Katherine rounded the corner with a steaming mug of coffee and slowed when she saw her sister sitting on the bench next to the BPD stairs, resting her elbows on her knees and staring straight ahead.

She could tell by the body language that something serious must have happened in the last two hours for the detective to sit there like that. Maybe Maggie's condition had taken a turn for the worse at the last moment, and she hadn't been discharged.

She walked over to the bench and sat beside her sister without asking. "Hey."

Elizabeth lost in thought, sat up in surprise and looked at the psychiatrist, sniffling. "Hey," she mumbled, shaking her head as Katherine offered her the coffee mug. "Right now, I could use something stronger than coffee, but thanks."

Katherine pursed her lips and nodded with a furrowed brow. "Is everything okay? Is Maggie okay?"

Elizabeth pressed her lips together and blinked a few times. "Maggie ... She's home," she said, avoiding having to talk about the past two hours. At least, she hoped she would.

Katherine, on the other hand, would only be good at her job if she recognized when a person was trying to dodge a question. "Liz, you know you can talk to me."

The detective nodded with a sad laugh before looking directly at her sister. "I think Maggie left me earlier."

Katherine's eyes grew wide with surprise when she heard the sentence. "What --" Her cell phone buzzed, and she rolled her eyes.

Elizabeth's cell phone also buzzed, and she read the message. Nick told her to report to Jane's office so the meeting could continue. She took a deep breath and got up from the bench. "We should get back inside."

xxx

"Let's get on with it," Jane said without much ado as she read through her papers again with her reading glasses and heard the door open. She knew it could only be her daughters, as Nick had been sitting in her office for ten minutes. She looked up and drew her eyebrows together when she saw Elizabeth's pale face and glassy eyes. She took her glasses off her nose and opened her mouth.

Katherine discreetly shook her head as she took off her beige coat and laid it over her chair at the conference table. "Let's get back to women and cats," she said before her mother could ask what had happened. "Well, the murderers have such a developed imagination that before their eyes, the animal transforms into any creature. In their imagination, I mean. They look into the cat's eyes, and it becomes a girl who dies at their hands. Others hang dolls that they fill with red paint and powerful firecrackers. The explosion not only tears the doll but also makes the paint splatter. They then believe it is a human being torn apart and that it is the victim's blood that is spurting out. I told you there are three basic types. The macho, the loner, and the sadist."

Jane was still looking at Elizabeth and frowning deeply, but she focused on the meeting. "And our killer is a mixture of all of those?"

"So are most of them," Elizabeth muttered, gritting her teeth.

Katherine cleared her throat and nodded slowly. "Right. As a loner, he probably grew up in porn and horror movies. And imagined what it would be like if he did that to others. For example, to the girls, he couldn't end up with."

Elizabeth slowly looked at the psychiatrist with a somber expression. "That's what he did later as a sadistic murderer. The torture he uses is the concrete realization of childhood fantasies."

Katherine licked her lips. "Right. Possibly by way of the animal killer."

Nick had also noticed that Elizabeth was looking unusually pale and frowned deeply. "And the macho guy? That was one of the guys. He doesn't look that macho here. More like a nerd."

Katherine raised her eyebrows briefly. "That's just part of the problem. He wants to be a great guy, but he's not. Yet he wants to impress."

Jane's eyebrows drew together. "And to whom? The victims?"

"Indirectly, yes. In comparison, the victims are the victims in what you might call a proxy war. What he wants to impress are others who are pathologically embedded much earlier in his history."

"His parents?"

"Exactly, in this case, most likely the person all serial killers have a problem with."

Elizabeth tried to refocus on her work and gritted her teeth. "Namely?" She guessed that Katherine was anticipating the answer.

Jane stood up from her chair and raised her shoulders. "His mother." She'd already busted enough murderers who compensated for a pathological mother fixation by murdering. Which often still didn't stop them from killing their mothers, too.

Katherine took a deep breath and nodded another time. "His mother. For whom he vicariously kills the girls and especially the prostitutes."

