“Sure,” I said. “But on this particular case? Our statements are missing persons reports filed by acquaintances. Our autopsies are of desiccated skeletons. Our crime scenes are dirt in the ground. And our victims are marginalized people who can offer little in the way of financial gain to their killer.”
Frank nodded, seeing where I was going with this.
For years, classic FBI profiling had been the province of agents like Frank, who had a mixed background that spanned law, law enforcement, and psychology. And while there was no one singular way to practice profiling, the best professionals shared a common methodology that began with crime scene statements, moved to a list of psychological factors and personality traits, and eventually landed on variables that included age, race, and birthplace. All of which helped investigators find the monster… based on the method.
But when victim details were nonexistent, and when the reason victims were removed from this earth was unknown, imputing details about the monster had to come some other way.
“Instead of profiling inputs,” Frank said, his eyes fixed on mine, “we have to move in a different direction.”
“You mean begin with him?” Cassie said, taping up the sketch of El Médico. “Even if we don’t know shit about him.”
Frank nodded. “Let’s work backwards,” he said. “From known models and categorizations. Try to impute in reverse from his kills.”
We all agreed. This was not the traditional way of doing business, but we needed to find this guy fast. And there was no other way, not with such sparse evidence.
“Let’s start wide, then,” I said. “Anything we suspect.”
Frank took off his jacket and tossed it aside. “With organized killers, we typically find three intercept points.”
“Right,” I said. “Where the killer first saw the victim. Where he killed them—”
“And where they were disposed of,” Frank finished.
“This guy’s disposal points are all within a two-mile radius,” Cassie said. “The housing project a couple years back was the first. Near the county line where Gardner and Richie found the body six nights ago was the second. And the group burial we found the day after was third.”
As Cassie said this, I found the map that Detective Quinones had loaned me almost a week ago. The one upon which I’d initially drawn the circles and tangential lines—to help locate the skeletons. I circled the areas where we’d found the victims and taped the map onto the conference room wall.
“All of these bodies were found within the confines of Shilo County,” I said.
“So statistics tell us that sometime in the last five years,” Frank said, putting his hands on his hips and pacing, “he’s either lived in Shilo or had a full-time job there.”
Cassie took the whiteboard pen from me and jotted this down. “And you’re assuming he’s an organized killer why?” she asked.
“He must have used some ruse or charm to get these women to trust him,” Frank said. “I’d also guess he’s attractive and well spoken. Takes care of his appearance. Organized killers tend to live with a domestic partner or are married.”
“Gardner thought Mavreen Isiah was El Médico’s girlfriend during some of these murders,” Cassie said, scrawling another note on the whiteboard.
“And she worked where?” Frank asked, looking at the map.
I made a mark where Alantay Medical Group was located.
“Let’s circle a one-mile radius around that,” Frank said.
Which I did.
“I’d bet my pension this is his neighborhood,” Frank continued. “Either he lived there, worked there, or both.” He pointed at me. “Now, the first two women called him El Médico, and we have a suspect who was comfortable injecting Richie with us practically at the hotel, right?”
“Right,” Cassie said.
“Another victim had a cut on her infraorbital bone postmortem,” I said. “Still another was offered a cleft lip surgery.”
Cassie shook her head. “Guys, Richie already sent patrolmen with our sketch through every local hospital. Zilch.Cero.No one’s ID’d this guy based on medical experience.”
Frank looked back at the wall map before crossing to Cassie’s laptop. He opened up a digital street map that covered the same area.
“Then he must work in some clinical setting,” he said. “Just not a hospital. Gainesville has a huge medical community. Shilo’s is decent-sized, too, for a small town.”
I studied the street map. Two medical plazas were located inside the circled area. Each was a block and a half long and probably contained a hundred doctors’ and dentists’ offices.
