A Winsome Murder by James DeVita

dozen tiny bruise marks, cylindrical, and not much bigger than the typed letter o of a keyboard. “They’re organized,” Rhys said. “There’s a pattern to them. Equal distance apart.”
    â€œWhat are they?”
    â€œAn impression mark of some kind.”
    â€œAre they anywhere else on her body?”
    â€œNo.” Rhys checked his notes again. “Her stomach contents were partially undigested. She was found early Saturday morning, August eleventh, around twelve forty-five a.m. So, time of death, they’re guessing, maybe four to six hours after her last meal, a little room either way. Sometime between five and ten o’clock the night before, Friday the tenth.”
    â€œYou should be a detective.”
    â€œI am. Kind of.”
    Mangan considered what he knew so far: A young girl from a small town is killed. Most of the mutilation committed postmortem. I am burned up with inflaming wrath; a rage that nothing can allay, nothing but blood. “This is significant overkill,” he said to Rhys, “this is rage.”
    â€œI’d assume so, but then again, somebody could want it to look like that.”
    Mangan mused aloud. “Why would he do that?”
    â€œ Why is your department, James. I do the what and how .”
    â€œI wasn’t really asking you why, I’m just talking out loud. Don’t you know that by now?”
    â€œSorry. Forgot.” Rhys slid another Wisconsin file before Mangan. “They also report no signs of rape. And that’s about all they have rightnow. Their chem analysis is still in the works.” Rhys opened yet another file. “Now, as for us , and our little orphaned body part.” He laid out photos of the severed hand. “Why are you so interested in this anyway?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’ve got plenty of actual bodies to keep you busy, what’s with the hand?”
    The phrase, the bug which you would fright me with, I seek , scurried through Mangan’s thoughts. “I don’t know, it’s just bugging me,” he told Rhys. He spied a copy of the letter that had been found with the severed hand. “Have you read that?”
    â€œYes. Pretty weird.”
    â€œThat’s what Coose said. What do you make of it?”
    â€œYou really asking or just talking out loud?”
    â€œReally asking.”
    â€œOkay. Well, I’d say he feels justified in what he’s doing. And he might do it again.”
    â€œYeah, I’m thinking the same. You find any trace on the letter?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThe envelope?”
    â€œNothing. No saliva, it wasn’t sealed. We got a few latents, but they were all civilians’ who’d handled the envelope. And the prints of the hand aren’t in the system.”
    â€œWhat about the knife?”
    â€œHard to say.” Rhys scanned the Wisconsin report. “But it’s a different knife than the one used on the Wisconsin victim. There are indications of a serrated edge used on the severed hand. Not so on the Wisconsin victim. They approximate the knife used on Deborah Ellison at about eight inches. An inch wide at the hilt, single edged. A fillet knife maybe, a boning knife. Also the wound patterns are chaotic, wild, a frenzied kill. But the hand was severed very cleanly, no slicing or sawing motions, no preparatory cuts.” Rhys started entering data into his computer. “Whoever did it knew what he was doing.”
    Mangan lost in thought, walked the room. “What’s he, a doctor? A surgeon?”
    â€œA vet, a butcher. Who knows? A chef.”
    â€œA forensic pathologist.”
    â€œPossible.”
    â€œAny trace on the hand itself ?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNo trace on the Wisconsin victim. He was wearing gloves.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo, it’s premeditated. He knew what he was going to do. He sought her out. Yes?”
    â€œI would assume. Look, James, I