Page 16 of 3rd Tango
She sighs.
I hate to dash any hopes, but we’re already incredibly understaffed. “Plus, it’s going to take an enormous amount of man hours, Meg.”
She gestures over her shoulder toward the front of the office. “You just offered that guy a job, right? Why can’t he look into some of this with us? Save us a lot of time. He’s former FBI, like you. I assume he’s some sort of expert on criminals, and the witness protection program…and stuff.”
Yes, a bunch of stuff is what I feel we have at the moment with Mom’s case. It’s similar to cotton candy, sticky and sweet, but there’s nothing to it.
Eyeing the files on my desk, my mind is already wandering to getting some real work done today, and not just chasing leads that’ll probably go nowhere and waste a lot of time.
Bright side? Jerome will work for free, thanks to my sister.
The cases Al gave us are old, and although the killer was never brought to justice, two of the three bodies were identified and the families notified. The information is public record, nothing top secret, and no one’s looked at these cases in years, outside of Al.
What can it hurt to put Jerome to work, and let Meg jump in with both feet, as well? She currently doesn’t have any skulls to reconstruct, and she has a nose for tracking criminals. They can work together to check into the murdered women, and the list.
“Okay.” I sound like a broken record. “If you two want to look into them, go for it. Meg, mark off the cases that were closed and examine the testimonies against the defendants because that will be public record. Anything trips your radar; make a note and I’ll have Al—if he comes to work for us—review the details. Jerome, you take the open cases. Again, if anything seems like it could lead to Gayle, we can ask Matt to contact Taylor and see if she’ll share details.”
Jerome jumps up and claps. “Awesome.”
Meg eyes me, slightly skeptical. “You think this could be legit? That Gayle’s not a killer, but maybe another type of criminal?”
I’ve seen some incredibly improbable circumstances and situations in my line of work. I rarely discount anything. “I’ll follow the serial killer angle and start contacting family members of the deceased women. You two work on this other angle.”
Meg looks delighted, and Jerome is happy because she is.
My sister stands and starts listing things they’re going to do. They head to the conference room, and I glance over Alfonzo’s notes.
I appreciate how they’re laid out, identifying similarities between the three young women, the cause of death, the consistencies between the shallow graves they were buried in and the time frame all three died.
Al wasn’t a profiler, but I can see the language in his notes. I read through those in more detail, developing my own portrait of the killer.
From the forensic autopsies, all three women were in their late twenties. The two identified victims were brunettes, curvy, single. They hailed from rough backgrounds—single mothers, absentee fathers, troublemakers in school, and as adults, had difficulty holding jobs. One was described by a family member as a “slut.” No interview notes from the other victim’s family.
All of them died from asphyxiation and were buried wrapped in garbage bags, landing in shallow graves. No signs they were killed in the woods, only disposed of there. The original investigation cited that the deaths most likely occurred within a few years of each other.
Hard to tell if they were premeditated. Strangulation is usually a sign of rage, so probably not. The killer obviously thought out where to hide them, however, and he or she had a familiarity with the woods in order to turn it into a burial ground.
As I continue to take notes, I pause and think about the dozen serials I profiled while at the Bureau, and the ones we caught and brought to trial. As a forensic psychologist, I examined and testified in court on the competence and mental state of at least six. Several used strangulation—either with their hands or a garrote.
From what I know about Gayle, the profile in my head of a classic serial killer with a fixation or obsession for strangulation doesn’t match him at all.
8
Meg
Jerome drops into the chair across from me, his hazel eyes twinkling under the conference room’s florescent overhead light. Who knew my artist boyfriend would enjoy research so much?
I smile as I hand him a folder. “You’re having fun.”
“Anything I do with you is fun.” For added effect, he waggles his eyebrows. A move that doesn’t just nudge my hormones, but sends them into a ravenous roar.
Even thinking about Jerome—and sex with him—gets me warm and gooey inside.
Me.
The girl who talks to dead people.
Go figure.
