Tali had been with the FBI for 13 years in the
homicide division. Although homicide is
normally for local law enforcement, her department specialized in serial
killers or killers that cross state lines.
Although she would say she enjoyed the job, it often pained her to see
the pointlessness of the murders that came across her desk. Oftentimes in homicide departments, the
killers were drug, money or revenge related.
She would never argue that these were justified killings because she was
against murder but at least the person had a reason. When dealing with serial homicides, however,
oftentimes the killer would just claim that they felt like it or they were
bored. Trying to keep emotions out of it
was hard when the killer showed no remorse but killed because of some weird
principle. Many people didn’t want to
admit it but characters in movies such as Natural Born Killers, where people
kill because they believe it’s a natural instinct of animals and humans are
animals, really exist. Although this
gave her goose bumps at night, it also made it that much more satisfying when
she locked one of these psychos up.
Not long
after she arrived at work, a file came across her desk. There had been three murders in New Orleans . A week earlier, two people were killed in the
same manner in Little Rock ,
Arkansas , two slits along the
ceratoid arteries in the neck. She was
to investigate whether or not it was related.
While on the plane, she took out the five victims’ driver’s license photos
and put them next to each other to see if she could come up with a
pattern. The photos were confusing
because nothing was consistent. The five
photos she was looking at contained two Black men, a Chinese woman, a White
woman and a Hispanic male. She tried to
analyze the photos without prejudice but she couldn’t help but think that the
various ethnicities meant something.
During her time with the FBI, she realized that more often than not, the
killer and the victim were the same race.
If these killings were related, and were done by one person, then this
killer didn’t discriminate. She left
open the possibility of a Middle Easterner since that was the most obvious race
not represented. She separated the
photos by location to see if that helped.
Little Rock claimed the White woman and
Black man, while the other Black man, Chinese woman and Hispanic male claimed New Orleans . Her superior decided to investigate Little Rock first since
those were the first killings. Having gotten nowhere on seeing a connection,
she decided to get some sleep before she arrived.
When Tali
landed in Little Rock , she immediately checked
herself in the hotel and took a map out of the United
States and put thumb tacks in New
Orleans and Little Rock . She then taped the five driver’s license
photos on the wall staring at them for a pattern. She took out the case files and studied them;
she would coordinate with local law enforcement the next day. Having done this before, she knew that she
would have to know all the facts inside and out. Different divisions of law enforcement didn’t
really like each other. Local cops don’t
like FBI, FBI doesn’t like CIA and CIA doesn’t like the Secret Service. When dealing with other ingredients in the
law enforcement’s alphabet soup, it was extremely important to know at least
the same amount of information as the person you were speaking to. She would be tested and any sign of weakness
or ignorance, she could kiss their respect good bye, which would hurt their
case.
Tali
arrived at the Little Rock
police station early the next day and requested files on the case. She heard some rumblings in the back about
how they didn’t want her there but she ignored them. She requested to go back to the areas and ask
the residents what they knew. Local law
enforcement had already done this, but she would be remiss if she didn’t get
primary source data rather than just rely on what others told her. After canvassing for hours, Tali had made no
progress in seeing any connection between the victims. They were all from different parts of town,
didn’t seem to know each other, and didn’t hang out in the same crowds or
scenes. She got back to the police
station to compare her data with theirs pessimistic that anything would come to
her. For the most part, the local law
enforcement was accommodating, and the tension was unspoken. She knew that it was too much to ask for
there to be no tension, after all, no matter how you sugar coated it, she was
called in because the powers-that-be didn’t believe the local law enforcement
did their jobs thorough enough and that Tali could do it better. How could you expect no tension when you come
in on these pretenses? She overheard
someone in the background remark, “Great, another one of these rich assholes is
going to live.” She couldn’t help but
think negatively that two people had just turned up murdered, and they’re
worried about some celebrity getting out of the hospital. She decided that she needed a break, so she
took her copies of the case files from the Little Rock police department, and left to
get something to eat before returning back to her hotel.
Tali knew
the next day would be spent in seclusion so she would not have any distractions
and could observe the data. She only had
two days to spend in Little Rock , before she had
to pack up and go to New Orleans
to do the same thing. She had had a long
day and sleep was needed because the next day would be just as nerve
wrecking. The case was taunting her; why
did nothing add up? No matter how much
people wanted to believe it, she knew that there was no such thing as random
killings. There was always a pattern;
it’s just sometimes too hard to find it.
What was this pattern though?
These were her thoughts before her mind closed down from exhaustion and
her eyes wandered back and forth as it went through its REM cycle for sleep.
