“How about why these suicides have you so bothered.”
She shrugged. “I think everybody here already knows by now. But we found with David, the second of three suicides that I’m looking into, that he received an email with a picture of his wife with a bullet through her forehead. ‘Do it… or else,’ was the message.”
“And are we sure that it didn’t have anything to do with the rest of his life?”
“No, I’m not sure of anything at this point. Again, Forensics has his laptop, although I am supposed to go collect it, so I can return it to the wife.”
“Did they tell you what they found?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing. The coroner did confirm that David was perfectly healthy, wasn’t struggling with a major illness, and he wasn’t on drugs. There didn’t appear to be any alcohol abuse, and, according to his wife, he was perfectly healthy and happy. Yet his laptop shows he was upset that he could not father children.”
“True, since he belonged to a suicide chat room,” Rodney said.
Owen agreed, nodding his head. “So, nothing about him was perfectly healthy and happy then.”
“And that’s where it becomes… difficult.” She quickly explained the little bit that they knew.
“And Simon?”
She looked at Colby with a flat look. “What about him?”
He raised an eyebrow and said, “Spill.”
She growled. “It’s nothing.”
“Come on. It’s got to be something.”
“Nothing we can prove.”
“No, but he was also instrumental in that pedophile case.”
“The case with the kids, yes,” she said, with a nod. “But that doesn’t mean it will happen that way again.”
Colby crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot on the floor, waiting. She just glared back at him.
“You spill it, or I will,” Rodney said at her side. She gasped at him. He shook his head. “Sorry, but it’s important, and the team needs to know.”
“Fine,” she snapped, then explained what Simon had said today.
“Seriously?” Colby said, as he stared at her.
She nodded. “Yes, but we don’t know if the voice in his head is somebody pushing the victim to jump or if it’s the victim’s own subconscious, and Simon’s tapping into their emotions. But, yes, he saw himself standing on the bridge, overlooking the river, all from the perspective of a jumper. And, when we did a check of the cameras just now”—she pointed at Rodney and herself—“we did see somebody there but not close enough to identify him or her in any way.”
“So then,” Rodney added, when she fell silent, “we looked at the videos again, trying to see if somebody may have been close enough to watch.”
Colby turned his sharp gaze on him. “Watch? As if to see if his actions netted the result he was after?”
Rodney nodded. “Exactly. And Reese and Andy are still haunting the chat rooms and have had several people talk to him, both good and bad, on the suicide loops.” Rodney pointed to Andy.
Andy nodded. “It always amazes me. One guy has these mocking comments all the time. Then another one laughs it off.”
“Yet you can’t take them at face value,” Colby said. “People hide who they really are on the internet all the time.”
Kate immediately stepped in. “Agreed, and, at the same time, you also can’t disregard all the people encouraging you to get help and to be focused and to find something positive in your life to make it all worthwhile.” She paused. “Because, as you well know, that can cover a multitude of sins.”
Colby nodded. “Forensics hasn’t had any luck yet?”
“They are still working on it, as they can,” Kate said, “around the other cases, of course.”