Page 32 of The Murder Between Us
“Sounds like the outline of an American hero. Why is he a suspect?”
“Prince is a local. He’s from Des Moines. A string of juvenile offenses followed him all the way to his enlistment. His high school counselors said he was anti-authority, resisted rules and regulations, and chafed at structure and responsibilities.”
“Odd that he chose to join the military, then. Were any of the victims associated with Prince?”
“Four of them, through high school parties, friends of friends, and college parties. His name kept coming up, over and over again. We kept running into him.”
“Like a bad penny.”
“Exactly. We had to dig into him.”
“What was his service record like?”
“Excellent. It seems like once Prince found his calling, he put his all into it. He had glowing remarks in all of his EERs, and he was twice awarded for excellence. There was an interesting note in his deployment record, though. Prince volunteered for additional tours of duty overseas, and his commander declined to allow him to go. He said Prince would benefit more from stabilization and that his presence overseas would ‘not be beneficial to the overall mission.’”
“That is an intriguing statement. What is his commander trying to say? That Prince was enjoying deployment too much? Where was he? Somewhere someone who desires an orgy of violence would enjoy?”
“We talked to Commander Vasquez. He said Prince was a little too enthusiastic about the mission. We couldn’t get him to elaborate. However, we did a deep dive into his service record. Prior to Offutt, he was in Landstuhl, Germany. There were two unsolved strangulation murders in Landstuhl while he was stationed there. One on base and one off.”
“Were there other strangulations when Prince wasn’t there?”
“They’re not the only strangulation deaths Germany has ever seen, or that Landstuhl has ever seen, but these two were very close to what the Coed Killer left behind.”
“Close. What was different?”
“Sexual assault in one victim.” Cole frowned. “And the other victim was male.”
Cole shook his head. “Our killer wouldn’t go from no sexual assault to sexual assault and back again. And it’s highly unlikely he’d deviate from his victim profile. He likes to dominate, exterminate. It’s easier to do that with young women, unfortunately, than with men. He wouldn’t take the risk of attacking a man. If a man fought back at all, it would break the fantasy he creates, his ability to completely and totally dominate and subjugate his victims.”
“My gut said the same.” Noah almost smiled. “I couldn’t put it like that, though.”
Cole’s cheeks flushed, a dusting of crimson. “What else? There had to be more for Prince to make your short list.”
“His GPS put him in Des Moines on five of the six nights of the murders. Those were not the only nights he was in Des Moines. However, he was confirmed as physically present for five of the six.”
“That is compelling. Usually where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And there’s a lot of smoke with this guy.” Cole plucked Prince’s photo from the file and stuck it to a new whiteboard. “Who’s next?”
“Dr. Robin Pflueger. Professor of history at Iowa State University. He mostly taught freshmen. Four of the six original victims were in his classes.”
Cole’s eyebrows arched high. “And the other two?”
“He knew one through church, Lauren O’Neil. She went to Faith Baptist, just like Kimberly Foster. The other, Paige Blanton, went to Simpson College, which is a straight shot down the highway from Iowa State.”
Cole stilled. He turned to the map of the Des Moines region taped to the conference room wall. US Highway69 ran north to south, from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast of Texas, going right through Ames, Iowa—home of Iowa State University—past Des Moines and on to Indianola… home of Simpson College. Colored dots marked the crime scenes, forming a line that ran up and down Highway69 and clustered on the Iowa State campus. “Have you heard of geographic profiling?”
Noah nodded. “We were working on it six years ago. Somewhat obviously, Iowa State is the center of the cluster.”
“And the highway is a feeder. The whole region is a hunting ground for him, but Iowa State is special.” He tilted his head, took in the map from a new angle. “Is Iowa State his main hunting ground, or is Iowa State his home turf?”
“If we could answer that—”
“We’d still have a lot of suspects,” Cole said. “But it would help immensely in understanding our killer. Was he traveling to the college, lying in wait, plucking victims out of the dark? Or was he living on, or near, campus, surrounded by potential victims? One answer lends itself to one type of criminal psychology. The other, a totally different one.”
“He’s traveling to victims’ homes now. Lying in wait for them there.”
Cole nodded. “His MO has evolved. We need to find out why.” He took a deep breath, held it. Frowned. “Dr. Pflueger taught at Iowa State. That’s significant. What kind of firearms experience did Dr. Pflueger have?”
“He had a Glock nine mil registered to him.”
