Psychobyte

by Cat Connor

  For a split second, I wondered if he knew how close I was to hurling in a crime scene. “That she knew him or her? I’ve sent uniforms to canvass the neighborhood. Hopefully, someone will know if Terri had a boyfriend or girlfriend or frequent visitor.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Stabbing just feels like a female crime.”

  Grasping at straws; I didn’t see a woman. Possible that several incidents with knife-wielding fans of Michael Fisher had clouded my view of women and knives. The amount of force used could easily mean the Unsub was male.

  Options wide open. Could be anyone with opposable thumbs. I rolled back to my initial suicide thought. Yeah. Nah.

  I saw a male.

  “You didn’t see a woman at the last crime scene, Conway.”

  “Didn’t see one this time either.”

  Crap.

  “This time? You saw the Unsub again?”

  “Not completely. He covered her face she could only get a partial looksee but it looked like the same guy to me.”

  Kurt frowned, lines deepening in his forehead. “You scare me.”

  I scare myself.

  I shrugged. “How much blood are we talking about?” I faced the shower and the clean white walls. “How much blood would’ve sprayed up these walls?”

  “Give me a minute and I’ll do the math.”

  “She’s my height.”

  “That’s helpful. Looks about your weight too.” A few taps on the calculator on his phone and he had an answer. “Blood will only squirt as long as the heart can pump. The point of no return for Terri happened once she’d lost almost two liters.”

  “And that is what in pints?”

  “Just over three and a half.”

  “That would’ve made a mess.”

  My phone rang. My boss, Special Agent in Charge Caine Grafton.

  “Caine,” I said and left the room, passing Sam and Lee.

  “Where are you?” Caine said.

  “Homicide crime scene investigation.”

  “We just got an anonymous tip. The tipster asked for the FBI agent in charge of the Ox Road murder.”

  “That’ll be me. What now?”

  “Another murder.”

  He’d broken his pattern. Not good.

  “Send the address to my phone.” Gerrard’s mom popped into my head. “While you’re on the line. Have you heard from Noel Gerrard at all in the last few months?”

  “No. He’s a friend of Sean O’Hare. If you’re trying to find him, Sean may know where to look.”

  I knew they knew each other. But friends? I didn’t know that. I added another note to my phone to check with Sean.

  I walked back to Lee and Sam. “Saddle up, we got another one.”

  Everyone’s phones went at once. My screen showed an incoming map reference from SA Sandra Sinclair. Kurt emerged from the bathroom.

  “Again already?”

  “Yeah, Caine rang. Sandra sent us directions.”

  Noise from the front door alerted me to an arrival. Two crime scene techs walked toward us.

  I nodded at them, held up a hand to tell them to wait, and made a phone call. “Sean, Ellie here. I need more scene guards.”

  “How many and where?”

  “Two. Sending address now.”

  “Okay. Done. Invoice Delta A, your name on it?”

  “Yes.”

  Out of my budget, just like last time.

  “You going to need more today?”

  “I think so. Put another two on standby. I’ll let you know in the next hour if I need them.”

  “Take care, Ellie.”

  “Hang on, have you heard from Noel Gerrard recently?”

  “No.” He paused for a tick. “Something I should know?”

  “Not sure yet. If you do, tell him to call his mom.”

  “Will do.”

  The techs who had worked crime scenes for me before were waiting. Carol Higgins and Jerome Sand.

  “When you’re done, hand over to the scene guards from O’Hare Security.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Carol said.

  “The ME is going to be busy today.” I glanced around. “Where is she?”

  “On her way, ma’am.”

  “Good.”

  “Anything specific you want us to look for?”

  “Point of entry.” A sigh escaped. “Pay especial attention to the bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. We need some prints. We really need some prints.”

  Carol nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, she was drugged.” I had no doubt in my mind. Her cloudy vision spoke to me of drugs. “I want to know how. She had coffee this morning. Don’t know if it was take-out or she made it. Find out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Maybe someone tampered with her morning coffee?”

