FicWad

Part IV: Part IV: Blue Eyes

"Undoubtedly male, but with issues regarding his sexuality. Affirms his own potency and virility by attacking women. The killer feels some form of sexual satisfaction from the crimes and has perhaps been convicted of rape or sexual assault in the past. The killer is aroused by pain and the idea of dominance. Was perhaps a victim of sexual assault himself. Is uncomfortable in crowds, shies from human contact and feels as if he is not understood. Type A personality, values order. Obsessive compulsive tendencies. Most likely works somewhere where repetitive activities are required and perfection is expected."

Wolfwood knew the file by heart, and wondered why he was wasting time reading it, again. Nothing had changed; no windows had opened. No bloody light at the end of the tunnel. It was an ordinary Monday and he paced around his office, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He couldn't stand the idea of fouling his sanctuary with the smell of cigarette smoke, but trying to think without one was like wading through tar. He coughed a bit and realized that his simile was probably right on target. These things would be the death of him one day.

But he was hooked and a creature of habit, so he let it sit there as if magically glued to his bottom lip, the world's most nicotine-filled security blanket.

He wondered if he should go to the smoking lounge and actually light up because the Picasso case wasn't making any more sense than before. And the profile wasn't helping.

It was odd, but Wolfwood couldn't scratch the persistent itch in his mind that told him the picture wasn't complete. Certainly, their profiler had been as thorough as possible given what they knew. And what they had felt right, but it was like looking into a house through a frosted window: little bits of the world within were clear, but the rest was blotted out by ice and breath.

Picasso was more complicated than this somewhat wrinkled piece of paper suggested. What was worse was that Wolfwood knew that Picasso's madness was the kind that was difficult to sift through without having the man in front of him. This was a madness partially covered by methodology. Everything Picasso did was pristine. Only the results were ugly.

Not for the first time, Wolfwood wondered how long Picasso had lurked like a cancer in the shadows, watching Kelly Morgan. Waiting for her.

***

"We got the report back from the mechanic," Wolfwood said, tossing the file onto Vash's desk. He never bothered to knock on Vash's office anymore, though Vash had never stopped his double wrap against the doorframe before entering Wolfwood's. It was something that Wolfwood appreciated. He wasn't to be disturbed when he was in his office. Vash and the rest of the precinct knew that.

Vash picked up the folder and paged through it distractedly. "And?"

Wolfwood perched on the edge of Vash's somewhat disorganized desk. "Sugar."

"Sugar?"

"Yep. In the gas tank. And more than a spoonful."

Vash shook his head. "I guess whatever was left of Kelly Morgan's carburetor wasn't pretty."

"You could say that."

"So he ruined her transportation and then attacked her on the way to work?" Vash gave the report more attention now, his eyes scanning over the words quickly. "Has he ever tried something like this before?"

Wolfwood answered without a pause. "Angela Beasley went into a 24 hour grocery store and came back out to find her car had flat from running over a nail. He got her while she was waiting for the cab."

Vash sat forward and rested his head on his fist. "Anybody can drive over a nail. It just sounds like an accident. Are there any other examples of Picasso doing something so obvious?"

Wolfwood gave his chin a scratch. "Nothing that springs to mind. But we're dealing with four years of material here. That's a lot to remember, we can double check the files tonight." He shrugged, but noticed that Vash had that look on his face, the one that suggested he was thinking faster than his lips could move.

"No, you know this case inside and out. You'd remember something like this and so would I. This one...is different." Vash bit his lip and looked down and it made him seem impossibly young. "I can feel it."

Wolfwood stared at his partner for a minute, wondering why his words seemed to carry so much weight. He gave up trying to figure it out after a minute. Vash was a mystery for another time.

"How are your half of the interviews going?" Wolfwood asked to break the heavy silence.

Vash leaned back and seemed to relax some. "Hard to organize. College students keep strange hours. Pinning one down is only half the trouble."

Wolfwood nodded his understanding. "What have you learned so far?"

"They all say the same thing: Kelly Morgan had been acting strangely for about a month. She seemed nervous and jumpy. She rarely made it to classes. She stopped answering her phone."

