“I appreciate that, Doctor. Thank you.” It was in the hands of Detective Muncie who had already entered the first two cases into ViCAP. It was time to enter the third and make the call to the Houston FBI agent who had matched a similar investigation to his. “Good morning, can I speak with Agent Mitch Palmero, please?” He waited on the line for only a moment when the agent picked up the call.
“Palmero here.”
“This is Detective Muncie in Riverside, Agent Palmero. How are you?”
“Doing all right, Detective, and yourself?”
“I’ll be honest with you, I’d be feeling a lot better if I hadn’t just gotten off the phone with the M.E.’s office up here. Looks like we got ourselves a bonafide serial killer, Agent Palmero. The toxicology came back on the third suspected victim and it matched the same poisoning that was in the other two.”
“Along with what we have going on over here in Oakview, I’d say you’re right about your assessment. Can you send me what you have? I’ve already put in a call to our experts in this situation, the BAU in Quantico. I think we might have ourselves a real situation here, Detective.”
“I’ll send over what I have now.”
“Good. And as soon as I know if our experts will be putting their hands on this, I’ll get in touch with you and we’ll probably have to have a sit-down.”
“Whatever you need, Agent Palmero, you just let me know.”
“Sounds good. I’ll speak to you soon.” Palmero ended the call. “Five dead. All poisoned. All from a possible volunteer. Shit. Scarborough’s going to love this.”
Fisher stood at the head of the table and tossed a file folder to each team member. “Okay. Here’s what we know so far. We have two different disaster sites. A wildfire in Riverside, California and Hurricane Edward that hit Oakview, Texas. Both happened within weeks of each other. Both had hundreds of volunteers from all over the country. And now we know that during both events, a volunteer, or volunteers, are suspected of murdering at least five during the course of their supposed rescue efforts. There could be more, and likely are more, however, it remains to be seen if other connections in other locations have been made.”
Kate flipped through the file. “The tox screen shows three victims were injected with poison. All differing poisons at that. A fourth victim died from lack of oxygen, and the fifth in Oakview, Texas, appeared to die from some sort of drug interaction. What makes this fourth victim different?”
“That drug interaction happened when the victim was given a high dose of potassium and with the existing kidney disease, led to a fatal outcome. Victim number four appeared to die from asphyxiation, though they’re still awaiting what caused it and suspect it could even have been a possible allergic reaction to a medication.”
“Our guy has medical knowledge,” Walsh added.
“He does,” Nick interjected but shot a look to Fisher before continuing. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt.”
“Not at all, Scarborough. Go on. The agent in Houston reached out to you and brought this to us,” Fisher replied.
“From what Mitch Palmero in Houston mentioned to me, the unsub, he believes, is either a paramedic or a doctor. Given the level of medical knowledge, it probably is someone with more in-depth knowledge than your average EMT.”
“But they have no idea who this person, this volunteer is?” Duncan asked.
“That’s where we have ourselves a real problem,” Fisher replied. “The local investigators are already working on obtaining the names of the volunteers who registered. Of course, that doesn’t mean all were registered.”
“And if this guy went there with the sole intention of murdering people, what are the odds he stopped to fill out some paperwork?” Kate asked.
Walsh pressed his index finger on his nose. “Bingo. Where does that leave us, Fisher? Talk about a needle in a haystack.”
“You got that right. But here’s where I’d like to start. Now, we’ll have help from the Houston Field Office as Agent Palmero is the lead investigator, but he has asked for our expertise. I think once we’re all up to speed, we may want to head over there and get our hands on any DNA evidence those guys get off the bodies. Palmero has a team gathering statements from other volunteers to see if anyone got a weird vibe off the medical volunteers. We don’t have a lot to go on right now.”
“He’s an opportunist,” Kate said. “He wants the easy kill.”
“I agree,” Fisher said with an eagle eye trained on Kate. “What else?”
“Obvious medical training. He pretends to be the hero. I think he wants his victims to look on him as their savior. Not that all doctors are this way, but I think some of them like to play God. They like the power. This guy likes the power and he uses it against his victims.”
“You believe he’s a licensed physician?” Nick asked.
“That would be my initial guess.” She turned back to Fisher. “If we get any DNA off the bodies, it won’t be hard to track down the unsub. If he’s a doctor, he’ll be in the system.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Walsh added. “I can almost guarantee this isn’t the first time it’s happened. He’s careful. Pulling DNA is a pipe dream. There’s a history here and I’ll bet if we look deeper, we’ll find a connection to other similar sites. I think that’s where I’d like to start.” He looked to Fisher. “Before we spend our resources heading to Houston on what little we know right now, I say let’s gather everything we can from here first. It’ll give Agent Palmero an opportunity to sift through his team’s reports on the volunteers and it’ll give Reid a chance to draft a profile.”
Fisher folded his arms and nodded before turning to Scarborough. “What about you? Any other thoughts? He’s
