Chapter Seven - Investigation
Detective Benson had to admit, when Dawn Summers decided to work. She really worked. After setting up her computer and briefly looking through the case file she pulled out a portable scanner. She then proceeded to scan the pictures of the markings on each of the victims into her computer. She then started typing away. Benson could see two windows up on her screen. One had the markings on it. The second was the active screen Dawn was working with. Benson didn't understand anything that she was typing.
After a few minutes Dawn finally leaned back in her chair nodded her head.
"Ok the search programs are running," she said.
"And this will match up the language?" Benson asked.
"I doubt we'll be that lucky," Dawn replied. "Do you have any idea how many written languages were used in Europe during the first millennium?"
"No," Benson said. "Why does that matter? I thought the program just matched the letters up to language and translated."
Dawn smirked. "If it was that easy, all those internet translation programs would return perfect results. At best this will give us the family of languages that we're working with. From there the real work begins."
"I still don't understand why the program can't just translate directly," Benson said.
"Consider it like this," Dawn began to explain. "European languages share a lot of common letters. But the sound behind those letters is different depending on the language you're using. So just identifying a letter is not enough. You have to know where it's being used. The context. That tells you which sound to use. Show the letter A to people living in three different countries without any context and you'll hear three different sounds. Make sense."
"I guess so," Benson replied.
"That same thing is true with language," Dawn continued. "I live in London. They speak English there. But it's not the same English we speak here. Torch for flashlight, Football for Soccer, even within the same language meaning can shift depending on region and usage."
"So what you're saying is this program will probably be able to identify the words but that won't necessarily tell us what they mean," Benson said.
"Exactly," Dawn replied. "At best we might get several different meanings. Or translations. We're going to have to use context to figure out which meaning is correct. Most likely what we're going to get is an identification of the family of languages with potentially dozens of translations."
"So how do we narrow it down?"
"That's where I'm going to need your help," Dawn replied. "The killer appears to be following a ritual pattern. He bleeds the victim. A common sacrificial method. He marks the bodies. Another common element in sacrifices. The time of the first death was during a full moon. A very common time for a sacrifice. What time of day did the victims die?"
"According to the ME's reports all three victims died around one AM."
"The thirteenth hour," Dawn nodded her head.
"Excuse me."
"The thirteenth hour," Dawn explained. "Sometimes called the 'witching hour.' A lot of occult rituals from Europe are done at one AM because that's believed to be a time of maximum power."
"So you think our killer is some kind of occultist?" Benson said.
"No. Like I said, some of the elements correspond to ritual sacrifices. But there are a few very big deviations."
"Like what?" Benson was fascinated by Dawn's knowledge. She was analyzing the case like a profiler. Looking for common elements. She did seem fixated on the ritual and occult aspects though. She supposed it made sense if she was involved in a group that monitored cults.
"Well for one, the killer defiles the sacrifice before killing them," Dawn said. "That's usually a big no no. Most rituals demand a pure sacrifice."
"Like virgin sacrifices."
"Yep. So-called Satanic rituals might defile the body after death. But it's extremely rare to defile the body before hand. Impure sacrifices tend to annoy whatever deity the sacrifice is being made to."
"Anything else."
"Timing is also important," Dawn said. "The first murder was on the night of a full moon. If he was following a ritual pattern, then the next murder should have been done on a full moon as well. He didn't do that. What all this tells me is that our killer is not a true practitioner."
"So we're dealing with somebody who has a limited knowledge of the occult," Benson nodded her head. "And he seems to be taking that knowledge and applying it to the murders."
"I'd say he came across some ritual that promises power, wealth, the usual stuff and decided to give it a try. He's almost certainly not working off an original text. Anybody with that knowledge would not make these kinds of mistakes. Most likely he's working off a bad translation. He's a dabbler."
"I'll tell Dr. Wong," Benson said. "He can add that to the profile."
It was getting late. The sun had already set and they had finally reached the site where Emily Gaston's body had been found. Munch was watching Buffy do the same thing she had done at each of the other two sites. Despite not having looked at the crime scene photos, she walked straight to the spot where the body had been found.
"What direction was the body facing in when she was found?" Buffy asked.
Tutuola thought back for a second. "Her head was pointed that way," he pointed towards the alley wall. Munch remembered that the body had been at about a thirty degree to the wall.
Buffy nodded her head.
"What do you see?" Munch asked.
"He picked the locations to dump the bodies before the murders," she replied. "He's definitely following some kind of pattern."
"How can you be so sure?" Munch asked.
"Mrs. Charney's body was pointing to where you found the second body," she answered. "His body was pointing in this direction."
"Damn," Tutuola said. "How did we miss that?"
"We think of body position in terms of what's around it," Munch said. "We don't think in relation to the other bodies," Munch looked at Buffy. "How did you see it? We've been backtracking through New York streets all night."
"I've got a really good sense of direction," she answered. "Do we know how Emily's body got here?"
"We figure our perp pulled up the curb at there," Tutuola waved in the direction of alley's entrance. "And he dumped the body here."
Buffy shook her head. "He came in from that way," she pointed to the other end of the alley.
"What makes you say that?" Tutuola said.
"Follow me and I'll show you," she started walking to other end of the alley. Tutuola noticed how she seemed perfectly comfortable moving in the dark. Her head was moving, like she was constantly scanning everything around her. And she avoided obstacles like they weren't even there. When they reached the far end she nodded and pointed to a canopy covering the storefront next to the alley's entrance. It stretched out into the street.
"See, he could pull up here with almost no chance of being seen. There's no cover on the other side. Then he the moves the body down the alley. It's a longer walk, but less risk," Buffy said. "Same is true at the other places. Each one had a way in that offered maximum cover. He planned these murders in advance. I'd say he cased this place and the others a couple of times before hand." She turned to look at both detectives. "He's following a plan and I'm certain he's already picked his next victim."
Munch could see why Captain Freeman was impressed with her. She already spotted things they'd missed. He was confident they would have spotted them after a couple of more victims turned up. But that would have been too late. He was also certain she was right. Their killer had already picked his next victim.
Munch was starting to get impressed himself. Now he just had to figure out how a this young woman could gain so much experience tracking killers that she could impress cops with decades on the job.
