"Manually, from the looks of it.Someone wrapped their hands around this man's throat and squeezed until he stopped breathing."Henley sat back on her heels."The head wound came afterward—probably an attempt to make this look like one of your Lake Superior accidents.Blunt force trauma, body in the water, just like all the others."
Isla stared at the body, her mind racing through the implications.In all the cases they'd attributed to the Lake Superior Killer—the dozen confirmed, the thirty-odd suspected—the head wound had always been the cause of death.A single blow, quick and efficient, followed by submersion in the lake.Robert Brune's signature was its simplicity: hit them, dump them, let the water do the rest.
But this killer had strangled his victim first.Held Mitch Connelly's throat in his hands, watched the life drain from his eyes, felt the struggle slow and stop.And then—almost as an afterthought—he'd struck the back of the head anyway, trying to make it fit the pattern.
This might not be him,Isla loathed to admit.But she needed to see more.
"Time of death?"she asked.
"Hard to say with precision given the water exposure, but based on decomposition and the condition of the tissues, I'd estimate he's been dead for three weeks, give or take a few days.The cold water would have slowed things down considerably."
Three weeks.Mid-February.Right when the manhunt had been at its peak, when every law enforcement agency in the Upper Midwest had been searching for Robert Brune.When they'd all assumed he'd fled the region, gone underground somewhere far from Duluth.
He hadn't run at all.He'd been here the whole time, hiding in the shadows, close enough to kill again.
"Do we have an ID?"Isla stood, her knees cracking in protest.The cold was seeping through her layers—she'd grabbed her blazer and a thin thermal undershirt, stubborn as always about the heavy winter gear—but she barely felt it.The chill in her chest had nothing to do with the temperature.
"Working on it," Scale said."Wallet was missing, no ID on the body.We're running prints now."
"He was a worker."Isla gestured at the body's clothing."Work boots, heavy-duty pants, that jacket—it's maritime.Someone who spent time on the water or near it."
"Could be a lot of people in Duluth."
"Could be."But Isla's gut was already pulling her in a specific direction, toward a shipyard she'd visited dozens of times over the past year, toward the workplace of the monster they were hunting."Get me those prints as soon as possible.And I want everything you have on that debris field—where the current would have carried the body from, potential entry points into the water."
Scale nodded and moved off, already reaching for his radio.Isla turned back to the body, to the man who had been alive three weeks ago, walking and breathing and living a life that had intersected fatally with a killer.
Why you?she thought, studying the ruined face.Why did he choose you?
The strangulation was the key.She was certain of it.LSK's kills had always been efficient, almost clinical—quick and impersonal, designed to look like accidents.But strangling someone took time.Required sustained effort, face-to-face contact, the intimacy of watching the life drain from another person's eyes.Then trying to cover it up with the post-mortem head wound, staging the scene to match his usual pattern.
The sound of boots on gravel made her turn.James Sullivan was picking his way down the rocky slope, his navy parka zipped to the chin, his face set in that particular expression she'd come to know so well over the years—controlled concern, analytical focus, the mask he wore when things were bad and likely to get worse.
"Emma's with Stacey," he said as he reached her.His eyes went to the body, took in the bloating and the wound and the waxy skin, and his jaw tightened."Hell."
"Welcome to Sunday."
James moved to stand beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his heavy coat.Part of her wanted to lean into it—into him—to let herself be anchored by his solid presence the way she had so many times before.But she kept her spine straight, her shoulders back, her walls firmly in place.
There would be time for comfort later after they caught the monster.
"What do we know?"James asked.
"Male victim, fifties or sixties, been in the water approximately three weeks."She glanced at him."Cause of death was strangulation.The head wound was inflicted post-mortem."
James's eyebrows rose."Post-mortem?So someone killed him, then bashed his head in afterward?"
“The staging, the placement of the head wound—it's all consistent with LSK's pattern.But the actual murder method is completely different."Isla turned back to the body."Our guy held this man's throat, watched him struggle, watched him die.Then hit him afterward to disguise the cause of death.Make it look like just another accident victim who fell and hit his head before ending up in the lake."
"That's a significant deviation from LSK’s MO."
"I know.My head tells me this could be a copycat, but…”
James was quiet for a moment.She could feel him studying her, assessing, running through the same calculations she'd already made."You really think this is LSK?The strangulation is a pretty big change.”
“That’s what makes me think it still could be.He could be trying to perform his ritual but change just enough to throw us off.”The words came out flat, certain.The more she spoke about it, the more sure of herself she was."The post-mortem wound proves it.A copycat would have used the head trauma as the actual murder method—that's what's been in the news, what people know about.But Brune strangled this man first, then added the head wound to make it fit his pattern.Only the real killer would know to stage it that way."
"Or someone who'd studied the cases closely enough to—"