Chapter 6

"Given Melinda's assessment, it does make a change to the profile, if true, but I hesitate to go that far," George Huang admitted to the group when he arrived a short while later at the precinct. The detectives sat at a table in front of the board with the crime scene pictures on it.

"Because that seems calculated while parts of the scene do not?" Joe Velasco wondered.

"Yes. He brought his own weapon, whether to threaten or murder – calculated. He more than likely stalked his victim – calculated. He sets the air conditioner down – maybe calculated. Suddenly starts stabbing our victim, multiple times? Leaving the front door open so someone can find her? Leaving fingerprints and DNA at the scene? Seems sloppy to me," the forensic psychiatrist said.

"The fingerprints on the thermostat are smudges. Forensics is running all the prints they took from Christine and her family to try and see if any other prints remain," Amanda piped up.

"The rape kit is also still being run, but I take your point Doc. He didn't use a condom, they found little swimmers," Fin figured.

"So, we're more than likely looking at someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge about how crime scenes are processed or maybe isn't worried because he isn't in the system?" Olivia asked.

"Christine had no boyfriend?" George suddenly asked.

"According to her mother, Christine had sworn off men about a year ago. Her last boyfriend, of almost five years, broke up with her via text," the Captain explained.

"That's cold," Fin shook his head.

"Yes and does not really put him in the crosshairs for a crime like this. You talk to him?" George wanted to know.

"His name is Derek Davidson. He doesn't live in New York anymore. He moved to Boston about six months ago. Still, I asked if he would be available for a video call and he's agreed to speak to us around noon today," Amanda told him.

"These are the hardest cases to crack," Olivia heaved a sigh.

"A total stranger more than likely attacked Christine – unless we can tie a coworker to this," Joe figured.

"Hard to do. She worked from home since the pandemic," Amanda said.

"What does she do?" George asked.

"Works for a health insurance company as an adjuster in the customer service department. They already reached out wondering if her work laptop had been compromised. TARU and a company representative are checking it to see if it was hacked into or details were stolen off it," Fin spoke up.

"Have you been scrubbing her internet life?" Olivia turned to her detectives as she changed the focus of the conversation.

"Christine doesn't have a huge presence on the internet. While she does have Facebook and Instagram pages, neither are overly active. Christine seemed fine with letting her friends and family post photos and tagging her in them," Joe filled everyone in.

"Ok so I think we can effectively say that our killer definitely stalked Christine in person. She didn't have enough of an internet presence to let people know what she was doing every second, like so many people today. He either got lucky that the neighbors weren't home or because of his stalking, he knew that too. We need to figure out what provoked him to kill her. Melinda said that Christine would have been unable to crawl to the phone. I find it hard to believe that she didn't have her cell phone on her," George frowned.

"Her cell phone had been smashed during the attack. TARU tried but couldn't save it. That doesn't mean her phone records disappeared," Fin suddenly had a thought and grabbed his desk phone. The detective quickly made a call. Olivia turned her focus back to the crime scene photos. Something was bothering her. Why would someone suddenly escalate to murder? What if they always intended to murder and the other parts of the crime were a way to confuse the investigators?

"Christine received a call and a voicemail was left on her phone," Fin announced when he got off the phone.

"Who does that anymore?" Amanda raised an eyebrow. Honestly, the average person texted more often than not. The blonde only received calls and voicemails from her coworkers, everyone else in her life texted unless it was an absolute emergency.

"TARU is waiting for the phone company to see if they could retrieve the actual voicemail, but you'll never guess who left the message…" Fin's smirk made it look like he was the cat who caught the canary.

"Who?" Joe asked.

"Derek Davidson," Fin said.

To Be Continued…