“He left some of the Hunters’ things behind at the nanny’s house in the garage where he grabbed them. If we’re lucky, maybe he touched something there.”
Jonathon nodded, they could always hope. “Did he leave anything with them?”
“Megan was on a blanket. Again, it looks like that’s what he used to transport her. The spider in the jar was left beside her body. Timmy’s body was left nearby in a basket and the note was tucked in underneath him. Megan’s rhyme was in the jar with the spider.”
“Did he cover the faces again?”
“There was a towel covering Megan’s face, but nothing covering Timmy’s.”
“He kept their clothes and personal belongings. I still don’t know if he is deliberately trying to make sure he doesn’t leave hair, or fibers, or DNA behind, or if he’s just wrapped up in acting out these nursery rhymes as they play out in his head and the lack of forensics is just an accident. Any fingerprints on the jar the spider was in, Kane?” he asked.
“Looks like the jar was wiped clean.”
“So maybe he is taking care not to leave any of himself behind,” Allina said.
“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I just don’t get the nursery rhyme thing. It seems important. He’s going to a lot of trouble to kill them in ways he feels fit and to leave us the rhymes. But who knows, maybe he’s just doing it to confuse us.” Jonathon was feeling frustrated. They weren’t really making any progress on this case, and they already had five dead, including a small baby. They needed a break, a lead, something solid that they could pursue. “Is there a dad in the picture?”
“There doesn’t appear to be. The nanny said Megan doesn’t even know who the father is,” Allina replied.
“We should look into it. If someone Megan dated found out she had a child and believed she had kept it from him, he could have been angry.”
“Angry enough to kill her and his son as well as three innocent people?” Allina looked unsure.
“We’ve seen people kill for less,” he reminded his partner.
“True. And I guess the nursery rhymes fit in with a child theme. But if he was angry that Megan had kept his son from him, wouldn’t he be more likely to kill her and keep the baby?”
“Maybe killing the baby was an accident,” he suggested, that idea certainly appealed. He didn’t want to think that he was raising his own child in a world where people murdered helpless infants.
“We might know the answer to that once Tracey gets us a cause of death.”
“Who found them?” The Doves had been left at the bottom of a cliff near a hiking path outside the city. Zoe Kitter had been left at the side of the road, and the killer had left Megan Hunter and her son under a tree in the park. This location was the most public one he had used so far, and Jonathon hoped someone had seen something.
“A woman walking her dog found them. She was tossing a ball for the dog to chase, when the dog ran off to retrieve it, she saw what she thought was a body lying on the ground. Worried that it was someone who had collapsed while out jogging, she called her dog back over and put the lead back on it, then came to look. When she saw the body, she stopped and immediately called 911.”
“Did she see anyone hanging around?”
“No. It was only just starting to get light. She says she goes out every morning because otherwise without a morning run her dog gets up to mischief while she’s at work. She said with the cold winter weather she doesn’t often see anyone.”
“It doesn’t seem like he hangs around to watch someone find his victims.”
“It’s like he’s not interested in attention. His sole focus is whatever his internal goal is. If it wasn't for the fact that he’s potentially taking care not to leave us any forensic clues to his identity, it’s like he’s not really thinking about us at all. This guy is a mystery,” Allina said.
“One that we have to unravel so we can find him.”
* * * * *
11:44 A.M.
Hope Frasier was flying high.
Her life was going perfectly.
There wasn't a single thing she would change even if she could.
Well, there was one thing she might hurry along if given the opportunity, she giggled to herself. And that was getting Chance to propose.
She couldn’t wait for him to ask her to marry him and officially start their lives together. Hope had known from the day they first met that he was the man for her, and she had never doubted it through all their ups and downs. Not that they’d had many, just the usual things that couples went through.