False Witness!
“Mr. Walters was a key member of this firm,” Sally Martinez told me, as imperiously as she could. Since she was in charge of a pretty big city law firm, her ‘could’ wasn’t half bad. “I would expect some delicacy in the reports on his death.”
“All right, Ms. Martinez,” I said, and bit back a smile at her little look of surprise. “So give me some delicate details about the guy. What were his good points? Gave to the poor, loving family, did charitable works in his spare time?”
I could tell she wanted to lie. She really did. Instead Martinez grimaced and said, “Mr. Walters was nothing if not attached to his work. He was an excellent defense attorney, and a scrupulous one. Do you understand me, Mr. Boyden? He was no kind of ‘False Witness,’ and our firm will not look kindly on any allegation that he was.”
The way she was glaring at me, I’m surprised my tie didn’t catch fire. “Didn’t say anything of the sort, Ms. Martinez. I’m not the one hanging the monikers on the Decalogue Killer’s victims.”
“No, you just feed red meat to the ign… the good citizens of Bay City. Then you report on whatever moniker they come up with. It’s all nice and tidy that way, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” I said, because it wasn’t like I was gonna agree with her in public.
Ahhh. They’re murdering one person for each of the ten commandments, and the people of this fair city have caught on. That also explains the reference to smiting, and the feather is obviously an angel reference.
Knowing you, we *probably* find out a fair bit more about who or what the Decalogue Killer is by the end of the story. I think it says something that I look at the “they’re actually an avenging angel” hypothesis and discard it as not enough of a twist.