XVII
Meanwhile, Jordan decided to start her day early. Not only the storm had left her sleepless, but also her fight with Woody the previous day had jarred her into a new frame of thinking. She was determined to rid him of his parasite as soon as humanly possible. Her passion for solving mysteries and her feelings for Woody gave her the determination and fire she needed.
She called up Detective Matt Seely, who, with Woody, was the top man on the case, and the one bearing the majority of the workload.
"Jordan, it's like really early, do you think—"
"I'm sorry what's the time? Nine? In the morning? Get up, and meet me at the warehouse in Boston Harbor. One hour."
She hung up her cell phone. She hated being the boss; it made her sound more obstinate than she usually is. However, little did he know, she had been there for three hours already, combing over every detail she may have passed the three other times she had investigated the area. She would keep returning until they solved the case.
"The sooner we catch this guy, the sooner that leach can go home," she said to herself.
She was looking over the room of the first Jane Doe. At the morgue, she still had Bug and Nigel looking over missing persons' reports and other ID checks to reveal the identities of the two unlucky ladies in the cold room. Lily was even working harder than ever, trying to match families to them.
"OK, Jordan, what's going on?" Matt asked, entering the room with a coffee in his cold hand. "Couldn't you have called Woody on the case? Did you do know that this would have been my first day off in three weeks?"
"Well, it'll look good on your pay-cheque then, working over time always is, you know. To serve and protect."
"Sadly, I'm a salary man," He sighed, "Anything new?"
"No, but there has to be something."
He cocked his eyebrows, "You called me out of bed to keep you company while you search for something that isn't there?"
Jordan scowled at him. "Do you think you could help me out?"
"You're not going to reenact the scenes are you?" He asked skeptically.
"Well I can't do it alone, you're going to help me," she faced him.
Matt rolled his eyes, "I heard you were crazy, and I was hoping I would never have to actually experience it first hand," he set his coffee down on a nearby table and pretended to aim his 'gun' at Jordan, who had positioned herself where she expected the first victim to fall.
In her minds eye, the room changed. It was dark, red light filtering in from the hallway. Imaginary men gathered around her gloating over the way she looked. However, she had not been kidnapped; perhaps she had enjoyed the attention of being a trophy girl. If the room, covered in her matching genetic signature, had been a prison, she had enjoyed it. There were no signs of escape, no signs of a struggle of any kind. Matt, in the guise of a ruthless killer, took out his gun; at this moment, screaming began, "Boom," he shot once aiming directly for the heart. He had to be an expert shooter to have such careful aim. Jordan lay naked, an expression of relaxed unbelief upon her face as blood poured down her body from her left breast.
Silently they went to the next room, Matt, thinking, as the killer would have, his next target, Jane Doe 1124.
In this room, a struggle may have ensued; her relationship with her killer was quite different from that of his previous victim. She had heard the gunshots in the room next door and was standing, perhaps in a defensive form, bearing all, when he entered. Jordan assumed that she had been close enough to her killer to scratch him before, "Boom, boom," he had shot her twice in the heart. She fell onto her face.
"I like how you look dead when you do that," Matt commented sarcastically.
Jordan continued to the next room. This room was different from the other two. It was a cold and sterile environment. Unlike the other two, which, Jordan deduced, seemed to have been the other women's homes for longer than one night.
"OK, so she's drugged and on the bed. She can't fight back, because the drugs that she's on are overpowering. He slips her a new pill. However, because she's on drugs to begin with, her pupils aren't dilated and she appears dead. Why would he kill the other two and not kill her?" Jordan questioned.
"Well for one, there is no forensic evidence tying the murders to the same person who drugged Emma. The only DNA evidence we have is that the same man was in two of the rooms, 1124's and Emma's. The left footprint is an average male size matching a boot that's used in work and casual situations and sold at millions of places in North America. We can't put the same killer in the first room because although the bullets are the same, the gun could have been handed off." Matt said, "as well, perhaps he didn't want to kill Emma because he held her in higher regard than the other two women. Perhaps he saw something in her that prevented him from actually doing the deed." Leaving the room and turning left, still following the supposed path of the killer.
"His trail pretty much ends there." Jordan followed him, "The blood may have dried on his shoe, or he wiped it off…" She said. Matt removed a plastic bag from his jacket and bent down. Light from the glass warehouse windows shone toward a dark corner, a piece of evidence revealed; a white cloth apparently smeared in blood. Without touching it, Matt put it into the bag and handed it to Jordan. "We'll be getting some DNA from this."
"Hopefully we'll be getting more than that today," Matt said, "it seems that the hours we've put in today were for a good reason." He gestured outside. Near the dock, a man stood, looking toward the building, however unaware of Jordan and Matt's presence. He pulled something out of his jacket.
"Is that a gun?" Exclaimed Jordan her eyes adjusting to the bright outdoor light. She turned to Matt, but he was already gone. She heard his steps fly down the metal steps, two at a time. She chased after him hoping finally to catch the bastard and free Woody.