Chapter 14
Dover found Dex sitting in the incident room early the next morning. He was staring at the boards at the front of the room. He seemed to be especially riveted on the board with the first victim on it. She took a sip from her takeaway coffee and crossed the room to him.
“I keep coming back to the blonde with the first victim,” he said as she approached. “Have they not found her at any of the other bars before the other two disappeared?”
“Not yet, but she may have learned to stay out of camera range.”
“True.”
“Sean said he thinks it would have taken a lot of force to strangle the victims, though, so we’ve ruled it most likely a male suspect,” she said. “I mean, the medical examiner.”
“You can say Sean.” Dex smiled over at her. “You’re not fooling us. Don’t worry,” he continued when she opened her mouth to protest. “We can keep a secret. Although I can’t guarantee Knox won’t put him through his paces.”
“Speaking of, where is Knox?”
“He said something about a drug buy in Lowell. I don’t know. He was talking to some DEA guy on the phone yesterday.”
She debated asking more but decided she didn’t want to know.
The only thing that she knew about the drug trade up north was that Brooke’s ex-husband was wrapped up in it.
As much as she knew she should protest Knox getting involved in that, she couldn’t.
One less bad influence in Ethan’s life, the better.
“Do you think there’s a chance it’s a team?” he asked.
“Like a man and woman team killing men?”
“It’s uncommon, but not unheard of. Bernardo and Homolka, Starkweather and Fugate.”
“Bonnie and Clyde. I guess it could be. I’m not ruling anything out,” she said. “So, she picks a target based on certain parameters and lures him from a random bar?”
“I doubt they’re random. We need to see what all the bars have in common. The one I was in the other day had a hallway to the bathrooms and a back door at the end of that hallway. I doubt a woman without some sort of training could subdue any of these men once outside.”
“Okay. Even if she could, someone might notice a struggle. Hence the needle marks Sean found. So you don’t just think the bars are random, that they’re part of the MO?”
“Maybe. They can’t just drug them outside the front door. I bet the victims are lured out a back door to a waiting car. The one door without a camera. Which means they have to do reconnaissance on the bar in advance. We already know they’re killed somewhere other than where they’re dumped.”
Dex sat back in his chair. His eyes were so intently focused on the evidence boards that Dover waited until he was ready to speak again.
“I think it has to be a man and woman team,” he finally continued. “Two of the victims were married, so the chance they were lured away for a same sex encounter isn’t too high. I guess anything is possible though. Except I can’t get past the blonde woman.”
“I’ll add it to the board,” Dover said, standing. She walked to the farthest board and drew a line under their profile of the male suspect. “Female.”
“I’d say close to his age or a little younger. All of the victims are white, so I feel safe saying she is also.”
“What do you think are her motivations?” Dover asked.
“I’m not sure we can even guess. I’d say she’s been groomed most likely. Maybe a submissive character to his dominant? Whatever it is, he gives her something she craves or thinks she does. There is a chance though that she’s as twisted as he is or even the main aggressor.”
They sat in silence again studying the boards, each lost in their own thoughts.
She noticed more information had been added to Ian Moore.
He had been a young pilot from the Minneapolis area on a layover.
When he was found, he had been wearing a St. Christopher’s medal.
Everything else was similar to the other victims.
He had strangulation marks made by some kind of a strap or belt.
There were no personal effects on the body.
The only reason they had identified him so quickly, according to the report, was because he failed to show up for his scheduled flight the next morning.
She pulled out her phone and looked up St. Christopher.
“St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers,” she said.
“So, we have a pilot with the traveler saint, an environmental attorney with the nature saint, a doctor with a saint of the sick, and a banker with the saint of money lenders. They make sense, but what’s the point?”
“I don’t know, but we need a break soon. Someone who sees him dumping the next body or remembers something at the bars. Danny is still combing through old case files looking for any more of them that match. He can’t have just started out this good at killing.”
“No, that’s unlikely. There will be some lesser crimes. Assault or something. There’s one more thing you might try.” He stops until her gaze meets his. “You might have to do a press conference.”
Later that afternoon, Dover found herself standing next to her captain in front of a bank of microphones and cameras.
Her boss agreed that a press conference was necessary as soon as possible before even more speculation about the deaths circulated.
All of the larger Boston stations were in attendance.
She even recognized several of the reporters.
“Good afternoon,” the press liaison began. “Captain Bradford would like to say a few words before turning this press conference over to lead Detective Addams. Please hold any questions for after.”
Dover watched her boss step up to the microphones. She knew he was speaking, but she had tuned him out as she went over what she needed to say in her head. This would be her first press conference where she had to speak. She had stood in the background in several, but never at the front.
The captain stepped back and nodded to her. Wiping her hands on her slacks, she stepped forward.
“On June seventh, at approximately seven twenty-five in the morning, Detective Gallagher and I were called to a homicide at a local private school. The victim, Trent Alleman, had been strangled and left on the soccer pitch.
