Disclaimer: twilight isn't mine. No copyright infringement intended.
Chapter Ten: Criminal Profiling
My eyes skimmed over the black and white print in search of something, anything that could help, or words and writing that seems useful. After three or four hours of the task, the words were slowly turning to nothing more than letters on a page. With my eyes straining and the tips of my already battered fingers becoming raw and blackened from ink. I turned the page to the next article, a useless ad for some dog groomers with a strange name had a special offer and a small message from the police about the murders.
It hadn't been long before our plan was formed. Mike had left Skips and returned with every article and newspaper piece he could find on the Lost Springs victims.
Alissa said we need to find the murderers MO, the modus operandi. She said it means the way one person operates or works, in a murder case it means how the victim was killed. 'Jack the Ripper would kill prostitutes in the White Chapel area by slitting open their necks. It's all about their methods, the places they killed, how they did it and the reason they chose their victims.' She had said, as we began to look through the papers.
The waitress shuffled over to our table assisting Mike with the drinks. Stark dyed white hair pulled up to the side in a scruffy braid, she was chewing on something in large and unnecessary motions of her mouth. She surveyed the table, a bunch of kids surrounded by newspaper in the far corner of the diner probably looked quite strange. She placed a sandwich in front of Chris, who dug in eagerly, and Mike handed a coffee to Ryan, himself and I, then a tea in front of Alissa.
I took a sip not bothering to add sugar or milk, the bitter taste warmed my body and I gripped the cup to my body. Alissa shook a packet of sugar then added it to the tea, then stirred the liquid. She repeated this several times, stirring in the sugar and then adding milk till the tea became frothy. The waitress stood over looking, chewing on the gum, before turning to Ryan.
She stared at him with wide-heavily-painted-eyes, "Your the Jones kid, aint ya'?" She asked. Ryan shied away like a child would from a stranger; he slid a little closer to Alissa then silently nodded. The waitress smiled in a remorseful way, "I hope they find ya' sister."
Ryan didn't seem too bothered by the sympathy. He just slunk down low in his seat and glared at the cup of coffee in front of him. His eyes watched carefully as the steam billowed upwards then disappeared in the air, and then starting again on a new train of the fog. He suddenly seemed younger, not because he was younger than us but because without a smile his face was just smoothed out. Cheeks flat and sharp because no muscles were pulling the skin into a grin. He looked empty, like someone had taken Ryan and hallowed him out then left his skin behind. Ryan wasn't Ryan when he wasn't smiling.
I think even Chris noticed it and she tried to make him laugh earlier by cracking jokes but it didn't seem to work so we just let him be.
A small plop broke the silence as a sugar cube was dropped into Alissa's tea. I looked over at Chris as she highlighted a small section on Spencer. The picture to the side showed him with several other kids, all in sports kits, at some competition. Each of them were smiling, Chris circled the picture.
"Did you know that Spencer was on the football team?" Christine asked focusing a little more on the picture.
Alissa looked up, Christine slid the paper over to her and she took it quickly. A long, silent glance over the article and picture before scribbling a note on the side. Her messy script labeled 'Facts' about the victims. Marie's short temper, Edward's popularity and now I guess Spencer partaking in school sports. According to Alissa, all the victims needed to have something, anything, in common. It was unlikely that the killer would be acting at random, he/she/or it needed a reason. Although she didn't seem too impressed when Mike so cleverly made the first connection, not all the victims were born in Lost Springs or even from here.
So we can rule out a grudge against the town.
Alissa tapped her pencil on the wooded table, she said, "It's definitely a man."
Mike tossed his paper to the side into the pile of rejects. He had cut out several small articles, the warnings from the police and a small message from the tourist kids families. "What do you mean, 'It's definitely a man'?"
She looked up at Mike, took a sip of tea then replied, "Well Spencer was pretty well built, and as Christine said he played football. Good enough to make the team so probably takes quite a bit to get him down. Maybe a few strikes from a weapon or some heavy punches from someone strong." My gaze flickered from Alissa to the tea, lips moving then a few small stirs of a dirty tea spoon.
Another sip.
"The police released information saying there was no indication of weapons. No knife marks or any visible stab wounds, no bruises, no signs of a struggle but his neck had been broken and he lost a lot of blood. Yet no exit wounds or stab marks." said Alissa.
