Catch and Release

Chapter 5

Chapter 5Sheppard had been sitting in the conference room for the better part of two hours. The dry, air-conditioned room was starting to smell of old coffee, and the atmosphere reflected the general attitude in the room, stale and jittery. The agents had split into two groups, one looking at the graffiti while the other looked at everything else.

Riley came back into the room and placed a fresh pot of coffee in the center of the table next to various pastries. Sheppard thought if he had any more caffeine he would start vibrating and figured that everyone else felt the same seeing as they all seemed to ignore the steaming pot.

“Where are we at with the graffiti?”

The agents working on the graffiti exchanged glances. One named Henderson shot a look at Riley and said. “Nowhere.”

Riley sniffed, perplexed. “What do you mean nowhere? Are you telling me you’ve been working on this for almost two hours and have come up with nothing?”

“No, we’ve been working on this for almost two hours, and we’re pretty certain that it’s meaningless. A distraction put there just to throw us off.”

“How so?”

“All three scenes have been made to look like they were done by gangs, the walls are covered with swastikas and racist slogans.”

“That sounds like gangs. Why do you think otherwise?”

“All the graffiti is exactly the same, down to the grammar. If it were done by gangs, then there would have been multiple people writing the slurs. There would have been differences in handwriting, spelling, and grammar. It’s too perfect, too consistent. It could have only been done by one person.”

Riley grimaced with skepticism. “How do you know it wasn’t simply the same person doing the graffiti for a gang?”

“We don’t. We’ve sent our findings down to the Organized Crime task force, and they’re following up, but so far they’ve come up with nothing, and we doubt they will.”

“So, your gut’s telling you it’s a red herring?”

Henderson nodded without saying a word.

“Very well. Keep Organized Crimes on it in case your gut’s wrong. How about the murder scenes?”

Agent Haley stood and said. “All three murders were committed by the same person, and we’re not dealing with a serial killer.”

Jennifer Haley was the only woman in the room and easily the youngest person there. Some people in the agency had called her a forensics genius with a unique ability to look at a crime scene and recreate the crime in her head. Others thought she was there as a result of affirmative action. Sheppard didn’t know how much truth was behind any of this, but he suspected she might have an eidetic memory that gave her an advantage.

Riley asked, “If all three murders were committed by the same person, how could it not be a serial killer?”

Haley puffed up her chest with self-satisfaction. “They were contract kills. We’re dealing with a professional.”

Riley leaned sideways against the table and folded his arms in front of his chest. He looked like he wasn’t buying the explanation. “Make your case, Haley.”

“The first two murders were committed with the same knife, a straight, six-inch chisel cut knife with a pointed tip and at first glance, it looks like the third murder was the same. All three murders present with multiple s***h wounds, but seven stab wounds each. No more, no less.”

Riley pushed off the table, kept his arms folded, and interrupted. “Anyone who watches the news could have told me that. I hope you have more to back up your theory.”

Haley stepped forward to reassert herself and continued. “What the news reports don’t say, boss, is that six of the stab wounds are just window dressing. The Medical Examiner reports from the first murders show that the first stab hit the heart. The rest were made postmortem, presumably to hide the skill used in the kills. We’re still waiting on the M-E report on Mr. Salam, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that pattern holds true. On top of that, the angle of the wounds tells us that the killer is between five feet ten inches and six feet tall.”

Riley looked at her as if he wasn’t fully satisfied with her answer. “Anything else?”

“Yes, the killer is left-handed.”