It was a familiar story and one Wolfwood was already tired of hearing. Almost every one of the victims - those with friends and family to contact - had obviously known they were being stalked shortly before they were killed. Most of them seemed to have caught on only a week or so before Picasso closed in.

The victims' friends and family always noted that women who had once been so predictable suddenly missed appointments, cancelled long-standing weekly dinner dates, stopped going to work. The last few weeks of their lives were chaotic, paranoid nightmares.

Kelly Morgan had just held out for longer.

"It looks like she forced his hand. He got desperate and trashed her car as a way to flush her out. Damn shame it worked," Wolfwood finished on a sigh.

Vash expression was sad for just a moment, but he pulled himself together. The struggle to do so was written on his face.

"I talked to the owner at the club where Kelly Morgan worked," he said. "He said he was close to firing her. She had called off dozens of times. Sometimes she just didn't show up at all."

/Damn/, Wolfwood thought. Picasso had really done a number on this girl. He wondered what it had been like to be Kelly Morgan, paranoid, but trying to convince herself that she had no reason to be. Walking alone in the dark like that, checking over her shoulder, thinking that she was going to make it, if she could just live ...

What kind of guts did it take to leave the house when you knew someone was out to get you?

For all that he was a detective, getting into the mind of the victim was hard enough. Getting into the mind of this particular killer was beginning to feel impossible.

***

The first thing he thought when he saw her was, /Sweet/.

Her smile, her laugh, the way she scratched the back of her head and grinned hugely when she was unsure or nervous - all of it sweet and so sincere. And her eyes were the palest blue he had ever seen, like shallow pools of still water on an autumn day. Like ice. Like skin hours after death. Like his Kelly's skin had been the day after he said goodbye to her.

He saw Blue Eyes carry her bags neatly and without strain, saw her brush her long brown hair away from her face, and decided that this one was his. His new game.

All that night he sat up, thinking about her. He had thought about her until he remembered Kelly, who had still been with him in those days. Not so long ago, was it? But Kelly hadn't been perfect. Not really. She had lied to him, made him think she was something she wasn't. But now he had someone else, someone who might just keep him interested for awhile, someone to help the world make sense.

So he followed Blue Eyes home and watched her methodically write letters to her family, following a list arranged alphabetically. He watched as she carefully placed the stamps precisely in the corner of the envelops and lay the bundle carefully on the table. And he knew then what he had though he knew with Kelly: that she was perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Even the windows of her house - tall and clean, letting him see inside - were perfect.

He watched through the barely curtained windows off her dinning room as she sat down to a simple meal for one, turning her bowl so the pretty, floral design faced her.

He watched as she turned down her bed, snuggled against the overstuffed pillows and went to sleep.

Sighing, he whispered her name.

"Milly."

***

With all the reports in order, the last day of Kelly Morgan's life was assembled as was the last week of her life, and the week before that. But even with events seeming so clear, what was hard to tell was how long, exactly, had Picasso been watching her before she finally noticed.

And how had he found Kelly Morgan? In a city this size, crowded from downtown to uptown to the shiny suburbs and back, how had he singled her out? When had he first seen her?

If he could answer these questions, he'd be better off, and Picasso would be in jail. He tapped his pen on his blotter steadily, the beat soothing. Vash was out wrapping up the last of his interviews, while Wolfwood was chained to his desk, wading through paperwork and phone calls and red tape. He knew he was good at these sorts of things, so he couldn't complain too much. The Chief always said that he wished everyone filed reports as pristine as Wolfwood's.

But the fact remained that he felt as if the longer he sat here, staring at the same forms over and over again, the more his newest crime scene sat and grew cold, and all the clues with it. Because there simply had to be clues, he just wasn't seeing them.

He sighed, and was glad when the phone rang to distract him from his thoughts.

"Detective," his secretary said, "you have a call."

Wolfwood noticed there was a particular edge to his secretary's voice.

"It's Lisa Morgan," she said. "Kelly Morgan's mother."

To Be Continued...