Have you ever heard the sound a scalble makes as it slides of a bone?

If you haven't, it's like a little blade scraping over a hollow rock.

The bone isn't as solid as you might think, not as solid as the blade at least, and the sound

has an eerie quality to it.

The more I reflect on the sound, the more it reminds me of nails on a chalk board or sidewalk chalk that kids drag over the pavement.

It's a weird noise that sets your hair on edge and makes you grit your teeth against the intrusive grinding.

I've had a lot of time to think about that sound in the years following my wife's death.

That was the sound though that woke me that night.

It had been a long week, the department reeling over a series of brutal murders, and this was

the first night I got to sleep in my own bed in almost four days.

I had been crashing in the break room, sleeping in my car and living one cup of coffee at a time

while we try to track the sadest asshole.

I know many cops in the same situation, but as most of us are locals, the desire to see this guy brought to justice is palpable.

The killer had been sticking to a certain area, my area actually.

He was killing with no pattern, no particular demographic and seemed to be sticking

to those in this particular part of town. These were low to middle income families, people

who couldn't afford to just up and leave because a crazy killer

was on the loose no matter how heinous the crimes were.

And the crimes were absolutely heinous.

Seven different victims, none of them having anything in common

have been found with their faces skin down to the bone and removed. The whole

face? It was as though someone had cut the face off, skinned it down to the skull and took it with

...