“Hey, where did you say you transferred from?”
“I didn’t. But I, uh…well, actually,” Phillips fumbled around for the right words.
“You two!” Kim snapped. “Pay attention. Hell, Kane, I thought you were supposed to be studying this.”
“Apologies, Detective,” said Phillips. Alex made a motion as if zipping his lips.
Phillips shrugged at Alex. Alex’s question would have to go unanswered for the time being.
Maybe he just has a familiar smile, Alex thought. Just about every time you see a smile in this city, it feels like the first you’ve ever seen.
“Anyway,” Kim continued, “what we’ve got so far is a woman stabbed in the back and held to the ground as her heart was torn out through her back. Forensics is having trouble identifying the weapon due to tearing around the wound.”
Alex grimaced at the photo Kim pointed to as she spoke. He’d never seen anything so gruesome before. In Time After Time, characters usually died off-camera.
“Despite what might be referred to as an elegantly laid out crime scene, our killer wasn’t so graceful about the heart’s removal. We have no idea why it was removed or whether the killer kept it, but the size of the wound after the killer’s hands penetrated the opening suggests the killer may be an adult male. This is also suggested by the very nature of the attack itself: saliva left on the floor, as well as hairs ripped from the victim’s scalp, indicate that the victim’s head was held down as the heart was removed. According to Detective Newport’s profile, we’re looking for someone with serious control issues. Detective Newport?”
Jacob stood up to address the board as Kim took his seat.
“As Detective Daniels has already implied, we may be looking for someone with a deadly inferiority complex. The killer’s choice to stabilize the victim by the top of her head, and the relative lack of evidence that she was able to put up a struggle with her lower body, implies that he was straddling her from behind during the kill. There is no indication of sexual activity, but it’s possible that the killer derives some sexual pleasure out of the kill itself. Interestingly, his decision to stab the victim from behind is impersonal. Whatever sensation he may have gotten from her struggles, he opted not to see her face. Now, the—”
Jacob noticed Alex shifting uneasily, his hand raised in the air. Kim followed Jacob’s gaze to Alex and exhaled quickly through her nose.
“We don’t raise our hands here, Kane. If you have a question, be a good boy and ask at the end of the class.”
Jacob waved her off. “It’s all right, Mr. Kane. What is your question?”
“Who is she?” Alex’s voice shook nervously.
“Who is who? Detective Daniels? You should probably ask her; I’m still trying to figure it out.” Several of the officers laughed.
“No,” Alex said impatiently. He pointed at the photos on the whiteboard. “Her. You keep calling her the victim, but you haven’t said her name once. You know her name, don’t you?”
Jacob blinked for a second. He knew people thought of him as detached, but he wasn’t the only detective on the squad by far who would exclude a victim’s name from the briefing. When first introducing the squad to a case, it was generally considered safe not to let anyone get too attached. Especially a case like this one, when there were still so many details missing. With the manner in which the woman was killed, it would be personal enough to most of them already; sympathy was one of the unfortunate side effects of being human.
“My apologies, Mr. Kane. We generally leave personal details until the end of the briefing, since we usually investigate the victim’s family first. But since you asked, her name was Virginia Winters. We eventually found a purse tucked under one of the poker tables at the scene, with her identification inside. All we know about her so far is her name. We also have an address from the ID, but there was no cell phone. Officer Phillips is in charge of getting us in contact with surviving relatives.”
Kim frowned. She hadn’t been consulted on this.
“Well, Kane,” she said. “Is that good enough for you?”
“Sure thing.” Alex dropped his eyes a little. Kim wasn’t sure what his deal was. One second he was joking around, the next second he wanted to know the victim’s name. He was going to take some getting used to.
Jacob continued. “Now, note that not only did the killer control the victim, but possibly the crime scene as well. The underground casino appears to have been the setting for a poker game with the highest stakes imaginable. When the vic—when Ms. Winters busted, she gave up her life. What’s interesting about the alleged game is that we recovered chips, but no cards, save for a King of Spades from what appears to be an antique deck. The chips in question were hand-made, though intricate. Made apparently of painted wood, each chip bears the logo of a perfectly symmetrical spade. This may have some relation to the King of Spaces left on the victim’s—Ms. Winters’ back, but it might be perfectly random, or just a preferred aesthetic choice by the killer. As of now, we’re not sure.”
Maria chimed in here. “We have a lab right now analyzing some of the chips to see what kind of wood and paint was used in their creation. We’re not sure if it’ll tell us anything, but it’s worth a shot.”
“Thank you, Doctor Langley,” Jacob nodded. “Of course, we aren’t sure of a lot of things, but we do have several reasons for believing that the game was organized by one person. First, all of the chips were in neat, perfectly arranged piles. It seems implausible that a room full of people would have straightened their chips individually, meaning it was probably done after the kill occurred. Since the pile Ms. Winters knocked over remained scattered on the floor, however, it seems unlikely that our killer went around straightening each pile himself. It was more likely done by request, or even out of respect for the game’s organizer. This leads to some speculation that the chips knocked over belonged to the killer himself, and he may have neglected to clean them up when the kill took precedence over his lesser compulsions.
“He also may have wanted to avoid bloodstains on his poker tables, all of which were new and appeared to have been recently made due to their nearly pristine state. There were no logos visible on any of them, so tracking down their manufacturer may prove difficult. All of this pales in comparison, however, to the control placed over the game’s participants. A common POW torture method seems to have been utilized, possibly as a means of brainwashing: the killer played one song on loop, with no method we can figure out so far of controlling the loop from within the casino. Due to the music selection, our killer is currently being dubbed the ‘Chairman of the Board,’ with his spectators and possible co-conspirators being referred to as the ‘Rat Pack.’
“Please keep in mind that most of this is, at this point in the investigation, pure conjecture. That being said, these are the best leads we have to go on. If Ms. Winters really did take part in a poker game with her killer on the night of her death, we can presume that they knew each other, at least as acquaintances. Once Phillips gets us in contact with friends and family of the deceased, we are looking for someone organized, calculated, and thorough. Our Chairman is possibly someone in a position of power, yet someone who feels as if they have a long way to go before they can run things the way they want to. At the same time, if our preliminary speculations regarding the poker game are accurate, then he does have at least some idea of the sway he holds over others. Either way, we are looking for a very complicated, very dark individual.”