Ogrodnik Interior 2.0c (12 page)

“Riv, what can you tell me about the assumptions of the investigation? Give me everything you know about the murder and the standing theories.”

“We believe the killer, working on his own, would choose a victim and stalk her until he felt he could make a move. He hunted at night. Due to bruising on the victims, vaginal as well as on the face and arms, we can conclude he was a sizeable, strong man. He was right-handed,” Rivka closed her eyes, trying to recall exactly what their assumptions had been.

“The profilers said he was likely ostracized during his formative years because of something in the lines of a physical deformity, a character defect or even something as benign as a lisp or a stutter. He is a loner and will prefer to stay out of the limelight, away from most people, especially in groups. He is a highly intelligent man who never realized his potential in life. He likely holds a low-level job, a job that doesn’t give him the opportunity for accomplishment that he feels he is capable of. Because of the transitory location of the murders we know, he covers a lot of territory. He might be a delivery person, a cab driver or the like and probably works during the night. He is a sociopath with no regard for his fellow man.”

”What about the MO?”

“After getting his victim into a safe zone, he would use a Taser to stun and render them temporarily defenseless. He would bind their hands and wrists with nylon tie wraps and duct tape their mouths. He presumably would transport them to his lair in whatever vehicle he used, possibly a van or a truck, where he would rape them and then using his hands, break their necks using an over-rotation method. He would wipe them down, torch their pubes to destroy any transfer and then dump them.”

“How do you know he tased them?”

“Using a Taser as a stungun leaves a pair of tiny burn marks where the electrodes contact the skin. We found burn marks on all of the victims either on the back of the neck or upper shoulder area. We also found tase marks on the lower backs on victims three through nine.”

“What was your explanation for the lower back marks?” he asked.

“We believe the lower back tase marks were done during the rape. They, uh, we think he did it to enhance his experience.”

“Sick bastard,” Elliot whispered as he swiveled his chair to look across the room out the front window.

“Every murder was the same MO except for the torch on victim one and the lack of lower back Taser on the first two victims?”

“Correct. “

“What about connections? Were any of the victims connected?”

“Not directly. We found many instances when a friend of one victim turned out to be the cousin of another or two of the victims went to the same hairdresser. There were dozens of these minor connections, and we chased each of them down, and every one was a dead end. The laws of the six degrees of separation make it a certainty that coincidental connections will be present in a sampling of this size.” 

“Hence your disagreement with Amyot. Was there any analysis on the points of abduction or the dumping sites?”

“Fey. We had mathematicians create models for geographical analysis and correlation and input them into the RCMP’s super computer. Again, lots of probability and theories but nothing concrete to go on. The only pattern was the lack of pattern. “

“What did your profiler say about the reverse duration pattern of the kills?”

“They said, as I’m sure you know, the usual pattern for serial killers is to have a progressively shorter duration between the kills. This is because the killer works up the courage to commit the first murder and with each subsequent murder becomes more and more confident and usually less cautious. The profiling team had never come across a serial killer whose kill durations were progressively longer like this one. The profiler thought that the killer was either killing other victims with a different MO and thus these deaths were not being attributed to Stungun or he was satisfying his urges doing something other than murder.”

“Like what?”

“He might be killing or torturing animals, beating someone up or even something as innocuous as stealing. It could be anything to quiet his mind, or the answer could be as simple as him travelling for a living and only being in Montreal on those dates.”

Elliot leaned back low on the couch and stared vacantly at the whiteboard. Rivka knew he was processing and might be in this state for hours, so she quietly left and went downstairs to finish some laundry.

Forty minutes later, in the middle of a phone call relating her recent ordeal to Stella, Rivka heard a bellow from upstairs. “Where are you?”

 Elliot was pacing back and forth in front of the whiteboard still in deep thought.

“Well, Maven?  What have you concluded in your thought induced vacancy?”

“I think you were on the right track when you told Amyot that you should be focusing on the first murder,” he started.

“Remember, Amyot is a product of his environment. Detectives are taught a process for solving crimes of this nature, and that process is based on experience and assumptions. The assumptions their process is based on are: the killer will act according to other documented serial killer behaviors; the killer is not as smart as the police and will screw up eventually and get caught; and a serial killer is psychotic and kills on compulsion. None of those assumptions is valid in this case,” said Elliot waving his arms as if he were an umpire calling a man out at the plate. 

“The question I kept asking myself is, what is the significance of the reverse duration kill pattern? That pattern goes against all known MOs for serial killers, but those established trends are based on the typical serial killer. The ones who feel a need to kill to ‘quiet an inner voice’ or ‘to satisfy an urge,’ and those feelings will intensify until he answers the voice and acts. That is not the case in these killings. We’ve already said that the killer has no regard for human life. I believe that. Following that logic, he would not get a charge out of the kill. It would be inconsequential to him whether the victim died or not. Let me ask you this: if you had just committed a murder on impulse and knew that it would eventually be traced back to you, what would you do?”

Rivka understood the question was rhetorical and did not respond.

“I believe our killer started killing other people, with the same MO, to throw the investigation off track. His intent was to obscure the first murder and get the police to broaden their investigation. To divide and conquer, as they say. For that to work, he would have had to strike again quickly and overload the investigative process before they delved too far into the first murder. I believe that the last eight murders were decoys meant to dilute the significance of the first murder.”

“How do you explain the duration between killings getting longer?” Rivka asked.

