“I’d say he was submissive and was into whatever game he and his killer were playing. He’s a bigger man, so it would have taken a lot to blitz him and then tie him up like this.”
“Good. Anything more?”
asked Alex.
“We found a few bits of particulates from his hair and calves. Fibers that might be carpet strands and some black flakes I don’t recognize. We’ll go to work on them when we get to the lab. The fibers could mean he was transported in the trunk or on the floor of a vehicle
,” answered Sarah.
“Or
—
”
“That the game started in the car, making it easier to dum
p
the body. But that would leave copious amounts of blood in the
vehicle
.
Sparks
stared at the ground
and then
looked back to Alex. “Stolen car?”
“That’s what I’d do.”
“I’ll have one of the guys check out stolen vehicles over the last couple days
.”
“Excellent. Does ol’ stubby here have a name?”
“Stubby? Oh man, that’s just cold, even for you
.
”
S
he shook her head. “Anyway, his name is Ben Morgan. He just got out after doing two years for white
-
col
la
r crime
:
e
mbezzlement from his former company. He was the CFO and apparently thought he wasn’t making enough
.”
“I hope he enjoyed the extra money. It’s the last raise he’s ever going to see. Get it? Raise?
”
“You just have no respect
, b
ut it’s not hard to see your point.”
“Sparky! Good one,” he laughed. “Okay. Let’s finish up here and let the ME get to work. I’ve got to get to the north side of town.”
“Boss
,
there’s one more thing that is kind of odd.”
Alex raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“There was a small roll of paper stuffed up his left nostril
.
”
“Paper?
”
“Yes. It had the letter
‘
S
’
printed on it.” She held up the evidence bag
,
and the white swatch of paper winked at him
, d
aring him to figure this one out.
Alex’s mind swam. He was the science guy. The profiler and detective gig was where Manny and Sophie came in
, b
ut he didn’t have to be a detective to see that this was
a
message.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead. In his experience, messages from serial killers were akin to drinking Kool-Aid with Jim Jones
--
really bad medicine.
Manny walked into Gavin’s office, Sophie trailing behind, and stood silently, taking in the complete and unusual
atmosphere
of a police
chief
being shot in his private office. If the top cop in Michigan’s capital wasn’t safe, was anyone, anywhere?
“Kinda creepy,” said Sophie, her voice as soft as a summer breeze.
“That’s one way to put it.” He scratched the stubble of his two-day growth. “How could this happen? I mean, we have security desks on each floor, key cards and passwords just to get through the door. Not to mention the cops assigned to the lobby.”
Manny moved closer to the desk, past the CSU’s yellow numbered evidence markers
,
and stood in front of Gavin’s large, oak desk. The front of
his
tan leather chair was stained a deep maroon. The blood had run off the edge, dripping to the carpet and pooling just behind the desk. There were two vacant patterns in the middle of the stain where Gavin’s feet had been, leaving a butterfly-like shape.
To the left of that,
on the carpet,
rested one of the evidence markers. It was alone, away from the others
,
and seemed out of place. At first, Manny couldn’t see what it was guarding, but bending closer, he noticed a line of small blood drops, most shaped in oval patterns.
“What is it?” asked Sophie.
“It looks like cast off, maybe from the weapon
.
”
“
Shooter’s blood?”
“I don’t think so. It’s not much, but it might show how close the perp had been to Gavin when he was shot,” answered Manny.
“If the shooter was that near, I mean
,
close enough to get blood on the gun, then one of two things is probably true,” said Sophie. “He was being held at gun point, or
—
”
“He knew them,” finished Manny.
He moved the chair and peeked under the desk, near where Gavin’s left leg would normally rest. The emergency button glowed in an intermittent green pattern.
“The Chief didn’t hit the emergency button, which lines up with what the officer on watch said.”
Sophie
bent closer to the spatter
. “That wraps it up for me
;
he definitely knew the shooter.”
“Just freaking great. It was someone he knew and apparently trusted. He let them get real close, with no sense of panic or fear.”
Sophie puckered her brow. “Another cop?”
She could be right.
Just then
,
Buzzy
Dancer tiptoed to the door. “Hey guys. Good to have you back. I have the security camera recordings, such as they are, for you to look at.”
She was looking at the ceiling, trying to avoid seeing anything that remotely resembled graphic.
No denying her gift with technology, but blood gave her nightmares
.
Maybe we all should be more like
Buzzy
.
“What do you mean, such as they are?
” asked Manny.
“They’re all messed up. Come see what I’m talking about
,
and
then I’ll tell you what I think.”
Sophie and he stood over
Buzzy
’s
huge
computer monitor and waited as she loaded the video. Her eyes were
bloodshot
, and she wore almost no makeup, or any of her tart perfume
—
something
Buzzy
Dancer never
went without
.
