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  “What if he’s washing them because he’s ejaculating on them instead of in them?” I asked.

  She nodded. “That would fit. He’s not penetrating them—for whatever reason—but he’s using them sexually, then cleaning them. That would explain why he’s washing them. Typically that’s something done after death as part of the staging or displaying his work. But in this case he does it while they’re still alive. No evidence that he even goes to the bodies after they’re dead, let alone does anything to them.”

  “Wonder if the cuts on them are from when he’s sexually assaulting them,” I said. “Maybe he’s holding the knife on them and it moves some as he’s masturbating or . . . maybe it symbolizes the penetration. His blade penetrates their bodies because he can’t.”

  She nodded. “I like that. Remember what the FBI instructors said about the difference between MO and signature?”

  I nodded.

  MO or modus operandi is fluid and flexible, a learned behavior, but the killer’s psychological signature is fixed, often subconscious. Even if it was pointed out to him, even if he tried not to, he’d still leave it.

  “We need to figure out which is which,” she said. “The truth is . . . we need more information to be able to come up with much more. And of course . . . the only way we’re gonna get more information is if he kills again, which we hope he doesn’t.”

  “No way he doesn’t,” I said.

  “But . . . it’ll be interesting to see if with all the attention and media coverage and knowing y’all are watching the mountain if he’ll keep doing it there, keep doing it the same way. If so, and if he can get away with it . . . it’d be an extraordinary feat. But if he changes his MO then we’ll get a better look at his true signature.”

  22

  “Sorry I had to leave so abruptly earlier,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” Summer said. “It’s no problem. That was a big development.”

  She was wearing her uniform and standing behind the desk in the lobby of the Stone Mountain Inn. At the moment we were the only two people around.”

  “I can’t believe they’re not closing the park,” she said.

  “Really? You can’t believe they’d put profit ahead of people?”

  “Well, yeah, you’re right, but . . . I did notice there are more police patrolling the park.”

  I nodded slowly and frowned. “Chances are he’ll just see that as a bigger challenge.”

  “You don’t think he’ll stop or move somewhere else to do it?”

  “Not on your life,” I said.

  “I really don’t understand this at all,” she said. “I can sense the darkness, but the workings of the mind of the man are a complete mystery to me.”

  “That’s a good thing,” I said.

  “I guess it is,” she said. “I just . . . want to be more help. Speaking of . . . is there any way I can help you? I mean other than the guest list you asked for. I was thinking . . . I have a room here. I’m actually living here at the moment. Obviously, I don’t use it at night . . . so if you ever want to stay out here . . . you’re welcome to. There are actually two beds—just consider one of them yours.”

  “Thank you, Summer,” I said. “I really appreciate that. And will probably take you up on it.”

  “I wish you would. Anytime.”

  Summer was enigmatic and difficult to read, so I couldn’t tell if she were just offering a place for me to sleep or something more. We had been involved briefly about a year ago, but I had broken it off after too many times of her vanishing without a word for days at a time. Also, a reporter had told me that in a few of the cases she had assisted with she had actually become a suspect.

  “Look,” she said, pointing to the TV in the sitting area across the room.

  I turned to see Daphne Littleton live in front of Stone Mountain.

  I moved over to the TV. In another moment, Summer was beside me.

  “Even with Wayne Williams behind bars,” she was saying, “Atlanta is once again a city under siege.”

  The mountain loomed large behind her, the north-face carving dim but visible in the night.

  “That’s—she’s set up in our parking lot,” Summer said. “Has to be.”

  “For now the park will remain open,” Daphne was saying. “But there is an additional police presence and the public, in particular young women, are being warned to use extreme caution.”

  “John,” Daphne said as I walked up.

  She had just finished her report and was still holding the mic within the bright circle of illumination from the camera lights.

  “How about an on-camera interview?” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “It won’t be live. We’ll just do a quick interview to include in my next report.”

  “You know the answer,” I said.

  “Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said, handing the camera guy her mic and stepping over to me.

  “Your report this evening almost cost me my job,” I said.

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because of your little stunt at lunch today. Everyone thought I was your source.”

  “Oh, shit, sorry. Do you want me to let your boss know it wasn’t you? I won’t tell him who it was, but I don’t mind telling him it wasn’t you.”

  I shook my head. “They wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Really?”

  “And it’s not just that they think you lie for a living—”

  “Lie?”

  “Well . . . disseminate partial truths and dangerous misinformation. How’s that?”

  “Not any better, no,” she said. “Damn.”

  “They’d think you were protecting your source,” I said.

  “Well, I’m sorry. I truly am. Didn’t mean to jam you up.”

  “You can make it up to me—”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “By telling me who your source really was.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Since it’s you. My source is . . . someone close to the investigation.”

  23

  After leaving Daphne, I decided to check in with Joe Ross over at the campground.

