Eyes on The Damned

Chapter 3

28 August

"I prescribe strong coffee," Jack suggested. "Or maybe twenty four hours sleep. You look terrible, Blair."

Blair smiled tiredly. "I'll take the coffee, thanks. I haven't been sleeping too well." He picked up the book lying on Jack's desk: Evil Never Rests by David Rossi. Tania had loaned Blair her copy, but hers was an airport paperpack. Jack's copy was a first edition. It was a true crime book about serial killers, written by an FBI agent. He opened it to the first page and saw that it was signed.

Jack poured coffee and set the mug on the desk. He manoeuvred his wheelchair back to the desk. "I won't ask what's wrong because I think I know. I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

Blair reached across to pick up the mug. "Don't be sorry, Jack. Just tell me the truth. Was Tania killed because she was onto something?" The coffee smelled too good to resist.

Jack was silent for a moment. Finally, he shook his head. "We might never know, Blair. That's the truth."

"I've spent the past week going over everything I know. Reading books like this." He tapped the cover of Evil Never Rests. "I understand why you and Tania thought lack of motive was a common thread in the files you showed me. I think I understand how you got from that to serial killer. But I don't remember any other commonality in those files."

Jack looked surprised. "Have you ditched anthropology for behavioural science?"

"I've been trying to figure this thing out, yeah."

"And what do you think of Tania's theory?"

Blair gripped his coffee mug tightly. "I don't know, man. Everything I've read suggests Tania was wrong. But she's dead. That's a hell of a coincidence...and I can't get past it."

Jack nodded gravely. "I've been thinking the same thing about the coincidence. It is difficult to accept that it's not chance. But if it's not chance, that means not only that Tania's theory was right, but that somehow whoever killed her knew she was a threat to him. Blair, if that's the case, the list of suspects is very short, and we're both on it. Who else knew she was behind the blog?"

Blair spilled coffee on his pants. He hadn't thought of that. He set down the mug and tried to ignore the pain. "You're not on it, man. The cops didn't get a CCTV picture of the killer, so he didn't use the elevator. You couldn't have got to her apartment any other way."

"You'd make a good detective," Jack grinned. "Though while we're talking hypothetically, remember I wouldn't have had to do the deed personally. My point is however unlikely the coincidence seems, so few people knew about her work that the idea she was killed because of it is even more unlikely."

Blair sighed. He was so tired. "You're probably right." Put that way, it did sound like paranoia.

But then Jack said something that made him think again. "For what it's worth, I did think the coincidence was a bit much at first." He picked up the book. "This man, David Rossi, is an acquaintance. He's with the FBI, so I asked him to look into a couple of things."

"Like what?"

"The kind of murders Tania was interested in are supposed to be reported to the FBI."

Blair frowned. "Murder isn't a federal crime."

"Unless someone kills in more than one state, or crosses a state line to do it. That's true. But the FBI owns the ViCAP database. Don't you watch CSI?"

"I don't even have a TV, man," Blair protested.

Jack's eyebrows raised but he didn't press the issue. "Fair enough. ViCAP – the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program – is a database holding records of homicides, serious sexual assaults, missing persons and unidentified human remains. It's intended to speed up detection of serial crimes that cross state lines and cases like those Tania highlighted should be in the database whether they're solved or not."