“Think about it. He was being more careful, the police were out en-force, and the entire city was looking over their shoulders. Remember, he is extremely intelligent. He wasn’t acting on impulse. He would have carefully planned every detail, and he wouldn’t risk getting caught by being careless. As the city became more and more vigilant, he responded in like and had to be more careful in his execution. How he managed to kill nine people without getting caught when the entire city was looking for him was no small feat,” Elliot continued.

“I think your premise that he chose an intentionally random victim and then stalked her is false. There’s just too much risk in that. I think he set up a trap without knowing who it might catch so the victims weren’t intentionally random; they were naturally random, just as you might expect. “

“Set up a trap? How?”

“Impossible to say at this time, but I’m imagining a scenario where the victims were lured and willingly walked into a building or got into a vehicle that turned out to be his trap. Perhaps he is an engaging con man or someone who can naturally trigger a pity response. For instance, it wouldn’t be difficult to picture how a man in a wheelchair struggling to get into a doorway would attract help from a passerby.”

Elliot picked up the whiteboard eraser and held it over the column detailing the victim dump sites. “Based on this theory, we can surmise that the dump sites were intentionally random; therefore, we will discount them.” And with that, he erased the dump site column.

“If we look at the last known location of the victims, using the same logic, these sites are also intentionally random, except for the first victim. Our theory states that the first victim was murdered on impulse, and the killer considered that to be significant.” With that, Elliot erased all but the first victim on the last known location column.

“Our theory also states that the victims were totally random, so we can erase the age of the victim column as well as disregard any connections there may have been between them. We’ve already explained the staggered dates of the killings, let me take those two columns off the board.”

The board now consisted of one line, the first victim’s name, the date of her murder and her last known location. “This narrows our search a bit,” he said as he put down the eraser.

“Start with the victim. Who was she, where did she work, go to school, the bars she frequented, the grocery store she frequented, taxi cabs she called? We also need to look at the last known destination. Why was she there, how often did she go there, how did she get there, was she meeting someone, who knew she was going? “

“I can tell you that the first victim was Rhonda Carling. Thirty-eight years old, married, no children. She did not work; her husband owns a recycling facility in East Montreal. In support of your theory, we found no connections to the other victims. They were moderately wealthy. We talked to her husband and her friends, and the marriage seemed solid. Her cell phone or email account didn’t yield any clues. She spent most of her days sleeping in, watching TV, visiting the spa, shopping, and cooking. There was no evidence of a boyfriend or jilted lover,“ Rivka recited by memory.

“Tell me about the actual events surrounding the murder. How was she found, where was she going, how did she get there?”

“The husband had not reported her missing, although he had been looking for her, phoning friends.”

“What was she like?”

“She wore the pants in that relationship, but the husband seemed to prefer it that way. It was a big joke around the office.”

“His staff knew her? “

“Yeah, she would stop in a few times a week to pester the husband and make a nuisance of herself. The consensus was that when she wasn’t flirting and showing off her silicone implants, she could be a bossy bitch.”

“What about enemies? “

“None that we found out about. We talked to the spa, the exercise club, her favorite shopping haunts and her neighbors. Same story. She liked to play the spoiled brat but was harmless and didn’t seem to have any enemies.”

“Did you get to meet all the neighbors?”

“I don’t think so. There were a few who were out of town, and once the other murders started piling up, I doubt if they were ever contacted again.”

“Did you check to see if she had any work done on the house recently or maybe a phone or cable repairman had been in the house shortly before the attack?”

“None that the husband knew of.”

“Did you interview everyone at the husband's work?”

“We talked to everyone who worked in the office. There are dozens of drivers and still more staff who work exclusively at the separation and composting sites that we did not interview. “

“Riv, we’re not going to get anything done tonight. You get some sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning. Are you okay alone tonight, or do you want me to crash here?”

“Don’t worry about us; we’ll be fine.”

“Us?”

“Yeah, me and Smith and Wesson,” Rivka replied as she patted her hip.

Elliot was encouraged to hear some of the old attitude creeping back into Rivka’s voice.

“Can you follow up with Stella and find out more about Eastern Security? Why was Kulas there? If Kulas worked for them, I’d like to know more about the company. It would be interesting to know if Eastern also provides the security at Biovonix.”

He was reluctant to task Rivka so soon after her ordeal but figured that giving her something to occupy her thoughts would be beneficial.

Elliot was thinking about Anne on the drive home, and before he knew it found himself parked in front of Dad’s house. He had not consciously intended to visit Anne, but their meeting on the deck yesterday and the memory of their parting squeeze had been distracting him all day. Not one to leave things hanging, he needed to find out where they stood.

He didn’t even bother going upstairs and headed straight for the in-law suite doorbell.

“Evening, Anne,” he said as she answered the door.

“Elliot, so good to see you. What can I do for you?” Anne said dressed in her finest housework tee and sweats.

“This is awkward, but I enjoyed our visit yesterday and wanted to know if you’d be interested in coming upstairs for a drink.”

Anne hesitated as she looked down at herself.

Elliot read the situation, and before she could say anything he added: “I think you look great just the way you are.”

“Well then, if you don’t mind the charwoman look, then why don’t you come in? I just put the kettle on.“

“A tea would be nice,” he lied.

“Have a seat on the couch, and I’ll be right with you.”

Elliot found himself appreciating the way that her body moved underneath the loose fitting t-shirt as she turned the corner into the kitchen.

She brought in the tea service and sat beside Elliot on the couch. As it turned out, Anne was a skilled conversationalist and managed to steer the conversation around most of the awkward silences. She had lots to say and was well versed in just about every area of current events. Elliot appreciated that the conversation never veered toward the case. He could see why his father had enjoyed her visits.