A Thousand Vermilion Stars Patricia

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A THOUSAND VERMILION STARS
F.B.I. FilesBook Three

PATRICIA LOGAN
 A copycat serial killer is driving their whole team crazy.
Dr. Leo Reeves has always considered himself a halfway decent criminal profiler. Some of his colleagues even call him brilliant.
With this assignment, he sure as hell doesn’t feel that way. He’s been missing something at every turn. The case is dragging into its
seventh month and every lead he and his team follow, takes them to a dead end…literally. Leo sure hasn’t come up with anything to
move things along, as hard as he’s tried. They’re no closer to capturing their killer…even after following him all the way to Miami.
Special Agent Max Prince is worried.
The longer this case goes on, the farther down the rabbit hole, his partner and lover, Leo, seems to fall. To make matters worse,
back home in Los Angeles, detectives Cassidy Ryan and Mike Williams have turned up a second graveyard filled with some surprising
victims…victims the team know well. Worse yet, Miami has left them with even more questions. When a good cop is murdered, the
whole case turns on its head. Everyone wants answers and their team doesn’t have any.
Something has to change.
Worst of all, the copycat hasn’t stopped killing, leaving strange clues behind, even inserting himself into the case. When one of their
own is put in horrible danger, and DNA results reveal a shocking truth, things get even more complicated. No one likes taking risks,
especially when they involve meeting the killer on his terms. But taking that risk, might be the only way to resolve this case. Whether it’s
the desert graveyards of SoCal, the sexy, hot nights of South Beach’s gay scene, or the sticky bayous of New Orleans, Max and Leo
have vowed to end this monster once and for all…if he doesn’t end them first.
A Thousand Vermilion Stars
FBI Files: Book Three
Copyright 2023 Patricia Logan
All rights reserved.
Edited by: Meg Amor
Cover Design by: AJ Corza
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 WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including
infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and one of their finest agents, Max Prince, who will hunt you down, and is
punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000!
 REMEMBER:
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with
fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places, is purely coincidental. This book contains material that is only suitable
for mature readers. It contains scenes of a sexual nature between two consenting men.
 PEOPLE ARE SAYING WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT
PATRICIA LOGAN:

“Patricia Logan smells of old poo and doesn't wear pants…but her ability to weave perfectly real and sensual love stories into
stories full of intrigue, suspense, and the trials and tribulations of everyday life, pulls you in and makes you forget her personal hygiene.”
~ Lisa Worrall

“Author Patricia Logan writes from the heart, sucking you into her story from the first page. She pulls no punches, telling gut
wrenching heartfelt stories with a reality that makes you feel you are right there. Her kind of emotional honesty is rare and essential to
great writing.” ~ Jean Joachim

“Patricia Logan possesses the one key ingredient at her stage of writing that so many authors don't and never will; an editor who
can translate her cirque du soleil act of random contortionist word tappings into something presented as popular m4m prose. History will
remember her fondly without the fondling, however, when someone eventually revisits her first drafts and realizes she's really written a
cookbook titled "How to Serve Me….and a Delicious One at That!” ~ Kage Alan

“Reading a Patricia Logan book is not something to be taken lightly, the hotness contained within combined with multiple piercings
can result in sudden breakage of certain adult toys making rapid trips to X-rated shops a necessity! AND she will refuse to take
responsibility for the added expense!! Oh, and despite the hordes of Navy SEAL's, cowboys, leather, whips, ropes and other convenient
methods of restraint, there are never enough firemen in her books.” ~ Petronella Bond

“Patricia Logan is a walking contradiction that may be baking cookies with her grandchildren one moment and writing an e-stim
sounding scene the next. Known famously as being a cat lady, she picks up more and more strays as she goes along through life. I am
just happy to be one of them.” ~ JP Adkins
TRADEMARKS LIST – A THOUSAND VERMILION STARS

Bank of America: Berkshire Hathaway

Budget Rental Cars: Avis Budget Group
Buick: General Motors
Cheese Whiz: Kraft Heinz
Cheetos: PepsiCo
Chef Allen’s Farm to Table: Chef Allen Susser's
CNN: Warner Brothers Discovery
Denny’s: Denny’s Corporation
Doc Martens: Primira and Dr Martens Airwair Group Limited
DoorDash: Tony Xu
FaceTime: Apple
FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigations
Fleshlight: Interactive Life Forms
Ford Taurus:
Garcia’s Seafood Grille & Fish Market: Garcia Brothers
Glock: Glock Privatstiftung
GoFundMe: GoFundMe, Inc.
HK-416: Heckler & Koch
iPad: Apple
Kleenex: Kimberley Clark
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts: Pret Panera I G.P.
L.A. Times: Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong
La-Z-Boy: La-Z-Boy Inc.
Life House: Rami Zeidan
Little Havana Cigar Factory: Daniel Verga
M4: Colt Defense
Magic City Pelota: Scott Savin
Marriott Hotels: Marriott International Inc.
Miami International Airport: Miami-Dade County Government
Miami Vice: Created by Anthony Yerkovich
New Orleans Police Department: New Orleans Police Department as part of Public Safety
TASER Pulse: Axon Enterprises, Inc.
Spanglish: Tomas and Lynda Prado
Starbucks: Various shareholders, the largest The Vanguard Group, Inc.
Sweetwater Police Department: City of Sweetwater, Florida
The Abbey: David Cooley
The Palace: Thomas Donall
Uber: Uber Technologies, Inc.
University of Miami: University System of Ohio
Versailles: Felipe Valls Jr.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
PEOPLE ARE SAYING WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT PATRICIA LOGAN:
TRADEMARKS LIST – A THOUSAND VERMILION STARS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY PATRICIA LOGAN
“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow, it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem
beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must
leave reality behind.”

~ Patrick Rothfuss ~
 PROLOGUE

“Leo…Leo.” He blinked awake, then slowly rolled his head on the headrest to find Max staring
into his eyes. As always, his lover was the most beautiful man, even when the expression on his
handsome face was serious and his pale green eyes were clouded with worry. He’d been looking at
him that way for several weeks.
“Where are we?” Leo sat forward, reaching up to wipe drool from his cheek. He’d fallen asleep
against the plane’s window as it flew through the night.
“Somewhere over Central Texas. We still have two and a half hours before we land in Miami.
Good nap?”
Leo dragged his gaze away from him and turned to the window. With the lights low in the cabin,
he couldn’t even make out shapes in the night sky. He looked back at Max and sighed, bending
forward so he could take his water out of the seat back. “I guess.” He took a long sip and recapped
the bottle. “I don’t get much uninterrupted sleep these days.”
Max reached for his hand and threaded their fingers together before resting it on his thigh. “Do
you think I’m not aware of that, darlin’?”
Leo frowned. “I’m sorry, Max. Of course, you are.” The last three months had been one long
nightmare, trying to learn all they could about their elusive copycat during the day, and trying to forget
all about what he did, at night. Lincoln was finally back at work, heading up his extraordinary FBI
team as they worked to shut down the cell Gunter Becker’s Road Knights had controlled. The outlaw
biker was currently cooling his heels in a Federal prison after the FBI had refused to sign off on his
WITSEC deal when they found Kathy Campbell dead.
Meanwhile, the team had managed to put several of their targets permanently out of business.
Between Grant Jacobs, a self-professed copycat of Dean Arnold Corll, and Andrew Wiley, a copycat
who took great pride in modeling himself after Dr. Harold Shipman, two less killers had been
deprived of their lives. Leo couldn’t say he’d been upset to see either man meet his end. Seeing them
behind bars would have been preferrable to writing reports about how neither had survived when
they’d been confronted by the team and opted for suicide by cop but that hadn’t been their choice.
“Leo?”
He met Max’s questioning gaze with one of his own. “Yeah, baby?”
“Grant Jacobs and Andrew Wiley…”
“What about them?” Leo cocked his head to the side.
“It’s like…ya know, it’s like they just tried to get themselves killed. They wanted it, right? That’s
some kinda pathology, right? ‘Cause, I don’t think serial killers are usually prone to suicide. Am I
wrong?”
Leo shook his head. “No. Not usually, Max, but the vast range of pathologies that go with that kind
of mind are so huge, they truly can’t be painted with a single brush. A lot of the time they’re extreme
narcissists, while they loathe themselves so badly, they long for death at any cost. Most of them fall
somewhere in the middle on that spectrum.”
“And the serial killer working with Greg Campbell? The Sweetwater Slaughterer’s copycat?
He’s not suicidal, right?”
“We don’t know that yet, Max.” Leo smiled sadly at him. “We only know one thing about him.”
“What’s that, darlin’?”
“He’s not finished.”
 CHAPTER ONE

