off the gun and held it up to his mouth.

“MCU-1 to all MCU personnel.  I’ve got the suspect and victims in the basement.”

“10-4, Tracy,” came Sam’s voice.  ”The rest of the house is clear.  Are Tess and Bonnie all right?”

“They’re fine.”

“Did I hear shots fired?”

“That’s affirmative.  Get an ambulance out here for one gunshot wound to the right shoulder.”  This basement/den must’ve had even better sound-proofing than they’d imagined.  Not only hadn’t Ipok heard their forced entry into the house, but the booming report of a .357 Magnum round going off was sufficiently muffled that Sam wasn’t even sure it’d been a gunshot .  Sam, Lizz, and Reed had entered the house with Tracy.  Lee, Johnny, and Officer Jones were covering exits from the outside.

Tess saw Ipok start reach toward his back pocket.  She tried to scream through her gag to alert Dick.

Dick leveled his Colt at Ipok.  

“Take your hand away from there slowly, and make sure it’s empty.”

“I’m just reaching for a handkerchief, Mr. Tracy,” muttered Ipok, clearly in a lot of pain.  ”To put it over this wound.”

“Slow and empty,” repeated Tracy.

Tess could see the handle of a revolver jutting out from the top of Ipok’s back pocket, right where he was reaching.  She tried to yell “Gun,” but it came out sounding something like “gub.”

Tess’s obvious distress, and, frankly, her state of undress, a state that still sent Tracy’s motor into overdrive after all their years of marriage, distracted him.  For a split second the detective’s eyes darted away from Ipok and toward Tess.

A split second was all Ipok needed.  He whipped the .44 Bulldog out and brought it to bear.

Ipok managed to get a shot off before Tracy’s attention returned to him.  Painfully wounded, shooting left-handed, and shooting without taking aim, Ipok’s slug did not hit its mark, but it came much closer than most people could have managed in the circumstances, tearing through the crown of Tracy’s fedora and whipping it across the room.

Tracy took quick but careful aim and squeezed off one shot.  The hollow-point slug drilled through Ipok’s foreheard, above and slightly to the right of Ipok’s left eye, expanded as it burrowed a wound canal through Ipok’s brain, and blew out a large chunk of bone, gore, and gray matter as it exited through the back of Ipok’s skull.

Ipok stood there frozen, like a statue, still holding the .44, still pointed at Tracy.

Tracy lowered his aim and rapid-fired his last four shots into Ipok’s upper torso, sending three into his heart and the fourth through his left lung.  Ipok shook with the impact of each slug and finally collapsed.

Tracy lifted his left hand to his mouth again and said, “MCU-1 to MCU-2.  Forget about that ambulance, Sam.  Call the county morgue and get a medical examiner, instead.”

He must be losing his touch, letting Ipok get off a shot like that.  Still, it was probably just as well.  This was going to be a particularly controversial shooting.  Wendy Wichel would see to that.  Ipok’s having fired first would make it absolutely clear that Tracy had acted in self-defense, no matter how much phony controversy Wendy Wichel and her ilk managed to generate.  

He holstered his Colt, pulled a small Swiss Army knife from his pocket, and cut Tess loose.  He removed his jacket and gave it to her to cover herself, then went over to Bonnie, who was still not yet fully awake, and cut her loose as well.  

“Is Joey all right?” Tess asked as soon as she’d removed her gag.

Tracy reached out and pulled her to him.

“He’s fine, baby,” he said, in a comforting tone.  ”Junior’s with him.”

She put her arms around him, leaned her head against his shoulder, and all at once he didn’t care how controversial the shooting would turn out to be.  This moment, with he and Tess holding each other close, made any unjustified public criticism he might have to bear worth it.

AFTERWORD

Stories should, of course, stand on their own, without lengthy explanations.  Nevertheless, I felt some commentary might be useful, and possibly even interesting, particularly to Tracy neophytes.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, one of my all-time favorite Tracy stories is the “Homeville’s New Police Chief” sequence, which ran from September 26, 1935, through March 7, 1936.  Aside from being one hell of a great story, it was interesting to me, particularly since it’s generally agreed that real-life G-Man Eliot Ness was one of Chester Gould’s models when he created Tracy, how much this story paralleled actual events in Ness’s life.  During the same time this story ran in newspapers, Ness traded in his federal investigator’s badge for that of a big-city police chief.  And shortly after accepting the position of Director of Public Safety for Cleveland, Ohio, he began to do pretty much the same things in real life that Tracy was already doing on the nation’s comics pages, firing crooked or drunken cops, shutting down business establishments operated by the Mayfield Road Mob (Cleveland’s local Mafia family), and instituting a program of strict traffic enforcement that reduced vehicular fatalities by more than fifty per cent.

