The Butterfly Sister by Amy Gail Hansen Page B

Her head resting slightly on his shoulder. It was a close-up, the background fuzzy. But I guessed the photo had been taken at some sort of play or musical performance. In the distance, I made out a few men in suits and a woman wearing an old-fashioned wide-brimmed hat and draped scarf, obviously one of the performers interacting with the audience in the lobby after the show.
    â€œYou know the problem with photographs,” Mark had said to me once, when I tried to take our picture, my arm extended as far away as possible to snap a good shot. “They’re like diaries. Incriminating.”
    As my cheeks flushed with jealousy, I heard footsteps in the hallway and instinctually tucked the photo into my purse, between the pages of A Room of One’s Own, to keep it from being bent. It was officially the second personal belonging I’d stolen from Beth Richards.
    I turned in time to see Janice in the doorway and prepared to explain why I was in Beth’s bedroom without her. Janice did not look angry, though. All the color in her cheeks had faded to gray. Her eyes had turned glassy.
    Palms open, she held the cordless phone out to me, as if it were covered in blood.
    â€œThe detective said Beth fits a profile,” was all she said.
    â€œA profile?” I asked. “Of what?”
    Janice dropped the phone. “The victim of a serial killer.”
    W aiting to talk to Detective Pickens, I sat in the Milwaukee Police Department corridor and tried to erase the images from my mind—of Beth’s hands bound with rope, her mouth gagged, her pale white body floating facedown in a river, a dirty finger-nailed man approaching her from behind—but they replayed like scenes from Law & Order . And the words came: Beth Richards, 22, of Milwaukee, died October 8—
    Fortunately, Detective Pickens maneuvered through the heavy steel door and interrupted Beth’s obituary middraft. “Ms. Rousseau?”
    I jumped to my feet. “You startled me.”
    â€œYou’ve succeeded in surprising me as well. What can I do for you? Or did you drive two hours just to say hello?”
    â€œI was at Janice’s house when you called,” I explained.
    Truth was, I hadn’t had time to return Beth’s book to its proper place in her room. And I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up to Janice after she told me about the serial killer. My only option—once Janice’s sister, Susan, arrived to relieve me of my sitting with Janice duties—was to deliver the book to a more objective party.
    Detective Pickens, unfortunately, was that person.
    He lurched his head toward the door. “To my office,” he said.
    I followed him into a white hallway that seemed brighter than the midday sun. We walked in silence, down one hallway and then another, passing black steel doors fitted with square heavy paned glass windows. In one room, a man sat with his head in his hands. Was he a witness or a suspect? I wondered.
    In his office, Detective Pickens offered me a chair covered in soiled, orange pleather. I sat, but only on the front half of the seat, not wanting to get too comfortable, if that was even possible. Meanwhile, he crammed his body into his desk chair and moved a stack of manila folders to another spot on his messy desk. I watched him rub the rolls of fat on the back of his neck.
    â€œHow much do you know?” he asked.
    â€œBeth fits a profile?”
    Another sigh. “The Pittsburgh PD is staking out a suspect this very moment. Beth is his type. He likes them young, tall, and pretty, okay? Blond hair. The others also went missing from PIT. One a year ago, another about six months ago. In other words, he was due to strike again. We have him profiled. Everything fits, even the time frame.”
    I conjured images of the Boston Strangler, Son of Sam, and Ted Bundy. “What happened to the other girls?” I asked. “The ones who went missing from the Pittsburgh