Leo and his team landed at Miami International Airport at six-thirty in the morning. As he and
Max exited the terminal with their carry-ons in tow, they headed for the Budget rental bus which
promised to take them to their hotel, so they could drop off their things. He pulled out sunglasses to
deflect the bright, late February sunlight as he followed Max onto the bus and stowed his bag in the
luggage rack, taking a seat across from Kindness and Perez. His big, bald, tattooed friend, looked
right at home in Miami where a large percentage of the population was Hispanic.
Coming home to Florida was the very last thing Leo had ever wanted to do. He and his sister,
Dina, had been raised in the state. Though, most of his childhood memories weren’t horrible,
everything had changed after his father’s arrest and the true nature of his crimes were brought to light.
And if he was being honest with himself, even as a child, Leo felt something wasn’t quite right about
his family. His mother had died of cancer after his father’s conviction but in Leo’s heart, he felt that
was merely a technicality. She’d most likely been suffering from heartbreak after learning exactly
what her husband had been doing out in a small Everglades shack, so remote no one could hear his
victims scream.
Dina, being the younger sibling, hadn’t coped with the truth of her life as seamlessly as Leo
appeared to. She’d spent years on a psychiatrist’s couch working on herself. In his case, appearances
were only that. He’d long ago come to the realization that he’d merely compartmentalized all his pain;
throwing himself into his career as a criminal psychologist, and later a profiler, had been his way of
dealing with things.
Maybe he would have been better doing things the way Dina had. When he’d visited her at her
home in Honolulu last summer, he’d been heartened to see how good she’d looked and how much
better she’d been. In any case, they’d somehow both muddled through the hell their life became when
their father had been arrested, convicted, and executed by the great state of Florida.
But worst of all, this damned case had somehow managed to open the door to the lockbox he’d
carefully constructed around his heart where all that vile shit had been stored. Leo had locked his past
up, welded the door to the thick metal box tightly shut, and wrapped chains around it, hoping it would
stay that way forever. How wrong he’d been. He could feel a reckoning coming at him with the surety
the sun would rise over the Everglades. The door had cracked open, all that shit was spilling out, and
that molten red ball was threatening to burn him alive. He felt himself slipping but as he turned to
look at the man beside him, he instantly calmed.
Max was his only reprieve in this world.
The drive to the rental agency was blessedly short and they waited around for Lincoln to take care
of renting the two black SUVs they’d be using while in Miami, then headed to the hotel. As Carter
drove them to the Marriot closest to the FBI field office, Leo stared out the window with Max at his
side. Just having the man close enough to touch was comforting.
 “Look at that,” Max said, reaching across his body to point out the window up at a billboard.
Leo noted the enormous picture of a smiling young woman and read the words. “Have you seen
me?” A phone number in huge, white letters was posted across the bottom of the sign along with her
name…Annie Hoskins, one of the missing young women who fit the Sweetwater Slaughterer’s
victimology. Differing from the killer they were now hunting, his father had killed only women,
skinning them while they were still alive, and then burying them around his property. Leo absently
wondered whether their copycat had altered his victimology to match that of his father’s now that he
was back in the Sunshine State.
They’d found fifteen victims buried around the Slaughterer’s shack in the Everglades, though, he’d
confessed to killing an additional twenty-three. That claim had always been suspect, since he’d never
broken down and told law enforcement where they were. Strangely enough, Leo believed him. He’d
simply argued the reason his father hadn’t given up the bodies was that it was his way of holding onto
trophies to keep the fantasy going just a little bit longer...they were with him even on death row.
Sometimes Leo hated the things he knew about the criminal mind. It was a terrifying place and one he
never wished to visit. Unfortunately—with his father—that had been impossible.
“She’s one of the missings,” Leo said, turning to look at Max as they passed. “I recognize her
name from the list of young female missing persons Noah pulled up for us.”
Max stared at him for a few seconds before his brows knitted together and his green eyes clouded.
He looked terribly sad as he nodded. “Her family must have put up the billboard.”
“Or one of the groups looking for the missing women,” Leo replied.
“Groups?”
“After the Sweetwater Slaughterer was caught and his victims were identified, two of the mothers
started a GoFundMe type page on social media to pay for the funerals of the girls. As far as I know,
they eventually turned it into some sort of 501c3 organization which collects funds and then donates
them to various victims’ groups,” Leo said. “There was some fine print on that sign I couldn’t read
since we drove by so quickly.”
Max sighed. “That makes sense.” He was watching him closely. “You say you’re done with your
father’s case, but you’ve been followin’ the aftermath closer than you admitted to me, Leo.”
Leo sighed and dragged his gaze away, turning to look out the window. He didn’t want to be
analyzed by his boyfriend. He knew Max meant well, but he was determined to be strong until this
case was over and done, and the skinner was in prison. Besides, he knew there’d be enough analyzing
going on until they caught this killer along with a hell of a lot of judgment coming his way. He could
almost accept it from others—outsiders—even his team…but not from Max. That, he really couldn’t
stand.
Leo felt Max take his hand and he turned back to look at him as he took it, doing his best to offer a
reassuring smile. He leaned over and bumped Max’s shoulder with his own. “Thanks.”
“What for?”
“For trying to encourage me and just always being here for me.”
“You do the same for me, darlin’.” Max suddenly looked serious as he leaned close and lowered
his voice. “It’s okay to not have all the answers all the time, Leo. I know they all think you do but this
case is fuckin’ with everyone, not just us.”
Leo glanced around, noting Kindness in the front seat beside Carter. She was brave, and
intelligent beyond words. He’d never met a more capable female in his life. Beth was equally
brilliant, filled with endless compassion from her years on the Crimes Against Children task force.
Both women fitted his father’s victimology in part—young, beautiful, and female—and yet they were
the strongest, most competent women he knew.
Carter and Mac were former military, pillars of integrity. Their computer tech whiz, Noah, was
simply bright and courageous, but most of all, Lincoln Snow was their touchstone, a towering model
of honesty and decency. Max…well, there just wasn’t anything he could say about him. He was the
man who always supported and looked out for him. Most of all, Leo appreciated his boyfriend’s kind
words more than he could say. He gave Max’s hand another squeeze before turning to look back out
the window.
They piled out of their SUVs and were given room keys by Snow after he checked them all in. He
and Max were sharing a room. Lincoln had seen to the arrangement without asking either of them.
Though, they hadn’t come right out and announced that they were a couple, Leo suspected everyone on
the team knew how they felt about each other. After all, they were two out, gay men, living together.
No one on the team questioned them and to be honest, Leo believed no one cared what their sexual
orientation was one way or another. Neither of them flaunted their relationship and technically, they
didn’t have partners on this team like other folks in the Bureau. The way they worked together could
best be described as a family more than a team.
They agreed to meet in the lobby after they were unpacked and headed up to their rooms.
Apparently, Snow wanted them to get to the office this morning to—at the very least—brief the Miami
field office agents and the SAC there. Leo had a feeling it was because ever since they’d learned the
“skinner”—as they’d coined him—was headed back to his father’s old hunting grounds, things had
gotten politically complicated within the Bureau. In the end, both Lincoln and the Director had
personally requested the Miami field office back off the case. He'd gotten the impression the Miami
SAC was pissed as hell at having been made to wait on Snow’s team from Los Angeles. If Leo were
being honest, he’d most likely feel the same way.
“You doin’ okay, Leo?”
Leo glanced up at Max from where he was transferring clothes from his suitcase to a set of
drawers. “I’m fine and guess what, I was fine ten minutes ago when you asked me, and I was fine a
fucking hour ago when you asked me.” He knew his tone was terse but he couldn’t help it. “Will you
please stop thinking I’m going to fall apart, Max?” He slammed the drawer shut and straightened to
