True Blue

Interviewing witnesses had turned up plenty of interesting facts but no solid leads on the alley slaughter case, so we returned to the police Crime Lab to see if they might have some new information for us.

The lab boys did, indeed, have something new for us – but it was not as helpful as we had hoped. You know it is a bad sign when they open with: “These numbers don't seem to make any sense at all.”

Dina frowned at this: “So, what’s going on?”

Donald Seville, the tech we were talking to at the time, replied: “We have got a couple of possible digital reenactments - but they only make sense if our guy somehow changed his height and weight during the attack.”

Dina and I exchanged glances and she asked: “So, what, two attackers?”

“Possible but … the numbers don’t seem to suggest it unless… Well, here, see what we’ve got,” Seville replied. “Davis, get over here – they may have questions for you.”

Allen Davis rushed over as Donald loaded some files onto a nearby computer. “Here is scenario A,” he said, turning on a video.

Davis narrated: “Here, this generic female form, is our vic. She walks into the alley and sees someone – we suspect it’s someone she knows, or someone she just feels is not a threat.”

Seville chimed in: “Right – there is surprisingly little evidence of defensive wounds on … the pieces we recovered.”

Davis resumed: “Now, see this figure – we used a male form because most killers like this are male. We have no evidence actually suggesting the gender of our suspect. Anyway, this figure approaches her. We believe they had some kind of casual discussion for several seconds – some of the items disturbed in the alley suggest it. Then this happens.”

The image on the screen showed the man suddenly plunging some kind of blade into the woman’s side.

“From the bits recovered, we’re ninety five percent certain the first blow was a killing strike, entering between the fourth and fifth ribs on the right side, puncturing both a lung and her heart. Death was not instant, but definitely quick. Then things get interesting, judging from the backspatter…”

The image on the screen drew the knife back from the wound – and seemed to inflate.

“This spray pattern on the wall shows the swing shifting mid-arc. It really doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Dina replied: “So we’re looking for The Incredible Hulk?”

Seville answered with: “I doubt it. He was created by gamma radiation and the radiation levels…”

Dina glared at him and he stopped. “Tell me you did NOT go back and check radiation levels?”

“Did not go back, no but we have a Geiger counter in our gear,” he replied, sounding a little wounded. He turned to me and added: “We managed to help solve more than a few poisoning cases by identifying radioactive isotopes in the victims,” by way of explanation.

“Could some kind of ‘super steroid’ cause this?” Dina asked.

“Unlikely but I’ve got some guys looking into it. Now, this is the last move we are one hundred percent sure of – after that we have a series of speculative attacks. There are so many cuts – and so many pieces – we can not be absolutely sure of the order. Want to watch a few?”

Dina looked at me and I shrugged. “Just one, unless you think it’ll help with the investigation to watch them all.”

He reached for the play button and Dina suddenly stopped him: “Wait – could the attacker have made that swing from a wheelchair?”

Seville and Davis exchanged a glance, and then Seville sat down and began typing numbers. I was impressed by the speed at which his fingers flew across the keyboard.

“To make the initial swing, he would either need a highly customized wheelchair, or an elevated position,” he said finally as he ran a new video sequence.

The first bit showed a man in a regular wheelchair – the knife swing was low, hitting the target's waist. Then he raised the chair up a foot and things matched up fairly well.

“If you ignore the question of ‘how did the chair get this high,’ it works,” Davis chimed in. “But, for the remaining blows to scan properly, he’d need to get up out of the chair – and be close to seven feet tall.”

“Two of our potential suspects are close to seven feet tall, and a third uses a wheelchair,” Dina replied.

“Then he could be your guy – but if he’s got the power to break bones with a mere knife, like this guy did, you’re going to need a lot of back-up.”

“What do you mean?”

“The damage to the hard and soft tissues is more consistent with some sort of power tool than with a human being swinging a bladed weapon.”

I spoke up at this point: “Do we have any details on the weapon?”

“Some – either two weapons were employed, or one was a double-edged knife or sword, roughly twelve to fifteen inches long, with one edge serrated and one smooth. It also appears to have a distinctive tang on the hand guard – here is one possible shape,” Seville replied, pulling up another file.

My eyes widened as I looked at the image. “Could you cross-reference that with Malaysian or Indonesian weapons?”

“What, you’ve got an idea?” Dina asked, impressed.

“Starting to get one. Never saw it out of the sheath, but Doctor Andreiopov collects weapons and recently acquired a weapon from a dealer in Djakarta with a similar hand-guard to that one.”

Davis was keying stuff into his tablet and looked up: “Definitely not a traditional Malaysian design – looks almost Mongolian. But I did find a reference to something like that, recently sold to a collector in Djakarta – a weapon with the prosaic title of ‘Demonblade.’”

“That’s what Dr. Andreiopov called it…”

Dina turned to me and said: “Looks like your instincts were right – he is involved. Let’s get someone to cross check your professor with our victim and our other suspects – perhaps some kind of collusion is involved?”

Seville said: “We will see what we can do with this additional data. Maybe we can make some sense of this after all?”

“Ah good, you guys are still here,” a new voice interrupted. We turned to see the female CSU agent from the alley - according to her name tag, she was Doctor Karen Giles: “We have got an ID on the victim, just came through. She was a suspect in a hit-and-run a few months back or we wouldn’t have gotten a hit so fast on her partials.”

She handed a folder to Dina. Skimming the first page, my partner mused aloud: “Linda Marshall, nineteen – would be twenty tomorrow. And a student at … hmm… Nate, what college does your professor work for?”

I was about to say I did not know, when I remembered the card that his sister gave me. Pulling it out, I read: “The Renner Institute. Assistant Dean of European History.”

“Well, the coincidences are just piling up here – she was not just a student at the Renner Institute, but a history major as well… Thanks, Karen,” she added, nodding to the other woman.

“This is too strange a case for me not to be interested,” Doctor Giles replied. “Glad to help. Keep me informed, OK?”

Dina smiled at her. “Yeah – still on for bowling Saturday?”

“Unless another body turns up, you know it. You coming along too, Nathan?”

Not expecting the question, I jumped and looked over at her. Bright blue eyes met mine, with an odd expression I could not identify peeking out of their depths. “Not likely – I … do not bowl,” I replied.

“We could teach you…”

Dina stepped in: “We have got a suspect to go interview, Karen. You can flirt with my rookie later…”

Karen laughed. “Was I that obvious?”

“You’ll have to get in line behind his new reporter friend,” Dina said, glancing at me to see my reaction.

“Not Tara?” Karen replied, an edge of ice in her voice.

I was feeling distinctly uncomfortable suddenly, and not really sure why. “I think we had best be going… Oh, and speaking of Miz O’Malley, she ran into me outside the professor’s place – apparently it’s right by a coffee shop her photographer frequents.”

Dina gave me an odd look, and then sighed. “We need to hurry then.”

“Why?”

“She’s probably interrogating our suspect as we speak. Though, on the bright side, if he’s our killer she might tick him off enough to become victim number two…”

Though Karen seemed to agree, somehow that did not seem to be much of a bright side to my mind…