Most remarkable of all is that, in this case, Ness seemed to be imitating Tracy rather than the reverse.  Tracy was officially appointed as Homeville’s police chief on October 13, 1935, while Ness was sworn in as Cleveland’s Safety Director on December 12, 1935, almost exactly two months later.

One task Ness set for himself during this period that he was unable to accomplish, at least publicly, was the identification and apprehension of a serial killer known as “The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” whose five-year reign of terror roughly paralleled Ness’s tenure as the head of Cleveland’s police force.  Officially, the case was never solved, though there were rumors that Ness had developed a “Secret Suspect.”  At the time, Ness never confirmed these rumors, even after the murders suddenly stopped, coincidentally (or perhaps not so coincidentally) shortly after those rumors began.

Years later, however, in private conversations, Ness did claim that he had actually identified the Butcher, but that the suspect’s politically connected family, hoping to avoid the public scandal that a prosecution would generate, agreed to have him committed to a secure mental hospital if the reason for the committal could be kept secret.  Many were inclined to doubt Ness’s claims, but recently uncovered evidence suggests that Ness was telling the truth, that he had identified the Mad Butcher, or at least that he sincerely believed he did, but that political considerations made it impossible for him to go public with the information he’d developed.

For those of you who might be interested in reading more about the Mad Butcher case, the best book on the subject is probably James Jessen Badel’s  In the Wake of the Butcher (Kent State University, 2001).  Other useful accounts include Steven Nickel’s Torso (Blair, 1989), John Stark Bellamy II’s The Maniac in the Bushes (Gray, 1997), Marilyn Bardsley’s e-book The Kingsbury Run Murders (Trutv.com, 1996) which can be found at the www.trutv.com website, and Paul W. Heimel’s biography Eliot Ness – The Real Story (Knox, 1997).  If I might be allowed a bit of shameless self-promotion, my own award-winning collection of true-crime articles, Just the Facts – True Tales of Cops & Criminals (Deadly Serious, 2004), includes a chapter, “The Mad Doctor and the Untouchable,” in which I give as complete an account of the case as I could fit into the compressed space of an article.  

It was Ness’s intention to write a sequel to The Untouchables (Messner, 1957), his autobiographical account of the Capone investigation, in which he’d describe his years as Cleveland’s Safety Director, but his premature death just weeks before his first (and only) book hit the stands prevented this.  Ness’s collaborator, Oscar Fraley, using Ness’s scrapbooks and notes, and recollections of conversations he’d shared with Ness, wrote his own account of Ness’s time in Cleveland, Four Against the Mob (Popular Library, 1961), a few years later.  Emphasizing Ness’s obvious triumphs, the clean-up of the police force, the driving out of most of the gangster elements, etc., the book devotes one chapter to the Butcher case.  This chapter was the first public confirmation of the “Secret Suspect” rumors, and is as close to a first-person account by Ness about the case as can be found.

The case has been fictionalized by Max Allan Collins (who also spent a few years as Tracy’s chronicler after the retirement of Chester Gould) in the novel Butcher’s Dozen (Bantam, 1988), and  by Peter Ullian in his 1992 stage play, In the Shadow of the Terminal Tower.  Ullian also wrote the book for a 1998 musical version of his play, Eliot Ness . . . in Cleveland.  Other fictional depictions include the graphic novel Torso (Image Comics, 2001) written by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andersen and illustrated by Bendis, and at least two other novels, John Peyton Cooke’s Torsos (Mysterious, 1994) and, most recently, William Bernhardt’s Nemesis (Ballantine, 2009).

Given the number of parallels between Tracy’s activities in Homeville and Ness’s in Cleveland, the notion of an officially unsolved serial murder case occurring during Tracy’s Homeville assignment seemed like a natural.

Aside from the basic concept of an officially unsolved serial murder case in Tracy’s past, though, I didn’t lift all that much from real life.  The “Suburban Slasher’s” victim profile has very little in common with that of the “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.”  The Butcher targeted homeless people, of which there was an abundance during the Depression, while the Slasher targets beautiful young blondes.  And the Slasher operated over a period of months, not years, before being taken out of commission.  But, as with the real-life Butcher (or at least the real-life figure Ness believed to be the Butcher),  the Slasher is a physician and does have a politically connected family who manages to get their errant relative committed instead of facing a trial.  And, just as the Butcher sent threatening notes to Ness and his wife from the hospital to which he was committed, so does the Slasher send threatening notes to Tracy and Tess.