his full height. “I got it. Okay? Everyone is worried about me, but you all have to fucking stop or I’m
going to start hurting people.”
Max walked over to him and reached out to take both biceps in his hands. “I’m fuckin’ worried
about you the same way I’d be worried about McCallahan if his big assed Scottish father was a
psychopath goin’ around skinnin’ folk for no goddamned reason.”
Leo smirked and shook his head. “Mac’s mother made him haggis when he got shot. She probably
did the same thing for McCallahan’s dad. That’d make anyone a crazy psychopath.”
 “Shut up. You know what I mean.” Max was growling.
Leo did know what Max meant but he really wanted to lighten the mood. Unfortunately, his joking
manner had fallen flat.
“Okay, I’ll shut up after I say this. I have come a million miles since I first found out about my
father. I liken it to being badly burned. Do you know that burn patients have to be debrided every day?
Basically, in order for them not to have thick scars build up, they have to have their skin snipped
away every day, exposing the healthy, bloody, raw skin underneath. It’s an excruciating process but if
it’s not done, a burn patient won’t heal properly. That’s what’s happening with me, Max. The painful
skin is slowly being cut away. It hurts like hell but every day, it heals a little more.”
“I understand. I just want you to heal, Leo, and I’m worried, darlin’.”
“I know, but I also know you’re not worried about me the same way you’d be about our big,
freckled friend. You’re worried about me because you love me.” He covered Max’s lips with one
finger before he could say whatever he was going to say. “Don’t deny it. You think I’m going to fall
apart. Well, guess what? I’m not, so stop mothering me.” He dropped his hand and relaxed his
shoulders as Max let go.
Max shrugged and stepped back, starting to turn when Leo grabbed his arm.
“By the way, I love you more than words can express, Max Prince.”
A tiny smile turned up at the corners of his lover’s lips and his gaze instantly dropped to Leo’s
mouth. It sent a zinging sensation straight to his groin. Leo shook his head and snorted softly. “We
have to meet Snow in ten minutes. We don’t have time for that, but as soon as we get back here, be
prepared to bend over.”
Max let out a hearty chuckle. “Fine,” he drawled.
After unpacking, they met in the lobby and piled back into the SUV’s, arriving at the field office
ten minutes later. The seven of them waited in the lobby as the receptionist presumably dialed the
SAC and then smiled as she was hanging up. “You can go in now.” As they all started to move toward
the double glass doors with the FBI seal etched into the front of it, she spoke up. “Oh, I’m sorry,
Special Agent Snow. I meant you can go in. The rest of your team should wait here.”
Leo glanced over at Snow and caught the slight frown on his face before he nodded at her. He
turned to the rest of them. “Cool your heels for a second. I’ll be right back.” They all acknowledged
him, and he turned to walk into the office.
When Leo looked at Max, he noted the concern on his partner’s face. Max glanced at him.
“It’s gonna be fine. Stop worrying. You fuss worse than a mom,” Leo said under his breath. “Next
thing I know, you’re gonna ask me if I have my galoshes.”
Max snorted before nodding at the receptionist. “Is there a coffee cart around?”
She smiled at him and Leo instantly recognized the look of interest in her exceedingly pretty eyes.
In fact, she was as fresh faced and beautiful as Ashley—Max’s ex—and probably not a total basket
case like she was. He was suddenly tempted to step between them and tell her she had no chance but
stopped when she opened her mouth.
 “Sure, but it’s downstairs. I’m sorry, Special Agent. They shouldn’t be too long.” Her Southern
drawl caught him again, it was a lot more pronounced than Max’s. Leo was thrown by it, not because
he hadn’t expected a Southern drawl in Florida, but because she reminded him so much of his own
frail and gentle mother. Oddly enough, he hadn’t thought of her in a long time other than when he’d
been focusing so recently on this case. Her death had been hard on him, but like everything else in his
personal life, Leo had done a spectacular job of locking all those feelings away in the lockbox
alongside the rest.
“It’s fine, ma’am,” Max said, flashing her a brilliant smile that made his dimples indent his cheeks
and would probably make her fall even harder for him. Leo had the sudden urge to kick him in the
shins.
“You’re a Southern boy,” she said, batting her eyelids at him behind the cat eyeglasses she wore.
“But not from Florida? Tennessee?” she offered.
Max grinned. “No, ma’am. Lexington, Kentucky, ma’am.”
Leo was pretty sure if he’d been wearing a hat, his boyfriend would have either touched the brim
every time he said ma’am or bowed at the waist. Thankfully, someone in the group cleared their
throat, and his eyes were drawn back to the double glass doors where he spotted Lincoln striding
down the long hallway toward them. They all walked forward when he motioned for them to come
inside, and after Beth and Kindness walked in first, the rest of them followed.
“No, ma’am. Lexington, Kentucky, ma’am,” Leo stage whispered in annoyance as he passed Max.
As Max snorted behind his back, Leo had the overwhelming urge to stop walking so his partner
would run right into his back and smack his nose on Leo’s own thick skull. Isn’t jealousy a beautiful
thing? He had no idea why he was feeling vulnerable enough to feel pea green with jealousy, but sure
enough, he was.
Snow was standing outside the windowed conference room when they got down the hall but he
stepped aside to let them in. They all filed silently into the room where a large, barrel-chested man
stood. The guy was nearly as tall as Leo with a bushy, black mustache, but he had a rather round gut
and probably outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. The dark glower he wore on his face kind of
said it all for his state of mind, and Leo realized that he’d clearly been outmaneuvered by their own
SAC.
“Take a seat, guys,” Snow said, closing the door behind Leo who was the last to enter. He moved
around the table and took a seat next to Max, facing Snow as the rest of the team took their seats. “I’d
like everyone to meet SAC John Ward,” Snow said introducing him. “Why don’t you go around the
table and tell them who you—”
“Just tell me which one’a them is responsible for bringin’ this shit back to my state ‘cause I wanna
give him a hard kick in the drawers,” Ward drawled, interrupting Snow as he dropped heavily into a
chair at the head of the table.
“There’s no need for that, Ward!” Snow said as Leo felt his cheeks suddenly burning bright red.
“None of my agents are responsible for that maniac and you owe them all an apology.”
“It’s fine, Lincoln,” Leo said, speaking up before the Miami SAC could reply. He turned his
furious gaze on John Ward. “I’m Leo Reeves. As you probably know, my father was the Sweetwater
Slaughterer, sir, and I promise you, the very last place on earth I want to be is this shitty state, now or
ever.” Leo felt a hand on the top of his thigh, but he ignored Max’s show of solidarity as he watched
the big man sit back in his chair, looking slightly astonished at being talked to like that. He felt almost
bad until he saw the man take a deep breath and reach up to run fingers over his bushy mustache. The
glint of humor in his eyes surprised Leo for a stunned second but he was totally thrown when the man
lowered his hand and flashed him a wide grin. He pointed at Leo.
“You got some stones on you, boy, that’s for sure.” Ward started to chuckle and then he turned to
Snow. “I’m sorry I was harsh to your agent, Snow. I can honestly say, since I got the director’s call
and he told me to stand my team down, I have been as pissed as a couple of coons in a burlap sack.”
“Trust me, you couldn’t possibly be as pissed as we all are. Hell, my wife—who dressed my
bullet wound for a month and carries a gun of her own—is probably more pissed than any of us. So, if
you’ll be kind enough to let us do our jobs, with your help and that of your agents, maybe we can put
this monster away forever.”
Ward nodded. “That sounds like a plan, son.” Ward got out of his chair and walked to the door.
He opened it, stuck his head out, and whistled, gesturing to someone in the bullpen. Moments later,
two agents came into the room. “This here’s, Special Agents, Rhonda Carlisle and Frank Simon,” the
SAC drawled. “They’re gonna be workin’ with y’all until we catch this bastard.” He turned to his
agents and waved to empty chairs. “Take a load off, you two. I know you’ve both read this rather
thick file, but these folks are the agents who’ve been on this case from the very beginnin’.” He tapped
the brown file folder stuffed with paper on the table in front of him.
“They’ve come all the way here from L.A. to give y’all the lowdown on this copycat. I know you
have questions and so do I. So, before we get too deep into this case, SAC Snow and his team are
here from Los Angeles to give y’all answers.”
“We’re ready to do that, SAC,” Lincoln said.
Leo leaned back in his chair as his boss took a deep breath. It had come to this, and it made him
sick to his stomach, simply knowing his life was about to be turned inside out…once again.
 CHAPTER TWO

