American Devil by Oliver Stark

Grace.’
    ‘Damn right,’ said Swanson. ‘She was on her way home and lived alone.’
    ‘It’s a maybe at the moment, but Mary-Jane was alone for about eight minutes each day as she walked to her apartment. If that was a random opportune strike, it was sure as hell unlucky for Mary-Jane. I think he knew exactly when she’d be vulnerable. I also looked up the police records. Grace Frazer had reported a man outside her apartment on six occasions. Patrol took a look but never found anyone. With Amy, my guess is he’s followed her many a time before and knows where she shops. He also knows her car and where she likes to park - right close to the entrance nearest to Madison Avenue. He found a place where the CCTV wouldn’t spot him, too. I might be wrong, but if he had a uniform it would be too dangerous to wear that disguise over and over again in a place with CCTV just waiting for the type of victim he wants. All three suggest he’s a careful, planned stalker who waits until the time is right. That’s what didn’t make sense. They look like risky kills, but he’s planned these so well they’re actually not.’
    The team took it all on board. Harper had got to the heart of the case after a day’s work.
    ‘Press interest?’ asked Lol Edwards. His skin was pale but he had a red birthmark on his neck that was getting redder by the minute with the excitement or the heat in the room. He looked like his face was going to explode.
    ‘They don’t know what’s happened exactly and there’s only so many tears they can extract from the paying public, so they’re holding out for now, but when they get the full horror they’ll splash this all over.’
    Harper went up to the whiteboard. ‘I got one more thing. It’s not something that’s going to lead anywhere, but if you look at Amy’s body from above ...’ Tom drew the outline of a body with wings and a halo. ‘See? The two flaps of skin are positioned like wings and she’s got a halo of blood round her head. She looks like an angel.’
    ‘Oh, that’s sweet, that is, Harper,’ said Williamson. ‘That’s so fucking poetic. You think she fell from heaven?’ Some of the other guys laughed. ‘You think she got sliced up by the overhead power lines? That’s good. You think someone pushed her out of heaven, or did she jump?’
    Harper stood centre stage while the team shook with laughter. Finally he smiled and took out a note from the crime lab. ‘You remember that chalk writing on the wall by Amy’s corpse? We just got it deciphered by the lab.’ He handed it to Nate Williamson. Williamson turned it over and read it out.
    ‘ Every angel is terrifying .’ Williamson looked up. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’
    Harper raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. No need to gloat. Ah, hell, how often do you get to gloat? ‘Seems like someone wanted us to think about wings and angels, wouldn’t you say, Nate?’
    ‘Fuck you. That’s what I would say. We’re a team here, Harper, not a bunch of showoffs.’
    ‘The line is by a German poet called Rilke. I think he wanted us to see the wings and halo. He’s playing with symbols. He’s trying to say something. I think he’s trying to say he’s a clever bastard. My guess is, he’s not educated beyond high school and he hates that.’
    ‘So what does the quote mean?’
    ‘I haven’t got a clue.’
    ‘Well, find out,’ said Williamson. The team felt the tension and wanted to get back to work. They looked at the photograph of the woman from above and suddenly saw something more than mindless mutilation. Garcia spoke first. ‘You saying, Harps, that he posed her and ripped off her skin so she looked like an angel who’d been destroyed?’
    ‘Yeah, that’s just what I’m saying.’
    ‘It’s pretty stuff, Harper, and it’d make a nice little story, but how the hell does this help us find the sick bastard who cut her?’
    ‘It doesn’t - yet.’
    ‘Ex-fucking-actly!’ Nate Williamson slapped his hand