I joined Todd and Billy in the evidence garage, where Mike and Danny were deep into their inspection of the van.
“Find anything of value?” I asked as we approached.
“Actually, I think we have.”
I perked up. “Really, what is it?”
“Other than the blood-soaked front seats from the most current victim, we’ve found small amounts of dried-blood evidence in the back area. We’ll take samples of the stains and compare it to our other victims’ blood and see if there’s a match.”
“Great. The evidence is mounting that we have two serial killers loose in Chicago. We just don’t know who they are. How about something personal they’ve left behind?”
“Nothing yet, but we’ll check every nook and cranny.”
“But they’ve had that van for two weeks. They had to leave fingerprints somewhere.”
“And we’ll enter all of the viable prints into the database, but if they’re not in the system, they won’t help.”
I was fully aware that fingerprints couldn’t help us if the perps had never been arrested, but I was grasping for straws. At least the van had been reserved for three months. That meant the forensic team could take their time with it and hopefully find something the killers had left behind, even if it was a single strand of hair.
Todd pulled out his tape measure and checked the height of the van—70.5 inches.
“I’ll enter it into the computer as seventy and a quarter inches since the weight of a dead body would lower it slightly. I’ll plug that number into our software program and measure it against the height of the two perps. The difference will show up on the screen.”
“Perfect. By the way, what is the average height for men and women?”
“In the US, it’s just under five foot four for women over the age of twenty and five foot nine for men of the same age.”
I rubbed my chin as I thought.
No woman in her right mind would wear anything other than flat shoes on that type of mission, would she?
I turned back to Todd. “Can you tell if they’re wearing flat shoes?”
“Yeah, I think so. Ready to head back?”
“I’m going to check in with Don, but let me know what you come up with.”
“Will do.”
I took a different hallway to get to Don Lawry’s office and morgue. Out of courtesy, I knocked before entering. He yelled out loudly—likely from the autopsy room—for me to come in.
“Hey, Don, it’s Jesse.”
“I’m in the back with this morning’s vic. Give me a second to cover him up.”
I waited a good twenty seconds then entered. “Got a few questions for you.”
“Yep, shoot.”
I approached Don, who had just draped a white sheet over the man lying on the autopsy table. The only thing exposed on the deceased was his face, and it appeared normal, other than the grayish tint. The perps had been kind enough to give us something to work with.
“We need to get his face and description on the news as soon as possible.” I gave Don a quick smile. “No pressure.”
“Not a problem. As a matter of fact, I’ve already documented everything, and he looks relatively clean. Mike can work his camera magic and tint the vic’s face to look a little less gray. PG for TV, right?”
“That’s right. Can you have that ready for me in, say, thirty minutes? I’d like to get it broadcast on the early-evening local channels.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem, and I’ll call you when everything is ready.”
I thanked Don and headed upstairs. At my desk, I organized the information I knew up to that point. Each location where a body was found had been documented. The clothing, or lack thereof, was described and written down as well as the approximate age and general description of the men. Coincidentally, the three men looked almost the same. They all had salt-and-pepper hair, styled similarly, and each one’s height and weight was nearly identical.
The last and likely the most important common denominator was that no close friends or relatives were looking for them. I finally had my aha moment. Those particular men were chosen deliberately and ahead of time, but how, and even more importantly, why? I dug deep in my mind. If nobody was looking for them, what could be the reason for that? Did they live far away from family, or were they estranged from them? Were they widowers or maybe lifelong bachelors? Were they married to their jobs, or were they wealthy playboys with a different woman on their arm and in a different city every night? Why was the first man clothed and the other two nude?
I tapped my pen as I pondered that question. I remembered airing on the news a photograph of John Doe’s shirt and a description of his pants. That meant the killers had clearly watched the broadcast and were honing their skills to always be one step ahead of us. Could the other two have been dressed for a night on the town, possibly giving away what they’d last done? Or because the killers elected to display John Doe in a public playground and park, could they be showing an ounce of dignity for the dead and also for the small children who might have been present when he was discovered?
I read over my notes, and everything held merit. I would present my thoughts when the guys returned to the bull pen and open it up for discussion.
The part about the men looking similar intrigued me, and I wondered where the killers would find such people. An elderly group maybe, or possibly people who had just lost their mates? The killers could pretend to have the same loss and befriend those men, and that would definitely lean more toward them being women.
I called Frank’s cell phone. Either they were heading back soon, or I could go lend a hand. Sitting alone in the bull pen was unproductive. He answered on the third ring.
“What’s up, buddy?”
“Have any of you seen them slinking around in the dark?”
“I’m striking out, plus it being nighttime and them wearing dark clothing isn’t going to help the cameras catch their movements.”
“How about the others? Have you talked to Henry?”
“Not in the last half hour, but Lutz gave us until two o’clock, and then it’s on to something else.”
“Okay.” I glanced at my wrist and realized it didn’t make sense to join them for less than an hour before they headed in. “I’m going to put something together for a news broadcast and run it by Lutz. The latest victim has a clean face, and I want it on the air as soon as possible. Maybe the third time is the charm and we might get a legitimate lead. I’ll talk to Lutz about searching the nationwide missing persons database again, too, since it may have been updated during the last few days.”
“Sounds good.”
I placed the receiver back on the base and rose from my chair. I would walk my sheet of paper down to Lutz’s office and let him look for himself. Everyone needed to throw out ideas on how these victimized men were connected, since the more information we had the luckier we’d get.
I rapped on Bob’s door. “Got a minute?”
He removed his reading glasses, pinched the sides of his nose, and pointed at his guest chair. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’d like you to read these thoughts I’ve jotted down. I plan to run them by the guys when they get back too. We need leads, Boss, and the more ideas to follow, the better.”
“Agreed.” He perched the glasses back on the bridge of his nose and read the few paragraphs I’d written down. “Following the common thread between the victims could be the only way to catch the perps, especially since we don’t have names to attach to the men. I like that. Check out bereavement groups, over-fifty-five clubs, that sort of thing.”
There were plenty of organizations in the Chicagoland area that catered to the over-fifty-five crowd, and we would have our work cut out for us, but the idea was a good one. It made me think the killers were targeting men who reminded them of a particular individual, maybe somebody and something in their past that they couldn’t let go of.
“Don is working with Mike on a facial shot of this morning’s vic. He already has all the vital information put together for a news broadcast, and it should be ready any minute now.”
“Good. Email it to me as soon as he sends it, and I’ll take care of contacting the news channels.” Lutz slid the paper back to me. “I just spoke with Henry. It doesn’t sound like they’re having luck seeing those two on camera.”
I grumbled. “Frank echoed the same sentiment.”
“Okay. They should be back soon, and I want everyone working on a connection these men may have had to each other. Somewhere, there’s a common thread that the killers are using to choose their prey.”