How many has he killed”? Sarah’s change in demeanor was vivid. The color left her face, pale replaced pink. Her voice was shrill and at least one octave higher than normal. It was apparent that she was unnerved by the random body drops happening around us. Who would be next was on everybody’s mind. As a woman living alone, who was next was certainly on my mind.

“Seven or so,” I said. No one knew exactly how many he’d killed or anything about the Quarter Killer’s rampage in New Orleans. The police had no clue who he was or why he was killing young women. I was petrified and just the mention of him paralyzed me. Every woman I knew was scared to go anywhere for fear that she’d be next. He had been killing women age 25 to 45 for about five years now. Those were the only details that had been released by the police and were the only ones I knew to be true. The street talk and rumors were far worse. Dismembering, mutilation, torture, rape. Raw fear permeated the city. Deep in my fibers, often unspoken, was an ever-present fear that I might be next. My mind tortured me. Who is this guy? Why is he doing this? Questions without answers. Just like his killings without reasons. Maybe there was no why. My mind drifted to a dark region of my thoughts, a place without time or space, only terror.

Mr. Jenkins broke the silence and croaked, “That’s good, he’s getting us off of the front page”—shocking bourbon talk that dragged me back to the present. Bourbon talk, callous but true. True in his world of getting it done for the client. I don’t believe he really took joy in some poor soul’s murder. He was just single-minded and able to divorce himself from the gruesome side of life. Maybe he’d lived too removed from compassion or maybe he never had it at all. He was on the back slope of his 70s, sliding faster than he wanted and clinging to any twig that might connect him to his fading world. Just another news story. No one he knew.