“Why don’t I start with quick introductions,” Snow said. “I’m SAC Lincoln Snow, and this is,
Doctor Leo Reeves, beside him is, SA Max Prince, SA Kindness Rayburn, SA Beth Michaels, SA
Carter Perez, and finally, Mac McCallahan,” he said, rattling off their names as he pointed to each of
the agents around the table. Everyone on his team nodded, and Leo sat back feeling slightly less
intimidated as he focused on having his friends around him. “Now, who has questions?”
“Well, I do,” Carlisle said. She was facing the team but every so often, she couldn’t help but turn
to stare at the large whiteboard which had been set up in the room before dragging her gaze away. On
it, someone had taped photos from what Leo presumed were copies of the files Snow had sent ahead
from L.A. They depicted gruesome bodies taken at the various graves, crime scenes, and autopsies
from the cases they’d worked over the last half a year. However you sliced it, the gore on the board
made you both want to stare openly, but also look away in equal measure. As for Leo, he’d seen most
of it in person and being reminded of it in full color wasn’t something he relished one bit. He
consciously averted his eyes.
Carlisle had an intelligent look about her which was a relief to him. He’d deliberately not
allowed himself a hell of a lot of expectations about the case in front of them while they were flying
through the night. On top of that, he still hadn’t slept, and he was struggling to stay awake. Sleep had
been anything but good over the past few months and that hadn’t improved with time. He still woke
screaming with nightmares of seeing Kathy Campbell’s skinned body crawling with maggots or
walking into that cookhouse and finding the horrors they’d discovered there.
“Go ahead, SA Carlisle,” Snow said.
She nodded and looked straight at Max. “This question is for all of you. Do you think the torture
device used on Clara Dawson was homemade?” She turned her head and pointed to the victim’s
picture, clearly showing the wounds under her chin. “The reason I ask is because if it was, there had
to be a lot of thought put into doing that.” She dragged her gaze away from the board and pinned Leo
with a hard look. “Is that something to do with the fantasy her killer built around the act itself?”
“As to the device, yes, we think it was homemade,” Lincoln replied. “We had our computer tech,
SA Burgess, scour the Internet for something that looks like our interpretation of it. But he was unable
to come up with anything, including stores that specialize in BDSM. Those who do custom jobs,
didn’t recognize what we described or couldn’t turn us on to anyone who manufactures devices.” He
turned to Leo. “Doctor Reeves, you could probably speak to the fantasy part of Agent Carlisle’s
question better than any of the rest of us,” Lincoln said.
Leo nodded at Snow, and then looked at her. “Yes, this type of offender spends every waking hour
needing to kill. They think about it, they dream about it, and yes, they spend all their time fantasizing
about how it would feel to accomplish their goal of killing in the manner that would bring them sexual
gratification. They probably sketched the device out on paper several times and reworked and remade
it until it fitted their fantasy to a tee. These fantasies are always violent.”
“They get off on the act of killing, right?” Simon asked.
“They get off on the whole experience. The kidnap, the torture, rape, if that’s something they do,
and finally, the murder itself. They are utterly driven by their violent, and in this case, homicidal,
sexual fantasies. Some people have described them as being a slave to their fantasies because they
are trapped by them. They cannot find sexual gratification any other way. Many of them return to the
scene where the murder has happened over and over to masturbate as they relive the killing in their
mind. We call that behavior revisiting.”
“And the torture device?” Carlisle asked.
“I’m sorry,” Leo said, sitting forward. “That was your original question. Yes, SAC Snow was
right. We believe the device was homemade. Our coroner was the one who came to the conclusion
that the device had to look something like this.” Leo reached for the pad of paper Snow held out and
began to sketch. A minute later, he turned the pad and showed it to the two agents and to SAC Ward. It
looked like two tuning forks soldered together at their ends and attached to a leather collar to be worn
around the neck. In the sketch, Leo had drawn the head, neck, and shoulders of a woman and drawn
the collar with the tines of the tuning forks stabbing into the bottom of her chin and two points at an
area just beneath her collarbones.
“And this was done to effect sleep deprivation,” Carlisle stated, shaking her head. “It’s simple
and diabolical.” She looked up. “I guess we’re dealing with a sadist. This particular one was a
sadist, yeah?”
“Yes, this one can best be described as a sexual sadist,” Leo said. “In fact, we believe most of the
men participating in the actual murders were sexual sadists. We interviewed all the men we arrested
after we raided the warehouse where the Ukrainians caged their remaining ‘stock’ of victims. Those
who would talk to us described themselves as voyeurs but stated emphatically that they never had any
plans to kill anyone or have anyone killed. Our computer tech, Noah, said that was patently untrue
because he found financial evidence pointing to all those as participating in the auctions. If they’d
won an auction, they no doubt would have carried out their fantasies. We know they were much more
than onlookers.”
“So, what I gathered from the file is that the first cell y’all put away, consisted of the sickos who
were out there at the warehouse where the captives were housed, yeah?” SAC Ward asked.
“Yes. As best we can tell, no one from that first cell got away but we have agents back in L.A.
following up on that even though it’s been six months. There were several guards who surrendered
after we killed Svetlana, Vlad, and Christof,” Snow said. “And, I know you’ve read that we also
arrested former Special Agent Tom Farley after the Ukrainians killed his partner, Kurt Jamison.”
“So, for the most part, you feel you were able to clean up that first cell entirely?” Simon asked.
“Yes, we think so,” Snow replied. “You all know Tom Farley’s fate. In fact, he’ll be going on trial
along with the rest of the scum from that first case very soon.”
“That brings me to my next question,” Carlisle said.
Leo could tell that this was one disciplined agent. Clearly, she had a methodical way of doing
things. It probably made her a hell of an investigator, and he could genuinely appreciate that. “Go on,
Agent Carlisle.”
“Well, from what I read, you have two separate cases or as you term it in your reports—cells—
yes?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so how did you figure out that there was a second cell since there was no crossover
between the bikers and the Ukrainians? It’s not clear in the file,” she said, looking between Leo and
Lincoln.
“We linked them because of the DNA we found on some of the bodies from the first case,” Leo
said.
“DNA? Where…ah, I missed something,” Carlisle said, staring at him.
Leo glanced away from her and looked over at Snow. “Were the autopsy reports from the victims
in the first case in the file you sent over?”
“I thought so. Maybe I missed something,” Lincoln said, frowning deeply as he flipped open his
own copy of the file in front of him. As he started paging through it, Leo spoke up.
“We found Peter Becker’s DNA on four of the victims which we eventually tied to the bikers,” he
said. “Peter Becker was Gunter Becker’s brother. Gunter, as you know from reading the file, was the
leader of the Road Knights. His brother participated in the murders of at least four of our victims,
then went to prison where he was supposedly killed by prison guards, though, the prison disputes that.
Corcoran has a bad reputation—at least that’s the way it was back when Peter Becker was
incarcerated there. In any case, we used that DNA to launch the second case because those four
victims were ones we believed were committed by copycats.”
“I understand your thinking but I need to be sure I understand everything,” Simon said. “I’m sure
I’ll have questions as we go along.”
“No problem,” Snow said.
“Okay, and on top of that, the skinner—as you call him—has now come here to Florida to
continue in the same fashion as he did in California?” Simon asked.
“Yes, along with Greg Campbell, brother of Kathy Campbell, one of the skinner’s victims,” Snow
replied.
“Isn’t that a lot of killers involved all at once?” SAC Ward asked. “How can they all have the
same fantasy and why would Greg Campbell work with his sister’s murderer? I mean y’all have the
skinner, then you have Greg Campbell, and on top of all that, y’all got this ‘central authority’ who’s
runnin’ all the cells and keepin’ ‘em goin’, or am I missin’ somethin’?”
Leo snorted and glanced first at Max and then at Snow. Put like that, the summation of their whole
case and the lines of thinking around it, sounded like total bullshit.
Lincoln smirked. “Yeah, it’s a lot to swallow. I know that but I can only hope that all of you will
work with us to get more answers as the case goes on. I know it sounds crazy at the moment and there
are a lot of loose ends but hopefully, we’ll figure out everything, and in the end, it’ll make sense for
all of us.”
 “We’re not leavin’ Florida until these killers are behind bars or dead,” Max said. “We have too
much personal history with these animals to let ‘em get away.”
“Speaking of which—” Carlisle began. She looked slightly sheepish as she studied Max. “I’m
sorry I have to ask but since you brought it up, I wanted to ask you a question about something which
wasn’t covered in the file. I hope you don’t mind but it’s of a personal nature.”
“Go on.” Max spread his arms wide. “I’m an open book. If I had to guess, it’s about my personal
relationship with Alex Gutierrez, one of the skinner’s victims.”
“Yes.” She glanced at Lincoln before looking back at Max. “I noticed when your SAC assembled
the file, he didn’t go into a whole lot of personal details with regard to why he targeted you, SA
Prince.” She swept all of them with her gaze before sitting back in her chair. “I noticed none of you
elaborated on the scene when you filled out your reports.”
“Special Agent Prince and I were the only two agents present at the scene Alex left at his home as
well as the scene in Alex’s guesthouse where his body was found,” Leo said. He knew he sounded
harsher than he’d meant to but her question, aside from being personal, was rudely put. The last thing
any of them needed was for Max to be put on the defensive or accused of something. “We were