Tali awoke
the next morning and had breakfast before poring over the files again. Her supervisor called and she was embarrassed
that she didn’t have much to report. She
requested someone that she had worked with on other cases to help her. Sometimes all someone needed was to just have
a conversation and bounce ideas off another human being. Her supervisor told her that he’d send her
requested partner to New Orleans
and she could just meet him there the next day.
Her last day in Little Rock
just further frustrated her because she had made no head way. The next day, she packed up her things and
prepared for her flight to New Orleans
to meet up with her partner.
Ben had
gotten the order to go to New Orleans
to put more manpower on the quintuple homicide.
He had been with the FBI for 17 years and little affected him
anymore. He had little emotion or care
for the murderer’s motive, to him, a homicide is a homicide and the perpetrator
should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. He looked forward to working with Tali
because their personalities counteracted each other in order to yield the best
result. Tali was very nice when dealing
with the public and local law enforcement, whereas Ben came in and took
charge. Which way is preferred depends
on the situation; some people take being ordered around well, others fight back
and rebel. This is why it was good when Tali
was around because if there were negative reactions, Tali could come in and
play “good cop” and get more information than Ben could from his bullying
tactics.
After a
full day of canvassing the neighborhoods, he had come up with no connection
between the murders. The case was
complicated but he kept his mind focused on the goal of putting those
responsible behind bars. Tali arrived
the next day only to find more of the same in New Orleans .
They followed some leads, but they always led to dead ends. The only headway that was made was when the
forensics lab reports came back. Both Ben
and Tali uploaded the victim’s pictures to headquarters to analyze them. They had been on the force long enough to
know that it was amazing how many ways someone could be identified. Finger prints and retinal scans were only the
obvious ones. In the past, they had
figured out bios of their killers from sampling their handwriting, the way they
walk, how they draw trees etc.. In this
case, it was how they cut a line.
Although both killers used a scalpel, the Little
Rock killer drew almost identical lines in his two victims, but the
lines were different for the three New
Orleans victims.
To further add to this evidence, the three New Orleans victims had almost identical
lines to each other. It seemed that it
was two killers after all. Since it
looked like it was no longer a killer crossing state lines, it was no longer
FBI jurisdiction and they returned back to their New York office. Although the higher-ups dismissed it, Ben and
Tali had a feeling that they were still related. How could five similarly executed murders
happen so close to each other? They
wrote it off as the New Orleans killer being a
copy cat of the Little Rock
killer, but something told them that this wasn’t accurate.
A couple
months later, a red flag arose from Colorado . Another series of murders that were all
killed in similar styles to New Orleans and Little Rock . Ben and Tali volunteered to investigate. Their supervisor didn’t believe it to be
related to the New Orleans and Little Rock but sent them anyway just so he
wouldn’t have to deal with their constant protests. The first thing Tali noticed was that there
was a Japanese woman and a Middle Eastern man.
She had made the report that she thought the killer may be Middle
Eastern since that was the race not represented among the victims, but that
seemed wrong now. Ben and Tali bounced
ideas off each other trying to make sense of it. There were four murders, a Middle Eastern
Muslim man, a white Jewish woman, a white Mormon man and a Catholic woman. Just like the previous two cities, religion,
gender, and ethnicity weren’t matching up.
Ben blurted out, “Well they’re all American so that’s something.”
Tali smiled
and reviewed the victims and found that three of the nine victims were immigrants. So far, the only connection is that they all
had driver’s licenses, but that’s hardly anything to go on. They were given even less time in these
cities since headquarters really didn’t believe in the connection. To them, slitting someone’s throat is a
common enough way to kill someone. Tali
wrote this off because the cuts were so precise; one slit per artery. The throat slashing she had seen was almost
always one swipe that made it seem like the killer was going for decapitation
or creating a human Pez-dispenser.
Ben could
see that the frustration was bothering Tali immensely. It bothered him too, but he could hide it
better. He commented to Tali, “Well
maybe they’re just horrible drivers.”
Tali
chuckled at this. Two weeks later, murders
happened in Miami
following the same MO and even the higher ups were noticing that this was too
coincidental to be random. They gave Tali
and Ben a green light to travel anywhere they wanted and stay for as long as
possible. No more flying in for a couple
days, see what you find, then leave.
They would be given a lot of string.
With this added freedom, however, came the added pressure of results. They had to find something.
