know?” she said, staring into the street ahead of her.
“Sounds like the pig didn’t fair very well,” she replied
“Those poor people, must have been such a shock to them when they got home. What kind of a person does this kind of stuff? It sounds to me like he’s getting bolder with each outing.” She nailed it without knowing.
“Lots of f….ing punks out there, that’s for sure,” the older woman said, followed by, “Excuse me dear, don’t normally like to use that word but sometimes I just get so riled up.” They laughed as Blanche reached over and patted Mrs. Muir on the knee, assuring her it was understandable.
They started up the swing again, swaying back and forth in silence, each putting into perspective the information they had just shared. A few minutes later, Blanche noted a small truck motoring down the street in front of the B amp;B, the driver blasted out a recognizable greeting with the horn and Blanche stood and waved as Jasper sailed by.
“Alright people, hold it down, quiet down. Quiet down!” the Sheriff elevated his voice above the commotion in the main level conference room. “Let’s have it quiet so we can get started.” He waited for the chairs to fill and order to be restored to the adrenalin filled room. “Thank you, I know we’ve all been up long hours already,” he said, looking at his watch, 1:00 p.m. “I’d like to start with an overview of where we are with the first two cases before we jump into the one from this morning.”
“Arlene, I know you’ve been compiling and coordinating the information as it’s come in, where do we stand?” Sheriff Lupo directed his question to the woman seated directly to his right with laptop computer open, frantically taking notes. Not accustom to having to speak to such a large group of people, she tried to ignore that anyone else was present, and looked directly at her friend ‘The Wolf’ and spoke.
“I wish I could tell you that we know more today than we did a few days ago, but the truth of the matter is, we don’t. The hotline has provided leads but most resulting in dead ends or nut jobs reporting their disgruntled neighbor as The Stalker. We’re checking them as fast as we can but no solid leads yet.” She turned her attention momentarily to the group around the table. “I just want to thank ya’ll for your hard work and for putting up with me calling at all hours of the night. I appreciate your cooperation.” She returned her remarks to the Sheriff, “We were able to get a good casting of the prints left in the backyard of the Criddle woman’s home. Forensics should be able to tell us more on that.”
“Ricky, you in here?” Sheriff Lupo said, looking around the room for the forensics' specialist.
“Yup, right here.” The Sheriff could see a hand sticking up above the heads of the others at the back of the room; they parted as Ricky wiggled his way between them to stand at the end of the table across from the big man. “Yeah, we got a really good impression on the tracks both right and left feet, but we are unable to identify manufacturer or model from the tread.”
Disappointed, 'The Wolf' inquired, “And why is that?”
“Because there ain’t any,” Ricky said, looking around to see if anyone would snicker. “I believe The Stalker filed the tread down to nothing to make it impossible for us to identify them. There is some good news though; we think we can accurately identify the type of file that he used. It’s not your typical file, like you’d use on your lawnmower blade, but a specific type that is used to file down the hoof of a horse when they are being shoed. It’s called a rasp; a farrier would use it to prepare the horse’s hooves before the shoes go on. These are common for the profession and most farmers probably have one but I think it’s quite likely that we’re looking for a country person.”
The room spontaneously erupted with applause and some scattered cheers. “Finally something we can go on!” the Sheriff approvingly said. Good work there Ricky, I can tell you’ve done your homework, well done. Okay, that gives us something to work on, anything further on the shoes?”
“Is it okay to talk about this morning yet?” Ricky asked, “Cause I already got the castings from this morning done and we got a footprint.”
“You got a what?” the large man asked, scarcely believing what he’d just heard.
“I know it’s crazy! We got an actual impression of the guys foot, right foot to be exact. It fits perfectly with what you thought happened last night when we were at the scene. They got home, scared him, and he had to make a hasty exit. We weren’t able to get started with the castings until this morning because of the poor lighting out there but we got some really good ones after the sun came up. Should I go on?” he asked his boss.
“Hell yes, let’s hear it all.”
“Good, so we kind of expected some more of those treadless imprints, which we did find, but even those are different.”
“How so?” the Sheriff asked.
“The sole is a different width and the deflection of the angle from the heel to toe is different than the first pair. Anyway, back to the footprint. Let me tell you what we think he does first. He climbs the fence, all three places had fences if you’ll remember, has his shoes on at this point, then when he gets to the backdoor, he takes them off, maybe he thinks it’s going to be more quiet or something, but he definitely takes them off and leaves them outside on the porch. Last night in his mad dash to get out of there, he doesn’t have time to put them on, so he grabs them, runs to the fence, throws them over along with his stuff and then scales the fence in his stocking feet.”
Ricky Dean was getting more excited as he laid out the work that his team had done that morning, and he’d not gotten to the good stuff yet. He had a hard time not just blurting it out but was enjoying being the center of attention, if only for a moment, in this important investigation. He continued, reminding himself to slow down and make sense, “We know he was in his stocking feet because the fibers we found inside the house match some of those we found stuck on the wood slivers on the fence, black, wool stockings. We’re working on the type of dye now that may give us the manufacturer.”
“Damn good work, Ricky. Your team is giving us some excellent information to go on. About the footprint….”
Ricky jumped in to tell the rest of his findings, “Yeah, this is the best part, I ‘bout pissed myself when I saw it this morning, right there at the base of the fence just as clear as it could be. I think it’s where he stood to throw the stuff over, cause he would have come to a complete stop, for just an instant, before he hurled the stuff over, and in doing so put enough force on the right foot to push it into the dirt.” He stopped talking long enough to demonstrate for the team what he was talking about. Ricky motioned with his hands for the other unit members to part and give him a clear isle. He started from the side of the room, took a couple quick steps as if running, something in both hands, stopped and went through the motion of throwing the items over the imaginary fence. As he demonstrated the motion he explained, “If our perp is right handed he would have stopped short of the fence leading with his left leg and bracing himself with the right. To get enough leverage to throw over something heavy he would shift his weight from the left foot, to the right, and then back to the left, as he followed through with the throw, like this.” Again he confirmed his theory by demonstrating it to those watching. “We got lucky, I think the owner was trying to fix a patch of sparse grass and had put down a little topsoil and seed in that particular area.”
“So we, I mean, the forensic bunch of us, also think he’s right handed,” he smiled, his mustache twitching ever so slightly.
“Outstanding, absolutely outstanding! You’ve earned your pay this week. Is everybody getting this? I don’t see many pens moving take this stuff down. I don’t want anybody out of the loop,” the Sheriff instructed.
Ricky, however, wasn’t done; he still had a couple of important cards up his sleeve to play. “Okay, okay Sheriff, there’s a bit more. So we, so we got the casting of the foot, absolutely perfect, like I said,” he was speaking so fast now that he was tripping over himself.
“Ricky, slow down, for heaven’s sake we’ve got time, just slow down and tell us what you’re trying to say.”
He stopped, put both hands on the table in front of him, and took a couple deep breaths before he continued, “Thanks Sheriff, I’m okay now, I’m okay. So we know he threw the shoes over the fence, right?” He paused, “The forensics God’s were with us last night is all I can think. We got the footprint, you’re gonna love the way that set up, we’ll know exactly the size of his foot right down to his bunions and corns, but we also know he was wearing Nike’s.”
“Ricky!” Deputy Guest interjected, “How the hell can you tell what kind of shoes he was wearing based on the footprint? You’ve already said the tread was no help.”