  “Something for us to look into, ma’am.”

  “We’ll leave you to it.” I walked away from her. Kurt, Sam, and Lee caught up with me. I shot Kurt a sideways glance. “Remember the Son of Shakespeare case?”

  Kurt nodded. Lee nudged me. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about the cyber café and Mac being drugged,” I replied.

  Sam chuckled, a deep throaty chuckle. “He was pretty entertaining, Chicky Babe.”

  “Yep, he was, Mr. T!”

  The chuckle became a belly laugh.

  Kurt joined the conversation. “Ketamine, yes?”

  “Yes. In his coffee.”

  “And in your toothpaste, if I recall correctly?” Kurt added.

  “Yes.” So they told me. “Good memory.”

  “You made a lasting impression.”

  “Awesome.”

  When I grow up, I’ll make less embarrassing lasting impressions.

  “Having had some experience with ketamine, Conway, do you think that was the drug used here?”

  A hard question which I gave some thought. No. It didn’t feel like ketamine. These victims weren’t capable of anything once the drug took hold. Whatever was used dropped their level of consciousness lower than ketamine. They didn’t not remember, there was nothing there at all.

  I shook my head. “No. Not ketamine. Something else. Could sleeping pills be delivered via coffee?”

  Kurt nodded.

  “Would they make the coffee too disgusting to drink?”

  “Probably not. You wouldn’t need a lot and the bitterness of coffee would mask the flavor.”

  That sounds plausible. Don’t think I want to try sleeping pills in coffee, though.

  “I’ll take your word for the taste.”

  “I’ll look into the coffee-pill thing, but I think I remember something similar from a few years ago.”

  I plunged my hand into my jeans pocket and pulled out a pen, leaving my glove behind. Fishing out the glove, I tossed it at Kurt. “We should be carrying small.”

  He caught the glove and smiled. “Thought you had small black Nitrile gloves?”

  “I did. Don’t know where the box went, I’ve been using the latex gloves on scene,” I replied, dragging my notebook from my shirt pocket and losing the second glove.

  Kurt chuckled as I threw it at him. “I’ll grab a new box for you from stores when we get back.”

  “Thanks, that’d be helpful.”

  Troy was waiting outside for me. I stopped to talk to her. Kurt, Sam, and Lee carried on to the cars.

  “O’Hare Security will provide scene guards. Can you handle security for our techs until O’Hare’s men arrive?”

  “Of course. I just had an update from the surveillance on Sarah Ng’s home. A male approached the residence and knocked on the front door. Officers said he was carrying a clipboard and wearing a power company ID. They intercepted him down the street.”

  “Description?”

  “Dark hair, six feet tall, translucent skin. Said he looked like a vampire.”

  Don’t think we’re looking for anyone with fangs ‒ no characteristic teeth marks on the victims.
/>   “Unfortunate. I’m interested in anyone with dark hair. Did they get details?”

  “Yes.” She passed me her notebook. I copied the particulars into mine.

  “I’ll do some background on him … tell them thanks.”

  “We’ll keep surveillance on Ms. Ng.”

  “Thanks, Troy.”

  I’d almost reached the car when my phone rang. “Hey, Sandra, got something?” I signaled to Kurt waiting in the car that I was coming.

  “Have you seen The Washington Post today?”

  I stopped walking. “No.”

  “You might want to get a copy and look at the In Memoriam page. I just saw it,” Sandra said.

  “That’s a helluva way to capture my attention.”

  “You’ll love this then. Someone posted a memorial with names under it. The names are Jane, Serena, and Terri.”

  “I’ll get a copy and get back to you. Meanwhile, see if you can find out who placed the memorial?”

  “I’m on it, O Genie of the Fourth Estate.”

  I laughed, hung up, and tugged the car door open.

  “Has there been a development?” Kurt asked.

  “We need a copy of today’s Post. Sounds like our Unsub posted a memorial.”

