Garcia puffed out a shallow breath. ‘You mean – he wasn’t the only one suffering at the hands of his parents, or foster parents, or step-parents… or whatever.’
‘Not impossible,’ Hunter commented.
‘Then,together,’ Garcia continued, ‘brother and sister decided that they’d had enough and they finally hit back. Like the Menéndez brothers. Two minds fracture at the same time.’
Hunter nodded slowly.
‘Fuck,’ Garcia said, his attention moving back to the board. ‘Give me a moment to try to process all this.’
‘The reason I asked,’ Hunter offered, ‘is because out of the twenty-five support groups targeting domestic violence exclusively, sixteen of them are run by female therapists, or leaders… and so are a large number of all the other ones.’
Garcia’s eyes snapped back to the list on his computer screen.
‘I did notice that,’ Garcia replied. ‘But I hadn’t factored in the possibility of a second person, which now, thinking about it, is a very real one.’
Hunter checked his notes again.
‘It would be an almost perfect way to divert suspicion, don’t you think?’ Garcia asked. ‘The female partner of the “duo” runs the group, listening to their stories and collecting all the info on the members. When they’ve decided who to take… who thenew victim will be… the male partner takes center stage.’ He shrugged. ‘If they’re smart, all she has to do is be seen at some very public place on the night that the victim is abducted and job done – no way anyone can point a finger at her because she’ll have a buffet of alibis.’
‘Or…’ Hunter began, approaching the only window in their office. The sun was just starting to dip behind the horizon. ‘Another way to minimize the risk of being noticed by other group members is – they could simply alternate attending the group sessions.’
‘They could,’ Garcia agreed.
‘It’s a good plan,’ Hunter admitted.
‘No, it’s agreatplan,’ Garcia corrected him. ‘But it’s also very Hollywood blockbuster-like, isn’t it?’ He used his thumbs and index fingers on both hands to create two L-shapes in front of him, mimicking a movie screen. ‘Brother and sister abused for years when kids until one day they finally crack and lash out, murdering their own parents in some grotesque way, thus starting their own revenge crusade on other abusive parents.’ He put his hands down. ‘It would make a great movie, Robert, but do you think something like that could be real?’
‘Real life is much weirder than fiction, Carlos, you know that. But I don’t know, I guess I was just…’
‘Apophenia?’ Garcia said with a smile.
Hunter smiled back, surprised that Garcia had remembered the word. ‘Always.’
Garcia exhaled as if they’d just come across another dead end. ‘Single or double killer, Robert, sister or brother… our problem is still the same. Without being able to ask anyone, how do we find out if Shaun Daniels and Terry Wilford did indeed take part in a support group, and if so, which ones?’ He sat back on his chair. ‘I understand that the idea here would be for the two of us to join a support group, or groups, pretending that we’re abusivefathers ourselves, who are seeking help. Then we observe, right? We sit in on the sessions and we listen to the stories from other members, just like the killer must be doing, but how do we pick him out? That’s problem one. Problem two is – without being able to ask anyone… and with the groups meeting only once a week, we could be doing this for months, Robert, years even, before we get any sort of breakthrough… if we do.’
Outside their office window, down on the street below, Hunter watched a young mother cross the road pushing a two-baby stroller. His eyes stayed on the two babies for a quick moment before he turned and looked back at Garcia.
‘Maybe there’s a way,’ he said, quickly walking back to his desk.
‘Maybe there’s a way for what?’
‘Maybe there’s a way that we can ask the people who are running the groups if Shaun Daniels and/or Terry Wilford have ever taken part in a session.’
‘Umm…’ Garcia shook his head, as if waking up from a dream. ‘How? We’ve already been through this. Bad idea, in case the killer, or an accomplice, is running the group.’
Hunter couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this earlier. ‘Our Research team are experts in backtracking a person’s life, remember?’ he reminded Garcia, nodding at the list on his computer screen. ‘And we have the names of every group leader – therapist or not.’
Garcia’s gaze skirted to Hunter, darted away, darted back. ‘We can ask them to backtrack all group leaders – male and female – starting with the domestic violence groups.’
Hunter nodded. ‘In theory, Research should be able to backtrack them all the way to their childhood, right? They should be able to find out who their parents were, where they went to school, where they obtained their certificates and so on. A whole personal history.’
‘They should, yeah,’ Garcia confirmed.
‘But if we’re right about the fact that our killer’s first ever victims were probably his own parents,’ Hunter continued, ‘then chances are that after they were murdered, the killer, or killers, have had a name-change before starting their killing crusade.’
Garcia thought about it for a moment. ‘That’s what I would’ve done, but if they didn’t, it’s probably because they also disguised their own parents’ deaths as accidental. Maybe that’s what gave them the idea in the first place.’
Another nod from Hunter. ‘Either way – if our killer, or an accomplice, is running any of these support groups, Research’s backtrack should do one of two things.’ He lifted a finger at Garcia. ‘If they had a name-change and created a name out of thin air, the backtracking will halt all of a sudden – no history past a certain point because the name is false.’