"So?"
"So, this person has must have been strong enough to take down a healthy teenage boy with nothing but bare hands. Strong enough to break his neck too which is why I think it's a man. Not to be sexist or anything I'm just going with an obvious assumption. It would need to be a pretty large built woman to take down some of the victims. Or an average man." My mind went back to the last time I saw Edward. Outside the computer lab Ted Stone had managed to knock him over but Ted was pretty big. Pretty strong.
"Besides the shadow we saw earlier has already given a pretty good picture of the killer. Blonde or light coloured hair, tall, male. Unless he has friends doing the dirty work we pretty much know what to look out for." Alissa paused and added a spoonful of sugar. "Also, this person must have some extensive medical knowledge. He managed to drain a lot of Spencer's blood but didn't leave a mark. I don't even know if that's possible. This probably happened away from the crime scene as there was no blood on the ground. Not a drop."
I picked another news paper from the pile, it was already opened on the page about the victims, a photograph of Marie and Ryan not from long ago. The siblings were both seated in some picnic area, both dark haired and smiling at the camera but still opposite in so many ways. Marie was dressed up in bland colours like a faded image with a fake smirk plastered on her pale face. Ryan, however, was genuinely happy. Hair slicked down like normal and a jacket whiter than something of a commercial for stain remover. A small caption the Siblings read;
Latest Lost Springs Victim: Marie Jones (left) and younger brother Ryan Jones (right) who was present when Marie disappeared.
I took the pen from the table and circled the paper and a small article next to it; a page on the tourist kids, and a number of who to contact if you have any information. It seemed small in comparison to the others work but at the end of the day it was all the same information just repeated, stretched and exaggerated even further from what the original was. Newspaper weren't a good source in a murder investigation but it's the best that a bunch of kids could get a hold of.
"Okay," Chris leaned over the table making it shake, Mike reached to still someone's cup that looked ready to fall. "So we, we being a bunch of teenagers and Ryan, are looking for some lanky bastard with some strange grudge against the world and vast knowledge in medical science who's strong enough to take down a footballer?"
Alissa nodded, "Sounds about right."
"well, that sounds fucked up." Chris said.
I'm not sure how long after that we stayed at skips. It was past the time when the rush of teenagers decided to leave, past the time families had gone home and the place was slowly emptying itself out. Some people were still eating, a guy who was typing on laptop (like the guys you see in starbucks who purposely wants you to see them type and think they're smart) and an elderly couple drinking tea together on the opposite side.
Eventually Mikes mom came to pick him up and Christine left in fear of missing another meal. I was stuck here until my dad got off work and Alissa said she wasn't done with research. Ryan would probably leave when Alissa did but that doesn't seem to be anytime soon.
Ryan began to look through the remaining news papers. He does the job quicker than we did spending only a few minutes on each paper before tossing it aside with the other rejects.
Alissa makes a few more notes but none of them seem useful. Just repetition of the newspapers little hunches and lies, I'm starting to think that the work done today was just useless and a waste of everybody's time. We could have been out there near the crime scene doing the nitty gritty stuff you see the cops doing on CSI but the police wouldn't let anyone in.
They had all the clues, the real facts and all the high tech equipment and detectives, we had the local newspapers that left stains on your hands, a witness with a shredded mind and some shitty instant coffee.
I lean back in my seat. My head resting against the wall and hands folded into each other in my lap. I can still see several flecks of dirt and blood trapped under the nail bed and the skin around the edges is split and cracked in several places from the cold. I clench my hand into a fist, knuckles turn to a ghostly white, and then I curled my hand into a claw. The arteries or veins, I've never had much knowledge of biology so I'm just guessing, rise up slightly from the pressure and the bones raise the skin in a skeleton like way.
Out of boredom I begin to scrape out the dirt and blood from under the nail of my index finger. Flicking out small bits of earth onto the material of my jeans. I raise my hand to study my work, split skin, cracked and chipped nails, but no dirt under the nail bed anymore. I press my hand to my mouth and bite down hard on the nail.
A nervous habit that won't die no matter how grim and gross my nails become. A silent comfort.