29 OCTOBER 1894 - ST. DENIS, LEMOYNE
Gluttony.
Kane stood over the swollen corpse. He was cut straight up the middle, pried and peeled open like a holiday goose with entrails thoroughly rummaged through. At least 5 liters of partially masticated food had found its way in and around the body, lubricated by bile that corroded the surrounding flesh. The man's face, while lax in death, still bore some semblance of the agony he must have felt when he died suffocating on food and drink, too drugged to fully comprehend the vile truth of his circumstances.
This one was different. The other victims had died without nearly as much showmanship, sport, or spite. They were quick, dismissive -- the victims were merely ants to a boot or mortals to an apathetic god. But this...this was a performance. The killer was communicating. Was it because Kane had so brazenly taunted him? Was it because he knows his saga is approaching it's end with only 2 more sins to go? Is the killer so desperate to be understood that he becomes like a child, shouting and screaming to be seen?
But I see you! Kane shook his head and set the bloodied scalpel down beside the rendered corpse, This is your finest work yet. The brush has finally kissed canvas. Thus far your portfolio has been naught but the timid sketches of a student, but now we see the mastery in every vivid stroke of annihilation. What is art if not the exploration of oneself? That is why you accompany your work with poetry... to translate your transcendence to the dull and paltry!
Kane reached in with gloved hands and removed the exploded stomach. He could still barely make out the scent of dinner under the overpowering bitterness of blood. He then explored further, removing organs carefully as he went -- an artist unto himself he liked to think -- until he reached the heart which bore all the signs of a painful, prolonged death.
You really made him suffer, you know. You identified with him, I think. You saw yourself, a captive, being forced to consume until you broke. What was it you were forced to consume? I know little of ideology, but I do know poison. The consumption was not toxic, it was nourishing until it was pushed to excess... an oppressive, constricting, suffocating love.
Or is this a message directed to me -- though perhaps you know not who I am. I cannot help but wonder if I bear some blame in this man's suffering. Had I not meddled, would he have died from a slashed throat like the others? But I am foolish for trying to interpret art. And yet... here it is on my table, and I am tasked with the grim duty to examine the nature of your work.
Galen heard the exterior door open and the familiar long strides of Dep. Novak entered the hallway. The doctor deftly replaced the organs in the cavity in more or less the correct locations and removed one glove to unlock the interior door for him. The deputy looked tired.
"Come on in. It's a messy one."