Shadow Man

'Do it,' I tell him.

He pulls out a swatch of cotton cloth and proceeds to swipe the package with it. I watch as he feeds it into the Sniffer. Once inside, the spectrometry goes to work. Within minutes, he looks up at me. 'Looks all clear to me. I'd say it's safe to open.'

'Thanks, Reggie.'

'No problem.' He yawns. I shake my head as I watch him wander back to his van with his equipment. It takes all kinds. Now I'm alone with the package. I look at it. It's not that big. Just big enough for what it holds: something the size of a jelly jar, a letter, and a CD. Probably a CD. I want to look inside. Burn to. I walk back around the front of the van. Alan is returning with Jed Patterson, whose fingertips are now black with ink. I motion to Alan.

'The package is clear,' I tell him. 'Let's get it to the lab.'

'No shit,' Callie agrees.

Everyone's chafing at the bit on this one.

Gene Sykes runs the crime lab, and when he sees us walk through the door a look of resignation settles onto his face.

'Hey, Smoky. So how long do I have for this one?'

I grin at him. 'Come on, Gene. It hasn't been that long.'

'Uh-huh. So we're talking yesterday, then?'

'Yep.'

He sighs. 'Tell me about it.'

'Package delivered through a parcel service, definitely from our guy. We had a bomb tech check it out, which means that the outer part of the box got wiped. We also got prints from the delivery driver for elimination.'

'Do you know what's in it?'

'The tech did an on-the-spot x-ray. Looks like the box contains a jar of some kind, a letter, and maybe a CD. Not a hundred percent sure of anything since we haven't opened the box up.'

'How do you know it's from your unsub?'

'Because he told us he'd be sending it.'

'That was considerate of him.' He ruminates on all of this information for a moment. 'You've already run one crime scene related to this unsub?'

'Yeah.'

'Anything show up?'

I tell him about the prints we'd found on Annie's bed. Gene is scratching his head, thinking. Beginning to lose himself in the problem.

'I need this one really scrutinized, Gene. But I need it as fast as you can do it.'

'Sure. I'm going to take it layer by layer. I'll remove the box, the contents, and address each separately. You say he's careful, so I doubt we'll get any plastic or visible prints. But sometimes they surprise us.'

There are three types of prints at a crime scene: plastic prints, visible prints, and latent prints. Plastic and visible prints are our favorites. Plastic prints are created when the perpetrator leaves a print in a soft surface, like wax, putty, or soap. Visible prints are created when the perp has touched something--such as blood--and then touched another surface. Leaving, literally, a print you can see with the naked eye. The most common are latent, or invisible, prints. These are the ones you really have to look for, and the technology of getting them can be an art form at times.

Gene is an artiste. If something's there, he'll get it.

'It goes without saying, Gene, if it is a CD in there, I need the contents of it before you do anything that would damage it.' Getting latent prints can involve the use of chemicals and heat. Either of these could damage the CD, making it unreadable.

He shoots me a look of injured scorn. 'Please, Smoky. Who do you think you're dealing with here?'

I grin. 'Sorry.' I hand over two other plastic evidence bags, each containing the recent deliveries and correspondence from Jack Jr. 'Check these out after. They're from the same unsub.'

He scowls. 'Anything else?' Sarcastic.

'You'll be getting the benefit of my assistance and expertise, honeylove,' Callie says. Gene gives her a sour look. 'We're on a timetable here, Gene. He's let us know that he's going to kill again.'

His face grows sober. 'You got it.'

I walk into the office and find Alan on the phone. He's talking fast. Something has him excited. He's holding Annie's case file in one hand.

'I need to confirm it, Jenny. I want to be a hundred percent sure. Right.'

He taps his foot impatiently, waiting. 'Really? Okay, thanks.' He hangs up the phone, jumps out of the chair, and comes over to me. 'Remember when I told you something was bothering me?'

'Yeah.'

'It was in the inventory of things taken from her apartment.' He opens the file, finds a page, and points to it. 'A receipt for an exterminator service inspection of her apartment five days before she was killed.'

'So?'

'So--most places like the one where she was living handle extermination for the building as a whole.'

'That's not exactly conclusive. But keep going.'

'Yeah, I might have dismissed it too. But I saw the actual receipt while we were there, and something about it has been nagging me ever since.'

'Come on, Alan.'

'Sorry--it was a notation on the receipt.' He grabs a notepad from his desk and reads from it. 'Did Shoe Write-up. I mean--what the fuck is that? And then the guy signed it Armouried Murrey. '

'Strange name.'

'They're anagrams, aren't they?' James says.

Alan turns to look at him, surprised. 'That's right. How did you--

never mind.' He turns back to me, shows me the pad. 'See-- Did Shoe Write-up. Change the letters around and you get: Die, Stupid Whore. '

My stomach lurches.

'Then Armouried Murrey-- mix the letters up and you get--' He shows the notepad to me again.

I am your murderer.

'The final insult,' James murmurs. 'He tells her that she's going to die and that he's going to do it, right to her face. And she never has a clue.'

I realize I expect to feel rage at this, but it is absent. I'm becoming hardened to their games. I glance at Alan. 'That's pretty impressive work.'

He shrugs. 'Just always had a thing for anagrams. And niggling details.'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're amazing,' James says. 'The question is, what does it mean and how can we use it?'

'Why don't you tell me, asshole,' Alan says.

The insult misses James by a wide mark. He is nodding, thinking. 'I don't think he came to gloat. I think he came to scout. To make sure he knew the full layout of the place.'

'Or to verify prior data,' I say. 'He might have been there before, and wanted to verify that nothing had changed.'

'Casing the place,' Alan says. 'That makes sense, with these guys. They're smart, careful. Planners.'

'Maybe it's their MO,' I say. I feel an excitement building in me. 'If we could get some kind of a jump on their next victim--anything--we might be able to catch whichever one does the recon.' I turn to Leo.

'Where do we stand on your end of things?'

Leo grimaces. 'No good news, I'm afraid. The IP number was not a static IP. We were able to track where the usage originated, but it was a dead end.'

'How's that?'

'He used a cybercafe. Think of a coffeehouse where you can get on the Internet. Completely