  Kurt located the nearest Seven Eleven and procured a copy. We sat in the car and flipped to the Obits.

  “Listen to this, Kurt.” I paused for a moment as my brain and tongue wrapped around the words. “‘Don’t take it personally. It wasn’t easy. Just listen. I broke when you looked at me. Life cracked wide open. Everything that came before. Spilled over the screen. Seeped into the keyboard. Shattered across the desk. Laughter replaced it all.’”

  Kurt took the paper and read the piece for himself. “I recognize some of that from the crime scenes over the last few days.”

  “Me too.”

  He handed me back the folded pages pointing out the names at the end. “Jane, Serena and Terri,”

  “I’m not liking that.”

  “We need to know when that ad was placed,” Kurt said.

  “The newspaper came out this morning. Terri was killed this morning.”

  Now we knew for sure the Unsub chose her ahead of time. Nothing opportunistic about these deaths. The killer selected the women for a reason, and I felt certain he knew enough about them to know he could kill them without being disturbed.

  It was time to give proper consideration to the crime scene notes. Nothing about the short notes pleased me. Why leave lines from a poem at the crime scenes? For a second it all seemed so obvious and personal. It wasn’t a secret that I once wrote poetry.

  Maybe the question should be, why didn’t more killers leave poetry at crime scenes?

  “The notes …” The words hung above the dash for a few seconds before collapsing.

  “You going somewhere with that or just thinking aloud?”

  “Do you think they are for our benefit?”

  “It would seem that way.”

  “Why?”

  “Showing off? Making sure we’re engaged?”

  His words hit home. A ploy, perhaps, to make sure Delta A led the investigation? Serial crime is our thing. We’d get the case regardless of any poetry at the scenes. No matter how I tried to explain the notes to myself, it felt personal.

  Twelve

  Just Older

  “I need to check someone out,” I said to Kurt.

  “You could’ve done that while I was driving,” he replied as I reached for my laptop.

  No, I really couldn’t.

  “Better if we’re stationary,” I replied. “Corners are disruptive to my typing.”

  “Sorry but taking corners is better than trying to drive through buildings.”

  “Smart ass.”

  I flipped open my notebook and typed the name of the mysterious pale visitor to Sarah Ng’s into the Sentinel search engine. A list of names and photos filled the screen. I narrowed the list by state and then county. That gave me six prospects. Six people named Kristopher Lette. Only one worked for a power company. That was encouraging. Even better that he lived locally. As I checked the other profiles, the surname wriggled about in my gut and poked me a few times.

  “Kurt, we know someone with the surname Lette?”

  He turned toward me, shifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and watched my screen.

  “Does sound familiar.”

  It should. “The journalist, Rosanne. She’s Rosanne Lette.” I’d emailed her earlier.

  Crap, media briefing. Damn!

  Running out of day to get that organized, I recognized a certain amount of reluctance on my part when it came to briefing the media and opening parts of this case to the public. People needed to know but panic wouldn’t help. The media breathing down our necks made our job harder. It was a balancing act and so far doing nothing was winning.

  “Is she related to that Kristopher Lette?” Kurt asked, cocking his head as he squinted at the screen.

  Sun rays bounced off the screen at odd angles. I tipped the screen forward slightly to combat the glare.

  “None of the six Kristopher Lette’s have rap sheets so I haven’t got a lot to go on. One moment …”

  I entered Rosanne Lette’s details. Up popped her driver’s license. I compared her address to each Kristopher. None matched. So if she was related they probably weren’t living together.

  “Bit hard to tell,” Kurt said, sliding his sunglasses back over his eyes. “We’ll run the names through a few more databases later.”

  “We need to look at employment records for the Lette who works for the power company,” I said.

  “Police spoke to him?”

  “Yes, but I want to do our own investigation.” Something felt off. “Doesn’t hurt to double-check.”

  “Something bothering you, Conway?”

  “You haven’t heard from Noel Gerrard, have you?”

