"Yeah, I do.Maybe."Detective Wolfe walked over to the chair that Alison had previously vacated and slumped down into it."I got a call from a friend over in Boston—he transferred out there a year ago, and he obviously misses Philly, but that’s by the by.Anyway, he tells me that they had a case similar to this last week.Same thing with the photos arranged around the body showing the folks involved in the original case, but a completely different case from this one."
Detective Wolfe stood from the chair when he saw the evidence attached to the wall in Special Agent Hartley’s office.He tapped the crime scene photograph of Brian Callahan surrounded by pictures of the original investigators.
"Yeah, just like this."
He went back to the chair and clumped down into it.
Hartley didn't speak, but she did look over at Alison, who stood by the wall.
Alison nodded in return."It started before this, and it’ll continue.Someone is killing people, innocent people, all to point out past mistakes.I don't like to say that this is our fault, but that’s how it looks, and if the media gets a hold of this, that’s what the headline will be.And the longer we go without catching this guy, the worse it will look."
Detective Wolfe raised his hands in the air and spread them slowly apart."Police fail to solve cases in the past, and fail to solve cases now."He licked his lips and tilted his head as a small frown colored his brow."Except," he added slowly."That’s not quite what’s going on here, is it?"
Alison turned to look at the detective, who obviously knew something they didn’t.
"You know something we don’t," Alison said."If you know anything that can help us catch this killer, we need to know."
CHAPTER FOUR
"The Fenway Slasher was caught," Detective Wolfe said, placing a folder on the table."What they’re dealing with over in Boston is obviously a copycat, and with the same arrangement of photos here, that’s also what you’re dealing with."
"I want to see," Alison said, walking over to the desk and staring at the, as yet, unopened folder.
Wolfe obliged her and opened the folder, spreading out the photos from within.Hartley joined them at the desk, leaning over and placing her hand on the surface.
The immediate similarities were striking, not with how the person was killed, but with the staging of the Polaroids around them.Alison picked up one of them, counting six photographs around the body.
The victim, however!
A splatter of red covered the victim’s throat as they lay lifeless in the dirt.The Fenway Slasher moniker conjured a vision, and the crime scene photo confirmed it.It was hard to see from that photo alone whether there were any other wounds, but it was a surefire bet that the slash to the throat was what killed him.
"If the Fenway Slasher was caught," Alison commented, "then what is the killer communicating?"
Detective Wolfe moved some of the photographs around and picked up one, showing a close-up of a Polaroid.He handed it to Alison.
"He’s my best guess based on what you’ve found here," Wolfe said."If what you say is right and the killer is pointing out failings with this original case, then this is your guy."
Alison held the printout and studied the young face contained.He looked to be in his mid-twenties, clean-shaven, pale, wearing glasses, with brown eyes and short black hair.
"And he is?"Alison asked.
"Dr.Cowan," Wolfe replied."He’s a private psychiatrist now, but he was the lead profiler on the case back then.Thanks to him, the Fenway Slasher killed two more people before he was finally caught."
"Dr.Cowan sabotaged the case?"Hartley asked, rounding the desk to view the photo.
"No, by the looks of it, he was only incompetent," Detective Wolfe said."There was an internal investigation at the time, but the blame wasn’t attributed to Wolfe.However, my contact in Boston suggests that they would have caught the Slasher quicker without a profiler at all.I don’t know how true that is."
"Okay, so we have two serial killer investigations, one where the killer was never caught, and another where the killer was caught too late," Alison pointed out."I think it’s safe to say that we have our motive.The killer is focusing on investigations where the investigation could have been better."
"Which doesn’t justify anything," Hartley said with a grunt.
"No, of course not," Alison agreed."But it does mean that there are a lot of cases the killer could choose from.I know that we all do the best we can, but none of us is perfect, and there will always be flaws in an investigation, whether large or small.The dangerous thing about this killer is that they’re not confined to a specific geographic region.We’re looking at someone who’s traveled from Boston to Philadelphia to kill."
"Could we be looking at multiple killers?"Hartley asked.
"It’s possible," Alison admitted."However, with cases like this where the staging of the bodies is so similar, we have to begin with the assumption that we’re looking at the same killer in both instances.How about the Slasher victim?Any connection to the original case or anything more recent?A connection to the Fenway Slasher."
"I don't know," Wolfe said slowly.He picked up some of the files and took a brief look through."My guy in Boston would’ve mentioned it if that was the case, but I’ll go through the file to be sure."
