The team profiles the Tommy Killer, who rapes and murders women forced to watch him in upper class houses, where he destroys status symbols. As soon as the press notices that detail, he makes a habit of quoting 17th century poetic ballads on Death conversing with its victims. They are confident enough about their profile of a resentful, skilled white middle class man to rule out a less well-organized black attacker but arrest the suspect to make Tommy manifest himself, alas by an untraceable phone call- which precisely provides a crucial clue.
Edited from
W.O. Mitchell: Novelist in Hiding (1980)