In crystal-clear detail, Ms. Bowler filled in all the gaps of the crimes Chief Inspector Dubois had in his case files, and added a few he didn't know about, before getting to the all-too-easy way the three Beauty Killers had cased Skylark Hall and done their killings there.  Captain Lee gave her a rest by telling her what they had done there, and she agreed in every point.

“That's about it – y'all are really good at what you do,” she said, “and I told Trudy that shooting up Skylark Hall was going to be a giveaway because somebody at Interpol would be able to work it out.  But she insisted that to complete things properly, we had to do it on what would have been the 30th anniversary of the start of the whole mess, so, we let the Legrees live just a little longer with their friends once we found out what they were up to back in the States.  But this was the beginning of the real trouble.”

Every man in the room had some kind of surprised reaction except Captain Lee, who remained impassive.

“Please define real trouble, Ms. Bowler.”

“Mission creep, Captain Lee, and you know how dangerous it is,” she said.  “I told you back that back at the beginning they were planning to do this before they met me, but they didn't want to do the hard part.  They aren't sociopaths: they had all kinds of feelings.  They were more psychopaths with dainty habits.  They enjoyed planning the killings and playing their little roles in the preparations.  Trudy could have been an award-winning actress, she plays the surviving victim so well.  Skylark Hall was the first time she was even winged, and that was my idea for reasons I'll get to in a little later.

“The problem about doing this for ten years with psychopaths is that psychopaths get addicted and cannot stop.  To me, this was always about culling the human herd of a certain known species of predators – call them BeautyBelleacus LookyLoocius if you want.  Had it been three women like me, we would have had this done in five years.  But to Trudy and Barbara, this was a revenge fantasy.  They were not unlike their mothers, unfortunately, who lived on the fantasy of fame and fortune and access to exciting men – the only difference was that Trudy and Barbara also wanted to kill said men and their female rivals in the end to complete the fantasy.  

“I realized five years ago that those two had become addicted to what we were doing.  Trudy loved all the sympathy and attention because she never got that from her mother, and Barbara loved feeling powerful and in charge of things because she was always shuttled back and forth at her mother's whims.  They both loved seeing people die after they had enjoyed having various kinds of power over them.  I began to show up to do the killing part to find out they were in relationships with various people I was about to kill and were getting gifts and money and having all these experiences – we had to wait until Barbara got back from a cruise in one case.

“But they especially loved the prep work we had to do to get to the top in LookyLou LookatYou – our downlines were immense because we brought our female veteran friends in and made sure we worked as a unit to meet and exceed our goals.  We were making huge money, and we reinvested it in our team – I refused to let our downlines go into debt, and Trudy and Barbara didn't care one way or the other as long as we kept moving up.  And we did, because I knocked out a few of our regional rivals to make sure we would.”

Lieutenant Hummel nearly jumped out of his chair.  

“I need to tell you about five accidents that really were homicides, Lieutenant, later on,” Mrs. Bowler said.  “Some of the other former BeautyBelle middling consultants were top consultants in LookyLou LookatYou – I took 40 out at the event, five in advance.  We'll get to all of that later.”

“But you protected your downlines,” Captain Lee said.  “Why were they important to you, when so many others weren't?”

Ms. Bowler paused for a long moment.

“Captain Darius Bowler is like … like a beeper going off in my DNA,” she said.  “I hear my father in my head sometimes like a beeper, disturbing the sociopathy … you don't let those who have put their personal trust in you get hurt for doing it, and although there is collateral damage on every mission, a good officer limits it.  You will note that everyone in the downlines of myself, Trudy, and Barbara was seated near the door and got out with only minor injuries, and that if you check their finances, they got out even or ahead.”

She turned to Chief Inspector Dubois. 

“We recovered $15 of the $17 billion from BeautyBelle, and all the money from LookyLou LookyatYou, Chief Inspector Dubois.  It is in certain offshore accounts, but it is there to be recovered and returned to the rightful owners.  I will give you the account numbers and locations later on.  The average person involved in both of those cults were victims, and there is no need to further victimize victims.”

She paused.  

“I know my father would be horrified by what his daughter has become.  Yet I am not as bad as I would have been, had he not loved me enough to raise me and nurture the recessive empathic tendencies that he gave me.  He put in 20 years of work on that.  Captain Bowler's greatest service to the world was those 20 years – the power of a good father is not to be dismissed.”

This choked up Captain Lee, who knew what his grandparents had done for him and what he also could have been.

Mrs. Bowler saw this, and reached out and patted his hand.

“I know you understand,” she said.  “I am sure that when Horace Fitzhugh Lee and Linda Fairlane Lee get to Heaven and meet Darius Bowler, they will all hit it off well and thank God that they were able to make the world a better place because of the way they loved their child and grandchild.  Of course the Lees succeeded more – honor where honor is due.

