Brubaker ordered the case reopened when the other sex club deaths occurred.
I flipped through the notes and photos in the second case file. Two weeks ago, Kristin and Robert Silas died at Madame LaLaurie’s. According to the manager, the victims were experimenting with group sex for the first time. Both ended up dead after they’d had sex with the droid and it left for sanitation. The woman stabbed her husband with a serrated kitchen knife and then slit her own throat. Our initial finding was a murder-suicide.
The third case file was just as puzzling and with as little evidence as the others. Justin Olive had been beaten to death with a table leg at Lipsticks. He’d been murdered before the sex bot reported to the room for the main activity. The club’s video surveillance system had been hacked by perverts looking to get a free show three months before the incident and the NOPD Cyber Crimes Unit had ordered a mandatory shut down of the cameras until tech support could purge the system. As a result, there wasn’t any video evidence and zero witnesses. The table leg came back with no prints and more questions.
Olive’s murder happened last week. “God dammit!” I mumbled under my breath, slapping the desk.
“What’d you find?” Alfonso asked.
“These murders are happening…” I cross-referenced the calendar. “Shit. Three weeks ago, the poisoning was on a Tuesday night. Then, two weeks ago, the murder-suicide at Madame LaLaurie’s was a Wednesday. Last week, the beating death happened on a Thursday.”
“And last night was Friday,” Alfonso finished my thought.
I nodded. “That’s either one hell of a coincidence or we’ve got somebody who’s keeping a schedule.”
“Hmm,” Cruz mumbled. He tapped his teeth with a fingernail; it was one of his annoying habits when he thought. The other was shaking his leg, causing the floor to undulate with the movement. Luckily, we weren’t often in the office together or I’d have been stuck in another one of the department’s sensitivity training courses.
“I would have thought it was more like somebody was trying to make it seem like the murders were random,” Alfonso stated after a few seconds. “He’s a detail-oriented person who likes to keep to a schedule, but thinks that he’s outsmarting the police by not committing a crime on a specific day of the week.”
It was an interesting theory. There wasn’t much to link the murders, and the appearance of a biblical verse about prostitution was a new wrinkle which could make last night’s murder a completely separate event. If the cases were related, it would seem like the killer had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. By staggering them on different days of the week, they were trying to hide an accidental discovery. If I hadn’t placed the folders side-by-side on my desk, it’s likely that I wouldn’t have noticed it.
“If we’re correct… That means we only have a week until the next murder,” I said haltingly. I thought about the severity of the deaths, puzzling it out as we talked. “They’re getting worse; more violent.”
“Maybe,” he shrugged. “I don’t know if a stabbing death is worse than a beating death, but that’s debatable. Either way, you’d better go talk to the chief.”
I closed the case files and piled them up. “Yeah, you’re right,” I replied, picking up the folders and heading for the door. The chief was already breathing down my neck to figure these cases out before the FBI got involved. Now that there was a high probability that they were linked, the man would be insufferable.
FOUR: SATURDAY
My Jeep changed lanes to the exit off Chef Menteur Highway, the local name for US Route 90. After my discussion with the chief, I was running about ten minutes late for my interview with Miss Himura. I hated being late; it was unprofessional.
Chief Brubaker was both impressed and skeptical of my discoveries. The idea that we were dealing with a potential
I flipped through the notes and photos in the second case file. Two weeks ago, Kristin and Robert Silas died at Madame LaLaurie’s. According to the manager, the victims were experimenting with group sex for the first time. Both ended up dead after they’d had sex with the droid and it left for sanitation. The woman stabbed her husband with a serrated kitchen knife and then slit her own throat. Our initial finding was a murder-suicide.
The third case file was just as puzzling and with as little evidence as the others. Justin Olive had been beaten to death with a table leg at Lipsticks. He’d been murdered before the sex bot reported to the room for the main activity. The club’s video surveillance system had been hacked by perverts looking to get a free show three months before the incident and the NOPD Cyber Crimes Unit had ordered a mandatory shut down of the cameras until tech support could purge the system. As a result, there wasn’t any video evidence and zero witnesses. The table leg came back with no prints and more questions.
Olive’s murder happened last week. “God dammit!” I mumbled under my breath, slapping the desk.
“What’d you find?” Alfonso asked.
“These murders are happening…” I cross-referenced the calendar. “Shit. Three weeks ago, the poisoning was on a Tuesday night. Then, two weeks ago, the murder-suicide at Madame LaLaurie’s was a Wednesday. Last week, the beating death happened on a Thursday.”
“And last night was Friday,” Alfonso finished my thought.
I nodded. “That’s either one hell of a coincidence or we’ve got somebody who’s keeping a schedule.”
“Hmm,” Cruz mumbled. He tapped his teeth with a fingernail; it was one of his annoying habits when he thought. The other was shaking his leg, causing the floor to undulate with the movement. Luckily, we weren’t often in the office together or I’d have been stuck in another one of the department’s sensitivity training courses.
“I would have thought it was more like somebody was trying to make it seem like the murders were random,” Alfonso stated after a few seconds. “He’s a detail-oriented person who likes to keep to a schedule, but thinks that he’s outsmarting the police by not committing a crime on a specific day of the week.”
It was an interesting theory. There wasn’t much to link the murders, and the appearance of a biblical verse about prostitution was a new wrinkle which could make last night’s murder a completely separate event. If the cases were related, it would seem like the killer had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. By staggering them on different days of the week, they were trying to hide an accidental discovery. If I hadn’t placed the folders side-by-side on my desk, it’s likely that I wouldn’t have noticed it.
“If we’re correct… That means we only have a week until the next murder,” I said haltingly. I thought about the severity of the deaths, puzzling it out as we talked. “They’re getting worse; more violent.”
“Maybe,” he shrugged. “I don’t know if a stabbing death is worse than a beating death, but that’s debatable. Either way, you’d better go talk to the chief.”
I closed the case files and piled them up. “Yeah, you’re right,” I replied, picking up the folders and heading for the door. The chief was already breathing down my neck to figure these cases out before the FBI got involved. Now that there was a high probability that they were linked, the man would be insufferable.
FOUR: SATURDAY
My Jeep changed lanes to the exit off Chef Menteur Highway, the local name for US Route 90. After my discussion with the chief, I was running about ten minutes late for my interview with Miss Himura. I hated being late; it was unprofessional.
Chief Brubaker was both impressed and skeptical of my discoveries. The idea that we were dealing with a potential
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