There’s a general agreement among most Tracy aficionados that Tracy’s unnamed “City” is basically a slightly fictionalized version of Chicago.  And Tracy expert Jay Maeder, in his book Dick Tracy – The Official Biography (Plume, 1990), suggested that Homeville is a fictional analog for the notoriously corrupt, mob-ridden Chicago suburb of Cicero.  For this story, I’ve gone along with that suggestion.  Hence, the geography of Homeville pretty much replicates the geography of Cicero.  Place names are fictionalized, but have names that are close enough to those of the real-life places to make the connection clear.  Hence, Morton College, for example, becomes “Norton College,” J. Sterling Morton High School becomes “G. Stirling Norton High School,” and 54th Avenue and Cermak (Anton “Ten Per Cent Tony” Cermak being the mayor of Chicago at around the time the Tracy strip got started) becomes 54th Avenue and Turner (Frederick “Glad-Hand Freddy” Turner being depicted as the mayor of Tracy’s City when the strip first began).  

Early in the Tracy strip, the Big Boy, clearly a fictional counterpart for Al Capone, leaves town when Tracy makes things too hot for him, just as Capone left Chicago in real life when Ness and the other law enforcement officers made that City too hot for him.  Capone settled in Cicero during his exile from Chi-Town.  The Big Boy’s destination is never specified in the strip, but I’ve retroactively suggested that Homeville was where he relocated.

In real life, Capone ruled the Chicago Outfit with the assistance of his brothers, Raffaele “Ralph” Capone, Salvatore “Frank” Capone, Erminio “John” Capone, Umberto “Albert” Capone, and Amedoe “Matthew” Capone.  In fact, Ralph even went to prison for tax evasion before Al did.  Though Gould never mentioned that there was any relationship between the Big Boy and the Famon brothers, it was clear that “Cut” Famon was, like Big Boy, modeled on Capone, so I’ve taken the liberty of “retro-fitting” a sibling relationship between Big Boy and the Famons. I’ve made Cut and Muscle the Big Boy’s half-brothers, rather than just brothers, primarily because Big Boy’s actual family name has never been given in the canonical strip (the name he was given in the 1990 film, “Alphonse ‘Big Boy’ Caprice,” was strictly a conceit of the screenwriters, and, while it’s never been repudiated in the strip, neither has it ever been confirmed).

Many of the cops Tracy and his staff consult with in this story are characters who were introduced in the strip prior to the time this story is set (or, in the case of Russian Militia Detective Konstantinov, after that time), but a few are original.  

Reed Jackson of the Sheriff’s Office, for example, is loosely based on real-life Cook County Sheriff’s Investigator Jack Reed, who actually has had several of his cases dramatized in a series of TV-movies, such as Deadly Matrimony (NBC, 1992), A Search for Justice (NBC, 1994), and A Killer Among Us (NBC, 1996), in which he was portrayed by Brian Dennehy.  Currently a private detective for a large security agency in Chicago, Reed actually was the lieutenant in charge of Cook County’s cold case detail prior to his retirement.

I “tuckerized” a couple of friends of mine who are simultaneously Chicago-area police officers and top-flight writers of police novels.

Michael A. Black, the rookie Homeville cop mentored by Tracy who becomes a downstate police chief, was named for Sergeant Mike Black of the Matteson Police, author of many fine crime novels set in the Chicago area including the expert cop thrillers Random Victim (Leisure Books, 2008), Hostile Takeover (Leisure Books, 2009), and Sacrifical Offerings, (Five Star, 2012) all featuring Sergeant Frank Leal of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

Sam Catchem’s old service buddy, David Case, who becomes, briefly, the Sheriff of Orange County, California, after a career in the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, was named for Chicago Police Lieutenant Dave Case, author of Out of Cabrini (Five Star, 2006), a first-rate novel based on the activities of the Tactical Unit of Chicago PD’s 18th District.

Sergeant Jeff Parker, the commander of Orange County Homicide, was named for T. Jefferson Parker, the author of such excellent Orange County-set police novels as  Where Serpents Lie (Hyperion, 1997), Red Light (Hyperion, 2000),  and the Edgar-winning Silent Joe (Hyperion, 2001).

