Chapter 11
The Precinct
Detectives Christian and Johns sat in the captain’s office. They were discussing Katrina’s case, trying to put all the pieces together.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” said Captain Weatherspoon. “What exactly do we know?”
Det. Christian broke down the events from the night of the fire, the discovery of the body, and everything that transpired before they arrived, before being interrupted by the captain.
“Did anyone check the back of the building?” asked Captain Weatherspoon.
“I doubt it, the officers were more concerned with getting the residents out of the building,” said det. Johns.
“So someone could have slipped pass the police by leaving out the back way?” asked the Captain.
“Yeah, it’s possible,” said Johns.
“Okay, what else do we have?” asked the Captain.
Det. Johns picked up the tale and told the captain what happened once they were on the scene.
“Roberts and Thompson interviewed the graduate students that Ms. Castillo saw on Friday night. It appears Aisha and Saadat are a couple. They went to the movies after they left the coffee shop. Adan and Maxi, Maxim, I can’t pronounce his name, anyway those two said they didn’t hear from Kim or Katrina so by 9:30 they were on their way to go clubbing.” said Det. Christian.
“Did anyone see them?” asked the Captain.
“Roberts and Thompson are trying to follow up now. All four of them are foreign exchange students. Aisha and Saadat are from the Sudan. Adan and Maxi are from Spain. I’ll let you know when we get more information on them,” said Christian.
“This perp is sick and smart,” said the captain. “He hasn’t left any clues, so far. The text message came from a burner phone. There’s no way of tracing it. The e-mail address, where Katrina's papers were sent, was stolen from a ten year old boy in Canada. Which shows he's tech savvy. He’d found the first place that Katrina was staying before we knew about it. He was even bold enough to send her flowers and drop off her laptop. But bringing her the flowers is what’s been bugging me. Do either of you think the color of the roses is strange?” asked the captain.
“I don’t get it,” said Det. Christian.
“He means that yellow roses stand for friendship. You send red roses for love,” said Det. Johns.
“So you don’t think he’s in love with her because he sent yellow roses not red?” asked Christian quizzically.
“I’m just wondering out loud about the choice in color. Typically stalkers are in love or obsessed with their prey. They stay at a distance until their urges override their common sense. They would send red roses as a sign of affection. This guy’s sending out mixed messages. His roses stand for friendship not love. I think we might be dealing with someone who is having a psychotic break from reality. He isn't doing anything the normal way a stalker would do things. He probably had the chance to snatch her from her apartment but why bring the body with him? He had another opportunity to snatch her at the hotel, but didn't take it. Yet he went to the parents’ house and ruined all of her clothing, but left everything else in the house untouched. His actions are too disjointed to make any sense of them,” said the captain.
“Could it be more than one person involved in the fantasy and maybe that’s why we have such a chaotic view of the situation. If two people are involved one could be unstable and the other more coherent and knows what he’s doing?” asked Christian.
“It’s a possibility I hadn’t considered,” said the Captain.
“If we are thinking she’s gotten herself a stalker or two, we need to comb through her life. She’s probably seen the guy before and isn’t even aware of it. She probably wouldn't have noticed someone watching her right off, but once you get her to talk about her daily activities, she’ll probably notice a face that always seems to pop up in the least place she would expect it to be,” said Johns.
“We’ll have to re-interview her and we’re going to have to do a thorough background check,” said Christian.
“I suggest you get to it,” said the Captain.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Ms. Castillo wants to know if it’s possible for her to get her laptop back? Are the tech guys finished with it?” asked Johns.
“Yeah, they didn’t find a single print on it. It was wiped clean.” said the captain. You can pick it up from the lab. Keep me posted on what’s going on.”
Detectives Johns and Christian left the captain’s office and headed down to the lab to retrieve Katrina’s laptop. Once they had the laptop in their possession they headed for their cruiser.
“Something is nagging me about this case. We’re missing something,” said Det. Johns as he got into the cruiser. “Let’s look at what the perp has done so far. He snatches Kim off the street leaving no witnesses. He tortures her before he kills her and then brings her back to Katrina’s apartment.” Det. Johns stopped walking, a light bulb suddenly went off in his head and he’s trying to piece together where he’s going with his thoughts. “What if we’re looking at this the wrong way? What if the perp is searching for something that he thinks she has? Kim was supposed to have it, but he can’t get it out of her, he tortures her in order to get it. She finally tells him who has it (Katrina). He can’t leave her alive because she’s a potential witness. So he kills her and brings her body to Katrina’s apartment. He searches the apartment looking for whatever Katrina is supposed to have. He can’t find it. He goes searching for her and she’s gone. So he torches the place to hide or get rid of what he was searching for.”
“I think you’re stretching. Why didn’t he just grab her and make her tell him where whatever he was looking for was located? He was in the apartment. He had access to her,” said Det. Christian.
“What about the neighbors? He could have been concerned that she would get away from him, or call for help. She did live in an apartment building with a bunch of elderly people,” said Det. Johns.
“But what could these two ladies have that would make someone kill for it? They’re students. By all accounts they go to school, hang out with friends and stay out of trouble. Neither one was hurting for money considering what we’ve learned about their backgrounds. So what could it be?” said Det. Christian.
“I’m just throwing some possibilities out there because right now nothings adding up,” said Det. Johns. “Right now we have too many questions and not enough answers.”