Between Limestone Ruins

Chapter Nine

How are university students just vanishing from campuses and ending up miles away dead and chopped up," Walker said, slamming his hands against the steering wheel.

They had just ended a phone call with Jenn: the new victims had all been identified as Queen's university students, and they had all gone missing on various days in the last week.

"They're not even going missing together," Hannah mused, stunned. She turned abruptly to look at Walker, "do you think he's choosing to kill in threes or he thinks he has to?"

"What does that even mean?" Johnathan said from the back seat, bewildered.

"It means, he's only ever killed in threes." Hannah explained. "Twelve, nine, three. And even in Algonquin and Tremblant they are grouped chronologically in threes by decomp evidence."

Walker looked over at Hannah to confirm she was serious. Her face looked grim. 

"You're saying there's something about him that makes him kill... three at a time?" Walker said incredulously.

"Or three in close succession. Like he has this impulse he doesn't believe will go away until he completes the trifecta," Hannah explained.

"Until it comes back, and he kills three more?" Walker suggested blandly.

"I know you're being sarcastic but that's kind of exactly it," Hannah admitted. "Maybe he thinks he won't have to kill any more if he just kills two more times. But it's never enough. Problem now is why does he feel the need to kill in the first place; what's fuelling this anger?"

"Shit," Walker breathed. They had just pulled into the cop filled parking lot at the 1000 Island National Park waterfront area. "Up three bodies but still the same damn level of evidence."

"Let's hope he screwed up more this time," Hannah sighed and slipped out of the government issued black SUV.

"I would never be that lucky," Walker grumbled under his breath, unaware that Hannah caught it. 

She chose to ignore his brooding and wandered towards the scene flashing her ID, Walker on her heels.

Johnathan followed quietly behind as Hannah and Walker met the provincial police man running the site.

"They've got divers in currently," he updated them. "Originally only the rib cages of two, one head, three feet, a femur, and a prosthetic arm had washed up, they've recovered almost all of them now."

"All still meaty?" Johnathan asked. The OPP officer nodded despite his bemused look in response to Johnathans cavalier description of the deceased.

"Gross," Walker muttered.

"Yep, but better to joke about it now than to go home and cry about it later," Johnathan said with a smile. 

Hannah had to agree. Some coping mechanisms worked better than others, and in this field, you needed at least a couple.

"Flesh means evidence," Walker grunted. "I don't care how gross it is, I'll take it."

"How did we get three IDs on three barely put together corpses?" Hannah inquired.

The officer rhymed off facts: 

"Alice Stonehaven was reported missing 26 days ago, identifying features included a gold anklet with her mother's birth date on it 06/09/1987. 

Vickie Princeton's prosthetic arm has a serial number, she's been missing 18 days. 

Whereas Carol Milson was reported missing 6 days ago, her face is still identifiable despite decomp.