Page 50 of Blood and Moonlight

I don’t want Simon thinking about the hammer more than necessary. “If there was hair with Perrete, can we connect it to an earlier victim, then?” I ask.

He shakes his head in frustration. “We’d have to dig her up to retrieve it, and I doubt we could find the connection, unless it was very recent.”

“I can’t recall a similar murder,” I say. “Not in the last few years.”

Simon shrugs. “It’s also possible the killer recently arrived in Collis or he was in prison for other reasons. Murder isn’t usually the first display of violence.”

Neither idea is comforting. “If he’s not from Collis, then what’s to stop him from moving on to another city and doing the same there?”

“Nothing,” says Simon. “But he’s more likely to stay if he doesn’t think he’ll be caught, which is a safe assumption with this investigation as it is. It’s hard to draw conclusions with so little information.”

“So little?” I protest. “Yesterday you said another body would give you more to work with.”

“And it does,” Simon insists, going back to his sketch. “Before it was really only a theory that he didn’t like being judged or looked at, and now I’m almost positive that’s the case.”

“Maybe that hair is also only a fraction of what he took,” says Juliane. “It’s barely the width of a finger. When Mother died, Father gave all of us small braids of her hair as a keepsake. The murderer may still have some from all his victims.”

Simon doesn’t look up from his drawing. “I’d already thought that.”

I watch him sketch. He’s quite talented, actually. His proportions are correct—and I know proportions, though in buildings more than bodies. The woman—Ysabel—was laid out on the grass, almost like she was on display.

“No one saw Perrete,” I murmur.

Simon looks up, and Juliane stops sorting her pages. “What did you say?” he asks.

I chew the inside of my cheek for a second. “I was just thinking that one difference was that Ysabel was left in a place where people could see her, but Perrete wasn’t. Maybe that was the reason he felt the need to kill again so soon. He’s trying to conquer something which tortures him, but so few were able to view his triumph the first time.”

Simon nods to Juliane. “Excellent thought. Write that down.”

I wish I could feel glad to have made a contribution—twice—but it’s not exactly comforting to know I understand the motivations of a madman.