By the time she walked into the bullpen, it was buzzing already. She looked around in astonishment and caught Rodney coming toward her. “What did I miss?”
“Dr. Smidge stayed on and pulled an all-nighter. He’s quite pissed at us,” he noted, with half a smile.
She nodded. “Good, and what did he say?”
“Same killer as far as he’s concerned.”
She nodded slowly. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“What is different does support our other theory.”
She looked at him. “We have theories?”
He laughed. “Well, yeah, we do. You brought it up last night.”
“What was that?” she asked, still trying to catch up mentally with whatever was happening.
“The woman died quickly, and most of the injuries were administered after death.”
She stopped and stared. “So that’s why he grabbed a third victim in such a short time frame.”
He nodded. “Simon was right. It looks like your victim from last night died too quickly to suit this guy. So our serial killer turned around, snatched somebody else—Cherry, we figure—and probably went easier on her torture but then got worse on her over time.”
“Right, he didn’t lose his temper, didn’t kill her as quickly as the others, just to keep her alive longer.” Kate sighed. “And he has another one already, our missing person Chelice, to focus all that rage on.”
Rodney nodded. “Smidge confirms our DB last night has been dead longer than a week probably, and his estimate is ten to fourteen days.”
“Wow,” she replied. “So we found them out of order. This latest one did come before Cherry, just that we found Cherry earlier, and now we have a whole new set of circumstances to go by.”
“We’ve also ID’d last night’s victim,” he added.
“Wow, that was fast.”
“Breast implants,” he noted. “We just got the ID a few minutes ago. Already updated the whiteboard.”
“Okay, so this is what happens when I actually go home and sleep.”
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “But that’s all right. Remember? We’re part of a team.”
She smiled, realizing that he was right. It wasn’t all on her shoulders to solve. This was for everybody to pitch in and to do what they could to help. And, for once, she was finally seeing the benefit of that. And maybe that was her fault. She was a little bit of a lone ranger when it came to working and had a lot to learn when it came to teamwork. But she was willing, and now, after seeing how much they’d accomplished already this morning, she was more than delighted. “Do we have any updates on the other DNA?”
“Not yet,” Rodney stated, “but I put the reminder call in, and they told me that it should be later today.”
“That will be interesting too. Any DNA on this victim?”
“Forensics hasn’t got back to us yet, but she’s been clean so far, per Smidge.”
“Yeah, and I wonder when that started.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, all kinds of DNA were found on the first victim, the kid’s sister.”
Rodney nodded. “But that was also because it was done in a home.”
“And that’s another difference here,” she added. “This location, the church window, it matters. My questions are, why and what can we do to learn of the location of the others?”
At that, Lilliana came in, a cup of coffee in her hand. “There you are,” she greeted Kate. “Late night, huh?”