Already Chosen, page 11
Laura bit her lip, glancing at Nate. She could see the same concern in his own eyes. “He’s putting them on display,” she said.
“Egocentric,” Nate replied, a basic criminal psychology analysis. “He wants us to see what he’s done. Wants the bodies to be found. Maybe he’s trying to send us a message.”
Laura shrugged thoughtfully. “Or trying to make these scenes into some kind of entertainment or show,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because of the window in this one. It reminds me of the Christmas windows in stores, you know? How you see everything set up in this representation of a perfect little winter wonderland or a family enjoying the festivities. In all three, it’s like this idealized state. Spooning with a lover. Having a friend to listen to you. Sitting to watch a movie.”
Nate nodded, with Captain Ortega watching them both work silently. “Question is,” Nate said darkly. “Did he do all of this with the windows open, or did he open them up once he was done?”
“We’re dusting for prints, but there’s nothing yet,” Captain Ortega offered. “Looks like he was probably wearing gloves, like in the other two scenes.”
Laura looked out of the window onto the street, trying to picture it. Trying to put herself into the killer’s shoes. She desperately wanted to touch something to try to get a vision, but with Captain Ortega watching closely, it was too much of a risk. People didn’t usually take kindly to the soiling of evidence.
But she could do what Zach had suggested. She could use her years of experience, her knowhow as an investigator, the things she had seen before.
“I think he did it with the curtains open,” Laura said, thinking out loud, seized by sudden conviction. “He wasn’t afraid of acting in public before – the two alleys were places where anyone could have stumbled across him. He wouldn’t be afraid now. He’s efficient, quick. Maybe he came with the popcorn already made, the mannequin ready. He knew what he was going to do. Why else would he bring a mannequin that was already in a seated position?”
“This was planned and then executed with precision,” Nate agreed. “It looks like the victim was taken by surprise, and the first blow didn’t kill him, which is different from what we’ve seen before. Maybe he got a little second of warning or something. Do we know who the victim is yet?”
Captain Ortega nodded. “The homeowner. Xavier Perez. He lived here alone.”
“So, the killer knew he wouldn’t be disturbed by a wife or housemate,” Laura suggested. “Maybe that’s why he took the risk of attacking him here in his home. Think about it – John Wiggins lived with his parents, and Kenya was in an apartment building. He couldn’t do it where they worked as other people would be around there, too. It had to be out somewhere else. But with Mr. Perez here, he had the opportunity to take his time and do it right.”
“Who was he to the killer?” Nate asked, throwing up another thought. Laura liked it when they could bounce off one another like this, getting into the zone of the investigation, feeling things out quickly. This was how they worked best. “A friend? A family member? It looks like the message is one of closeness.”
“Could be,” Laura said. But then she made a face, shaking her head. “But if he’s like the other two, we’re going to have to work hard to figure out who the connection is here. Someone who joins all of them. If we didn’t find the link yet, I have a feeling that this third variable is going to make it harder, not easier.”
“Surely it will be easier to narrow down the field of people who could have come into contact with all three,” Captain Ortega argued.
“Maybe,” Laura replied. “But to get there we need to sift through all his friends, his family, his coworkers, everyone he came into contact with. It’s like searching a haystack for a needle while more hay keeps getting poured on top all the while. We’ve already ruled out the therapist that linked the first two. We can check just in case, but we know he’s not the killer, so I don’t even know how much a connection there would help.”
“And this is going to keep being a problem,” Nate said, his voice a low rumble. “Because if he’s already set up three scenes for us to find, he’s not going to feel like he’s done and he can stop. He’s going to keep on killing until we stop him.”
Laura nodded. She had been thinking the same thing.
This was a relentless killer, the kind who could carry on racking up a huge body count if he wasn’t stopped. They couldn’t let that happen.
“I guess we’d better speak to this neighbor who found the body,” she said grimly, wanting to get on with this case as quickly as they could.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Laura spotted the neighbor in question immediately when they walked outside. He stuck out like a sore thumb: dressed in a cheap and ill-fitting suit, very obviously not law enforcement from how uncomfortable he looked, hugging his arms against himself and glancing at the house with a distressed expression then away, as If trying to stop himself from remembering or thinking about it.
He was standing with a police officer who stepped aside as Laura and Nate approached, as if letting them take the floor.
“Hi,” Laura said, injecting her voice with a little lightness but still keeping it low and quiet, trying to reassure him without being gauchely cheerful. She thought of her partner on the last case, the inimitable and indefatigable Agent Bee Moore, and fought down the urge to smile at the image of how sunny and bright she would have been right now. “I understand you’re the neighbor who found the body?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice shaken and stuttered. “I’m Owen. I live over there.” He pointed a few houses down, making it clear that his route must have had him walk along the sidewalk past Perez’s home on the way out.
“Can you tell me what you saw?” Laura asked. “Start from the beginning and describe everything, if you can.”
Owen glanced nervously at the cop who had been standing with him.