Manny put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, you know that, right?”
The pink
-
clad computer tech stared a hole through the monitor. A small, desperate sob escaped from somewhere deep in her chest. “I should have been her
e
.
I left a little early. First night of bowling. I usually stay until 8:30 or so. Last night I left at 8:00. I
. .
.
I
could have helped.”
“You could have just as easily been victim number two,” said Sophie. “Wait, you bowl?”
“Maybe. But I do have a gun, department requirements.”
Buzzy
flexed her left hand. “I carry a 180 average.”
“Now that’s a wee bit scary,” said Manny.
“My bowling average?”
“No, well
,
that too, but the whole gun thing.”
Buzzy
smiled, putting her hand on Manny’s. “Thanks, both of you.”
The screen sprang to life, showing the outside
of the
security emergency
door
on the first floor
.
“I checked all of the other feeds and what’s coming up next happened to them all, at exactly the same time. Notice the time stamp in the corner.”
It blinked 8:48
,
and the screen suddenly went blank, then turned to electronic snow.
“Whoa. That’s not good,” said Sophie. “What happened?”
“Our security system is CCTV, closed circuit television
, w
hich means it transmits directly from our cameras to our monitors in the security room. It broadcasts from point to point, making it much tougher to tap into. It’s
tons
more secure because it’s not blasting a signal that any hacker could pick up.”
Buzzy
slurped
her coffee. “I had the system run through a complete debug checklist
,
and there was nothing wrong on our end or with the software vend
o
r’s equipment.
”
“So this was an intentional jam? Can that be done?
”
a
sked Manny.
”
Buzzy
was just getting warmed up.
“There was a study done in Australia a few years back. Some PhD students discovered they could jam the security cameras at the local airport with just a PDA.” She grinned at Manny. “Personal Digital Assistant, to you, detective.”
“Learn something every day.”
“Anyway, their research showed, with a little tweaking, they could take down a network in a few seconds, and it was virtually undetectable. The system could then be restored in a heartbeat, making it appear that there had been a network congestion problem. That’s what our incident report showed
, e
ven though we’ve never had an interruption like that before.”
She turned back to the screen, fast
-
forwarding the vi
deo. “At exactly 9:01,
the feed returned to normal. Thirteen minutes and
,
tada
,
it’s
like nothing
ever
happened.
W
eird as Lady Gaga’s wardrobe.
”
“Don’t you have to be some kind of tech guru to pull that off?” asked Manny.
“Nope. Internet sites can show you how, and it’s not very complex. About a two on a scale of ten.”
“So this was
a
planned hit, and the shooter went the extra mile to make sure no one got a good look at them,” pointed out Manny.
“Up and down
four
flights, with a close
-
up shooting sandwiched in, all in thirteen minutes
,
or less. Damn,” said Sophie.
Manny ran his hand through his hair. “There’s something else here. This looks like the same thing that happened at the White Kitty two nights ago.”
“You mean the security cameras going
nuts
?”
asked Sophie.
“Yeah. Remember what the manager said, that it just popped back on
,
and they couldn’t find a problem.”
“I also remember her asking about your weapon
.
”
“Really? She asked about your
. . .
Oh my gosh,” giggled
Buzzy
.
“Stay on task, ladies.”
“Okay. Okay. So you think the camera thing might be a connection?”
asked Buzzy.
“If it
smells like crap
. . .
”
Sophie shook her head. “If you’re right, what links Gavin with the first victim?”
“I don’t know, but that could be the sixty-four
-thousand-
dollar question.”
The cell phone in Sophie’s pocket rang. She looked at the number. “Josh is returning my call.”
“Let me take it.”
“Hell no. I’m talking to him.”
“Sophie?”
“Manny!”
“Sophie!”
“Fine.” She gave Manny a dirty look and slapped the phone in his hand.
“Josh?”
“Not Sophie?”
“No, it’s me.”
“Has she ever been arrested, like for stalking?”
“Never convicted.”
“That’s a relief. How’s Gavin doing?”
“He’s hanging in there, for now. But it doesn’t look good.”
“Sorry to hear that
;
he’s a good man.”
Manny let out a breath. “I need your help. We’ve got four murders and another shooting. Three are related
,
so that makes it a serial
-
killer problem. It’s like
Lansing’s being confused with New York.
”
“Three? Not good. I have to talk to you about Argyle anyway. We’ll have him in Miami by tomorrow. After that, Max, Chloe, and I will be there.”
Manny felt his stomach flip when Josh mentioned Chloe’s name. He wondered, briefly, when that would stop. “Excellent. What do you mean, talk about Argyle?”