accompanied by LAPD Detectives Cassidy Ryan and Mike Williams who we’ve worked with
extensively in the past. Their reports covered the scene, and Max’s former relationship with the
victim. I know those reports are in the file.” Leo pointed to the thick file copies in front of both SACs
at the table.
“But neither of you detailed why you thought Gutierrez targeted you specifically except to say that
he had been a previous stalker and that the stalker case was resolved a long time ago,” Carlisle said.
“It was covered by the detectives at the scene, so what’s your point?” Max asked. Leo recognized
the growl in his partner’s voice. He was angry and most likely embarrassed, and Leo didn’t blame
him.
“My point is that you all seem to have become a target of this killer—of this skinner at the very
least. But also because, as SAC Snow says, he and SA McCallahan were on the case where Kathy
Campbell escaped capture and was still at large until the skinner or her brother or whomever, killed
her,” she said. “My point is…this entire case is personal to your team. It would be personal to my
team if someone were leaving bodies we were connected to at scenes of violent murders.”
“It is personal to us, Agent Carlisle,” Lincoln said. “That’s one of the reasons we want this case
given the attention it deserves, and why I asked SAC Ward to wait until we were here to fully dive
into it. We know what kind of depravity we’re dealing with.”
“That’s abundantly clear, SAC Snow.” Carlisle turned to look at the horrors depicted on the
whiteboard before looking back. She glared at him. “I’m just wondering why you’re all still on the
case?”
“That’s enough, Rhonda,” SAC Ward said sharply. “If you have further questions about why SAC
Snow’s team is here or anythin’ else, I’m more than happy to answer all your questions privately. I am
sure if you’d been livin’ and breathin’ this case for the last six months like these agents have, you’d
have a different attitude about it. At least I would. In any case, let’s not question why they’re here.
Let’s just be grateful they’re here to help get this guy. Florida has sure ‘nuff had its damned share of
serials, some of the worst if you count Bundy. But like Bundy, and the Sweetwater Slaughterer,
Florida has a reputation for endin’ ‘em once and for all. Do you have any more questions for the team,
Rhonda? Frank?”
Both agents shook their heads but Rhonda Carlisle sealed her lips tightly shut and crossed her
arms over her chest as she sat back. Clearly, she didn’t like being talked to like that in front of the
room full of agents but then again, she’d deliberately tried to provoke Max. Leo wondered why. She
was highly intelligent and had testicles the size of bowling balls on her but then again, so did the two
women he worked with and they’d never behaved in such a challenging way. When Leo had
confessed who his father was to the team, none of them had even given him the slightest impression
that they were anxious to question him. If anything, they’d acted with even more compassion than he’d
dared to hope for.
“Good,” SAC Ward said. He glanced at Leo. “I’d like to ask a sensitive question of you, Doctor
Reeves. It’s about your father.”
Leo felt his stomach do a slow roll, but he’d been prepared for the question. He nodded. “I
expected you might have some questions. Please, go ahead.”
“I should preface my question to say that before you arrived, I filled my agents in on your
relationship to the Sweetwater Slaughterer, Doctor, but what I wanted to know is whether you can
elaborate on the profile of the skinner. What should we be lookin’ for based on what we know about
the Slaughterer? We all see what the copycat has done.” He waved at the whiteboard before turning
back to Leo. “But what’s in his head besides gettin’ sexual gratification from the killin’ itself?”
Leo sat back and felt the lockbox in his heart slam tightly shut. The best way to talk about this
subject was in a clinical way and not let any of his own emotions crowd in. “He’s a sexual sadist that
gets off on not only the act of killing but also the torture itself. It’s why he leaves his victims alive as
he skins them. He needs the thrill of hearing them scream, of visually experiencing their terror, their
pain,” he said flatly.
“He, like a lot of serial killers, is a psychopath. Therefore, clinically, he possesses no ability to
feel emotions, connect with anyone where he must establish a meaningful relationship. He may exhibit
outward signs of being what we’d call normal, going through the paces of life, holding down a job,
even marrying, and having children. It was said that Charles Manson fathered multiple children, Ted
Bundy acted as a stepparent, in fact multitudes of other serial murderers also had families including
the Slaughterer.”
Leo went on in that same clinical tone. “Like my father, the skinner will have few, if any friends,
and perhaps a low-level job which doesn’t require much energy from him. All of his focus is on the
fantasy. He might work remotely on his computer. He has wealth, at least enough to support himself
and allow him the time to move freely around to hunt his next victim. The simple fact that we believe
he’s now in Florida and stacking up more bodies is testament to that. He has enough means to allow
him the freedom to cross the country, and hide out.”
A few nods from the Florida agents.
“He lives modestly, not wanting to stand out. Since he’s a copycat, there’s a strong probability
that he drives an older model gold, silver, or gray sedan. My father drove a gold 1998 Ford Taurus.
He most likely lives in or works in Sweetwater and owns property, possibly a shack similar to my
father’s, out in the Everglades. As far as intelligence, his is high, bordering on, or even, brilliant.
He’s extremely egocentric, caring only about himself in every way. If he truly has partnered with
anyone, including Greg Campbell, he doesn’t expect the partnership will last long, then again, he
doesn’t plan on outliving our investigation.”
“He’s following it, then?” SAC Ward asked.
“Oh, yes. He reads everything about it. We know this because a female caller called in a tip on the
Son of Sam copycat in L.A. She was between thirty and forty and the reporter said she sounded
Caucasian. No tips were called in on other crimes, so we speculate she may have become one of his
victims after the fact. Not only that, because of his ego, he is compelled to read everything about it.
That leads me to one last thing which we pointed out in the reports and are enclosed in the files. He
has OCD. I believe it’s an extreme case. He showed that when he was compelled to line up the
condiments in Alex Gutierrez’s refrigerator, the cans in his cupboard, and the chemical components he
used to cook the meth in Acton. In any case, he exhibits extreme tendencies for control.”
“Our crime scene techs found several hairs with the roots chewed off in the warehouse out in
Acton,” Lincoln said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Special Agent Simon asked.
“He’s a trichotillomaniac,” Leo said.
“He chews hair?” Carlisle asked, sounding horrified.
“It seems he bit off the roots or stripped the shaft with his teeth,” Max said, visibly shuddering.
“As far as a physical description of the skinner goes,” Leo continued, “that might help us.
Trichotillomania is a sure sign of OCD just like nail biting is. If there is a question, this suspect will
present with patches of missing hair on his head and bitten nails. My thought is that maybe, he was
picking his hair as he killed our victims.”
“But the crime lab wasn’t able to pull a DNA match from the hair strands?” SAC Ward asked.
“Oh, they got DNA but unfortunately no match in the system on those hairs,” Snow replied.
“I have one last question since there is no conclusion in the file you sent over,” Carlisle said.
“Go on,” Snow replied.
“Do you believe that the skinner was only involved in the copycat slaying of Natasha Victor or
was he somehow involved with all the copycats, perhaps acting as a silent observer?”
Leo looked at Lincoln and then glanced around the room at their other colleagues before he turned
back to her. “We haven’t talked about that. Personally, I don’t know if he was involved in all of the
killings.” He glanced at his team again. “Did anyone consider that?”
There was a universal shaking of heads from his colleagues.
“I guess not,” Snow said.
“Could the skinner be the central authority tying all the cells together?” Carlisle asked.
Leo swallowed, darting a glance at Max who was frowning deeply before looking back at her.
“To be totally honest, I have no idea, but I suppose anything is possible.” He glanced around to see
everyone shrugging.
 “We were so focused on there being multiple copycats with the skinner being only one of them,
we hadn’t considered it,” Lincoln said. “Was there something about the case that makes you think
maybe there is a reason to go down that road, Agent Carlisle?”
“Not really. I would have said that Kathy Campbell fitted that role better, but if that were the case,
why then did she end up being one of his victims?”
“She might have been too much of a temptation,” Perez said. “Serial killers can’t control their
urges.”
“Or maybe she bitched about the way he handled Alex Gutierrez,” Max suggested. “If she got
angry about him usin’ Alex to target me and pushed back at the skinner takin’ the time to stop and skin
the poor bastard, maybe that’s what got her killed.”
“Right and he got the last laugh with a revenge skinning,” Simon said. “Damn.”
“Wow, Frank,” SAC Ward said with a chuckle. “That might be an even more diabolical thought
than the skinner’s actions.”
Mac yawned and lifted his big mitt to cover his mouth. “Sorry,” he said, reaching up to cover his
eyes.
“Look, we can speculate about this bastard all day and night and still be no closer to answers,
especially with no sleep like my team’s had,” Lincoln said.
“You’re right, SAC Snow. That’s where we’ll end this today,” SAC Ward drawled. “Simon and
Carlisle, I’ll see you in my office. The rest of you, go get some rest. The case’ll still be here
tomorrow.”
“Thanks, John,” Lincoln said. He glanced at the rest of the team. “Let’s head back to the hotel and
do as SAC Ward suggests. It’s gonna be a long while before a lot of us sleep soundly since we’re not
leaving this state until it’s all said and done. We’ll meet back here tomorrow morning at eight sharp.
We still need to fill you all in on what has happened with the other copycat suspects but it can wait.”
“Thanks, Lincoln,” Max said, looking over at Leo who was already watching him get to his feet.
The look in his tired eyes probably mirrored his own. Curling up in clean sheets with the man he
loved sounded like just the right thing to wash the conversation of the last hour out of his brain…at
least for a little bit.
 CHAPTER THREE