“We know you’ve probably been asked this already,” Nate said sympathetically. “It’s just standard procedure. We need to get the information from you so we can carry on with the investigation – you’ll make a more formal statement later. We just want to hit the ground running.”
Owen swallowed and bobbed his head in a quick nod, his eyes going down to the ground and tracing invisible patterns there. “I was walking to work,” he said. “I saw this glow coming out of the window of Xavi’s house, which was weird because it’s so early. Everyone’s usually asleep when I head to work. And if they aren’t, they would have their curtains closed. Xavi usually goes out to work before I do, so his curtains are usually closed and his truck is usually gone, but the truck was still in the driveway.”
That was one confirmation, at least. Xavier Perez would have closed his curtains when he went to bed. Either the killer left them open because they hadn’t been closed yet, or he opened them on purpose. “Was there anyone else around?” Laura asked. “Before or after you saw the glow?”
“No, it was quiet like usual,” Owen said. He shivered slightly, glancing towards the house involuntarily. “As I got closer, I saw that it was kind of flickering and I realized it must have been the TV I was seeing. I thought I’d glance in and give Xavi a wave if he was awake. Or maybe knock on the door if he’d fallen asleep on the couch or something, you know. I thought maybe he’d slept in and didn’t know he was late for work. So I looked in.”
“What did you see?” Nate asked, when he seemed reluctant to continue.
“Xavi was on the couch,” Owen said, his eyes going unfocused as he stared at the ground. “His head – there was blood on his head. And his eyes… I could see he was gone. And there was that creepy mannequin. I turned away and called 911 right away.”
“You did the right thing,” Laura assured him. “Was there anything else you noticed that stood out?”
Owen looked at her. “Other than the fact that my friend is dead?”
Laura picked up on that immediately. “So, you weren’t just neighbors?”
“No,” Owen said, and shrugged. “Well, yes. I guess that’s just how Xavi was. He saw it as neighborly to help people out. He wasn’t like how some people can be, all cold and only interested in themselves. He was nice to everyone.”
“What kind of things did he do to help out?” Laura asked, curious.
“He was just helpful all the time. Helping people carry stuff, or move furniture around. He would always offer if he saw you struggling with something. If anyone in the neighborhood had bad news he would cook them a big dish of something. He even gave me advice sometimes about work stuff when I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“He was a big part of the community here, then?” Nate asked.
“Yeah, totally,” Owen nodded. “I mean, if you can call it a community. Not a lot of people around here get involved with one another. We don’t have, like, cookouts or parties or whatever. But Xavi was different and he was always open for a chat with anyone.”
“What about his work?” Nate asked. “What did he do? You said he was usually up even before you were.”
“He was a third-party freight driver,” Owen said, sounding as though he was reciting something that Perez had once told him. “I don’t know what that means exactly, but I guess he drove a lot of trucks and took goods all over town. Out of town, too. Like a courier, I think, but with really big loads instead of just someone’s lunch or whatever. He worked for this company, I think it was like… Mariesville Freight or something obvious like that?”
Laura nodded. “I think we get the idea,” she said. That was an interesting lead they could possibly follow up. If his work took him all over town, then it was possible he had connections in lots of different areas. That could make it easier to find a link between him and the two others. Or maybe he was the link. “Have you seen anything unusual around the neighborhood over the last few days or weeks? Maybe a strange vehicle, or someone you didn’t recognize who was hanging around?”
Owen shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But, you know, I’m out for most of the day, so if there was someone hanging around I probably missed it. But wait, you think he was targeted?”
The phrasing struck Laura as odd. “Targeted?”
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve all seen the reports about the bodies on the local news,” Owen replied. “This mannequin thing – it’s, like, a theme or whatever, isn’t it? It keeps happening? So, I guess I just figured this is some crazy serial killer or something. Don’t they usually go after strangers, not people they know?”
Laura blinked.
“Sometimes,” Nate hedged. “Anyway, we’re following up all avenues right now to make sure we don’t miss anything. There’s nothing else you can think of to tell us?”
“I don’t think so,” Owen said again. He looked down sadly. “Man. I just can’t believe that this guy took out Xavi like that. He was such a good guy. And this means there’s a killer around here somewhere, right? At least, he was here. Right in the same neighborhood as me. Any of us could have ended up victims!”
“Don’t worry,” Laura said, trying to put him at ease so they could get away. It didn’t seem like there was anything else of value he would be able to give them. “We’re going to do our best to catch this killer. In the meantime, it’s worth thinking about carpooling to work so you don’t have to walk on your own – and keeping all of your doors and windows locked when you’re home. I’m sure he won’t strike here again, but it doesn’t hurt to take precautions.”
“Right,” Owen nodded, looking even more worried and afraid than he had when she’d started speaking.
“Thanks,” Nate said, effectively breaking the conversation off. “We’ll be back in touch if we need to ask you anything else, but for now, please follow the instructions of the local police officers. I’m sure they’ll want you to head down to the station and give a statement.”
