Rune Alignment
Chapter 44.
"Do you mean like with a tattoo?" asked Huang.
Bobby hesitated, he didn't want to reveal too much too early. His faith in the other three had been shaken; it killed him to think he couldn't trust them, but he knew he couldn't, not anymore.
Bobby swallowed and, using only his right hand, said, "Would, would this guy cut her, burn her . . . like a brand of some sort? Leave some sort of permanent mark, to identify her as his property, perhaps?"
Huang thought a minute, "It's entirely possible and more than probable that he would mark her as his property. But the kind of infliction you describe would be a one time thing, wouldn't it? These kinds of deviants continue to inflict pain over time."
Bobby thought and said, almost to himself, "He might do it over time. If what he was inflicting was elaborate."
"Get this woman cooled down! Jesus, who was watching her temp?" the nurse exploded as Gleason continued to convulse in her fever.
Someone slapped a temperature tape across her forehead and plugged the end into the digital stat board on the pole attached to her bed. Others scrambled and hauled in three, four-foot long flexible plastic cylinders filled with cooling fluid.
"Ready? Roll her, let's go!" Two nurses pulled Gleason up onto her right side as two others shoved a cylinder under her from the left. They rolled her back onto her back. Still she convulsed.
"Get those up close to her. Move her arms; then hold her for God's sake! Come on, you've done this before. Do it!" Two men placed a cylinder on each side, lifting and placing her arms along the outside edge.
"Here, help me with this," the nurse said. The men turned and helped her with the cooling sheet. They lifted the cooling fluid filled, tube lined plastic sheet and carefully laid it on Gleason's body. The four stood, eyes glued to the digital read out on the stat screen. They watched her temp fall from its one hundred-six high; it fell slowly, but steadily. Finally, the convulsions stopped, her temp was one hundred-one. Everyone exhaled at the same moment. Then the monitor beeped rapid fire, her heart rate was falling as well.
"He would mark her in some way," Huang replied, "perhaps with cigarette burns, small, deep cuts. These wounds would be hidden on her body. He would want to keep them inconspicuous for two reasons – he'd not want them to be seen and then raise questions leading to his apprehension; and, he'd want them to be a secret connection between him and his victim, a private, personal connection. Seeing the marks would arouse him."
Deakins added, "We need to determine that the shooter – the student, Elliott Baughman – and the caller are the same person. Then we can close this case."
"I don't have any information on this student. Without that, I can't tell. You tell me, from what you know of the student, how does he match up with the caller's profile?"
"There are similarities," Bishop offered, "he's Welsh, so that may be the accent. And, he has priors in Wales that might correlate with this kind of behavior."
"Like what?" Huang asked.
Bishop flipped through papers in a folder, found the Interpol police report, and read from it, "At age eight, he molested two young girls; he has charges for exposure, arson, cruelty to animals; and that's just his juvenile sheet."
"Those types of offenses in a child, especially in combination, are markers for future sexual deviance." Huang explained, and continued. "The molestation indicates a twisted interest in sex. He was probably abused himself; or, at the least, he frequently observed adults having sex, perhaps aberrant sex. The exposure incidents would likely be a result of this as well. The cruelty to animals was the beginning of his inflicting of pain. He probably found the infliction, or the animal's response to it, sexually stimulating. Fires have a direct link to sexual proclivity. What about his adult priors?"
Bishop read on, "The same kind of charges – arson, public lewdness, assault and stalking. The caller was stalking the professor using the phone; Goren and she ran into the student at the market. She said he was making a pest of himself, right Bobby? "
He nodded.
Bishop continued, "Sledge found out that the calls came from a car side pay phone; so he was exposing himself and conducting public lewdness as he masturbated while he left the messages. Sounds like a match to me."
Everyone processed this for a minute. Then Sledge asked, "Is it possible there could be two individuals?"
Bobby's eyes moved back to Sledge.
Deakins thought a moment and then interjected, "Sledge asked Carver to issue a gag order preventing the disclosure of the victim's names to the media; thinking that if the caller thought the professor was, uh . . ."
Deakins shot a look at Bobby. Bobby looked down at the table, tracing a design on his notebook with the middle finger of right hand.
". . . – wounded or dead, he'd stop calling, disappear, and we'd lose him completely. We've been operating on the assumption that this student, Elliott Baughman, the shooter, was the caller. All the evidence points that way. Sledge thinks otherwise. Could there be two people?"
