[February 15, 19:00]
"Nothing from the pocket knife," Mac stated taking one glance at Stella's face as she stepped back into the lab.
She shook her head, curls bouncing. Mac knew her so well. "Owner claims he lost it and his alibi checks out. Guess all the blood was secondary transfer from the rain."
"We did find it closed, too," he mused. "It doesn't make sense for the killer to stab his victim, close the knife, then leave it behind."
She leaned against the table, bare save for a paint sample and a partial print they had found in the last T of the message on the alley wall. All the other cigarette butts, coffee cups, and food wrappers they had collected from the scene had turned out to be trash and dead ends. "How's the spray paint going?" She hoped Mac was having better results than she was.
"It's not the first time." The man pointed to the five pictures on his monitor. They were case file images of graffiti, right-angle rulers in the corners giving the scale. Each photograph showed FILTHY IMMIGRANTS in red paint, on different walls in the city. "Samples from five other instances, over the past year, match the paint in the alley." He handed her a chart of six spectra, all identical. "Handwriting's the same too." Mac switched to another window with all the writing overlaid, showing just the barest deviation between the letters. 92% match flashed at the bottom.
Stella ground her teeth. A year? This piece of work had been active for way too long. "And what do we have on those cases?"
"Paint samples and photos," Mac said dejectedly. "They all happened in the middle of the night, no witnesses, poor areas with no surveillance cameras." He tapped some keys on the keyboard and the case file images were back, this time spread out over a map of the city, each hovering by a red dot. They were random, no discernable geographical pattern connecting them. The dates of the case files didn't fall neatly into any kind of sequence either. "No clear pattern."
"What, no one's ever investigated recurring hate crimes just because it doesn't follow a pattern?" she fumed, tossing the spectra onto the table. "Is that why this guy gotten past us for so long?"
"He hasn't. In the other five, no one got hurt. They each got written off as vandalism. Paint samples and pictures were taken, then it was all washed off. No one's spending their time matching paint to paint with the murder rate in this city," he said frankly. Mac switched back to the handwriting comparison and brought up the pictures from their crime scene beside it. The writing was definitely done by the same hand, but there was one crucial difference. "The message at our scene said 'filthy immigrant'. Singular." He pointed at the space where the S would have been. "It was a message directly to the victim. She was a target."
"Husband said she didn't have enemies," she countered, recalling their conversation with him.
"Just because she thinks she didn't have enemies, doesn't mean no one was targeting her. Or maybe the husband's lying." Mac raised an eyebrow meaningfully.
"Welcome to the club," she smiled. "Can we ID the paint?" she picked up the plastic petri dish that contained their sample. The bright red flecks winked happily under the bright lights of the lab.
"Too generic. Standard glossy spray paint sold in every art and hardware store in the city." Another computer trilled and Mac moved over to it. "But we've got a match on the print."
Stella read over his shoulder. "John Miller, 39. Clean record but his prints are on file because he's a government employee."
"Schengen Visa Application Centre, 145 West 45th. I'll have Flack pick him up."