They walked away a bit, into the quiet of the street. Laura indicated their car with her head and they crossed the road together, heading to stand against the car instead of getting into it right away. The sun was up properly now, illuminating the whole road. It was strange to see everyone bleary-eyed, still feeling the effects of the night before, even as the sun brought the new day into full force.
“What now?” Nate asked. “Apart from coffee, which I’m going to have to insist we stop off somewhere for. I don’t feel human yet, and there’s no way I’m relying on the precinct coffee.”
“I don’t know,” Laura said, tapping her fingers on the top of the car as she touched the door handle with her other hand, contemplating getting in. “Do we follow up his cargo schedule, see where he’s been and what he’s been delivering? It could take hours. A lot of hours.”
“We should let the locals handle that,” Nate said. “Give it to some of their junior detectives to get the work done and bring us the results. It’s too much of a waste of our time.”
“Well, then, what do we look into?” Laura asked. “No family. A completely different job and neighborhood than the others. Where is the overlap?”
“I don’t know,” Nate admitted, and Laura felt a flash of fear running through her.
Fear that they weren’t going to get any leads to follow at all – and without her visions coming to the rescue, they were groping along in the dark, all the while letting the killer get further and further ahead of them on the path to his fourth victim.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Laura sat down next to Nate at the desk, grateful that they at least had a private area to work in at this precinct. It felt a bit like a storage room, and there was only one desk with two chairs, but at least they had somewhere. It often felt like there was too much attention on them when they had to sit out in the bullpen. Here, they could focus on getting the job done.
“We’ve got to work through this the logical way,” Nate said. “They’ll tell us if they find anything with the freight. Meanwhile, we’ve got to try and see where we can make links.”
“What about the therapist?” Laura asked. It was the first thing she’d thought of. If the first two were his patients, then surely the third had to be as well. They had the complete list of everyone he’d ever seen, emailed over to Nate at their request yesterday evening. He opened up the file and quickly searched it, looking for Xavier Perez.
“No match,” Nate said, his voice heavy and tired.
Laura heaved a sigh. Despite a night of sleep, she felt the same way he did. “It’s social media time, isn’t it?”
Nate chuckled at her reaction. “Sorry, but yes.”
“Alright. You find John Wiggins, I’ll work on Kenya Lankenua. First person to finish gets Xavier Perez.”
“How lucky for them,” Nate smirked. They both knew it wasn’t exactly a prize. It was a punishment for being too good, almost.
Checking social media profiles was boring and often unrewarding work. First, they took the usernames that the locals had searched up for them on every social media network possible – a job that they sometimes had to outsource to their own FBI techs if the local police were limited, but thankfully here it had already been done.
Laura and Nate then navigated to the profiles of their chosen victims, and searched one by one through all of their follower or following counts. On some networks there was a search function, which made it easier – but on others, it was a case of literally scanning manually down a list of what could be thousands of names.
Whether or not there was a match, the next step was even less thrilling. They would scroll through posts and photos, looking for something that linked the victims together. It could be a comment or like from one of the other victims. It could be a photograph which happened to have all three of them in it – perhaps in the background of one another. It could even just be that they had all mentioned going to a certain bar or a yoga class or whatever other interests they might have had.
But as Laura scrolled down through page after page of data from Kenya Lankenua, she started to have a sinking feeling that they weren’t going to get anywhere at all.
There didn’t seem to be one single connection. Laura kept writing down the names of places Kenya had visited, checking them against Nate’s list, but there was no concurrence between them.
All three of these people seemed to have lived, worked, and loved in completely different spheres than one another, now that the link of Dr. Usipov was ruled out.
And if there was no link between them…
“We could be looking at crimes of opportunity,” Laura said, with rising horror. Crimes of opportunity were the worst. You had nothing to go on as to who the next victim might be. There was no way to predict it. You had to go after the killer alone, and when he was leaving so little evidence, that would be a huge challenge. There was no doubt in her mind that if they were dealing with an opportunity killer, there would be more bodies stacking up before they got anywhere close to catching him.
“It’s so deliberately arranged, though,” Nate argued, making a face. “I don’t know. It feels like he knows these people. Like he’s trying to send a message.”
“What if the message is about him?” Laura asked. “Not about the people. What if they’re just like – like mannequins to him. Once they’re dead, they can be posed and arranged however he likes.”
Nate nodded. “Alright, that does make a little more sense. You think maybe if he was able to kill two people in one place, he wouldn’t need the mannequin?”
“Yeah, could be,” Laura said. She didn’t know. Neither of them did. Without the visions, she felt like she was lost, trying to find some kind of direction without the knowledge to do so. Orienteering without a compass.
“Well, then, we should be focusing on the mannequins,” Nate said. Laura could see that he was working something through in his head, having an idea out loud. “Where does he get them from? I know we haven’t seen any identifying markings, but where could they come from?”
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