Utah State Criminal Investigator Brig Cowley was named partly for Utah pioneer and early patriarch of the Church of Latter Day Saints Brigham Young and partly for heroic FBI Agent Sam Cowley, who died in a shoot-out with Baby-Face Nelson, a lawman who was himself a native of Utah and a staunch and devout Mormon.

RCMP Inspector George Mackean was named for “Captain Mackean,” a Mountie who was a character in a multi-part sequence on the Dick Tracy radio series which took Tracy to Canada’s Yukon Territory.  There is actually no such rank as “Captain” in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, so I changed it to the nearest equivalent, “Inspector,” and gave him the first name of “George” in honor of Sir George Arthur French, the first Commissioner of the Mounties.

Lieutenant Rafe Valer, the commander of Area 3 Homicide, was borrowed from the Chicago-set Ms. Tree comic book series created by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty.  Collins, who writes the scripts that Beatty illustrates, has hinted, now and then, that this hard-boiled, female private eye exists in the same universe as Tracy and company, and, in an early Ms. Tree story, Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem even made a cameo appearance.  Many thanks to Al and Terry for allowing me to use Lieutenant Valer in this story.

I’ve found it necessary to play around a little with the space/time continuum, which should come as no surprise since Gould and his successors were often forced to do the same thing.  So, for example, though Tracy served his stint as Homeville’s police chief in 1935-36, I’ve vaguely dated it as occurring “some twenty-odd years ago.”  I’m sure we’re all aware that fictional characters age at a far different rate than those of us stuck here in real life.  Such slowed-down aging is a necessity when one considers that, after all, Dick Tracy started in 1931.  This means that, assuming that Tracy was 21 when the strip started, the absolute minimum he’d have to be in order to join the force, he would, if forced to age at the same rate as the rest of us, be over 100 years old now, a bit long in the tooth to still be an active duty policeman.  

So, while he has aged, it’s been at a much slower rate.  Assuming he was, say, in his early to middle 50’s now, as he seems to be, then the beginning of his career could have been no longer than thirty or so years ago.  And since this story is set when Joe (who was depicted as being somewhere between 8 and 10 before he was replaced by some obnoxious imposter named “Cool Dude”) was still just a few months old, I’ve adjusted the timeline accordingly, placing Tracy in his mid-40’s, and the length of his career in law enforcement as somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years.  Despite the adjustment, there are still, inevitably, some temporal inconsistencies (for example, when Tracy finally met Fedor Konstantinov face to face in the strip, there was still a Soviet Union, but in this story, despite its being set before that first f2f meeting, Konstantinov’s in the Russian Militia, since the Soviet Militia, like the Soviet Union itself, has faded out of existence).  But, in the immortal words of Mickey Spillane, a big Tracy fan during his lifetime, “It’s just a story!”

Finally, all the serial killers imitated in this story by Tak Ipok (say his name backwards), were, with the obvious exception of the Suburban Slasher, real-life figures.  You can read more about them in the books I’m listing below:

David “The Son of Sam” Berkowitz
Laurence D. Klausner’s Son of Sam (McGraw-Hill, 1980)
David Abrahamson’s Confessions of Son of Sam (Columbia University, 1985)

Robert “The Schoolgirl Killer” Black
Hector Clark’s Fear the Stranger (Mainstream, 1994)
Anna Gekoski’s Robert Black (Trutv.com e-book, 2001)

Theodore “The Ted Killer” Bundy
Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me (Norton, 1980)
Richard Larsen’s Bundy – The Deliberate Stranger (Prentice-Hall, 1980)
Robert D. Keppel’s The Riverman (Pocket Books, 1995)

Andrei “The Red Ripper” Chikatilo:
Robert Cullen’s The Killer Department (Pantheon, 1993)
Richard Lourie’s Hunting the Devil (HarperCollins, 1993)

Frederick “The Blackout Ripper” Cummins:
Frederick Cherill’s Fingerprints Never Lie (Macmillan, 1954)              Edward Greeno’s War on the Underworld (Long, 1960)
Simon Read’s In the Dark (Berkley, 2006)

Harvey “The Lonely Hearts Club Killer” Glatman
Michael Newton’s Rope (Pocket Books, 1998)
Joseph Geringer’s Harvey Murray Glatman – The First of the Signature Killers (Trutv.com e-book, 2000)

Clifford “The Beast of British Columbia” Olson:
John Ferry’s and Damien Inwood’s The Olson Murders (Cameo Books, 1982)
W. Leslie Homes’s and Bruce Northrup’s Where Shadows Linger (Heritage House, 2000)