A Criminal's Mind

Beverly Jean

We head down the street to the cafe that is on the corner. Officer Osacek lays some files on the table once we order some coffee. "Beverly Jean Shaw, 22. Never came home from her babysitting job. Four days later, we find her in the dump on Wopsononock Mountain." He looks over to me, "ma'am, are you sure you want to see these?"

"I'm fine, I assure you," I nod as Ford and I start looking through the photos of the crime scene.

"Umm... alright, based on stomach contents, we think she was killed right away, around midnight Wednesday."

Ford passes the photos to Tench, who looks over the photos and then up to Osacek, "she was sitting like this at the dump for four days?"

"Well, no, um.... see, there wasn't enough, um... if she had been at the dump the whole four days..."

"We'd see more insect infestation and animal trauma," Ford kind of walks over Osacek.

Tench nods, "so, between when she was murdered on Wednesday and when the body was discovered four days later, she had to be someplace else?" Osacek nods, agreeing with Tench.

As I look over to Osacek, who is clearly having an issue with this case, Ford comments on a photo, "her breast."

Osacek takes a deep breath, "they were, I guess you'd say... amputated. Um, we have not been able to locate them."

"Was this post-mortem or..."

"Coroner said she was already dead. Yes, sir." He takes a deep breath, "he blacked both her eyes, broke her jaw, multiple stab wounds. You can see he kind of frogged her legs out there." He takes another deep breath, "and there was um..." Osacek shifts a bit before taking a drink of his coffee, "sorry." He becomes very shaky, "we don't get this kind of thing. It's hard to..."

"Take your time," Tench nods.

Osacek takes a deep breath and then pulls out the coroner's report from the file, "there was an incision from her..." he clears his throat, "from her vagina to her, um... anus." He looks down and shakes his head, "God, damn it. I'm sorry."

I smile over to Osacek, "your doing fine."

Tench nods, "the family local?"

"Uh..." Osacek nods, "parents upstate. Fiancé in town." We pause and look at each other for a second, "you don't think somebody local did this?"

"Hard to say at this point."

"I go to church with these people. We get peeping toms, sure. But something like this? It doesn't make sense. To go from shoplifters and underage kids buying beer to... what happened to Beverly... it has to be an outsider."

Ford looks over a photo of the crime scene and nudges my arm, "draped over the ironing board here, is that human hair?"

"Looks like it," I look over the photo.

Ford looks over to Osacek, "you have this?"

"Sure," Osacek nods, "yeah, forensics bagged it up. It's all about forensics. I am starting to appreciate that."

"And the ironing board, you take that as well?"

"Uh... I mean, we dusted it for fingerprints and everything, but, uh..."

Ford and I look over to Tench, Ford takes a deep breath, "but you do think the unsub scalped Beverly and then draped it over the ironing board?"

"Does that mean something?"

Ford looks over to me with his mouth hanging open, "everything in these photos has meaning. If the unsub mean to display the hair, he was saying something. He could've put the hair anywhere."

"Right, no, I get it now... uh... soon as forensics confirms it's Beverly's hair..."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Well, we shouldn't jump ahead of forensics, am I right?"

"I think, in this case, we have a dead body missing a chunk of hair, a big chunk of hair nearby, so we can go out on a limb and assume..."

I take a deep breath, "what Agent Ford means to say is, we're already behind here, we're very late to this. We will have to go over ground you may have already covered. Witnesses. Crime scene. Everything. It's not a challenge to you, nor is it a criticism. We just need to catch up. Am I right, Agent Ford?"

Ford looks up from the photos, laying them down and putting his hands under the table, "absolutely."

Tench takes a deep breath, "we may ask obvious questions and maybe a few you haven't thought of, but it's not a contest or competition. We're all on the same side, okay?"

"Sure," Osacek nods.

We finish up and head to the car, Tench and I lean against the car, smoking. I don't normally smoke, but after what I just saw, I understand why Tench does. Ford walks over to us, "I'm curious why you're cutting this guy so much slack."

"He's never seen this kind of thing before. He's rattled, it's not his fault." Tench takes a deep breath, "without a doubt you have more experience, even Nance does, but why rub it in his face?" Tench looks over to Ford, "I'm not trying to make you feel bad. Well, maybe a little. The point is, local cops want to catch their guy as much as we do, maybe more. For them, it's not just theoretical, it's where they live."

I place the cigarette to my lips, "what did you guys get from those photos?"

"What do you mean?" Ford looks over to me.

I take a draw off the cigarette, "whoever did that, did it out of rage. They hated that girl," I shake my head and look down.