“The following week, Jack Dawson was discovered strangled and dumped in a similar manner. During the course of this investigation it came to our attention that two other homicides matched the MO of both Mr. Alleman’s and Mr. Dawson’s murders.
“We have provided photos of each victim in your press packet. We are asking the public to look at the photos closely. Each man was last seen at a bar in the Boston area. If you have any information or saw any of them on the dates of their disappearances, please call.”
She followed up by giving the phone number of the new hotline being set up back at the office. She also repeated the dates each man was last seen before stopping.
A cacophony of questions immediately flew at her. Both she and the captain did their best to answer them all. Finally, the press officer stepped forward and brought the conference to a close.
They didn’t mention the name of the bars the victims were last seen in. Hopefully, they wouldn’t become overwhelmed with false leads from bars not involved. And no one wanted to be the cause of lost business when people found out a serial killer had been prowling a particular pub.
Dover followed the rest of the team back inside the police station.
She split off to check on the call room that was now staffed by several junior officers.
The phones would start ringing soon after the five o’clock news.
For now, they were sipping on sodas from the vending machine and talking to each other. There would be no time for that soon.
“Did you catch the news conference?” she asked, walking into her office.
“I did,” Dex answered. He was sitting on the other side of her desk looking through a file. “I just got an interesting phone call.”
“Addams,” the captain said, sticking his head in the office. “You and Tanaka come with me.” He walked off without waiting for them. Dex stood and followed Dover into the hallway.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“Probably has to do with the phone call I just got.” They walked past the captain’s assistant into his office. They both took a chair when motioned to.
“I’m sure you already know,” Captain Bradford began by looking at Dex. “I’ve been on the phone with your boss down in Texas. Figured since you’re already up on the case it would be much easier to simply have you temporarily reassigned here for now.”
He turned to address Dover. “It’s time to pull some help in from the feds on this. I’ve also been on the phone with the Boston office making sure we don’t ruffle any feathers. They’re going to send over a couple of juniors to help with support.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered.
“You’re still in charge of this investigation,” he continued, splitting a look between them. “He’s just here for assistance. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said again.
“Of course, whatever I can do to help the investigation,” Dex said, rising from his seat.
“Be prepared for a briefing tomorrow morning at nine,” Captain Bradford said before dismissing them by returning his focus to the papers on his desk.
“Yes, sir.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“So what do you need from me?” Dex asked when they walked back into her office.
“Dex has been added to the investigation,” she said to bring Danny up to speed.
“Sweet. Welcome aboard, officially,” he answered. “By the way, we got another one.”
“Shit,” she swore. “Where? When?”
“Quincy. Before the one in Cambridge.” He handed her the paperwork just pulled from the printer. “I’ve already requested the files be sent over. Here’s what we have for now.”
They followed her into the incident room.
Taking the dry erase marker, she began to add to the boards.
The man had been named Terrence Oldman, and he was a civil engineer at a local firm.
The rest was very similar to what they’d already seen.
He was strangled by some sort of strap, dumped in the commons of a private high school, and had nothing on that identified him.
The only thing different was that Terrence Oldman was wearing a St. Patrick’s medal. It was what flagged the murder. “St. Patrick, patron saint of engineers,” Dex said before she could look it up on the phone herself.
“It looks like it was six months before the murder of Ian Moore in Cambridge,” she added.
“I’m expanding the search to the surrounding counties,” Danny said. “When I’m done, I’ll run it through everywhere else.”
“I can run it through our databases and see if anything hits,” Dex said.
“Do that, and I’ll go brief the captain about the latest victim.”
“Quincy said the files should be here before end of shift,” Danny informed her before leaving for their office.
“I’ll set up in the back of the room and see what I can pull up. As soon as the files show up, I’ll try to get last known whereabouts from Danny. We can hit that location as soon as possible.” Dex moved to a table at the back of the room and pulled his laptop out of a messenger bag.
Dover studied the printed pages one last time before returning them to Danny to organize in the book.
She walked to the captain’s office for the third time that day to fill him in on the latest case so he wouldn’t be surprised at the briefing the next morning.
She reached the office and was waved in before she could even speak.
“Sir?” she said, knocking on the doorjamb.
“I’m afraid to ask,” he said after looking up.
“We found an earlier case. About a month before the Cambridge one. This one was found in Quincy,” she said.
“You’d better have a seat,” he answered with a sigh. “Tell me there’s something in the file that will break this wide open.”
“I hope so, sir. They’re sending the files over now. Unfortunately, preliminary looks like they have pretty much what we have. I’ll have the ME’s office pull their records also. Maybe Sean can find something.”
“Sean?”
“Yes, sir. He’s the medical examiner working with us on these cases.”
“What happened to Otis?”
“He retired about three months ago and moved to Florida. Sean Ryan is his replacement or at least the new hire.”
“Hmm. Let’s hope he can spot something no one else has. Thanks for bringing this to me, Detective. I’ll hear more about it tomorrow at nine.”
“Yes, sir.” She stood and walked out of his office. At least one good thing was happening from all of this. She got to make another visit to the medical examiner’s office. She could just call him, but where was the fun in that.