Ethan considered it.
“So, a teacher disappears after work, and a bartender disappears on the same day, just hours apart? It sounds like this person is lying in wait, and then makes his move,” Ethan stated.
He knew that meant one thing.
This person was stalking their prey, since they had a twofer in one day. Watching was dangerous.
The other detective agreed.
“That’s what we thought. Again, for Ivey, her things were all at home. The door was unlocked, and there was no sign of struggle at her home. The bartender was taken after her shift, across town, and after work. Is he grabbing them out of convenience or planning it out?” Leah asked, talking out loud.
Ethan was curious.
“You’re sayingHE. Is that just to give this killer a pronoun, or do you believe it’s an actualHEdue to something you’ve both discovered?” he inquired.
She didn’t hesitate to share what she was thinking.
“Oh, it’s definitely going to be a man. Three dead women? Plus, you said one was stabbed brutally, likely in anger? That screams dude to me, and I’d bet on it. If I was running this, that’s the angle I’d take,” she offered.
Well, she wasn’t running it, and Ethan knew better than to just tag a gender this early in the case. They were just in the discovery part of this mess. This would be a marathon, not a sprint like the detective seemed to believe.
Ethan played devil’s Advocate, since that was his job to look at all angles andTHENmake an educated assessment.
“Only, Detective, women stab too. We aren’t‘betting’on this person’s gender until we have more. I like to be very cautious at this point because one misstep, and you have to restart the whole investigation and redo your suspect list.”
She said nothing, but Gene saw her give her partner a look like‘yeah, typical Fed’. Only, Ethan was absolutely right. If you got the gender wrong, you were absolutely redoingEVERYTHING, and that could take days to redo. By then, forty-eight hours had passed, and you lost the trail.
Luckily, though, nothing more was said by the detective about it, including the snarky comments that could come from her mouth.
So, they’d take that as a win.
Ethan continued.
“I agree with the rest of your assessment,” he stated. “That one woman’s car made it home, and the others didn’t, tells me that this person is stalking and watching them. He or she is also taking them when they are alone, or when it’s convenient.”
Gene knew where this was heading.
They had a watcher.
“Anything else?” Ethan asked.
Dannie was to the point.
“We didn’t get to interview many people, since we were just given this case Thursday afternoon. So, if you want, we can pick up where we left off and handle the pub interviews to split them with you.”
Oh, these two were relentless.
They.
Wanted.
In.
Only, Blackhawk wasn’t relenting either. So, he didn’t give them the answer they wanted.
He needed to consider the two detectives and see if they could be an asset or a liability.
Already, Ethan was working on a game plan, but he needed the full picture before he started playing divide and conquer. Plus, he had a bad taste in his mouth over what happened with the Fed in Puerto Rico. They’d trusted him, too.
