 The story opens with the discovery of a twelve-year-old boy who has been murdered and crucified on a pair of rowing oars.Kinderman already sees that the boy is mutilated in a way identical to the victims of a serial killer known as the Gemini Killer, who was apparently shot to death by police twelve years previously while climbing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.A priest is later murdered in a confessional, once again bearing the mutilations distinctive of the apparently-deceased killer.