All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [43]
She went back to the computer. The search results were varied and numerous—apparently lots of serial killers liked to use poetry. Some wrote their own, some copied others. Some sliced famous authors into their own works. She bookmarked an article about the BTK killer in Wichita, Kansas, for good measure. At the very least, maybe something about Bind Torture and Kill would jump out at her.
She sat back and thought for a minute. At the very least, maybe she could find out if the poems were originals or copies. She bookmarked the site and pulled up Google, typing a line in from Susan Palmer’s poem. A perfect woman, nobly planned, she typed, and hit enter. Bingo.
Apparently, the Southern Strangler wasn’t creative after all. The poem was written by William Wordsworth. 4,950 hits on the search engine. From a poem called “She Was a Phantom of Delight.” Well, how apropos.
Whitney realized she was on the right track. She did the same thing for Jeanette Lernier’s note. For a creature not so bright and good. Whoa, that had 304,000 hits. She pulled up the poem and realized that both notes were simply stanzas from the same poem. She printed it, whipping the paper out of the printer almost before it was through and read aloud.
“She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle and waylay.
“I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman, too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.
“And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.”
She finished and thought hard for a moment. Something wasn’t right. Reading through it again, she realized she wasn’t seeing the lines from the latest poem she’d received. She followed the same process. The author of the poem fragment in the newest note was William Butler Yeats. She printed it out and read it aloud.
“Leda and the Swan
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
“How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
“A shudder in the loins, engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
“Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?”
And that poem covered Jessica Porter, Shauna Davidson and the latest missing, yet to be found but in all probability very dead, Marni Fischer. Wow, that was pretty impressive imagery. But Whitney wasn’t the expert in literature.
She walked back to her desk and sat hard in the supple leather, making the chair squeak in protest. No, Whitney was no English major. That was her twin sister, Quinn. Her identical twin. Ashleigh Quinn Connolly Buckley, to be exact. Married to Jonathan “Jake” Buckley III, she was the perfect Belle Meade housewife. A Junior League hostess extraordinaire. Mother to two of the most adorable children on earth, the twins, Jillian and Jake Junior.
Whitney felt a quick stab of regret. She hadn’t called the twins in a couple of weeks. She