  On the drive over, I rolled down my windows and took in the mountain and the surrounding park.

  The five-mile-around and 1,686-feet-high quartz monzonite dome is stunning to behold—even at night. It rises up out of the earth a huge solid stone. Massive. Unique. Immovable.

  The most striking feature of Stone Mountain is that most of its surface is bare rock and rock pools. The lower slopes are wooded, but the enormous dome is mostly hard, solid, bare, rough rock.

  Formed over three hundred million years ago by an upwelling from within the earth’s crust of magma that cooled and crystalized and solidified to form granite, Stone Mountain is a pluton—a body of intrusive igneous rock named after Pluto, the god of the underworld.

  The Stone Cold Killer isn’t the first evil force to be drawn to this giant geological spectacle. On Thanksgiving eve in 1915 sixteen men climbed the mountain and lit a towering cross on fire. It was the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.

  Mountains have always drawn humanity, for both noble and evil pursuits. Stone Mountain has its own energy, a powerful force that attracts the best and worst of us.

  When I arrived at Joe’s campsite, he wasn’t there. Ember and ash were still hot in his fire pit, but there was no sign of him.

  Something about his campsite seemed off, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

  There was an excessive amount of fishing equipment scattered about—both next to his tent and in his truck—poles, rod and reels, nets, knives, tackle boxes, and I wondered if he was here to work or fish.

  His truck was here, so wherever he went he went on foot—or got a ride with someone else.

  While I waited for him, I decided to look around the area.

  RVs and tents were lined up around loops off of Stonewall Jackson Drive in outcroppings of land, the jagged tips of which were in Stone Mountai
n Lake. Nearly all the camp sites had fires or places for them. Nearly all had vehicles in front of them—and bicycles, canoes, and kayaks scattered about them, and though all the sites were rustic and picturesque beneath Georgia pines and with a view of the east side of the mountain, the sites actually on the lake were by far the best.

  The entire secluded area was serene, relaxing and restorative, and it was difficult to fathom a cold-hearted killer who abducts and terrifies and tortures and murders young women in such a horrific way feeling at home here.

  When I got back to Joe’s campsite and found that he still hadn’t returned, I decided to leave and come back later.

  I could feel myself being drawn back to the inn, to Summer who would be up all night and be a welcome companion for lonely insomniac hours, and by telling myself I’d come back later to check on Joe I was rationalizing and justifying why I should stay out here tonight.

  “I’m so glad you came back,” Summer said. “I didn’t think you were going to. You gonna take me up on my offer of a bed to crash in?”

  I shrugged. “Might. But nowhere near sleepy yet.”

  She smiled knowingly and as it had when I had been with her before, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks popped into my head.

  “There’s coffee and booze in the bar,” she said. “And I have a key.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Let me make a phone call first, then I’ll get us set up.”

  “Here,” she said. “Come around here and use this phone while I run to the little girls’ room. Just push this button for an outside line and if a call comes in don’t worry about it. They’ll call back. They always do.”

  While she was in the restroom in the back of the lobby, I called Susan.

  “Just closing up,” she said. “You home? I’m heading that way.”

  “Still out at the mountain,” I said. “Joe’s camping out here—doing surveillance of the campgrounds, but when I went to check on him, he wasn’t there. I’m gonna go back and check on him again in a little while. Make sure he’s okay. Depending on how late it is when I finally find him I may just crash out here.”

  “Really?” she asked, her voice full of sadness and disappointment.

  “Yeah, you’ll be sound asleep by the time I could get there.”

  “But I like having you sleeping next to me.”

  “I know and I may still come crawl in bed later, but . . .”

  “Okay, well, be careful. Please be careful.”

  When Summer returned from the restroom, she said, “Pick your poison. Caffeine or alcohol?”

  “Give me the keys and I’ll surprise you.”

  “I was thinking . . .” she said. “Do you think the killer is . . . How do you think he’s getting the girls up the mountain? Does he force them to walk up it at gunpoint? Does he knock them out and carry them? Can you imagine the strength required to do that? I think he might be far, far more formidable than we even imagined.”

  24

  The next morning I woke up in Summer’s bed with a raging headache and a hangover—and though I was alone and had been, an overwhelming sense of guilt.

  The headline of the newspaper on the hallway floor in front of the door read Stone Cold Killer Terrorizes Atlanta’s Stone Mountain.

  Out in the parking lot and along Robert E. Lee Boulevard TV news vans, with satellites and antennas extended, were lined up, reporters and camera crews broadcasting with the mountain in the background over their padded shoulders.

  But the most surprising and disturbing development of all was waiting for me at the department.

  “This was slid under the door sometime last night,” Bud said, handing me a letter inside a clear plastic evidence bag.

  To the Poor Cops,

  This is the Stone Cold Killer.

