The Wolf in Me

Chapter 7

Chapter 7. 

This time the victim was a 16 year old girl named Jessica Ryder, her body was found in an abandoned church by the caretaker of the church. Her torn nude body was left at the altar her heart ripped out of her chest. You could say the killer had an eye for beauty. The old renaissance church may have been abandoned but it was exquisite. A replica of the Sistine chapel was painted on the ceiling and the windows were made from coloured glass containing pictures of baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary and a crucified Jesus Christ looked down directly at the nude figure of Jessica which was now surrounded by her scarlet coloured blood.

Dayton commented that the killer had some nerve to kill in the house of god. 

The cops inquired the caretaker, "Have you seen anything? Anyone that may have seen the killer?" 

The scrawny old man replied, "No sir I most certainly did not. Icame in today as I have done so for 15 years now to clean the church and the church grounds, and that is when i saw her body. Apart from that i have not seen any suspicious character around here."  

"Okay if you do find something you better let the cops know about it" said the cop.

When the church was being swiped, the cops found that the back door lock had been broken, indicating the killer had used this door to enter. Other than that they couldn't find anything conclusive. The girl's parents had been informed and the body sent to the forensics. 

***** 

Four murders and Dayton and Sloan had only found out that the killer struck every new moon and full moon and the names of all the victims' started from J and were futile in finding their lycanthrope. They were looking through all the case files searching for loop holes that the killer might have left and they had not noticed. While looking through the files Sloan noticed that none of the victims' had put up a fight. 

Scratching his nose Sloan asked, "Hey Dayton, you see none of the victims' had put up a fight." 

Dayton looked up from his file and said, "Yeah that's because they were all unconscious when they were being killed so obviously they couldn't fight." 

"Yes that is true but somehow I have this feeling that he could not have taken them all by surprise." Sloan said.

"May be. What are you trying to indicate?" asked Dayton.  

Sloan explained, "Well my guts says that he knew all his victims' may be not personally but just as some casual acquaintance. We know that none of the victims' are connected to each other and the killer is choosing them randomly; but even then there should be some connection, something that we are missing out." 

"What do you say we do?" asked Dayton. 

"You know what we should do; we should draw up a chart. We have to chronicle everything our victims' did two weeks before they were killed. I'm pretty sure we can find some pattern there." said Sloan. 

Dayton looking excited now said, "Okay then we will split up; I'll find out everything that Jennifer and Julie did and you take up James and Jessica. Then we draw up a timeline and see what we can find."  

"Alright let's get started!" exclaimed Sloan. 

***** 

Dayton knocked on Chloe's door and told her about the plan they had come up with and asked her to tell him everything that Jennifer did two weeks before her murder. Chloe told him about their daily routine- college then job then back home and on weekends they would sometimes go to a bar. But last weekend before her death instead of going to a bar they went to 'Viva Italia' to celebrate one of their friends birthday. Dayton wrote down everything thanked her and left. He then went to Julie's house and her mother attended to the door. He told her mother of the plan. Her mother recalled everything and told that Julie would attend school and then return home and then go to piano classes every alternate day of the week and on the days she did not attend classes she would go to her friends place or her friend would come home, and two days before she died they had gone out for a family dinner at the 'Viva Italia'. He thanked her and left. Pondering how both the victims' had gone to the 'Viva Italia'.

Sloan went to meet James's family and was greeted by his dad. He told him of their plan. James dad said that apart from attending school and going to work for his part time job he didn't allow James to go anywhere else. However he had busted him for going to 'Viva Italia' to attend some kind of a party. Sloan wrote down everything, thanked Mr. Thomas and left. He then went to meet Jessica's family and met her mother and told her about how they were drawing up a timeline to help them catch the killer. Mrs. Ryder told him the same- school, home and then play and that was pretty much the same routine in the past two weeks, nothing out of the ordinary and finally said that a week before her murder they had gone to 'Viva Italia'. He thanked her and left. 

When both of them were back in office they simultaneously exclaimed, "Its 'Viva Italia' that is the connection!!" 

Sloan high fived Dayton and said, "Told you we would find a connection. The killer finds his victims from his workplace!" 

With the same enthusiasm Dayton said, "Could be I think we should place a visit to this 'Viva Italia'." 

Both of them agreed and left for the place. 

***** 

They reached 'Viva Italia' and flashed their badges to the doorman and asked to meet the manager. The doorman took them inside and introduced them to the manager Mr. Leonardo Tirelli. 

"We are from NYPD homicide. We doubt that someone from your restaurant could be the killer of the 'werewolf case'." said Dayton. 

Looking completely shocked Tirelli replied, "How is it possible I always check the background of my employees and only then employ them none of them seem to be of the psycho type who would go around killing young kids." 

Scowling Sloan said, "Yeah I'm sure we would be a better judge of that. We would like to meet all the people working here." 

Looking scared Tirelli agreed and instructed all his workers to assemble in front of the detectives. Among all the workers- one guy was the head chef, his two assistants were male, the remaining 4 cooks were female and all the 8 waitresses were female.  

Looking at all the workers both of them were stumped none of them looked like killers. The waiters were the ones who would interact with the customers and here all of them were females and extremely good looking not the kind who would go around killing people. Anyway they decided to interrogate them all and told them that tomorrow all them could take leave and come to the office to give their alibi during the time of the murders. 

Tirelli was up in arms and exclaimed, "Nope that is not possible. We are booked this full week, but I do not want to cause any impediments in your investigation so the next Monday I will make sure that me and all my workers are in your office at sharp ten in the morning." 

Seeing that Tirelli was ready to cooperate they agreed and left saying that they would keep an eye on him and his workers. 

The next Monday morning Leonardo Tirelli and all his workers were assembled at the NYPD office. 

Dayton and Sloan began interrogating them one by one. Both had anticipated that the killer was male so they started with the 3 male chefs and but their alibi checked out. However they doubted the head chef Lucian Salvatore since during the interrogation he was acting weird. Then they interrogated the female workers and did not find anything fishy. They were convinced that the beautiful waitresses or cooks could not be the killer. 

The detectives let them all go, but decided to keep an eye on the Salvatore guy considering the next full moon was coming up in a few days....