“Hey, Denny,” Virgil said and stuck out his hand. Today Ivers was wearing a dark blue suit, a pale, pink shirt and a blue, silk tie with thin, pale pink stripes. “Nice threads.”
“A detective’s got to look good when he’s taking down the bad guys, am I right?” Ivers said with a big smile. “So, how’s this supposed to work?”
“I’m just here to catch the bad guys.” Ivers gave Virgil a questioning look. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”
“So, you’re really going after The Limping Man?” Ivers asked when Virgil finished explaining his deal with the Mayor.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Maybe because he doesn’t exist?”
“He might,” Virgil said with a shrug.
“Maybe he’s roommates with the Abominable Snowman. They live just down the street from the Loch Ness Monster,” Ivers said, laughing, then he stopped, suddenly serious. “You’re not dragging me into this, are you? Because I’ve got real cases to solve.”
“Relax. This is a special job. I just wanted to say hello, that’s all.”
“It’s a special job, all right,” Ivers said, shaking his head. “How’s the LT taking it?”
“Pissed off. I don’t blame him. If the Mayor shoved some outsider into my department with orders that he was going to go after a killer everybody thinks doesn’t exist I’d be pissed too.”
“Jesus, and I’m sitting here talking to you?”
“Relax. I waited until Bointon was out of the office. When he gets back you can say nasty things about me if you want.”
Ivers seemed to consider that for a moment then shook his head. “Nah. I’ll just pretend that you’re invisible.”
“Works for me.” Quinn slapped Ivers’ shoulder. As if goaded by some inaudible signal, both men walked back toward the Major Crimes Squad room, but Ivers paused just outside the door.
“Hey, if you need somebody to back you up . . . .” he said and let the sentence drag.
“Thanks.”
“What? Oh, not me. I was thinking of Kudlacik. The lieutenant can’t do anything to him.”
“My mistake,” Virgil said, smiling, and headed over to his new desk.
“Everyone has patterns,” Virgil muttered to himself, then flipped through the notes he’d made when he’d first started looking at the Limping Man crimes. His description consisted mostly of what he wasn’t – probably under six feet tall and under one-hundred-eighty pounds; brown or black hair because people tended to notice blondes and redheads; other than the limp, no obvious physical characteristics; not bald; didn’t have a large beard; didn’t have a tattoo of a devil on his forehead; white, between thirty and fifty; physically small, ordinary, unthreatening, forgettable.
What else do I know about him? Virgil asked himself, then answered — because the crime scenes are all over the place he has a vehicle of some kind. It’s not a motorcycle because, again, someone would have noticed that. It’s not a fancy car. It’s not pink or orange or electric blue. It’s ordinary, like him, black, blue, brown, old, but not too old because that would get noticed too. It’s a Chevy or a Toyota, something like that. It’s a sedan, like a Camry or a Civic, maybe an SUV like an Escape or a van, a Caravan or a Sienna.
Virgil made notes as he worked through the “nots.” When he got done he realized that, except for the limp, he had described someone smack in the middle of the Normal Curve. There had to be something more.
One-by-one, Virgil re-read the nine files he had originally gathered and gradually a psychological profile began to take shape.
The killer was quiet, restrained, a back-stabber rather than a brute. He was the sort of person who wouldn’t raise his voice, wouldn’t threaten, wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to himself. No, he was the kind of guy who’d smile and swallow his anger then sneak off into the shadows and wait for a chance to stab his victim in the back.
“Stab” was the operative word, as the weapon was almost always a knife, ligature or a club, never a gun. The murders often exhibited overkill, which meant he was full of rage, but it was a rage that he kept hidden until his victim was helpless and unable to fight back. Then he would strike. He was angry, insecure, jealous, and felt that he was being disrespected, a common pattern but one The Limping Man had taken to the extreme.
Virgil called the IT department and had one of the techs program the system to send him an alert on any stranger-murders where the weapon was not a firearm and the corpse exhibited signs of excessive violence, multiple strikes or stab wounds, or a combination of strangulation and/or stab wounds and/or blunt force trauma. When Virgil hung up he noticed that the windows were dark and that the squad room was almost empty. He glanced at the clock and decided to call it a day.