Scream of Terror

Day Five - Part Two - What the Killer Left

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3rd Person pov:

Luc looked inside the package, and the first thing he was greeted with was a big letter, reading:

'This Package, and its content inside, are of classified matter. If you are not the supposed recipient of this package specified below, return this package to the original sender, specified below, immediately. Viewing the content of this package without permission is punishable by Law.

Recipient: Detective Luc Scarleight, Northwood Lane 106, 97103, North Nocavern, Oregon

Sender: North Nocavern Police Department, Lincoln Street 2, 97103, North Nocavern, Oregon

Signed:

Jake McConnell, Chief of Police of the North Nocavern Police Department'

Reading this, Luc remembered the one time he actually got sent a package of evidence he wasn't supposed to get. This was back when he just moved into this apartment unit. Apparently, the former owner was some kind of investigator himself too, and seemingly forgot to update his address. Though, Luc couldn't remember the name of the person, nor his title. He just remembered that he send the package back to the police department, and the matter sorted itself out, Luc never hearing anything further.

Though, sometimes he does wonder if he ever met this guy in person coincidentally. But all that wasn't important now, what was is investigation all the pieces of evidence the police could find at all the former murder sites. Although the of course wouldn't include any evidence from the Helena Schneider one from today.

"Thinking about it, today's murder is fishy..." Luc said to himself, speaking his thoughts out loud, "This entire murder fit the MO, a missing child and a stab to the heart... but the calling card was missing...". Luc looked at his evidence board, at the page describing the killer's calling card, a broken crossed out red heart. He didn't notice it while he was there, but none was to be found.

"Does this mean today's murder wasn't actually connected to the murder spree, or did the killer just not want anyone to know that he was the one responsible for Helena's murder? Why? For what reason would he want that?" Luc still mumbled out loud, writing this fact and the theories in short on the second white board. 

"I digress. Alexa, put on my favorite songs." Luc said, and Alexa turned on 'Drunk Walk Home' from Mistki. The song playing in the background, soon about to be nothing more than sorted white-noise.

He went to the package and looked at the first piece of evidence. It was a copy of a picture, showing a fingerprint. It was only a small part of it, with small pieces of it being smudged. Under the picture was a small text reading 'Fingerprint left at the first crime scene. Doesn't belong to victim. Forensic team questioning the usefulness since it is only such a small, smudged part. A test was done anyway – No matched found in the Database.

"Why couldn't the killer just have a criminal record, so his fingerprints are in the database, but no, that would have been too easy, wouldn't it?", Luc mumbled to himself again, and put the piece on the first board. Returning to the box, he grabbed inside again. Out came a picture of a pretty standard kitchen knives with a black handle. 'Found in the body of the first victim on the first crime scene. Fingerprint analysis show various fingerprints belonging to the victim, and her Husband. No other fingerprints found.'

"He used the knives of the victim – did he do this more often?!" Luc asked, put the picture to the side, and looked around in the box, with a tunnel vision only allowing knives to be seen. After looking through the box, he found just one other.

Another knife, but this one is special. The handle is very clearly custom-made. While the handle was still very basic, though, most likely using higher-than-usual quality wood. However, the blade had a pattern in the steel, and near the handle, engraved into the steel, were two letters: 'S.R.'.

'Knife found inside the body of the third victim. No Fingerprints found. Letters near the handle, suspected to be initials, don't overlap with the victim. After the knife was taken from the crime scene, an unknown individual, suspected to be the murderer, attacked several officers, trying to retrieve the knife. This is cause to believe that the initials on the knife are the killer's.'

"So, that means that for one, he only didn't bring a knife to a murder the first time" Luc mumbled to himself, putting both pieces on the first board, noting that fact down in the second board. "On the other, he has the initials 'SR'."

Luc hesitated, and thought. "Or... what if he wants us to believe that...? No, that... would be overkill. Or was, no, is it? Was this a mistake or planned... God, I can't tell, could be, could not. How good is this guy?!"

"That either means the killer has the initials SR, or the exact opposite." Luc wrote both of the theories down, "And this means that, in summary, this gave me absolutely no new information."

"If all the other evidence pieces are gonna lead to this outcome, I'm gonna shoot someone. I am American after all." he joked to himself, grabbing another piece of evidence. He looked at it, read every note it had, and put it on the board, writing every theory he had because or over the evidence he had down on the second board. After that, he grabbed yet another evidence piece, and the cycle continued all over again.

One of the evidence pieces was a cup containing unknown DNA-Traces, that Luc almost immediately discarded. He doesn't know the true extent of the killers' skill, but he knew, he was smart enough to not drink something at a crime scene, with a piece from the crime scene, and then leave said object at the crime scene. He put it on the board nonetheless, but a bit more secluded, writing 'Unlikely to be of use' under it.

Another piece was the recording from a CCTV, that was located near one of the houses a murder occurred in. Shortly before the time of death for these victims and shortly after, a man was caught on camera walking to and away from the house, respectively. Making out any finer details was impossible, though. The camera that recorded it was broken, showing many errors across the entire picture, not to mention the fact that it only recorded in a very small resolution anyway, only in black and white. The fact that it was night didn't help the matter at all.

But guessing a rough height was still showing possible for Luc, who concluded the killer should be about 5,9 – 6,2ft tall, which overlaps with a fact Mrs. Starleight found out in the investigation of today's murder, making Luc a bit more confident that the murder was also connected, despite the lacking calling card.

The last piece of evidence that Luc thought was interested, was the fact that for the first pair of murders, the killer always broke in by breaking in a window, while in the later pair, he started breaking open the window less destructively, the same way he saw today.

"But also..." He said to himself again, just like so often today, "Looking at all the crime scenes... Yes, Mrs. Schneider's murder... it was absolutely more brutal than usual." All the other murders look rather clean, emotionless and calculated, the victims having almost little to none extra wounds other than the one that caused the death, unlike the mutilation she had to endure. What Luc interest the most now is also if the Mutilation was caused before death, or postmortem.

"In conclusion..." Luc took a step back from the board, overlooking the both of them, "... I got just about nothin', and in addition learned just about nothin'. So many murder sites and so little evidence? Is this guy Agent 47, or what?"

From all the evidence, Luc gathered a fingerprint that was too small to be useful, and found out that the killer is definitely male, just over 6 Ft., white skin tone, wearing all black. His body was build normally, neither wide nor really slim. And from all the lack of actually useful evidence, he was an expert in this field.

"This sure is... what they call progress.", Luc talked to himself, "Yeah, I'm finished for today." With one swift movement, Luc turned to the Hallway, and then turning to his bedroom, grabbing clothes, then going to his bathroom, to shower. After that, he went to his bedroom, and let himself drop onto his bed.

He turned around, the back of his head laying on his pillow, and he put the blanked over himself. Unlike usually, he didn't put on the TV, to watch a show, or video or any of that, he was just laying there, in silence, thinking about the case, if perhaps he could someone figure out any new clue or theory. But coming up with something he did not. And at last, he fell asleep.

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