He was staring at her and looked terrified.
“I’m going to lose my job. It’s all I have!” he said. “I just wanted to protect the graves and flowers!”
She stopped him.
Yeah, Ethan wanted a psych evaluation, but she didn’t need one. Crazy showed itself, and this wasn’t crazy. This was a man who likely had a lower IQ, and some fetal alcohol syndrome from his birth.
She’d seen it before.
Dogs resource-guarded, and damaged adults with mental disabilities had triggers too.
His job and the flowers were the big two.
The last thing she wanted was to take away his only income if he was taking care of his mother. Honestly, unless he was the killer, he would be safest here alone with the dead and flowers.
“Here’s the deal, Jeffrey. If we uncuff you, and you promise to go home for a few days, we won’t tell your boss.”
Ivan gasped.
“Uh,HULK SMASHED!” he said, pointing at his nose, Raphael’s body, and her, too.
This would have been funny, but one man took out four of them.
Only, she was likely going to have to come back here later, at night, and she didNOTwant to re-encounter the man. Sending him to jail sounded cruel.
If this was his job, and the only one he could get, the mother in her wouldn’t let them take that away, specifically if he hadn’t done anything.
“Ivan, he’s not the one doing this.”
Oh, he didn’t buy that.
He’d just broken his goddamn nose, kicked the crap out of an Archangel, and tossed Elizabeth and Ethan around all within twenty seconds.
He moved fast, and he hit with one hell of a punch.
Ethan chimed in, seeing his wife was planning something. She didn’t like being tossed around, but there was always compassion there.
“He’s not. The person doing this has finesse. Jeffrey doesn’t have it,” he said, siding with his wife.
Then, he signed so they could know what he was thinking, but it didn’t clue the handcuffed man in.
He’s got developmental issues. Fetal alcohol syndrome, likely. The person we’re looking for is a sexual deviant. He’s not going to be the one,he said.
And that helped Elizabeth out because she’d called it.
Elizabeth focused on the man who looked empty behind his eyes. The lights were on, butNO ONEwas home, and she wasn’t going to ride ass if someone was innocent.
With those meat-hook hands, how was he removing eyeballs? Then again, he handled delicate flowers.
She was going with her gut on this one.
The person doing this is going to be highly intelligent with a history of deviant behavior. They’ll have lived, breathed, and fantasized about doing this to women. He’s not a good fit—unless we find something more, Elizabeth is right,Ethan signed.While to me he appears to have women issues, and an attachment to his mother, I may be wrong on that one—not that I can tell yet.
Well, there they had it.
The profiler had spoken, and given her a good chunk of his profile. They all hoped he didn’t get the last part too late.
“What do you say, Jeffrey? If we don’t arrest you, which will cost you your job, can you go home this week, and let us check on your flowers for you?”
