Chapter 7 #2
His brother let out a deep belly laugh. “Been doing that to you since we were little, and I still get away with it. You make it too easy being in la-la land. What were you thinking about?”
If Brian only knew where Sean’s mind had been, he would be teasing him all day. “Nothing really,” he lied, taking his seat again. “Just trying to wrap my head around this serial.”
“What time is your profiler getting here?” Montoya asked. “I’ve never had the opportunity to work with one before, and I’m actually looking forward to it. Should be interesting after all the reading I’ve done on the subject.
“Around two, I think. Suki’s gonna call from the road when she gets closer.”
Rafe’s eyebrows shot up. “Suki? Interesting name. Asian?”
“She’s originally from Hawaii, but I think she once told me there was Korean in her family background. Oh, and do me a favor, guys, don’t fucking hit on her.”
“Ah, she’s hot then,” Brian stated with a smile.
Sighing, he shook his head. “Yes, she’s good-looking, but she’s also a good friend of mine and a respected federal agent with a doctorate, so show her some fucking respect while she’s here. Okay, asshole?”
“If you insist.” Despite his assent, Brian sat across the table from Sean with a silly leer on his face. He loved busting his younger brother’s chops.
Sean threw a pen at his sibling and then pulled his laptop closer.
It was time to stop fucking around and catch themselves a killer.
While the two state detectives started adding the information they’d learned yesterday to the whiteboards, Sean began to enter the case parameters back into the program, which was once again up and running.
Hopefully, in an hour or so, they’d have a potential lead or two from the system.
After a daily morning briefing with the detective bureau’s lieutenant, Brad Lynch joined the rest of the task force.
The men began throwing out ideas and theories, yet they were frustrated by how little they had to go on.
It seemed like criminals were getting smarter every year, with shows like CSI and NCIS on television and websites all over the internet that demonstrated how to commit a crime and get away with it.
Just as the group was running out of ideas, Sean’s computer sounded an alert.
It’d found a connection to his parameters.
He quickly printed out the information and relayed it to the others.
“We got a hit—a good match too. Last year in Philadelphia. Three female victims over a three-month period—July through September. All blondes in their twenties. Taken after partying somewhere. Found at least twenty-four hours later in public locations.” Looking up at the rest of the task force, he added with a combination of disgust and excitement, “And all had pennies left on their foreheads and ‘slut’ carved into their torsos.”
Brad’s eyes went wide. “Shit! I don’t remember hearing anything about that, and it’s not like Pennsylvania’s on the other side of the fucking country. Didn’t it make the news?”
“I don’t know, but there’s an FBI case file open on it.
No viable suspects, though. I’ll call the lead agent up there—see if I can get my hands on the file and whatever info he’s got.
Or she’s got,” he amended, glancing at the bottom of the page he held.
“Says here, Agent Karen Winslow, out of the local office there. Why don’t one of you call Philly PD and try to find out what they have on it? ”
Montoya pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll do it. I’ve got a few contacts up there.”
“Sounds good,” Lynch said. “The rest of us will continue digging into the victims’ pasts.
See if we can find out how he’s choosing his vics.
” He paused a moment, thinking over the information they’d just received.
“You know, we might also have another problem on our hands. Is he killing three, then moving on? Is he done here? Or are we just dicking around until he kills another one?”
Those were hard questions to answer. On one hand, they hoped there were no more murders in their jurisdiction, but on the other, they wanted this bastard. If killing three victims and moving on was part of the killer’s pattern, he may have already left North Carolina for God-only-knew-where.
Sheriff Griffin stepped into the room, asking for an update.
After they filled him in on the Pennsylvania connection, he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall next to the door.
“All right. Let’s keep this quiet for now.
I want everyone at this morning’s press conference at eleven unless something urgent comes up.
We’ll give the fucking sharks the same info we gave them yesterday, just spin it differently so it sounds new.
I asked the medical examiner to attend, but he won’t release much info either.
As you know, the press already found out the first two victims’ names, somehow.
I spoke to Daphne Jones’s father in Chicago around six last night after the local PD broke the news to the family, so we can release her name also.
Everyone meet in my office at ten of eleven, and we’ll walk out together.
” Without waiting for any responses, the tired-looking leader returned to his office.
Sean looked at Lynch. “Where do you hold your press conferences?”
“In the lobby on bad days,” the man answered. “But the weather’s nice today, so it’ll probably be on the front steps of the station. Anyway, we have two hours until then, so let’s get to work.”
The two NCSP detectives left to re-interview the victims' families and friends while Lynch headed back to his desk in the detective bureau to work through the new batch of messages from the hotline.
Sean picked up one of several phones on the conference table and dialed the number for Agent Karen Winslow, which was listed on the report in front of him.
He was surprised and pleased when she answered on the second ring. “Special Agent Winslow.”
“Agent Winslow, this is Agent Sean Malone in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.”
“What can I do for you, Agent Malone?”
He grabbed a nearby legal pad and a pen. “Sean, please.”
“Then feel free to call me Karen. Now that we have the niceties out of the way, what can I help you with?”
Sean got straight to the point. “Well, it seems we have a serial down here who matches one you had last year in Philly. Pennies on the forehead and the word ‘slut’ carved into the vics’ torsos.”
He could almost hear the female agent sit up straighter on the other end of the line. “Holy shit! How many has he killed down there?”
He sighed. “Three in the past three months.”
“Fuck! Goddamn this bastard.”
“How did your homicides stay out of the news up there? I never heard about them until I got the hit in N-DEx.”
“We got lucky,” Winslow admitted. “The first one was a prostitute—no one claimed the body, so she was sent to a potter’s grave.
Must have been a busy news day, and without details of how she died, the press wasn’t interested.
The second one was, and still is, a Jane Doe.
We think she may have been a transient, passing through the area, but couldn’t match her to any missing persons and got no leads after running a police sketch on the news.
We didn’t release the fact she was a homicide victim—just an unattended death.
She spent four months at the morgue before being buried next to the first vic.
“The third one was new to the area. After the body was released, the family brought her back home to Vermont. Anyway, no one except us and the local detectives knew about their connection. And I think for the first time in my career, there were no leaks from the PD or medical examiner’s office.”
“You’re right,” Sean agreed. “You got damn lucky. I was hoping you could share what you have in your files.”
“I can overnight everything to you.” He heard her shuffling papers around.
“Give me a phone number where I can reach you and your email so I can send you some preliminary stuff. Then the address for the file.” Sean gave her all the information she’d requested before she added, “I wish I could come down there and assist you. Unfortunately, I have to appear in court this week. Damn, I want this fucking bastard bad.”
“You and me both. We also have a profiler driving in from Quantico.”
“Who’s coming?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Doctor Suki Ralston. Do you know her?”
“Absolutely! I’ve worked with Suki on several cases.
Was hoping to get her last year for this one, but she was unavailable.
Listen, I have to run—I just sent you an email containing the initial reports and autopsy results.
I’ll overnight the copies of the rest. Let me know if you have any questions or leads. ”
“No problem. Wait, one more thing. What were the dates on the pennies? Were they all the same?”
“Yeah. They were all 1993. Yours?”
“Same here, 1993. Another unknown piece to the puzzle. All right, I’ll let you know if we find anything, and thanks.
” When Sean hung up, he received the new email on his laptop.
Sending the documents to the printer, he hoped there was something in there to give them a lead or two before this psycho killed again.