While in Miami , Tali said to Ben,
“We have to start thinking about this outside the box. The usual ways of finding killers isn’t
working so what haven’t we done?” So
far, they had spoken to the family and friends of the victims ad nauseum both
in person and over the phone. They had
canvassed the areas the bodies were found and local law enforcement files. They had even searched the register list at
the funerals and interviewed the attendees.
They went through all these motions again in Miami , then Tali said late one night,
“Tomorrow is a relax day. I’m going to
the beach and laying out in the sun all day, I’m through being cooped up
staring at a bunch of papers.”
Ben didn’t disagree, this case was
taking a toll on them and he decided a day on the beach would be nice. They packed up their things and headed toward
Sanibel Island in Fort Myers . Although South Beach
got all the notoriety, it was usually filled with a bunch of college kids or
rich snobs. These people annoyed Tali
and Sanibel, though also popular, didn’t attract the aristocratic, new money,
rich bubble-living trust fund babies like South Beach . The other added bonus about Sanibel was the
beaches had sea shells sporadically spread out all over the beach. It was just the perfect amount so that you
could find a place to lay a towel and lay on the beach without laying on sea
shells, but plenty to gather if that’s what you enjoyed. Most beaches, you had to go into the water
and feel for them; Sanibel they were all over for the taking. They checked into a hotel in Fort Myers and went to sleep. Tali woke up with the sun and left a note for
Ben before heading to the beach. A
couple hours later, Ben found Tali and they relaxed rarely talking about the
case. This was their day off and they
were going to enjoy it. As the waves
came up the sand only to retreat and a cool breeze flew over Tali as she was
allowing nature’s towel, the sun, to dry her off, a thought dawned on her. She said to Ben, “We should check with the
hospitals and morgues where the victims were brought to.”
“Tali, this
is our day off, no work today. Besides,
all those people ever say is that they were dead on arrival or autopsy
confirmed the obvious. Guaranteed,
autopsy reports will conclude that the victims bled to death due to having
their throat slashed with a scalpel.”
“We should
still try”
“Tomorrow,
today we rest.”
That was
the last thing mentioned about the case that day. When the sun went down, Tali and Ben had
dinner and then headed back to Miami . They would follow Tali’s theory the next day
since it couldn’t hurt. They checked
into the same hotel they stayed in prior to leaving. This was done on purpose; it has been proven
that people remember things better when they’re in the same atmosphere as when
they learned of it. Psychologists had
tested this theory with scuba divers teaching them one thing under water and
one thing back on land. The things they
learned under water, they remembered better when retested underwater than when
they were tested back on land. This also
worked vice-versa in that underwater they had more trouble recalling the things
they learned on land than when they were on land. They were going to use as many psychological
or otherwise theories they could to solve this one. It had taken so much time and brain power
that not finding anything was no longer an option.
The next
day, they went to the hospitals and morgue and questioned all those that had
evaluated the victims. To Ben’s point,
they didn’t have much to say that they didn’t already know. Tali grabbed lunch in the cafeteria while Ben
decided to question some more people before joining Tali. Tali sat at the cafeteria looking over the
files she had stared at countless times before.
One of the nurses that she had interviewed saw Tali’s frustration and
sat down near her. She took out some
homemade chocolate chip cookies and sat down at Tali’s table and said, “Hi,
would you like a cookie?”
“No thanks”
Tali said without even looking up from her papers.
The nurse
expected this but she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She didn’t like seeing people look so
frustrated. She continued, “I made them
myself, and if you don’t take one, you’re going to hurt my feelings” as she
feigned a frown.
Tali caught
the frown in the corner of her eye and couldn’t help but relax a bit. The woman had a very soothing voice, which
kind of made her feel guilty if she responded harshly again. She looked up and smiled and said, “Well if
that’s the only way to get rid of you.” and took a cookie.
The nurse
took it as a victory that she got Tali to smile and handed her the cookie with
an excited smile. Tali sort of admired
the simplicity of someone being so excited merely because someone accepted
their cookie. Tali took a bite and had
to admit that it was really good. Her
eyes widened and the nurse said, “Good huh?”
“These are
fantastic” Tali responded staring at the cookie.
The nurse
put a container of cookies in front of her and said, “Here, help yourself, I’ll
get some milk.” As she walked away before Tali could protest.
Tali’s mood
had relaxed significantly just by the short encounter with the nurse. The nurse came back with a glass of milk and
gave it to Tali. Tali thanked her and
started eating another cookie before taking a sip. “So where are you from?” the nurse said.
Tali knew
she was making small talk, but decided that she was friendly enough to oblige,
“Brooklyn , New York .”
