Eyes on The Damned

Chapter 9

4 September

A special investigation room had been set up to keep the serial killer investigation separate from the other cases being handled by Major Crimes. Jim reached the room early, thinking he would be alone there. He wasn't.

Pictures covered three walls of the room: photographs from crime scenes, mostly, arranged in chronological clusters. Photocopies of forensic reports were pinned alongside each cluster. Death was everywhere.

Agent Rossi had his back to the door. He was studying the pictures of Brent Kraemer's body. Or what was left of it. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Jim spoke from the doorway, wary of disturbing him. "Any new insights?"

Rossi jumped as if Jim had woken him from a deep sleep. He turned to face him, saying nothing at first.

Jim stepped into the room. "Sorry."

He waved it away. "It's okay. I was lost in thought."

Jim moved past him to look at the wall. Kraemer's body was barely recognisable. Oddly, it wasn't the close-up shots that were the horrifying ones, as none of them told the full story. The mind tended to shy away from recognising what each picture showed. But the large, central photograph showed the whole, brutal scene. The body was contorted and so badly burned it didn't even look human. There were traces of rope still visible at his wrists, but too much charring to see it all clearly. Jim frowned at the picture.

"Brent Kraemer," he said aloud. "His body was found by the fire crew the morning after the fire."

"Mm-hm," Rossi acknowledged. "The file says he died of smoke inhalation, but you can tell from the pictures he was alive and conscious when he started to burn."

"Yeah. Unpleasant."

"Absolutely. This unsub tortured just two of his eleven victims. Kraemer is the second. So I'm wondering: why those two?"

"Maybe it's not the same killer," Jim suggested.

Rossi looked at him. "You and your colleagues don't want to believe this is a serial killer, do you?"

Jim looked around the room, finding bad memories all around him. Boards had been set up around the perimeter of the room, each dedicated to one victim. There were photographs, locations, lists of evidence and, on some of them, written questions.

Jim's eyes returned to the Kraemer board and he suppressed a shudder. "I read your report about six times yesterday, trying to find something wrong with your logic. I can see the similarities in the M.O. Your analysis and profile make interesting reading. I do agree with most of your conclusions, but when I look around this room, seeing it all laid out like this, it seems a big stretch. I mean, how do you connect this..." Jim gestured to the photographs of the Kraemer scene, "...with something as clean as the Roca case? You've got to have more than 'no forensic evidence'."

"Point of entry," Agent Morgan answered from the doorway behind Jim. "Witnesses reported an unknown man present in Kraemer's building the afternoon before the fire. Detective Taggert concluded in his case file that this man was lying in wait for Kraemer. We can't be certain of that, but we do know that this unsub prefers to take his victims in their homes, or at least in the victim's territory. Kraemer was killed at home. So was Roca."

Rossi moved around to the display of the Roca murder. "Tania Roca. She lived in a secure building. She was very careful about security; her brother's statement says she wouldn't even let family into the apartment without checking the peephole first. I wonder if she'd been attacked in the past?"