Yeah, it had been a slow moving two and a half hours since they left the crime scene. Both men had to divide up and take care of their own part of this case. That was normal, even though they worked together in the same room, not a word was spoken.
Gene had gotten up and grabbed them both coffee, and then, they were right back to work.
They were focused on two things. He was researching the victim, and Ethan was working on what the burn on her tongue represented.
Finally, Ethan glanced up and broke his silence.
“I think I found it.”
That had Gene’s attention.
“What?” he asked, curiously.
His man shared.
“I went biblical,” he admitted. “It was a wild shot, but I searched tongue and liar, and came up with this.”
When he turned his laptop around, Gene rolled closer in his chair.
On the screen, he read what his partner had located.
“It appears to be from Proverbs six, sixteen through nineteen. I’ll paraphrase, but it says,‘a lying tongue will be punished’. I dug deeper, and back in those times, they’d burn‘liar’into someone’s tongue for untruths or blasphemy.”
Gene contemplated it.
“So, the killer has to see this particular victim as someone who lied.”
He nodded.
“So, the first three saw, heard, or spoke of something, and this last one lied?”
Again, Ethan nodded.
“That would be my guess. He’s telling us a story. There has to be something that connects them. There has to be one thread that we are missing because when a serial killer is lost in the revenge, they are normally methodical when they are telling the story through their actions. This one has thought it out and dwelled on it.”
Gene understood.
Oh, he believed Ethan was onto something. He knew it was only a matter of time before they figured it out.
They could bet on that.
“What did you find out about the victim?” Ethan asked, hoping he had located anything that could help.
He shared.
“She’s dating a man by the name of Scott Nickerson. He’s a cop for the city.”
Ethan lifted a brow.
What?
Another tie to the police?
“I mean, whenever a cop is tied to a case, that makes me twitchy,” Blackhawk admitted. “It also makes me really twitchy because we just locked this down because of the cops and ME working this case.”
Oh, Gene was aware.
The second he found out she was dating a cop, his head went there.
