“About ten years ago, Sarah was working as an evidence technician on a homicide case,” Elaine began, opening the folder to reveal newspaper clippings and what appeared to be personal notes.“The suspect was a man named Aaron Bishop.He had murdered his estranged wife, Emily Russo, in a parking lot outside the post office where she worked.”
“Post office,” Ann Marie echoed.“That’s why it was a federal case.”
“Exactly,” Elaine confirmed.“Bishop was a classic domestic abuser—controlling, jealous, volatile.When Emily finally left him, he stalked her for weeks.Then one evening, he confronted her as she left work.Witnesses saw them arguing.He stabbed her multiple times and fled the scene.”
Riley watched Elaine’s face, noting the tightness around her eyes as she recounted the case that had rocked investigative circles ten years ago.
“Seems straightforward enough,” Ann Marie said.“What went wrong?”
“The case itself was strong,” Riley continued.“Multiple witnesses, motive, opportunity.But the physical evidence connecting Bishop directly to the scene was limited to a single fingerprint on Emily’s car door—crucial because Bishop claimed he hadn’t been near her in weeks.And since he was a rather ordinary-looking man, they challenged the identifications too.”
Ann Marie asked.“And the defense also challenged the fingerprint evidence?”
“Yes,” Elaine said.“Bishop’s public defender, Larry Seville, was sharper than most gave him credit for.He questioned the chain of custody, suggested the fingerprint could have been transferred accidentally during collection.”Elaine slid a newspaper clipping across the table.“But what no one knew at first was that Sarah had realized Seville was right—there had been a procedural error.”
Riley picked up the clipping—a small article buried in the middle of a local paper, headlined “Evidence Mishandling Leads to Dismissal in Post Office Murder Case.”She remembered reading this exact same newspaper story when it first appeared.
“Sarah discovered that during collection, there was indeed a moment when the chain of custody had been broken,” Elaine continued.“A rookie agent had mishandled the evidence bag containing the fingerprint lift.Just a momentary lapse, but enough to compromise the integrity of that crucial piece of evidence.”
“And she faced an impossible choice,” Riley said quietly.
“Precisely.”Elaine’s voice softened.“Either admit the mistake and potentially allow a murderer to walk free, or cover it up to ensure justice was served.”She paused.“Sarah chose the latter.She altered the evidence log, eliminating the gap in the chain of custody.”
Ann Marie inhaled sharply.“She falsified evidence?”
“She believed she was protecting the case,” Riley corrected gently.“In her mind, she wasn’t fabricating evidence—the fingerprint was genuine, after all.She was simply...smoothing over a procedural error that might otherwise derail justice.”
“But she was caught,” Elaine added, nodding grimly.“Seville’s team was thorough.They found inconsistencies in the timestamps, gaps in the surveillance footage that should have shown continuous custody of the evidence.When confronted, Sarah panicked.She confessed everything.”
“And the case against Bishop collapsed,” Riley said.“The judge threw out the fingerprint evidence and instructed the jury to disregard the testimony related to it.Without that direct physical connection, placing Bishop at the scene, reasonable doubt prevailed.He walked free, and Sarah was fired from the Bureau for evidence tampering.”
The three women sat in silence for a moment as Ann Marie absorbed the story that Riley and Elaine were telling.Outside, a breeze stirred the garden, sending fallen leaves skittering across the flagstones.
“That’s not the end of the story, is it?”Ann Marie asked.
“No.”Elaine closed the folder.“Three months later, Aaron Bishop murdered his new fiancée, Cindy Hoffman.Beat her to death in their apartment during another jealous rage.This time, the evidence was overwhelming—blood on his clothes, under his fingernails, witnesses who heard the altercation.He was convicted and sentenced to death.He’s still on death row today.”
Riley nodded grimly.“So Sarah’s attempt to prevent a killer from walking free failed—and then that failure directly led to another woman’s death.”
“The ultimate finger trap,” Elaine said softly.“The harder she pulled to ensure justice, the more trapped she became.And in the end, the very kind of outcome she had tried to prevent came to pass anyway.”She looked directly at Riley, her blue eyes sharp with certainty.“That’s why I believe Sarah Mitchell is your killer, Riley.These murders, these carefully constructed ethical dilemmas with origami figures—they’re recreations of the trap she found herself in.”
Riley thought back to the elaborately staged bodies, the messages hidden in folded paper, the impossibly cruel choices presented to investigators—all of it designed by someone familiar with law enforcement procedures, someone who had experienced firsthand the devastating consequences of an impossible ethical choice.
This killer had once sat in a classroom, listening to Elaine Cooper explain how finger traps worked as metaphors for investigative dilemmas.
“After Aaron Bishop killed Cindy Hoffman, Sarah called me,” Elaine continued.“Just once, about a week after the murder hit the news.She was...broken.Desperate.Said she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat.Kept seeing Cindy Hoffman’s face in her dreams even though she’d never met the woman.”
Riley paused her pacing, turning to face Elaine.“She blamed herself for Hoffman’s death.”
“Completely,” Elaine confirmed.“She said—and I remember her words exactly—’I got caught in the finger trap, and a woman died because of it.’The metaphor had stayed with her all those years after the seminar.”Elaine’s gaze drifted momentarily to the garden outside.“She couldn’t reconcile herself to the reality that both choices would have resulted in damage.If she’d reported the evidence mishandling, Bishop might have walked anyway.If she set her ethics aside, altered the records, and wasn’t caught, Bishop would have been convicted.Instead, she got the worst of both worlds—she compromised her ethics, and a woman still died.”
Ann Marie observed, “The text message with the finger trap image.It wasn’t just a general reference to law enforcement dilemmas.It was specifically meant to trigger Riley’s memory of that seminar, of Sarah.”
“And to make sure I understood the motive behind these killings,” Riley added.“These murders and messages aren’t random.They’re demonstrations—carefully constructed to force us to confront the same kind of impossible choices Sarah faced.”
She returned to the table, pulling out her phone to scroll through the crime scene photos again.“Each victim was positioned to look peaceful despite a violent death.Each origami figure presented a different challenge to investigators.It’s all an elaborate recreation of Sarah’s own trauma—the finger trap she couldn’t escape.”
“But why these specific victims?”Ann Marie asked, echoing Riley’s earlier question.“Women with impulse control disorders who found help through origami?”