They took the SUVs back to their hotel and before parting in the lobby, made plans to meet around
five that evening before dinner. Once back in the room, Max pulled Leo into his arms and kissed him
slowly. It started as a simple kiss to comfort his boyfriend. Listening to his lover recite the
characteristics of the profile he’d developed for the skinner, was hard for Max. It wasn’t what he’d
said…he’d heard all that before. It had been the glazed look in Leo’s eyes and the overall demeanor
he exhibited as he’d recited everything they’d been talking about for months. It was hard to hear but
even harder to watch.
If he didn’t know Leo so well, he would have described the cold look in his eyes as the
expression of someone who was living with an extreme trauma and was disassociating from reality to
protect his brilliant mind. Leo was anything but living in denial. The last six months had brought his
father’s crimes and his own response to them to the forefront of his mind. First as little more than a
kid and then an adult, he’d been dealing with them long past his youth to when he’d been a student at
Quantico. After that, Leo had dealt with his past as a profiler who’d worked hundreds of serial killer
cases in a clinical setting, until finally as a victim...since Max was pretty sure Leo was being targeted
at least as hard as he was.
As Leo slipped his arms around Max’s waist and melted into the kiss, Max deepened their
connection, tasting him with his tongue, teasing him, and playing inside his mouth. Beyond the fact that
he loved kissing Leo, he was determined to steer his thoughts away from this fucking case and
everything that had been haunting them both…even if it was only for a little while. Besides, making
sweet, slow love to his favorite person on earth, was simply…divine. Their kisses were just another
way of joining their bodies together, something he was planning on exploring naked if he could ever
summon the strength to pull his mouth away. When Leo moaned and rocked his groin into his own,
proving that he had the same thoughts, Max pulled back, separating their lips. Leo panted softly but
the desire in his eyes was as clear as day.
“You want me,” Max teased, grinning widely. He smiled at him and stepped back as Leo dropped
his hands.
“Fuck yeah, Max,” Leo replied breathlessly.
Max grabbed the dress shirt he’d hastily donned in the room as they’d dropped off their luggage
that morning and pulled it free of his jeans, yanking at the buttons. He’d thankfully stopped short of
putting on a tie, but he watched Leo tug his off as he toed off his shoes. Frankly, landing on those fresh
sheets with the intention of dirtying them up, was a highly appealing thought at the moment. They were
both undressed and thoroughly focused, completely single-minded as they stepped toward each other
naked a minute later.
Leo’s cock was already hard as it slid up alongside his own, and the scent of their precome hung
heavy in the air as they wrapped each other up in their arms and resumed kissing. Max was tired but
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
greatly from his, but who were openmouthed and unscrupulous in
their attacks upon the Emperor of the French. We need hardly
remind our readers of the highly reprehensible language which was
employed by Sir James Graham, and Sir Charles Wood—both of
them Cabinet Ministers—in respect to the Emperor Napoleon, or of
the foul and scurrilous attacks upon him with which, about the
beginning of last year, the columns of the Liberal press abounded. All
that is changed now. There is, indeed, plenty of invective and abuse,
but it is directed towards another quarter. The French Emperor,
formerly pilloried by the Coalitionists, has become the object of their
laudation. The Russian Emperor, whom they formerly lauded, is now
put into the pillory.
Such being the declared views of the Coalitionists in regard to
France, it very naturally occurred to the Czar, that a more favourable
opportunity could not possibly arise for detaching Britain from the
side of France, and so rendering a future combination between these
two powers impracticable. Accordingly, as the published
correspondence shows, he did not lose a moment in opening his
views to the British envoy at St Petersburg: France, as we have seen,
was not to be consulted at all regarding the disposal of Turkey.
Provided Britain and Russia were of accord, it mattered nothing
what view might be taken by any other European power. France
might do as she pleased, but the others would be an overmatch for
her. Here are the expressions which the Emperor used on the 21st
February:—
“His Imperial Majesty spoke of France. ‘God forbid,’ he said, ‘that I
should accuse any one wrongfully, but there are circumstances both
at Constantinople and Montenegro which are extremely suspicious;
it looks very much as if the French Government were endeavouring
to embroil us all in the East, hoping in this way the better to arrive at
their own objects, one of which, no doubt, is the possession of Tunis.’
“The Emperor proceeded to say that, for his own part, he cared
very little what line the French might think proper to take in Eastern
affairs, and that little more than a month ago he had apprised the
Sultan that if his assistance was required for resisting the menaces of
the French, it was entirely at the service of the Sultan!”
But for the temptation held out by the accession of the Coalition
Ministry to power in Great Britain, it is more than improbable that
the Czar would have made any overtures of the kind. But at the head
of that Ministry he saw Lord Aberdeen, “who knows me so well, who
has full confidence in me as I have in him”—the extent of that
confidence being marked by the statement, that he was convinced he
could bring his lordship to an understanding in the course of ten
minutes’ conversation. He had also remarked that at least two
members of the Cabinet, in violation both of decency and of their
duty as Ministers of the Crown, had been indulging in coarse and
unmannerly invective against the Sovereign of France; and, as a
matter of course, he arrived at the conclusion that they would be
more ready to coalesce with him than to ally themselves cordially
with a government which they had spoken of in public in such
unexampled terms of contempt. In this calculation, however, he was
deceived. Wrong-headed as Lord John Russell is, we do not believe
that he would, for one moment, have allowed himself to become a
consenting party to such a flagitious transaction as the partition of
Turkey; and the same thing may be said of Lord Palmerston, whose
exclusion, through short-sighted jealousy, from the Foreign Office at
that particular time, we must regard as a national misfortune. But
that matters not in the consideration of the point before us. Both
circumstance and time concur to show that it was the accession of
the Coalition Ministry to power, and the unwarrantable language
used by some of its members towards the Emperor of France, that
encouraged the Czar to bring forward, and to put into shape, the
project which, no doubt, he had long entertained, but which could
not be previously pursued for the want of a fitting opportunity.
We regard, therefore, the formation of the Coalition Ministry in
Britain as the event which directly led to the original overture—the
hopes of the Czar being founded upon the political connections and
understood tendencies of Lord Aberdeen, and also on the declared
aversion of some of his colleagues to the head of the French
Government. But for the formation of that Ministry the designs of
Russia upon Turkey would have been postponed.
We have already commented upon the course which was pursued
by the Ministry from the time when they were apprized of the
designs of the Czar, down to that when the Danubian Principalities
were invaded. We have expressed our opinion that a serious
remonstrance, coupled with a plain intimation that Great Britain
would not permit an occupation of the Turkish territory, would have
sufficed during the earlier part of last year, and before any overt step
was taken, to have deterred the Czar from proceeding with his
project. We ground that view upon the policy which has been
invariably pursued by Russia—which is to bully and cajole, not to
