NIGHT STRANGLER

DEAD END

"Mr. Hamilton's information didn't help us advance the investigation," Chase sighed.

"But it was fun watching him jump from the window half-naked," Katy tried to joke.

"The Malinov family is already here," Amy said out loud, "they're waiting for one of you in room number four."

But none of them moved. Talking to the closest of the victims was the hardest job. 

"Chase, choose someone to go with you. But not me," Katy instructed him.

"Stephan, help me with this family, compassion is your middle name," he joked looking at his oldest colleague.

"I'll give you a haircut in your sleep," he threatened Chase but stood up from his chair and nodded his head towards the door, "so let's get to it."

In room number four, there was a small table with an armchair on one side and a long couch on the other. A coffee machine, two types of coffee, teas, sugar and honey were placed on a low table by the wall. The room was arranged for sensitive conversations with family members of the victims.

Inside, a man and a woman, an elderly couple, were already sitting on a long brown couch. 

"Hello," Chase greeted them. "First of all, my sincere condolences on behalf of the entire police station." The couple just nodded silently, the woman had tears in her eyes.

Chase introduced himself to them, then introduced his colleague Stephan and sat opposite them on the armchair. Stephan went to the table and prepared a tea for Malinov's family.

"Tell us about your daughter. What was she like, what did she do, did she have enemies..." Chase began with his questions.

"Mischel was the best daughter a parent could wish for," said the woman with a fragile gasp, one could feel that she was going to cry at any moment. The man supported her and continued in her place: "Mischel moved away from us right after college, studied journalism and for a while she worked for the tabloid."

"But that was a long time ago," the woman added, "she didn't last long, that kind of work seemed superficial to her. As soon as she got the chance, she moved to a business newspaper. She wanted to do something useful. She planned to work her way up and write about the problems of the modern world, she wanted to do research on global disasters, land loss and unused old buildings. She had high ambitions."

Tears rolled down her cheeks involuntarily. The man took out a package of napkins from the pocket of his thin rifle jacket and handed them to his wife. She accepted them with shaking hands, wiped her tears and blew her nose.

"What about friends? Did she have a boyfriend? Or was she talking about someone she didn't like?" Stephan put the finished tea in front of them.

The woman collected herself and continued talking: "Although she lived thousands of kilometers away from us, we were in contact every single day. She called us, wrote us, we had video calls. I asked her several times about her acquaintances, whether she has friends, whether she goes out to have fun. Her answer was 'I don't have time'. She was constantly immersed in her work, she wanted to work out as much as she could, I don't know about any social life."

The man sitting right next to her hugged her from behind and confirmed her words. Chase also showed them photos of the other victims and introduced them by name, but the Mischel family did not recognize them. So the individual victims did not know each other, this was also confirmed with the other families.

Meeting room, '17.32'

The police building was already half empty, most of the workers had gone home. Their working hours have long since ended. However, the members of the ALPHA team sat at a long table and puzzled over the case.

"We're at a dead end," Chase concluded. A few minutes ago, they said goodbye to the family of the first victim, and they spent the whole day with Stephan talking to families and relatives.

"So you didn't find out anything useful from the families?" Katy sighed in disappointment.

"We have only confirmed what we have found so far," he explained to her, "the victims are not connected to each other, that means the perpetrator chose them randomly. They are all different in appearance and age. The only thing they have in common was their loneliness. They all lived in inconspicuous , remote places with oblivious neighbors or even no neighbors at all."

"He is careful and patient, but also very clever, when he can find a new victim so quickly," thought Samantha, "there must be some connection between the women, because after each murder, he already had another victim in mind, which he watched for a while before the deed ."

"There's logic in that," Jim confirmed, "Amy, look at the background of all the victims again, like Samantha said there must be a connection between them."

Amy nodded, standing up from the table and leaving the room. She headed to her office, to her super powerful computer. "Today will be overtime again," she said to herself. However, they all had to put all their effort into this case, because another murder could happen soon.

"The time between murders keeps getting shorter," they continued after Amy left the room.

"There were four months between the first and second murders. There were only two months between the second and third. There was a month and a half gap between three and four," Mark read from the papers.

"That means the next victim can fall in even less time. We need to solve this case and arrest the perpetrator as soon as possible," Jim said louder than planned.

Then his phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and checked the display. "Excuse me for a moment." He stood up and left the room.

He returned after a few minutes. There was hope in his face. "A match was found in the database," he explained.

"What match?" Katy didn't understand.

"After all, at the beginning of the search, we were told that the perpetrator's DNA sample was not in the database," Chase questioned.

"The perpetrator is not really in the database, but a very similar DNA sample was found, which according to specialists can lead to his sibling," he explained, "the found person  is called Milo Malcolm, he is in prison for stealing a car. He has no other relatives listed in the files than mother, so someone has to go to him. Samantha, Stephan, I'm leaving it in your care."

Stephan sighed in annoyance, but did not dare to protest. Ignoring him, Samantha stood up and left the room. After all, Stephan will catch up with her when he wants to, and if not, she will listen to Malcolm herself.

"Katy and Mark, go through the files again, we may have missed some little thing that could lead to the solving of the case," Jim continued dividing the work, "Chase and I will help Amy look for connections between the women."

AUTHOR: Why do you think Stephan distances himself from Samantha? Thank you very much for every reading, I will be happy for every comment and for decent criticism and ideas for other cases...