"Man, have you read the psych profile on that caller we did over the weekend?" Jerry said to Martin as he walked toward the other man. "He's one sick bastard."
"What could possibly make someone turn out like that? Is someone like this born or made?" Martin replied.
"I don't know. Does this sound like anyone we've got prints on?"
"I was just going to download the profile and search for matches."
Martin sat at his computer and typed in the address for Huang's department and then Huang's public file – public within the secure, inter-agency network. He watched the bar fill the as the document downloaded. Jerry watched as Martin saved it and then began a list of key words.
"Let's see, let's include 'masturbate,' 'sexual deviance,' 'stalking,' 'pain,' and 'humiliation.' Let's see what that gets us."
"What about words like, 'anger,' or 'frustration,' or 'threats'?" Jerry asked.
"This program can only search five key words at a time. We'll see what turns up and then use those words for a second search." Martin said as he typed and then hit 'enter."
The technicians watched the search bar zip back and forth with the speed of lightning. Several seconds later, the message, 'No matches found' popped up.
"Ok, let's try those other words," Martin typed in the three words Jerry had suggested, hit enter and they watched the search bar again. 'No matches found.'
"Darn," said Jerry. "Now what?" He looked at Martin who sat deep in thought. "What are you thinking?"
"There is something familiar about this – the print and narrative together makes me think there's been something like it before."
"But nothing showed up as a match."
"I know, but what about old stuff? Old prints and narratives that were never entered into the system? I remember looking at something like this when I interned years ago." He thought again for a minute, and then said, "Yeah, I'm sure of it." And he stood up.
"What're you going to do?" asked Jerry.
"I'll be in the catacombs for a while if anyone's looking for me."
Martin headed down the hallway to the elevators. He was going to search the basement storage areas where boxes of old evidence, cold case files, old documents waiting for transference to microfiche, and old voiceprints and their narratives were stored.
"Anything is possible, Captain. What makes you think there may be two individuals, Detective?" Huang asked.
Edward sat up, leaned forward, arms on the table, "I can't really say. I just have a feeling that the caller knows the professor from before. As far as we know, the student just met her last year. The caller sounds older, more mature. A younger person would be more likely to do something impulsive like opening fire, wouldn't he, Doc?"
"I'm not sure about the motivation for that kind of impulsive act. But you are correct in thinking a younger person would be more likely to use gunfire in this way. The age range for this kind of mass killing is generally early- to mid-teens to late twenties. How old was the student?"
"Thirty-two, according to the information he gave the INS," Bishop offered.
"Well, that's a little old for this kind of act. However, if he was immature, he might have the social development of a much younger individual." Huang thought a moment and then added, "It is possible that the caller is still out there.
"I hope you catch this guy soon, he could be a nasty one. Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with."
"Thank you Doctor. We'll probably be in touch sooner rather than later." Dr. Huang stood, gathered up his few pieces of paper, handed a clipped sheaf to Deakins and they shook hands. He nodded a goodbye to the others and left.
Deakins looked at Bobby – his detective was a million miles away. Later, he thought.
"So what do we know? Sledge what have you got?"
Dr. Patel and Dr. Creighton spoke outside Gleason's cubical in the ICU. "She's got infection somewhere," Creighton said, "I hope to God it's not staph. What do you think is going on with her heart rate?"
"I don't know." Dr. Patel replied. "The suture line may be leaking around the artery patch. It may be a result of the infection or the convulsion; could be anything. Let's start her on a course of atenolol and see what she does. How's her temp holding?"
Creighton checked the clipboard, "Last two reads say one hundred-two. That's not good. Should we start her on amikacin as well, try to knock down whatever's inside?"
Patel thought a minute and said, "She's alive when she shouldn't be, let's do it; it may keep her going."
"I wanted to ask you about those marks on her back. What do you make of them?"
"It is most unusual. It could be some kind of tribal markings, a cult of some kind. What do you think?"
Creighton thought a moment, then offered, "She doesn't seem the type for that; although, I don't know what that type is. The design is Celtic. They're acid burns. Not all of them are the same age; that design took years to complete. Why would anyone let that be done to themselves? The pain – I can only imagine."
"It didn't look to me that the wounds that caused those scars had any medical treatment. It's a wonder she didn't develop an infection. Maybe we can ask her about it when she's well enough."
"Do you think she'll actually talk about it?"
They walked away without speaking.