  You are way behind and don’t seem to be catching up very well so I am going to give you some help. I know you think that with all the attention on the mountain I will not take another girl. It would be suicide, right? All the TV cameras and reporters watching. All the cops on patrol. All the citizen sleuths trying to catch me. The whole world is watching and yet I will do it again and you will not be able to stop me or even catch me. I know you want to kill me, but you are not up to the task. I am as immovable as Stone Mountain. You will see. You can’t stop me. Only I can stop me and I am not going to stop me. Just you wait. You will see with your own eyes what I will do. Behold my work and tremble. Recognize what you are dealing with and show me the respect I am owed. If you don’t I will punish you. I promise. Poor cops. You are weak and slow and inept. You are no match for me. Your rightful job now is just to bear witness to my work. That is all. Though I wonder if you can even do that.

  Sincerely,

  S.C.K.

  “Evidently he likes the name Daphne came up with for him,” I said.

  “How do you know she came up with it?” Walt said.

  “Because in her report she said cops were calling him that and none of us are. She made it up—like a lot of what she reported. It’s what she does.”

  Before he could say anything else, Frank walked in looking frayed and frazzled. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Lots of fires to put out.”

  I had been around Frank when he was investigating other intense, high-profile cases before, but I had never seen him like this.

  “Whatta we got?” he asked.

  I handed him the letter.

  He read it.

  “Did you see the paper this morning?” Bud asked him.

  He nodded. “Any hope we had of an unimpeded investigation is now over. Straight circus from here on out. Gonna make everything harder.”

  Even as we were in here having this discussion, a pool of reporters was right outside the front door, demanding a statement, hurling questions to every cop coming and going. Another, larger group of them was still inside the park.

  Bud said, “We’ve got media everywhere—not just local. National too. We’ve got psychics and other law enforcement agencies offering help. And the phone hasn’t stopped ringing with tips from potential witnesses, many saying they think they know who the killer is.”

  “I’ve got more GBI agents wanting to help now too,” Frank said. “We’re gonna need the extra help to respond to leads and manage the media. We’ll just have to get organized and assign different tasks to different officers and agencies and just coordinate very carefully. Have regular meetings to update each other on what’s going on, but our core group will remain intact and working together on it.”

  Bud nodded. “Appreciate that,” he said. “It’s takin’ place in our backyard. We’d like to be the ones to bring this bastard down.”

  Frank nodded, then looked over at me. “What do you make of this?” he asked holding up the letter. To the others he said, “John’s been working with an FBI-trained profiler.”

  “There’s something about it that . . . Something about it bothers me, but I can’t quite get it to finish developing. Come back to me.”

  As they continued to talk about it and reread it, I began to think about why it didn’t sit quite right with me.

  I had learned to let go of thoughts, to stop so focusing on or chasing one that others couldn’t come, so I just let go. Putting my mind into neutral . . . I gazed within, my inner eyes wide and unfocused, searching for movement in the dimness.

  Flashes of Summer’s naked body streaked the night sky of my mind, though I had never seen her without her clothes.

  Feelings of guilt and thoughts of Susan followed.

  Then . . .

  Unbidden, images and remembrances from some of my recent classes came to mind.

  And I began to think about my changing concepts of God and religion and the Bible.

  As a child I had been taught that the Bible was written by God, that its pages contained his message to humanity. The more I learned about the complex and diverse group of books—written by hundreds of people over thousands of years, the more I discovered what it actually is.

  By viewi
ng the Bible as a single, divinely-inspired book, the question quickly arises why does the God within its pages seem to so often contradict him or herself? Why does God say one thing at one time and the exact opposite at another?

  The conclusion I had reached lately was that the Bible wasn’t so much a message from God but the thoughts and theories, hopes and fears, of humanity projected onto God. God could sound like two different beings, contradictory and diametrically opposed to each other because two or more different people had written the passages. The rigid and paranoid and mistrusting would write an angry, vengeful God while the kind and generous and ecumenical would portray a God of love and mercy and generosity.

  And I realized what bothered me about the note was that it seemed to contradict the image I had of the killer based on his actions up until now. Was it written by someone else or did I have a misconception of the killer or was the killer trying to sound other than what he was?

  Frank looked over at me. “You’ve got something, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. The letter doesn’t fit with what we were thinking about him,” I said. “I wouldn’t have expected him to contact us. What he’s doing seems personal, almost private. He committed at least four that we know of in secrecy. I realize there are elements of what he’s doing that are . . . But I wouldn’t have said he was a thrill killer, wouldn’t have expected him to taunt us the way he did, wouldn’t have expected him to make this a contest and tell us he was going to do it again with everyone watching.”

  “So you were wrong about him?” Walt said. “All that profile shit sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me anyway. Always has.”

  “Or,” Erin said, “the letter wasn’t from the killer.”