“Oh well,
we need to show you some southern hospitality then” the nurse said as she
patted her on the back before continuing, “those stern wall street types in New
York don’t go around offering cookies and sitting with you just because you
look like you have the world on your shoulders.”
Tali was
shocked not by what she said but when the nurse patted her shoulder, she felt
all the knots in her shoulders and back relax. It was as if she had no control
over her body and a load had been lifted off her shoulders. She started looking at her shoulders in shock
as if they were defying her. The nurse
expected this. She had gotten into
nursing because she had always had the ability to relax people with a simple
touch. She was used to calming people before going through life threatening
surgery, this detective who was frustrated about a case she couldn’t solve was
a walk in the park for her. Tali looked
up taking in the nurse for the first time and temporarily forgetting the
case. Having a meaningless conversation
didn’t seem like too bad of an idea right now. She hadn’t been this relaxed in
months so she said, “Actually I lived in New
Orleans for a while.”
“Oh so you
know how we are then?”
“Yea”
The
conversation continued uneventfully but Tali soon went back to the case. She talked to the nurse about her frustration
but was a lot more relaxed about it now.
The nurse didn’t really know how to advise on this but she knew the next
step was to talk about the case and attack the frustration at the source. The nurse had always believed that every
situation had a silver lining and there was a bright side to everything. She decided to share with Tali the bright
side she found in the murders. She said,
“If it helps at all, all the people who died ended up saving a life.”
Tali rolled
her eyes; it bothered her when people were always cheerful about
everything. After the things she had
seen for the last 13 years, it was hard to think the world was a good
place. It was because of people like Tali,
however, that stopped the people who make it ugly from further exacerbating it
so that the optimists could be given a case for why the world is a beautiful
place. Law enforcement rarely gets this
recognition for allowing the world to seem like a nice place, but they also
were the type that didn’t seek out fame and praise. They liked being in the background and
working in the shadows. She decided to
fuel the nurse’s excitement and asked, “How’s that?”
“Well they
were all organ donors and each surgery that used the organs was successful and
they were now living their lives, so it’s not always all bad.”
Tali got an
idea; she finally found a connection between the victims. She immediately snapped back into detective
mode and said, “Can you get me a list of all the patients to receive an organ
after the murders?”
“Ummm I
think that’s okay.”
“Thank
you.”
“Tali saw Ben
come over and waved him over excitedly.
She saw the confusion on the nurse’s face and didn’t want to be
rude. She said, “Thank you very much for
the cookies and for calming me down but it is extremely important that I get
those files, how soon can you get them?”
“Well you
would have to talk to the doctor…”
“What’s his
name?” Tali interrupted.
The nurse
told her and she wrote it down. She
started getting up from the table before sitting back down. The nurse had gone out of her way to help her
and she was about to storm off. Ben had
sat down at this point and Tali offered him a cookie making sure to praise
them. Ben had a similar reaction after
tasting them and praised the nurse. Ben
said, “I’m starving”
“Take it to
go” Tali said then turned toward the nurse, “Thank you very much for sitting
and talking to me. You made me smile for
the first time in months, but I think you just unlocked a vital point of this
case that I need to follow up on. Again,
thank you for the cookies and for keeping me company but I have to go now.”
Ben spoke
up, “What’s going on, I just got here, and I’m starving”
“Get it to
go!” She snapped
Ben turned to the nurse and said,
“Why is she so nice to you?” and smiled.
The nurse
knew that there was no turning Tali back from work mode so she told her where
to find the doctor and excused herself.
She wrote off the encounter as her getting Tali to relax a little bit
before she reverted back. She didn’t
realize just how much she helped.
Ben got
some portable food and followed Tali. Tali
filled him in on the parts of the conversation pertinent to the case and Ben
immediately followed the logic, “You don’t think it’s just coincidence that
these people miraculously found a donor that quickly?”
After
getting the files, Tali and Ben went back to the cafeteria to pore over the
files. They took out the victim’s
driver’s license photos again and checked the line next to “organ donor.” Each one followed with a “Y.” Tali called New Orleans
and Little Rock
to check with the hospitals on if they found a similar coincidence that all
these people’s organs were all of a sudden useful in saving someone’s
life. Ben called Colorado and confirmed that all four cities
had similar patterns. They looked at the
list of people who were saved by the organs and started thinking of ways to
question them. Then Ben got the idea to
call back the hospitals and find out who was the last person on the lists and
cross-reference it with the patient’s incomes.
Since more than one organ was used, this made the list longer than nine,
but it did narrow it down.
Tali called
headquarters and asked the computer people to find out everything they could
about them paying close attention to any wealthy ones. In each city, there was a seven-figure income
patient to have benefited from an organ provided by one of the victims.