Jane looked at her in depth. "You mention the prostitutes. What about them?"

"That's exactly what I'm getting to now. With Jacqueline, he took the ovaries, with Vanessa ... the whole child." These words also passed her lips with difficulty.

Elizabeth pressed her lips together before licking them. The whole child ... She felt a twinge in her stomach. Perhaps that was why she took the floor. "Then he must have taken trophies more often?"

Katherine pulled the corners of her mouth down. "Probably. Nothing unusual about that, either. Jeffrey Dahmer had the heads of his victims stored in the refrigerator among beer cans. Albert Fish even took the feces of his victims."

Jane looked closely at her daughters. "We didn't find any body parts in the warehouse, though?" asked Jane.

Elizabeth and Nick looked at their files at the same time.

"No," Elizabeth said, shaking her head. "The whole sick craziness, the post-its with women eating and stuff, the horror movies, that cat litter, all that kind of stuff. But nothing organic. Maybe he doesn't collect the trophies after all --"

" ... or he has another place where he keeps these things," Katherine added. "No, in fact, he must have another place because he certainly did not cut Alexis Beasley's head off in that warehouse."

"Jacqueline, he cut out her ovaries," Elizabeth said. "Vanessa, he removed the child. And he abused her, too. Post mortem." Images from the autopsy room flashed before her inner eye. "In both cases, we had the abdominal wall cut open. Which both times was amateurishly sewn back shut."

Katherine nodded slowly as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "That's his idealistic approach."

Jane's eyebrows drew together. "His what?"

"Idealistic and educational, you heard me right. He doesn't want prostitutes to reproduce because they're doing something dirty. The one he rips out the ovaries post-mortem so that reproduction is not even possible. Not even in the next life, if anyone asks that right now." She cleared her throat. "The other one is already growing what he considers a dirty bastard, which he removes and takes with him."

"So that one, too, won't be born in the next life after all?" Jane blinked at her daughter.

Katherine nodded again. "That's how he thinks. Symbolically, anyway, that's how he thinks."

Elizabeth took a deep breath and licked her lips. "And then he still rapes his victims post-mortem? Isn't that a contradiction? Does he have sex with the prostitutes? So is that what he doesn't want?"

Katherine wiggled her head. "It's only contradictory at first glance. From his hubris, it's a neutralization of a dirty act. By penetrating the prostitute again, the killer neutralizes the sex act that took place before, and that created the bastard. Or he even tries to undo it."

"Then he considers himself so pure and clean that the sex act with him can neutralize the dirty sex act before?" asked Elizabeth with furrowed brows as she tried not to imagine what this monster would have done to Maggie had she not fought back.

Katherine hesitated for a moment and nodded. "That's his uptight side, rejecting sex as such because of his upbringing. Maybe he's asexual. Or maybe he'd like to be."

"Even if the prostitute is dead and he's desecrating a corpse?"

Katherine nodded again. "Even then."

Jane ran her hand through her hair. "Sometimes, I think there are only crazy people left."

"There are," Nick replied, giving his mother-in-law a long look. "But if that bothers you, you're in the wrong job. But take comfort: Politics is even worse," he said with a slight smile after Jane raised a brow in warning. He looked at his wife. "Is he a necrophiliac? Does he enjoy having sex with corpses?"

Katherine raised her brows briefly and pressed her lips together. "It's hard to say, Nick. On the one hand, the sex act is idealistically motivated. On the other hand, no one has sex with a corpse just because they want to prove something to the world. Those who are completely disgusted by it, normal people like you and me, don't touch a corpse, even if it might get a message across to people, no matter how important." Nick blinked a few times. "Then he's a necrophiliac?"

"Yes and no." The psychiatrist screwed up her face. "There are tactile necrophiles who just long to touch a corpse. Then there are the romantic necrophiles, who keep the body parts of loved ones or even masturbate in the presence of the dead. But they are harmless. Dangerous are the so-called murderous necrophiliacs who find satisfaction only in having sex with fresh corpses and who must first make these corpses. By murdering the living. There is one thing to suggest that our murderer might be one of these."