“Anyway, with all that had to be done to get to them, the Legrees started paying attention to our success, and did what we wanted them to do and made us regional heads so we could be on that stage this year.  Trudy and Barbara each had affairs with Mr. Legree also right up to the convention, and they were torrid affairs because they were drunk on knowing what we were going to do with him while he thought they were drunk on him and let himself get carried away.  

“You see, Captain Lee, that you are wise indeed to stay humble, because a man like that is terribly weak through his pride.  He thought he was invincible … but Trudy and Barbara broke him and enjoyed every minute of it, pushing his ego to even further heights in their encounters and then playing hard to get.  They had this man *begging* before the end, and they made recordings to prove it and to get satisfied without him even needing to touch them.

“But that just goes to show you: we had all this side drama because they wanted other itches scratched.  The fantasy had outgrown the mission, and I knew there was going to be trouble when at last the last killing was done.  I did attempt to head it off before the shooting: I kept telling them it was about to be over and we could ride off into the sunset knowing we had at last rid the world of all the terrible people we were responsible for.  They hemmed and hawed.  I said right afterward that we were finished with it all, and that was good and we were still relatively young and could get on with life.  They hemmed and hawed and started reliving their favorite parts of it together.”

Ms. Bowler paused for a moment, and sighed.

“Sheer logic ought to tell people that if you have been around the world killing by means of a killer, you are finished when the killer says you are finished, one way or another.  I had already put my foot down about the downlines, and said explicitly that I wasn't having unnecessary harm done to the rank-and-file of LookyLou LookatYou.  Yes, people would inevitably panic and trample each other, and that was necessary to create a horror necessary so that LookyLou LookatYou could never get past its ending, but that was as far as we were going with that.  

“By the bye, Captain Lee, I have to say again: I was so glad you did what you had to do to keep that total number down to 3,000 people instead of 15,000 in Skylark Hall.  That was a relief to me as I made my stage appearance – you saved four-fifths of the possible casualties.”

“I hate to think I made it easier for you to do what you did.”

“Don't take it that way, Captain Lee, because that isn't what happened.  Cut off the empath, and turn on the logic that you do equally well: you are not responsible for my decision to kill.  You were responsible only for what you were responsible for, and you did it well.”

“Yet logic is rare nowadays, and  I understand that other people beside me are constantly in their feelings.  When people are addicted, logic goes completely out of the window. I gave Trudy her warning shot, between her arm and her side.  I thought that would wake her and Barbara up.  Nope.”

“Which brings me to the rally that is supposedly going on this evening.  I already knew, because I had done the Psy Ops work, that there is not a single person left in LookyLou LookatYou who could keep it going or who was directly connected to BeautyBelle and could start again.  That's all done.  But, Trudy and Barbara wanted to go up and kill all those people anyway because they really enjoyed the trampling and mayhem at Skylark Hall.  The only regret I heard them expressing was that they wouldn't have time to have all the usual fun before hand, and had to be content with whipping up fervor and attacks on “that stupid church” online.  

“I also knew that the rally was a set up, Captain Lee, Lieutenant Hummel, and Chief Inspector Dubois, and that you already knew more or less who you were luring and were monitoring the situation online as it developed.  We had escaped, but you knew you could pull us out of cover … and you know, Captain Lee, because I had gotten those service workers out of the way of being trampled, that I wouldn't let people who didn't need to be killed be killed.”

“Correct,” said Captain Lee.  “You continue to in some way upheld the legacy of your father, by coming here instead and surrendering.”

She gave him another huge smile.

“That's why I wanted to talk to you, Captain Lee.  I knew you would understand.”

“Where are Ms. Baskerville and Ms. Greenwich now?”

“Oh, they wanted to go to the rally, but I brought them here instead.”

“They're in the church?” Rev. Baxter and Lieutenant Hummel cried as they sprang up.

“They're in my car, waiting on you.  I'm not going to move my hands, Captain Lee, but my bag is on my shoulder.  You have my permission to get my car keys out of there.”

Captain Lee got up and carefully eased the bag down, opened it, found the key, and replaced the strap on Ms. Bowler's shoulder.  At close range, her physical attraction to him was palpable and as large as she was, and on a purely physical basis she was tempting, but indeed, Captain Lee thanked God for not letting him live in any kind of way that would let that attraction be more than physical, and thanked Him yet again when he went out to Ms. Bowler's car and came back.

“Call the coroner,” he said to Lieutenant Hummel.  “They're in the trunk, both dead, shot through the head.”

“They told me, ten years ago, that they were out to kill every person connected with BeautyBelle, and every person who had come out of that into LookyLou LookatYou to further their agenda of destroying families for their own gain,” Ms. Bowler said.  “They forgot that when they decided to start wantonly killing rank and file that they would meet that definition.  I reminded them of the fact, and they scoffed – they had become what they had hated.  So I gave them what they wanted, by their own definition.  

“That leaves me, although I was indeed always on the outside looking in.  I wasn't connected to BeautyBelle personally because my father pulled me out when I was just three – but, still, in terms of pulling dangerous people out of the human herd, that still has to be completed.  That is where you gentlemen of the law come in, of course, and why I am here, because I take responsibility for being too dangerous to let run free.