Tali and Ben
returned to New York
so they could work closer with the labs to try to further narrow the list
down. They confirmed that the victims
all had the same blood types as the millionaire, or they were O-, which is the
universal donor. They asked them to find
any large money transfers to off-shore accounts and informed the CIA since
off-shore accounts was their jurisdiction.
Tali and Ben
then called the local law enforcement in the cities where the killings had occurred
to tell them what they found. The local
law enforcement didn’t want to admit it, but this was a promising lead. The off-shore records were a little tricky,
but the local law enforcement brought in the millionaire’s for
questioning. Unfortunately, their high
price lawyers came with them and made their jobs that much harder. They didn’t get a confession, so they had to
let them go because they only had circumstantial evidence.
Ben and Tali
knew there was no way they had enough to convict. Their lawyers would stop them from confessing. They would just have to catch them in the
act. They monitored the hospitals in
cities large enough to have multiple professional sports teams since that is
where wealthy people normally live.
After a couple months, they caught a break in that a millionaire had a
life threatening illness and needed an organ transplant. They put a flag on his finances and when the
off-shore transfer was made, they monitored the airports for any flights booked
on short notice. The city was New York , and they were
happy that this was going to happen in their own back yard. They investigated everyone who made last
minute flights and the ones that didn’t have much of a past or any information
they decided to bring in for questioning.
Luckily, Ben
and Tali had a lot of help in that there is a lot of law enforcement in New York . They had the airports report any passenger
that had a scalpel in their checked luggage and cross-referenced it with the
list of people who made short notice flights from the final country that the
funds were transferred to with the luggage reports and had customs check their
bags. Their possession of a scalpel was
certainly not enough to convict, but it was enough to question them.
Ben and Tali
interviewed everyone that met their criteria and grilled them. They allowed local law enforcement to aid
them but they wanted to speak to each suspect personally, and it was of no
concern to them that local law enforcement didn’t take too kindly to this.
They arrived
at a police station and went into the interview room as they had done a lot in
the past few days. At this point, they
had the routine down that they could do it in their sleep. Provide the
evidence, accuse them of coming to kill someone, then adapt to the
answers. Although they saw shock and
fear in most of the people they questioned, this time they found intrigue. The victim looked up and said, “Offer me a
deal, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“Are you
admitting that you came to New York
to kill someone?”
“No, I’m
here on vacation, my sister is sick. But
that answer can change if you agree to send me back to my home country and drop
all charges.”
“In return?”
“Names of
everyone involved in the case you’re looking for, including the killer’s name.”
Ben and Tali
were shocked that he turned so easily. Ben
quickly checked with his superior and confirmed that he had the okay to make
the deal. They made the deal and the man
admitted he was the killer, who hired him, the millionaire in the hospital was
his financer, and how the list of people he was supposed to kill, which
corresponded to the number the millionaire was on the list of people who needed
the organ he needed. Ben was satisfied
but Tali had to know why he gave in so easily.
She asked as much and the killer responded, “Ma’ame, I’m a mercenary, I have
no ties to these people. Mercenaries, by
definition have no loyalty.”
Tali then
asked, “Why the scalpel?”
“It’s a quick
death that still allows blood and messages through the spinal cord so the body
doesn’t naturally corrupt the organs. It
would be too easy if we just cut out the organs, but that is normally what’s
done. Of course, if you’re going to do
that, you don’t really need an organ donor.
You just kill an immigrant or someone that has no family and take their
organs.”
It bothered
her immensely that they were going to let someone who would kill for money go,
but they had the deal and his agreement to testify. Even the millionaire’s high priced lawyers couldn’t
get him out of this one. They built the
case and handed it over to the District Attorney and they charged the
Millionaire with conspiracy to commit capital murder. The millionaire died before the trial even
started. The FBI leaked the story to the
press in order to warn anyone else who had this idea to think twice about
it. It was a national story and almost
overnight people flocked to the DMV to change their status of being an organ
donor to “No.”
Ben and Tali
went back to their respective jobs awaiting the next mystery. They had received much commendation from
their superiors for solving the case. Ben
was satisfied at the positive result but it still bothered Tali that this trade
could exist. All the other murderers
were long gone and ready for hire again.
Even the informant didn’t have her forgiveness. He had gotten away with being hired to do a
murder. What would stop him from doing
it again? She had to accept, however,
that she couldn’t stop the business worldwide but at least she established a
precedent so people would know what to look for if a rich person in the future
decides to try this life-saving scam.
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