Elizabeth seemed to have the same thought. "The dumpster at the airport?"

"Yes. He threw the body in the dumpster. Maybe so he wouldn't be tempted to go after the body again. Kind of like smokers with good intentions at New Year's and demonstratively throw their cigarettes into a burning fireplace." Elizabeth's eyebrows drew together.

"One thing is unusual, though, that he has two groups of victims. Young women and adult prostitutes."

The psychiatrist took a deep breath. "Unusual and yet not. I've thought about it for a long time."

Jane looked at her daughter for a long moment. "And if you think about it long enough? What comes out of it?"

"Then it becomes logical again. It fits. It fits his division into black and white. Good and bad. As it does to many serial killers. Guilty and innocent. And in the end, alive and dead."

Jane's eyebrows drew together. "But he kills them both, doesn't he? He doesn't spare anyone, does he?"

"That's true. Still, the teens are innocent to him," Katherine continued. "Except for Christy. Otherwise, he cuts off their extremities. Her feet, so she can't run to men who then do dirty things to her. Her nose. The sense of smell is one of our oldest senses. Called the olfactory bulb, it is deeply embedded in the oldest part of the brain. Men who are out for sex secrete what are called pheromones. Scents that attract women. Without a nose, it's going to be difficult."

"That means the teenagers aren't even tempted because they're dead. And the older women, the prostitutes --"

" ... are purified if you will. By taking away their ovaries and embryo. And abusing them, too."

"What did you call this purification in women?"

"An ... Exorcism," Katherine replied.

"Exorcism?" asked Jane with her brows drawn together.

Katherine poured herself a glass of water that was on the conference table. "Well, he puts crucifixes in the prostitutes' vaginas. This is a clear indication of ritualized violence, but also his idealized approach. So, is the rose attached to the cut extremities. The rose is the symbol of the Virgin Mary. The only creature of creation who is without sin."

"Mary," Elizabeth murmured. "The mother of Christ. Some even say the Mother of God."

Katherine looked at her sister for a long moment. "That's not a coincidence either. The mother of Christ is also a mother."

"It's always the mother's fault. The one we were talking about earlier?" asked Jane, running her hands down her face. "As befits a serial killer? Let's take a look at her then."

Katherine took a sip of water and cleared her throat. "It's always the mother's fault. Or the wife. And if it's not the wife's fault, then it was the devil who put everyone up to it. And who did the devil seduce first? A woman, of course! Eve, at the tree of knowledge. Even in murderers who are not religious, these religious archetypes are often stored. Therefore, women are also the classic victims of serial killers. At least of male serial killers who are heterosexual. And that's true of the majority of serial killers."

Jane drank from her coffee cup, furrowing her brows. "And how did that work out for our killer, with his mother?"

Katherine took another sip of water and frowned. "I can only tell you what usually goes down. First comes the oral stage in a child. The mother meets all needs. If they're not satisfied quickly enough, or if they're no longer satisfied, there's an unwillingness on the part of the child."

Nick frowned deeply. "That's what stuffed animals are for."

Katherine looked at him long and hard. That's right; stuffed animals are transitional objects. First, they make the child feel lonely. They think the herd is with them. That's why some babies sleep better when the vacuum cleaner is turned on because it means the pack is on site and alert."

Nick saw Elizabeth and Jane looking at him in wonder and question and rolled his eyes. "Better not ask."

It was the first time in many days that Elizabeth had to grin honestly, realizing that her nephew Jalen had only slept with the vacuum cleaner running when he was a baby.

Jane put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing at that moment.

Katherine cleared her throat with a smile, but then she became serious again. "Later, the stuffed animals become transitional objects. For some kids, though, the transitional objects thing doesn't work out. They feel abandoned when maternal attention necessarily diminishes at some point. They know that without their mother, they are weak, small, and dependent. And as a result, they project negative feelings onto the mother."

"Along with early fantasies of omnipotence," Elizabeth added.

