“Exactly.”
“Now, why the second woman in the intersection with the same projectile from an angle behind her?”
“Right.” Kate frowned. “So those are connected. But maybe the killer saw Candy at the first crime scene with Sally and picked out Candy randomly.”
“Which then links Brandon the bully, as Candy was part of his crew.”
“And I really like that idea too,” she said.
“Rich assholes will never be my favorite topic, so I like him as the killer.”
“But this one has a lot of lawyer power, so we need to make sure that we have everything locked up tight. Therefore, they can’t pull a random string and unravel the whole thing.”
“And I get that.” Simon shook his head. “Except for the projectiles, I would say it was just another random bike accident.”
“Exactly, but it’s the projectiles that make the bike accidents happen.”
He stopped, turned around, looked at her. “And do you think that’s what he’s trying to do?”
“The thing is, I don’t know. We’re really struggling on the whole motive here for Brandon. Which is part of the problem anyway. For bullies, it’s just because they can. Yet we have five annual bike accidents at or near that one intersection.”
“It sounds like it all surrounds that traffic pattern somehow.”
“And who kills over that?” she asked, with a wry look.
“Someone who lost a loved one there. Maybe that Brandon kid is just piggybacking on that.” Simon blinked several times, as he thought about it. “That’s just bizarre.”
“Yeah, which part?” she asked, followed by a short laugh. “When you think about it, so much of this just doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, but if it’s to make it look like a traffic accident, then you have to look back at the histories of all these other ones.”
“Which is what I’ve been doing.” She turned and looked at him. “I’m not exactly sitting around doing nothing.”
“Whoa, believe me. I know that you’re working your ass off on this. I just find it fascinating that, in this case, the traffic pattern matters.”
“But it’ll only matter because somebody is legitimately affected somehow by the traffic pattern.”
He nodded. “So somebody connected to the deaths? The first one you dug up from ten years ago?”
“That was my thought, but, so far, we haven’t found anything. But, like I said, I’ve still got a dozen family members and friends of the prior victims to connect with. I’ve left an incredible number of messages. Two are out of country, and I don’t know about some of the others. We’ve got two who are missing persons, but the family of one said that the husband of one of the female victims just up and disappeared. They don’t know where that husband is, but, because he was overwhelmed from the shock of what happened to his wife, they think he basically took a step back out of life—or committed suicide. And you know we have an awful lot of suicides across the country and a not very easily updatable database to try to track them down with.”
“Or he’s gone underground, and he’s trying to get revenge.”
She stopped cold, looked at him. “That’s another option. It just depends on who this person is. Of course, in this case, I do have a name, but names can be changed, and people don’t necessarily use their real names. I’ve asked for credit card records, phone records, anything and everything, and the family has given me any known forwarding addresses. They even asked that, if I get in touch with him, to let them know so they can reach out as well. They said they all had a hard time back then, and it would have been nice if they could have stayed in touch to support each other, but he was not in great shape.”
“Oh, I like him for it now. Because people who are strong and emotional like that make all kinds of decisions, like finding a way to get back at the world.”
“It was an accident, according to the records.”
“An accident?”
“Yes, but also it was a young driver, and the roads were bad. It was winter, and, for whatever reason, his wife had decided to go cycling, figuring that, by the end of the day, since this is Vancouver, not like it’s up north, the snow would be gone, and she’d be clear to go do her stuff. She was a fanatical cyclist. He didn’t want her to go, and that’s part of the reason why he’s had so much trouble dealing with the loss because they had a fight on her way out the door.”
“Oh, crap, and that changes the motivation then too, and it could just be that he’s feeling guilty.”
“Exactly. So, none of this is pulling together as a viable suspect.”
“I still like him.”