Chapter 18

Flying back to Grangeville, the flight had been uneventful. Grace was anticipating what Jason had to tell her. She was really hoping that the information that they had gathered from both Mrs. Ramos and Dawn Tally would add to the investigation. She felt that they had gained some insight but not that much. It was apparent to her that Veronica felt differently; she thought she had finally cracked the case. She was unwilling to share the information that she had obtained for the conversations that they had had with both of the women.

Arriving at the airport, both of the women were surprised to see both Jason and William waiting for them. They were standing near the door as they were going to be heading out to the taxis. Grace wondered what this meant to the case. She was pleasantly surprised to see Jason, but she knew that he was here on official business and not for personal reasons. She had hoped to be able to get home and take a shower and take care of Big Ben but it was apparent that this was not going to happen. She did not know when she was going to be able to go home so she gave Amalia a call and asked her to go and check in on Big Ben for her. She reminded her where the spare key was located and hoped that she would remember to lock up after herself. There were more important matters to deal with at this time.

“As you may or may not know, ‘El Diablo’ has struck again. He had killed Becky Newsome, the news reporter.” Jason stated stoically. The shock that he saw on both of the women’s faces allowed him to know that they were unaware of this fact. He was surprised until he realized that they were probably already in New York when the murder was discovered. He wondered if he should have called them and told them this development so they could mull it over before they arrived home, however it was too late for that now.

“Both William and I have been to the crime scene and to the morgue already. I did not think that the two of you would want to have to experience that at all. It was not something that I would want to expose my worse enemy to and so I am glad that we made that decision. While we were on the scene we did not see anything that would connect the cases to each other. However, when we went to the coroner’s office we did. We have found one consistency between all of these cases. For one reason or another, all of the victims appear to have a tattoo of a lion on their right ankle. We are not sure what this could mean but it is the only thing that we have to go on right now.”

Grace could not believe it. She thought for sure that they were going to be able to catch the creep that was doing this before he struck again. He had fallen out of his pattern. All the other murders had had at least a week between them; this one occurred only four days after the last one. Grace wondered if the offender was getting desperate. She thought that maybe he had sensed that they were truly looking for him now and that they might catch him before he had completed what he had set out to do. She wondered what it was that he had wished to accomplish. That was going to be her first task, to find out what it was that he was looking to do.

“Do we know for sure that it was him?” Grace asked.

“As far as we can tell it was. There were consistencies that point to it being the same person. He even left a calling card.”

“Is it the same as on all the other victims?”
“In fact, it wasn’t. This time he had Becky interview him before he killed her. It was kind of strange but it could just mean that his anger has escalated.”

Jason did not like the fact that there was this inconsistency in the case. He really hoped that he was not going to have to deal with a copycat. This always made the case so much harder and also made the police look like a bunch of buffoons. He did not like to be made fun of nor did he like the idea of having two lunatics out on the streets. He prayed that this was not the case. Until he had further information he was going to except that “El Diablo” had just changed his pattern slightly.

He turned to William, Grace and Veronica who all appeared to be waiting to see what he was going to say next. When he gets lost in his own thoughts, he is often unaware that the world is continuing to move without him. He did not realize that he had been sitting there thinking for about three minutes and that they were waiting to find out where they were going. It looked as if they were all thinking about something but it was Veronica who took the chance to jump in and give her theory on where the case was going.

“I think that I might have figured out at least what connects all of the victims,” Veronica looked proud of herself for stating this.

“Go ahead, Veronica,” grinned Jason. He figured that she would already have her own theories by now and was surprised that he had not received a call from her earlier. She was know to not be a team player and he was hoping that working with the group would help her change; he could tell that it hadn’t worked the way that he had hoped it would.

“Well you see when I….” Grace glared at her. “Okay, we were speaking to Dawn Tally today I figured out something. I think that there is a possibility that every one of the victims attended Xavier School.”

Everyone just stared at her blankly. Grace had already thought about this but did not know why this was going to be a connection; who cares if they all went to the same school or not. She could not figure out how this was going to play any role at all into the investigation. She knew that she had to let everyone come up with their own theories, but she had heard exactly the same things as Veronica and had not come to this conclusion; where had Veronica?

“I did some research on the plane and realized that Xavier School is located in Bridgeton, Connecticut. I think that if we go there we will find out that every single one of our victims attended there and possibly that they all went to school together. I mean when you go to a boarding school you tend to socialize with each other more than a regular school because you are away from the rest of your family. So what do you think?”

Jason looked around at the rest of the group. “I guess that any theory that we might have right now does need to be investigated. You never know what could be the missing piece that we have not seen before. Therefore, I think that you should go there with Grace and see what you can find. What do you think about that Grace?”

“I would really rather stay here and try to find out if there are any leads here in Grangeville. I feel that we might have over looked something and I want to look into it.”

“That is understandable, Grace. William, would you be opposed to accompanying Veronica to Connecticut to check out her lead?”

William looked a little taken back. “I guess that would be fine if that is where you need me.”

“Thank you very much William for being willing to do this. I will book the flight for the two of you to travel to Bridgeton in the morning. Meanwhile, I would like for us all to look through the coroner’s files on these victims. Maybe with all of us looking at them we can find something that we have overlooked.”

Grace was very thankful that she was not going to have to work side by side with Veronica. It had really pissed her off to see the way she had wanted to handle the case. It was not the way that she was use to working and it was not the way that she planned on working. It was going to be much easier for her to remain in Grangeville and work hand in hand with Jason. In fact, she was looking very forward to working with him.