Katherine nodded slowly. "Understandably so. The child is weak and wants to be stronger. But it can't because it is, in fact, totally powerless. Without the parents, it can't do anything. Parents buy everything, care for everything, know everything, explain everything, and forbid everything. Even adults can't stand powerlessness, and it's no better for a child."

Jane furrowed her brows. "So what's the child doing?"

Katherine took a deep breath and pressed her lips together. "It starts to fantasize. Usually, the fantasizing dies down after a while, and the child's ego prunes itself. For most of them, anyway. But not for some. The fantasies of omnipotence remain. They are initially fed by the powerlessness of the child, who feels betrayed by his mother. Then these fantasies turn into hatred." She folded her hands in front of her mouth. "Everything that characterizes a serial killer. Even ours."

Jane rubbed the back of her neck with a sigh. "What kind of guy was or is the BodyCounter's father? We've only considered the mother so far."

Katherine pulled the corners of her mouth down. "I think we're dealing with the classic Oedipus conflict. The son wants to possess the mother in competition with the father. That usually subsides when the son can identify with the father. If this identification doesn't occur because he doesn't perceive the father as an equal, there is another problem. Especially if the father senses this distance at some point and tries to establish a bond with his son somehow."

"And how?"

"The father often tries to resolve the competitive situation by bringing other women who might interest his son. And he does that by trying to make a man out of the boy."

Elizabeth looked at her sister, sensing Katherine's train of thought. "I suppose a lot can go wrong with that?"

"Right. Cue other women. When the father forbids him to meet girls, he's encouraging him to do just that. The boy wants to find satisfaction in circumventing his father's ban."

"You want your son to meet girls at some point. Right?" asked Nick.

Katherine raised her brows and nodded with a deep breath. "Yes, he should. But the action can also backfire if it's approached too openly. For example, if the father asks the son to behave like a man, to pick up women, to have sex, in an obscenely direct way, the son withdraws and feels ashamed in front of the obscene father."

Nick pressed his lips together. "There's something to that. One of my grandmothers was Catholic, the other Protestant. The Catholic grandmother always said, 'Don't do that. It's forbidden! But the Protestant one said: 'Well, you're not allowed to. But if you do it anyway, you must reconcile it with your conscience."

Katherine nodded slowly. "One time there's a kind of prohibition or command, and the other time there's a guilty conscience."

"... and a guilty conscience," Nick added, "is much harder to bear than obeying an order you think is nonsensical. Or breaking a rule. Besides, in Catholicism, you can confess afterward, and it's all over."

"That's right," Katherine agreed with him, "the obscene father of the BodyCounter gave his son every choice with the opposite sex, perhaps by confrontationally asking the son to have sex. This went badly wrong, as was to be expected because the fascination of sex always lies in the circumvention of a prohibition. If there is no such prohibition, it leads to impotence."

Jane looked at her daughter closely with her eyebrows drawn together. "Is that so?"

"Sure. Look at the world today. There's more and more sex on every TV channel. At the same time, fewer and fewer people are having real sex. In Japan, the majority of men aged thirty-five have never had sex. At some point, they'll die out, which is why the Japanese are leading the way in robot technology."

Jane took a deep breath. "Well, the question is who's smarter."

"The machines can be dangerous too," Katherine said. "Think of the Terminator." She paused for a moment. "Anyway, the more something is thematized, the more it disappears."

Jane leaned back in her chair. "And what's the result?"

"The result is that the son develops a disturbed relationship with women and can only perceive them as objects."

"As a living or a dead one?"

"Both," said the psychiatrist without hesitation.

Jane nodded slowly. "So, what do we tell about the killer on this TV show?"

Katherine was quick for a second. "Just this story about his mother and father. And his role in it. As hurtful as possible! If he's the dominant serial killer who overestimates himself, that should get him off the hook. And then he'll start making mistakes."

The chief looked at her daughter for a while. Still skeptical but increasingly convinced. "And then we could catch him?"

Katherine nodded slowly. "We could."