fight. Let us grant that the possession of Constantinople is the
darling project of the Czar—let us grant that, in order to attain it, he
would run considerable risk, and submit to extraordinary sacrifices;
still we are of opinion that had he been aware, before utterly
committing himself, that he would be opposed by the combined
forces of Britain and France, he never would have plunged into the
contest. See what he risks. First, the annihilation of his fleets, both in
the Baltic and in the Black Sea, for he can hardly hope to contend
with Britain and France upon the waters. Next, the derangement and
stoppage of trade, so vital to the real interests of Russia, and
equivalent to a sentence of bankruptcy against many of her nobles
and merchants, who depend entirely upon the amount and
continuance of their exports. Then there are the chances of
insurrection in Poland, and revolt in Finland; and the certainty that
Russia, if worsted, will be so dismembered as to prevent her from
again disturbing the peace of Europe. These are very serious
considerations; and we may be certain that the Czar, great as his
appetite undoubtedly is for appropriation, would rather have
foregone his purposes upon Turkey, than have proceeded had he
believed that the two Western powers would be firm and united in
their resistance. Indeed, singular as it may appear, we are about to
engage in a war for which no one country in Europe is desirous.
Britain, with her eight hundred millions of debt, is by no means
desirous to increase the burden of taxation, or to imperil or impede
that commerce to which she owes so much of her greatness. In like
manner France has no interest to go to war, for she also is heavily
burdened, and the present Emperor has nothing so much at heart as
to restore the state of the finances. Austria has anything but an
interest that war should take place, for in that event, if she takes the
side of Russia, there will be immediate insurrection both in Hungary
and Lombardy; and if she takes the other side, she must quarrel with
a very old partner in iniquity. Prussia has no interest, for the age of
subsidies has gone by, and she is likely to suffer to whichever side
she adheres; but most especially if she adopts the cause of Russia.
Neutral she cannot remain. We need not say that Turkey, the state
which is attacked, does not desire war; and we are thoroughly
convinced that the Czar, were he not committed so deeply, would be
glad to withdraw his pretensions. Now, who suffered him to commit
himself so deeply? We answer, the Coalition Ministry.
Had they been of one accord among themselves, nothing of this
kind would have happened. If Lord Aberdeen had been sole and
supreme master in his Cabinet, it is possible that Russia might have
succeeded in acquiring a protectorate over Turkey. The Sultan could
hardly have attempted to resist without powerful European aid; and
France, had she found Britain lukewarm or indifferent, could not be
expected to come forward as the defender of the balance of power
without a single ally. No doubt, had this occurred, it would have
given Russia a most dangerous preponderance in Europe, and
probably necessitated a future struggle; but, in the mean time, there
would have been no war. Had the Cabinet been under the guidance
of Palmerston or Russell, the first advances of the Emperor, if made
at all, would have been met by a distinct and peremptory refusal, and
by a threat which would have effectually deterred him from moving a
step further. But unfortunately—most unfortunately for us, and for
our children, and for the general peace of Europe, this is not a united
Cabinet. It is a congregation of men holding totally opposite opinions
—bred up in adverse schools—adhering to antagonistical traditions—
influenced by jealousy among themselves—and unable, upon any one
important point, whether it relates to foreign or domestic policy, to
arrive at a common conclusion. Take the case now before us. But for
Palmerston and Russell, and their other adherents in the Cabinet,
Lord Aberdeen might have established the principle of non-
interference between Russia and Turkey—and there would have been
no war. But for Lord Aberdeen and his adherents, Palmerston and
Russell might have checked the designs and met the overtures of the
Czar, by declaring at once that they would not suffer him to send a
single soldier across the Pruth, and that if he persisted in his design,
they would invite the co-operation of France, and defend Turkey to
the uttermost—and in that case also there would have been no war.
But the Cabinet was split into two, if not three, parties; and the
adoption of a middle course, of feeble dissuasion, unaccompanied by
any hint of ulterior consequences, but rather couched in terms of
extreme and unworthy subserviency, deceived the Czar, encouraged
him to proceed,—and now war is all but declared, and our fleet is
riding in the Baltic. We have approached the subject in anything but
a party spirit—we have perused the correspondence, recently
published, over and over again, in the hope that we might gather
from it a justification of the course which the British Ministry has
pursued—but we are unable to arrive at any conclusion except this,
that but for the formation of the Coalition Cabinet, the ambitious
schemes of Russia would not have been developed; and that, but for
its continuance and internal divisions, those schemes would have
been effectually checked. In plain language, had it not been
determined by a secret cabal that Lord Derby’s Government should
be overthrown by the most extraordinary combination of parties ever
known in this country, there would have been no war; and it is right
that the country should know to whom they are indebted for the
burdens which are now to be imposed upon us.
We do not object to the principle upon which the war proceeds. We
think it full time that the grasping ambition, insidious progress, and
inordinate arrogance of Russia should receive a check. It is to us
matter of pride and congratulation to know that, in the coming
struggle, the colours of Britain and France will be displayed side by
side. But we detest war, for its own sake, as fervently as any member
of the Peace Society can do, and we are perfectly alive to the awful
consequences which it entails. What we wish is, that the public
should not misapprehend the real cause of the present rupture of the
peace of Europe. That it originally arose from the exorbitant
ambition of the Czar, is beyond all question; but ambition can be
controlled, and, fortunately, the Czar is not yet master of the
universe. Nay, he is not yet master of Europe; for although, by
spoliation and absorption, he has secured to himself a vast extent of
territory to which he had no patrimonial claim; and although he
exercises a great influence over States which, in former times, have
acquired accretions by unprincipled subserviency to his house, he
has yet to encounter the exerted power and civilisation of the West.
Had our Cabinet been united, and true to their trust, that encounter
might have been avoided. But it was not so. Some of them were
Russian, and some anti-Russian in their views, principles, and
antecedents; and so, in consequence of having a Coalition Ministry,
which, after being warned of the designs of Russia, egregiously
bungled our finance, and left us with a prospect of a deficit, we are to
be forced into a war of which no man can foresee the issue.
Let those who shudder at the cost, at least know to whom the cost
is due. We are now paying, and are likely to pay for a long time to
come, for the privilege of having a Coalition Ministry. But we submit,
that the continuance of such a form of government is not desirable.
We have shown, in regard to foreign affairs, and from evidence which
cannot be gainsayed, what are its results; we could show, if space
allowed us, its results upon domestic legislation. But we shall not
enter into the lesser topics now. We have, as yet, but touched upon a
part of the expediency of coalition; and our deliberate conclusion is,
that to the fact of the formation of the Coalition Ministry we must
attribute the development of the schemes of Russia, and to its
extraordinary vacillation and want of concert the catastrophe of a
European war.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

