Sean handed the lead detective a photo of Daphne Jones.“Her roommate gave me this.She took it at the restaurant the night Daphne disappeared.It’ll help you find her on the video.”
Brad nodded and added the photo to the folder in front of him.“Sean, can you patch into the FBI database and see if there are any similar homicides in any other states?It’ll be faster than putting in a formal request.”
“Consider it done.My laptop’s in the car.”
“And maybe start working on a profile of our UNSUB,” the detective added.“Brian and Rafe, why don’t you guys check with BCI to see if Hank has anything new for us?Detective Vic Emory stopped by Vision’s for us last night and came up with a list of employees who were working on Saturday night, along with their contact information.When you’re done talking to Hank, getting their statements is all yours.”
Brad rattled off his cell and office phone numbers for the others and then took down their contact information.“Keep in touch.We’ll meet back here… say around five for a roundup.By then, it’ll be on every news station, so get ready for the stampede of crazies, psychics, and general ‘I want to get involved’ people crawling out of the fucking woodwork.”
Most law enforcement officers hated when an open case was aired on TV.Ninety-nine percent of the resulting callers had no real information pertaining to the case.You just had to be patient and weed through all of the false leads to get to the one that might solve the case.It was a tedious yet necessary process.
While the others headed off for their own assignments, Sean grabbed his laptop computer from his car and returned to the conference room they had used the day before.The sheriff had told the task force it was theirs for the duration of the case.The room had several dry-erase boards and corkboards on the walls that were perfect for organizing victims, suspects, locations, and timelines.They were currently empty, but Sean planned on spending the day filling them up with the data they had already gathered.It would help him try to find any other similarities between the victims and develop a basic profile.
As he waited for the department IT tech, who would interface his laptop with the department’s system for easier access, his first order of business was pinning photos of the three victims onto one of the boards.In the top row, he placed pictures of the women as they had been in life—vibrant and alive.In the middle was a copy of their individual crime scene photos, and the bottom row contained photos of the victims in the autopsy suite.Next, he turned to one of the dry-erase boards and picked up a black marker sitting on the metal shelf beneath it.
He spent about an hour listing what they already knew about each victim and their crime scenes.By the time he finished that, his computer was ready to go.A department computer, fax machine, and printer had also been set up for the task force to use.As the technician left the room, Sean thanked him, then sat down at the conference table in front of his laptop and signed himself into the FBI’s National Data Exchange.
Most law enforcement agencies reported all major crimes in their jurisdiction to the FBI, whether they were solved or not.It wasn’t mandatory nationwide, and some smaller police departments with low personnel numbers, crime rates, and financial budgets didn’t have the resources to enter information into the system.But now, as more and more agencies moved forward into the computer era, very few major crimes escaped entry.The N-DEx database could be used to search for crimes with similar characteristics, such as DNA, weapons or vehicles used, and modus operandi.Serial murderers, rapists, and other criminals tended to follow a pattern, or MO, when committing their crimes.The patterns might change slightly as the perpetrator honed his skills, but the basics tended to stay the same.
Once Sean entered the information they had gathered on the three murders into the program, the system would search for similar homicides throughout the United States.Young, blonde females, ligature strangulation, pennies, and “slut” carved into the torso—that was enough for a start.He set the program to compare those parameters with hundreds of thousands of cases in the database and spit out any that had at least three of the four catchphrases in them.Depending on how many cases were found, he would adjust the parameters.
It would take the program at least an hour to compile a list for him to start working on, so he moved to his next assignment, developing a basic profile of the UNSUB.Although Sean wasn’t an FBI profiler, he had taken several courses on the subject provided by the bureau and had worked with a few of the FBI’s criminal psychologists over the years.
He pulled out his phone to call Dr.Suki Ralston, his favorite shrink, who was stationed in the Quantico, Virginia, FBI headquarters.He’d worked with her on three cases in the last two years and found her profiles of the suspects to be spot-on after they had been caught.
A Hawaiian native, Suki was a petite, dark-haired beauty with soft, caramel-colored skin who gave most men whiplash when she walked by.But while working on their first case together, Sean quickly found there was plenty more to the brilliant woman with a Ph.D.in criminal psychology than just her looks.She had a fun personality, a deep love of her career, and a wicked sense of humor.
After six weeks of long hours working together and then relaxing after hours over several meals, the two had established a closeness similar to that of a brother and sister.They’d kept in touch since their first case together and phoned each other a few times a month.He last spoke to Suki two weeks earlier, while he was packing to move back north, and had made tentative plans to meet her for dinner while he was still on vacation.
Finding her name in his list of cell phone contacts, he pressed send and waited for the call to go through.She picked it up on the third ring.“Hey, hot stuff, what’s up?
Sean smiled at her teasing.“Aloha, Doc.How ya doing?”
“Great!How’s your vacation going?Have you gone stir-crazy yet?”
“Actually, I’m working.”
“What?You’ve got to be kidding me.”After he told her he wasn’t joking, she asked, “Didn’t anyone teach you the definition of a vacation, Malone?You’re what?Not even one week into a four-week stint?How the hell did you manage that?”
Sean took a moment to fill the profiler in on how he ended up with the case, then spent the next five minutes giving her the basic details of the murders.“That’s it in a nutshell.So I called my favorite shrink to see if she could do a full profile for me.I’ve got just the basics.”
“Favorite, huh?Well, flattery only gets you so far.”
He laughed.“Uh-oh.What’s it going to cost me this time?A king’s ransom?”
“Nah.Just dinner, maybe dancing.”
“Dinner, yes.Dancing—only if you don’t mind getting your feet crushed.I’m a lousy dancer, or so my prom date told me way back when.”
Suki giggled.“What?A stud-muffin like you doesn’t have rhythm?”
His smile grew wider.“Oh, I’ve got rhythm, baby, just not on the dance floor.”
The two chuckled with amusement.There was always innocent flirting going on between them, yet it’d never gone any further than that.Sean often wondered why he never asked her out.If Suki had been taller than her five foot three, she could have been a supermodel.He didn’t deny the woman was gorgeous, but after working together, she quickly became a good friend, and he didn’t want to ruin their relationship over a short fling.He knew it wouldn’t last long—his relationships never did—and losing her friendship wasn’t worth it to him.Besides, it was never a good thing to get involved with someone from the agency.
“Anyway,” she said after she finally stopped laughing.“I’ve got a meeting in the morning at headquarters, but my afternoon is light and can be cleared.I’ll fly down to you after the meeting, and you can show me what you have.I’ll get a hotel room somewhere and start on the profile after you treat me to dinner.Sound good?”
“That’d be great, but you don’t have to get a room.You can stay in the spare bedroom at my uncle’s cottage.”
