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He shrugged “He’s a nag, but I love him”

“As long as you’re happy”

“You sound like et back to the case now?”

“Okay,” Sara said, “what have you got so far?”

“Notduic early in the a at the time That’s about it”

“Go on”

“It see off a couple of bottles of gin under sos when he heard the car and saw a et out of the car and dus Mr Bluwell said the car was a beat-up green Chevy We found a carthat description abandoned on Riverside Drive around One Hundred Forty-fifth Street There was a fair aallons—of the victim’s blood splashed all over the floor of the trunk The car had been stolen the previous evening”

“Did the lab find anything else in the car?”

“One set of fingerprints—the victi to the victim”

“Figures,” Sara said “Anything else?”

“According to Mr Bluwell, the uy with dark hair No noticeable features”

“So what do you make of it?”

Bernstein leaned back, placing his hands together, the fingertips of his index fingers resting against his nose He put his feet on his desk “I find it all interesting,” he remarked

“How so?” Sara asked

“It just doesn’t make sense”

“What doesn’t?”

“Okay, help me here, Sara What do we know so far? First, all three victi treated at the same AIDS clinic Third, all three died of stab wounds within the past three weeks”

“So?”

“So take a look at the cases one by one for a second” Max sat up quickly, opened up his pocket pad, and read “Victile to his bed in apartment 8G at 27 Christopher Street The corpse was found with twenty-seven stab wounds The murderer sliced off Trian’s left ear, both thumbs, and left nipple—while he was still alive, we think He also castrated Trian”

“Unbelievable,” Sara whispered

Max nodded “Even ed to keep the mutilation and torture away from the media”

“Won’t last,” Sara added “Someone will open his mouth”

“True enough, but until then I can use it to cut through all these phony confessors When pressed for details about the killings, none of the confessing Gay Slashers knew about the mutilation or torture They only knehat they had read in the papers But we’re getting off the subject Let’s move on to the second victim”

“Okay”

Bernstein wet his index finger and turned a few pages “Victim number two: Mr William Whitherson Mr Whitherson’s boyfriend, a Stuart Lebrinski, stepped out of their co-op on the Upper West Side to pick up soroceries When he came back an hour later, Whitherson was dead Twenty-three stab wounds There was no ns of torture”