"It's just a ridiculous thing to do. Why would you call your restaurant 'The Crazy Crab' when you're allergic to crab? Makes no sense!"
From the look on Camille Bordey's face it wasn't the first time Richard Poole mentioned that. Nor the second and probably not even the third.
"So you've been telling us..." She pauses when she realises there is no 'us' anymore. Well, not so much in the way of the team. Where she could always push Fidel or Dwayne forward to listen to Richard Poole's odd and often, at the time, irrelevant rantings.
Mostly those rantings turned out to be very relevant later on at the case, but right now? She wished she could put Fidel or Dwayne on the 'listening to the 'crazy crab naming' rant.
"Maybe he was eccentric," she sighs, shrugging her shoulders as they look at the white-board with new clues.
"Pffft," the former Chief of the St. Marie scoffs, "Eccentric people are just strange. They just call themselves eccentric so they can act out and, often times, be quite childish about it."
Camille gives him a sideway glance, the corners of her lips quirking upwards as she oh so innocently remarks. "Like... people who wear suits and ties in the tropical heat of the Caribbean? That sort of eccentric people?" She nods sagely. "I see what you mean."
The look he aims at her is nothing short of a scowl and most definitely a glare. "Can we focus here, Camille? We have a job to do!"
She doesn't even hide her laughter as he holds up her hands. "Okay, okay. So, he's allergic to crab. So much that he didn't even serve it at his place."
He nods, crossing his arms and pursing his lips. "So the murder wasn't premeditated. There is nothing easier than slipping some form of crab into the food while working in a restaurant. " he taps at the white-board with his marker.
"And then there is strange pattern of the stab-wounds on the chest. Anything about that?" Automatically he still finds himself turning to Fidel, who of course cannot hear him. "Right... Uhm..."
As both Fidel and Dwayne are busy bouncing off idea's from each other, they seem distracted enough. Making use of the breeze fluttering through the station, Camille casually flips through the file. "Nothing yet, Sir. No one seems to know what they mean."
Poole crouches down and narrows his green eyes at the photo's of the victim's chest. The stab-wounds are all in a distinct patter. He tilts his head to the side, then even more and then reaches out to turn the photo upside down. "Morse code. Look. That is why they used different knives. A larger and smaller ones."
Camille crouches down next to him and blinks. "It's upside down, so the killer was behind him when they stabbed him?" She frowns and shakes her head. "No one can stab that accurate without seeing their work."
Richard points at a stab wound that seems more ragged than the others. Two, in fact. "I think these were what killed him. The others were left to convey a message."
He looks at the photo's again to look where the knife block was located. "The knives were behind the cook. So the killer grabbed the knives, knelt down by the head and then stabbed the morse code in it. How is your morse code, Camille? Mine's very rusty and I only see a E and an R."
Camille gives him a sheepish look. "I only know SOS, Sir. We can probably find something on the Internet."
Richard holds up a hand. "Dwayne being the exuberant fisher that he is, and not just of the female persuasion but the actual scale sort, would know morse code, wouldn't he?"
Camille shrugs and then concedes to that. "Probably, yeah. Why?"
"Well, we can't do all the work," he points out, wondering how to nudge Dwayne, or if needed, Fidel to the morse code on the victims chest. "If they figure out what it says, we're all a step forward."
Eyes narrowing thoughtfully, Camille looks from the photo's of the man's chest to Dwayne's desk. When the man gets up to walk to the balcony, leaning on the rail, she steps over to his desk. With a few clicks she finds a site on morse code. Printing out the photo, she puts it on the keyboard.
"Subtle," Richard remarks dryly. "You know, they're going to be onto us sooner or later if we keep this up."
Camille gives him a wry smile, not voicing the fact that maybe, just maybe... that's what she wants. But for now, all they an do is wait and see if Dwayne takes the bait and figures out what the morse code wounds say.
Meanwhile she joins Richard as he stares at the white-board in the hopes to find more clues.