  “No, not since the Navy Yard incident. Problem?”

  “His mom called me. She’s worried, she hasn’t heard from him in six weeks.”

  “Tried calling him yourself?”

  “Not yet, but I will.” I shut down the laptop. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Gerrard is capable of taking care of himself.”

  And everyone else in his immediate vicinity.

  Late afternoon had run into early evening. My eyes drifted to my watch before I climbed out of the car.

  “Somewhere you’d rather be?” He shut his door and joined me on the pavement outside another house flying crime scene tape.

  I nodded. Police cars parked on both sides of the street, officers milling around the front of one house. Too many people on scene. Time to weed out the unnecessary people.

  “What’s wrong with this picture?” I said to Kurt as we walked side-by-side up the path to the house.

  “I’m on it,” he replied and changed trajectory. I carried on and spoke to a group of police officers about twenty feet from the door.

  “I’m Agent Conway. Who is controlling this scene?”

  They looked at each other. One pointed to a uniformed police officer near Kurt, who was writing in a notebook. “Officer Mendez.”

  “And you four are here why?”

  “We were told to wait, ma’am,” the youngest of the quartet said.

  “Wait’s over, officers. Let Mendez know you’re leaving the scene. How many cops are inside?”

  “One. She’s just inside the door.” He pointed at the house. “It’s Mendez’s partner, Christy Reid.”

  “Medical personnel?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

  “Anything you need to tell me? Y’all traipse through the crime scene?” I passed my notebook and pen to the cop nearest me. “Write your details and pass it on.”

  The young cop answered my question, “No, ma’am. We’ve been out here the whole time.”

  Kurt appeared on my right. “We’re good. Mendez and his partner will stay.”

  “This group is on their wa
y,” I replied, shooing the police officers toward Mendez.

  “Back to our previous topic,” Kurt said, guiding me up the path with a hand in the small of my back. “You need to be at that dinner tonight.”

  “I should be but it’s not a need exactly.”

  Pre-wedding. Whole family. Last minute details. Time for us all to touch base before the big event. My fingers massaged the back of my neck for a moment, working some of the tightness from my muscles.

  “Go, we’ll take this.”

  I checked the time again. We stopped walking.

  “It’s early yet. Let’s just see what this crime scene is like first?”

  “Conway …”

  “I’ve got a crime scene to investigate, a press conference to organize and bodies piling up. Now’s not a good time.”

  “It’s never going to be a good time. You can go, we’ll handle it from here.” Kurt winked at me, his voice remained good-natured, bordering on amused. “Slacken those reins a bit, Conway. As much as we love having you with us, we are capable.”

  “I can’t just go, this case is ramping up and we need to get in front of it before the Unsub kills anyone else.”

  “We can handle it, Conway.”

  “I know you can. I can’t. I can’t walk out on these women.”

  Kurt regarded me for a moment before accepting my response. Could I go eat, drink, and socialize knowing more women would die? Not without guilt. Mitch wasn’t marrying someone who had a nine-to-five and he knew I couldn’t walk away.

  Sam appeared next to me. “Chicky Babe.”

  A smile flashed in his direction. “Come on, boys,” I said with a hint of Mae West. “Let’s go see what we have.”

  We filed up the path to the house. Kurt swung open the door and was greeted by a police officer who asked for ID.

  “SSA Conway!” A female voice called from the street. I turned to see a reporter yelling for me and trying to dodge several police officers. Rosanne.

  Great, just what I need.

  Already I felt the Fourth Estate hounding me. Seeing her didn’t make me want to set up the media conference in a hurry. A voice in my head reminded me I liked Rosanne. I grumbled back at the voice, Let’s not get too giggly too quick. Like’s an awful strong word.

  Her appearance struck me as spooky. I fought the temptation to ask her what the fuck she was doing at my crime scene. Instead, I called out in a pleasant tone, “I’ll talk to you soon. Need to get in here first. Wait for me?” It didn’t kill me to be nice.