Inferna Nuntius

Chapter 11

11

Bellinson stood before the white board, scribbling ferociously fast with the blue marker. One hand held the marker while his free hand held his errant tie close to his chest, preventing it from smearing the fresh writing.

Should have just worn the fucking tie clip, he told himself shaking his head. He quickly finished the sentence and flexed his fingers, using his free hand to crack his thumb knuckle back into place. He paused for a moment more, then continued writing. He could hear his eight students shifting in their seats growing uncomfortable with the silence that filled the room that morning. From the corner of his eye he could watch as each student filed into the room, one by one, and took their seats. He smiled slightly to himself as he watched the two officers from New York file in together, their bodies suspiciously close to one and other. He had also noticed the ring on her finger and how her partner’s finger was void of one. Give the kid props; she’s hot, he told himself and once again focused on the board.

“His name is Eddie Vasquez,” Bellinson began. “We know he lives in Virginia, but he is also extremely mobile so we haven’t been able to pin him down to one certain area.” He moved back to the desk, grabbing a stack of folders as he rounded the corner. He dispersed them throughout the room, twenty per person. “There are roughly 500 people living in Virginia with the name Eddie Vasquez or some variation of it. Edward, Eddy, Ed. You’ll also find some last names have been hyphenated- we couldn’t take those off the list.”

“We’re assuming he’s Hispanic, right?” One of the officers spoke up, holding his top folder in the air. Bellinson nodded his head in agreement. “Then why have we discounted any one with the second surname of Vasquez?”

“Because of the nature of his attacks and the circumstances, we believe that this offender had a stronger relationship with his mother than his father. We felt that it would be a…misuse of time to look into those.” Cassidy chuckled to herself at his words. Misuse of time. She had heard that many times coming from Abrahams. It was the man’s favorite term for dealing with anything related to Marcus.

Bellinson’s gaze fell on Danmark, to her eat-shit-and-grin smile that she had plastered on her face. His cold blue eyes strayed from her face, moving down her slim neck, finally resting on her pronounced collar bone. Hot, my ass, he told himself. She’s gorgeous. His eyes lingered at the perfect V at the base of her neck; her flawlessly tan skin caught the dim light of the overhead light and captured it perfectly, creating a small shadow. It wasn’t until one of the other students cleared their throat that Bellinson realized just how long he had been staring at Danmark. He quickly shifted his gaze away from her and turned back to the white board, wishing he could adjust his twitching member without anyone noticing.

“You each have a handout that lists the different types of serial rapists. We will be concentrating on only three of the four kinds.” He turned back around and capped the marker, his eyes once again falling on Danmark. He felt himself smile softly at her, unconsciously.

“Why just these three?” A student piped up, once again breaking his concentration on Danmark.

“They are the only three that fit with the violence that we have seen so far.” He replied quickly. “Power reassurance simply does not fit with what we have seen from Vasquez.”

“So you are using the offender typology of Knight and Prentky and not the standards set by NCAVC?” Cassidy questioned Bellinson. “I thought the FBI would want to use the model most closely associated with their research.”

Bellinson felt his face flare red at her accusation. He puffed he chest quickly and pressed his lips together. Someone’s been in the library, he thought. His anger quickly dissipated as he realized she was only trying to get a rise out of him by pointing this out. He exhaled loudly, taking his time to answer her question. “This is clearly not the work of an opportunistic rapist and we only have one offender, so gang rape is not an option. And Groth’s work was used in both studies, so the foundation for the typology model is basically the same.”