“Before we go, let me add to my statement: I came here on Wednesday, Thursday, and today because it was safe for me to be here and it was safe for the people around me.  What this church does is manifest the kind of real Christian faith that was in my father.  It is not his fault that I turned away from that.  I know I have to submit to my punishment because his way of making things right was before me – I know better than what I have done, although I am incapable of regret.  But this is the way people who can be healed will be healed – with Christian love tangibly poured out.  Tomorrow, when these women realize who Trudy, Barbara and I really were and what we were doing all along, they will need you and this congregation more than ever.  Keep doing what is being done here.  You will make a difference for many.”

“But what about you, young lady?” Rev. Gordon said.  “The gospel of salvation from sin through Jesus Christ is available to you too.”

“I have heard it many times, and I have it memorized should I ever be able to accept it,” she said.  “But you forget, Rev. Gordon: I am a narcissistic sociopath.  I know that I have sinned because there is a standard I understand.  My father taught me well.  But again: I am incapable of regret or repentance.  I do not feel that I have done anything wrong.”

Rev. Gordon's eyes overflowed with tears.

“As Lieutenant Hummel said, you could be my daughter,” he said, “and no one comes to repentance purely of their own will.  God the Father has to draw them, according to the Scripture.  We used to pray that God grant people repentance – and so I will pray for you, as I have prayed for many like you.”

“So will I,” Captain Lee said, “for it was the prayers of many that God used to keep me from having a kill record that exceeds yours, Ms. Bowler.”

She turned around and looked at him.

“I know you have it in you.  The sociopath is in your basic makeup, but in you it is recessive while the empath is dominant.  Nonetheless, the two are constantly at war.   Also, the Lees-and-Fairlanes-of-the-mountain nourished your empathic tendencies from the beginning, so that now in your maturity, the empath is massively dominant. I saw that when studying you – you have a huge knack for mass destruction, but you have kept it in bounds.  I'm sure you could be provoked out of bounds, but you also have a knack for having great people around you to help you stay where you need to be.  You also are wiser than your most famous Lee relative in that you have avoided seeking paths to wealth created by evil.  By that alone, you have avoided the fate of Robert E. Lee … and you know, you could always style your hair and beard a little differently if you are tired of the comparisons.  It's none of my business, but, as a parting gift, I offer it, because you are so handsome you could wear any look well.”

“You are likewise a lovely woman, ma'am.  Because I am capable of deep regret, I will regret for both of us that our unique backgrounds, histories, and choices have led us to meet under these circumstances.”

“You're such a true gentleman, Captain Lee, because you are massively empathic.  Be glad you can regret, and feel for others in their tragedies.  Pray that you will also remain wise, and never have anything more than a regret about what you didn't get to have with a woman like me rather than a lifetime of regret for what you did.  A woman like me is incapable of loving you … but I am enough like my father and recognize so much of him in you that I am glad that you are living in such a way that will keep you safe.”

“If love is what you do instead of how you feel, ma'am, perhaps you are not as beyond repentance and fully responding to the love and mercy of God as you think you are, because it is a deeply loving thing to tell one that you desire that it is best that he not be with you or anyone like you.  That is not the action of a pure narcissistic sociopath.  The Darius Bowler beeper in your DNA is stronger than you think … and his prayers are still being answered.”

Captain Bowler's daughter considered that for a long time … and then the unthinkable occurred.  Her eyes filled with tears.

“That is the first time I have felt anything deeply since Father's death,” she said as Rev. Gordon handed her his handkerchief

“My parting gift to you, ma'am,” Captain Lee said.  “Shall we go?”

She stood and put her wrists out in front of her, completely submissive.  Captain Lee took a look at her wrists and got his bigger set of cuffs: she was six feet three and well-muscled, and thus her wrists were larger than his though still delicately feminine.  

“I appreciate your gentleness,” she said as he carefully snapped the cuffs shut, “and your prayers, and also yours, Rev. Gordon.  I think my father would be glad to know two such men have taken up the charge.”

Captain Lee then escorted Ms. Bowler out, Chief Inspector Dubois and Lieutenant Hummel following with them.

Rev. Baxter and Rev. Gordon stayed behind in the office and shook their heads.

“You just never know who is coming in here, and how much they and we need God's help,” Rev. Gordon said.

“Surely right,” Rev. Baxter said.  “She was here Wednesday and Thursday indeed, and was just listening to all the sermons and keeping up in the Bible, and even singing along on the hymns.  You would have thought she was a quiet Christian lady among the survivors.”

“You just never know,” Rev. Gordon said.  “That's why we have to stay in prayer.  Did she say 1 in 10?”

“Yep, across the U.S. population – that's around 30 million people with her basic makeup, although of course she's a special case even of that!”

“You just never know,” Rev. Gordon said.  “We just have to stay in prayer and walk in the Spirit, because you just never know.”