Her name was Bynum. She told me my house had been cleared as a crime scene and returned to my custody. “I can just go back?”“That’s right. You can go home now.”“Does that mean the investigation is complete? I mean, pending the arrest of the guy, of course.”“No, we still have a few loose ends we’re trying to figure out.”“Loose ends?”“I can’t discuss the case with you.”“Well, can I ask you about Angela?”“What about her?”“I was wondering if she had been… you know, tortured or anything.”There was a pause while the detective decided how much to tell me.“I’m sorry but the answer is yes. There was evidence of rape with a foreign object and the same pattern of slow suffocation as in the other cases. Multiple ligature marks on the neck. He repeatedly choked her out and revived her. Whether this was a means of getting her to talk about the story you two were working on, or just his way of getting off, is unclear at this time. I guess we will have to ask the man himself when we get him.”