1. Histoire des Marionettes en Europe depuis l’antiquité jusqu’à nos jours. Par
Charles Magnin, Member de l’Institut. Paris, 1852.
2. These common Italian marionettes have travelled far. Daniel Clarke found
them in Tartary, all the fashion amongst the Cossacks of the Don.—Vide his
Travels in Various Countries, part I.; Russia, &c., p. 233.
3. Casperle is a comic countryman, who replaced Jack Padding on the stage of
the Austrian puppet-shows, and became so popular that the principal marionette
theatre of the Vienna faubourgs received the name of the Casperle Theatre, and the
coin which was the price of a place in the pit was called a casperle.
4. “You have exactly caught his manner of clearing his throat and spitting, but
as for his genius....”—Wallenstein’s Lager, Scene vi.
5. The accomplished and lamented author of La Chartreuse di Parme; Le
Rouge et le Noir; Rome, Naples, et Florence, &c. &c., of whose complete works a
new edition is now appearing at Paris, under the editorship of his friend, M.
Prosper Mérimée.
6. M. Magnin here refers to an engraving at page 47 of the fifth volume of the
Théatre de la Foire (1722) to prove that Punch’s humps, both in front and rear,
were formerly much less prominent. It is easy to understand how, in the hands of
ignorant showmen and manufacturers of puppets, that which was at first the
reflection of a popular metaphor (of origin difficult to trace) was exaggerated into a
senseless and scarcely ludicrous deformity. Rire comme un bossu, to laugh like a
hunchback, is to the present day one of the vulgarest of French colloquial similes.
It is not easy to say whence it arose, or why a hump between the shoulders should
render the bearer more prone to laughter than his straighter made fellows.
7. Another strange office of the headsman, at least in some parts of Germany,
was to collect the periodical fine or impost levied from houses of an infamous class.
Some striking particulars of his various opprobrious functions in the Middle Ages,
which the peculiar genius of the German people and their literature has environed
with a ghastly mystery that at times borders on the supernatural, is to be found in a
curious work, entitled Das Malefiz Buch, reviewed in Blackwood’s Magazine for
February 1848.
8. On the 31st May M. Drouyn de Lhuys wrote to Count Walewski, the French
Ambassador in London, in the following terms:—“Monsieur le Comte, as I have
already several times mentioned, there is by the side of diplomatic negotiations
another action to exercise, and it is the attitude assumed by the Cabinet of St
Petersburg itself which has shown the necessity of it. When we knew that the army
cantoned in the south of Russia was on a war footing, that it was provisioned as on
the eve of a campaign—when the fleet at Sebastopol was ready to weigh anchor—
when considerable purchases of wood were made for throwing bridges over the
Pruth and the Danube—if all this did not indicate that hostilities were declared, it
at least showed that they were approaching, and that their commencement only
depended on a word. Who could guarantee us that, under the influence of a first
movement, that word would not be pronounced at St Petersburg, and that, if it had
been, that the city of Constantinople would be protected from a coup de main? It
was a danger of this kind that we feared, and as, if it were to be realised, the game
would be lost at the outset, prudence imposed on us the duty of doing everything to
prevent it. In what could such a measure of foresight more resemble a provocation
than did the armaments of Russia herself? Why should not France and England,
for the object of maintaining the treaty of 1841, have the right of doing that which
one of the Powers which signed that convention was doing with such very different
designs? Such are the considerations which determined us to send our fleet to
Salamis, and which we now recommend to draw closer to the Dardanelles, not to
take the initiative in an aggression, not to encourage Turkey to refuse every
arrangement, but to secure her against an immediate danger, and to reserve in case
of need to diplomacy the resources which it would no longer have if it had to
struggle against faits accomplis.”
9. It is but fair to say that the noble Lord seemed to feel the sarcasm conveyed
in the term “beau,” as the word is translated “important” in the papers laid before
Parliament.
10. Evenings in my Tent; or, Wanderings in Balad Ejjareed. Illustrating the
Moral, Social, and Political Conditions of various Arab Tribes of the African
Sahara. By the Rev. W. Davis, F.R.S.S.A. 2 vols. London: 1854.
 11. In January 1850 (vide article “The Year of Reaction”), after commenting on
the interposition of Russia to save Austria in the Hungarian war, we stated our
belief that the Czar did not render such a service to his brother-despot for nothing.
“It is more than probable,” we said, “that a secret treaty, offensive and defensive,
already unites the two powers; that the crushing of the Magyars was bought by the
condition that the extension of Muscovite influence in Turkey was to be connived
at; and that the Czar will one day advance to Constantinople without fear,
because he knows that his right flank is secure on the side of Austria.”
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and
variations in spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings
as printed.
3. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected
together at the end of the last chapter.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 75, NO. 462, APRIL 1854 ***

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