Page 14 of Blood and Sand

“And race? Why not an African American man or another man of color? There are plenty of men of every race who are affluent.”

“I know, but I’m basing my assessment on the killer’s use of rope. It is rare for men of color to use rope in this manner—not unheard of, but rare. Also, his wife or girlfriend would also be highly educated, probably African American as well.”

“So that would be his trigger? Either a divorce or job loss?” I asked, making sure I left no stone unturned with this guy and making a note in my notebook. When Dana used to help with other cases, she would always say, “If we can identify the killer’s trigger and signature, we can identify the killer.”

“Yes, something along those lines. I would lean more toward a divorce, but it also could be both. A job loss that caused his divorce, maybe.” She picked up a crime scene photo of two of the victims as they were being pulled out of the water. Then she picked up another picture of the same two women on the slab at the morgue. “These women are around the same age, and they all have similar features, all African American, so I think your killer is killing his wife, possible girlfriend, or someone he’s obsessed with over and over again.”

She tossed down that picture and picked up another. After a few minutes of scrutinizing the image of the bound women, she picked up another photo and put those two side by side.

I could sit back and watch Dana work all day. There were many times me and Amir brought our cases to her when we would get stuck. What would take us months to figure out would take her around a week or less.

She pulled all the photos from the file folder and laid them side by side across the coffee table, running her fingers over the photograph. “You see something?”

I picked up one of the pictures and looked at it from every angle before placing it back down.

“I don’t see shit. Haven’t seen shit for months.”

Although she didn’t answer, I knew she heard me, but she was laser-focused on something in the pictures. She ran her finger over the image of the ropes the women had been bound with.

“What type of rope was used?” she asked without looking up at me, continually running her fingers over the bindings.

“Jute.”

“With every victim?”

I flipped through my notes to make sure I answered correctly before responding. “Yes. Every victim was bound with jute.”

“Natural rope,” she absently stated.

“Is that significant?”

She tilted her head and continued to stare at the rope bindings. “Yes. You see here?” She pointed to a specific section of the intricately tied rope, tracing her finger down the bindings.

I nodded. “Yeah. I know how he did it is important, but I don’t know why it’s important.”

“I think this is Kinbaku. I’m not sure, though. We may need to consult an expert to make sure.”

“Kinbaku?”

“Yes. It means ‘tight binding’ in Japanese. Was the length of the rope the same for each girl?”

She picked up two pictures and laid them side by side.

I flipped through my notebook again to make sure I gave her the correct information. “Yes. Each rope was somewhere between twenty-three and twenty-six feet.”

“Okay. I really think this is Kinbaku. In the West, Kinbaku is usually done with multiple ropes between twenty-three and twenty-six feet. In the East, the rope lengths are much shorter. He’s staying true to the art by using specific techniques and even natural rope, but why bind two girls together? What’s the significance of the number two to this killer?”

I scratched my head. That was the same question I had been asking myself. Why bind the two victims together? And why in the hell was he using a Japanese binding technique?

“That’s why I came to you, so you could answer some of these questions.”

She threw her head back and laughed like she was sincerely amused. “Rey, some questions only the killer can answer. I can get into a killer’s head only so much. One thing that ties every serial killer together, though, is they enjoy the power of having life and death in their hands. That’s what makes them want to keep killing again. Remember, it’s about control.”

“Could that be the reason for the bindings? A way to show he has control?”

“It’s very possible, but I would need more evidence to tie the bindings to that thought. Death by asphyxiation, right?”

“Yeah, strangulation. They all have ligature marks around their necks, possibly from the rope they were bound with.”

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