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About two hours later, Derrick and Kate were standing in the lobby of the police precinct waiting for the detectives to show up. Another officer ushered the two of them further into the building and showed them into one of the back rooms along a wall of doors in front of the open area where all the detectives’ desks were. Kate had been in several of these rooms but this was a new one and probably the nicest one that she had seen yet. The wooden table in the center of the room made the place look less cold and the chairs were padded that surrounded it. The walls were painted a muted beige tone and several lamps emitted a warm, soft hue into the room. There was some framed decorative art on the walls but nothing that captured your attention.
Derrick pulled out a chair at the table for Kate and she smiled at him as she took it. He joined her in the chair beside her and leaned back, putting his arm around the back of her chair to comfort her. They were only alone for a few minutes before the door swung back open and Detective Liz Snow walked in, followed by her partner Detective McCraig. They were both holding stacks of folders and notepads and other miscellaneous things as they closed the door behind them and sat across the table from the couple.
“Hi guys, how has your morning been?” Detective Snow started, smiling at them both. Her partner was not much for small talk and just flipped through his papers, paying them little attention.
“It’s been good so far, hoping it will stay that way.” Kate said, almost as a question to the detectives.
“Well, we have a few things to go over with you and it really depends at how you look at it. It’s not great news, but it's progress in the case which is great news all in itself, right?” She said to Kate, attempting to encourage her. Kate just nodded, staying silent.
“Alright, well as you know forensics went through your apartment last night. We are still running tests but preliminary results look like he didn’t leave any clues behind. It seems he was able to get in through the front door as neighbors say that they saw a man enter your apartment that afternoon, but no one could give much of a description. Our guess is he knows how to pick locks because there was some damage to the lock on your front door, which means that this is not new to him. If it was new to him, the damage would have been much more obvious.” The detective explained to Kate and Derrick, who both nodded along.
“Well we already knew that it was doubtful that I was his only victim.” Kate said to her.
“Exactly but we didn’t have any majorly unique information to be able to pick up a pattern or match it with other cases. Until you showed me the photograph.” Detective Snow pulled out the photograph and put it on the table in front of them. Kate looked away, not wanting to see it again. Derrick hadn’t seen it yet and he looked shocked when it was presented to him.
“Photograph? Who took this?” Derrick was stunned because this was new information Kate hadn’t yet filled him in on. She wasn’t hiding it from him but there was really no way to bring it up casually in conversation.
“The perpetrator takes photographs on an instant camera of his victims right after the attack. Keeping one photo for himself and leaving the other with the victim, as a sort of trophy for himself and a reminder for her. Well with this information, we were able to find the pattern in ViCAP.” Detective Snow told them.
“What’s that?” Kate interrupted her with the question.
“It is an FBI program that basically lists all the major and violent crimes in the USA. So, we used that program to help us search for any cases that might relate to yours.
Kate, we found 17 different cases up and down the east coast that matched your attack.” Detective Snow pulled out a map with red dots all over it, most of them around Washington DC and a few in other clusters in Maryland and other areas.
“Seventeen cases?” Kate was incredulous as she picked up the map and touched the red dots gently, as if seeing a friend in them.
“Kate, this man is a serial killer. All 17 of these cases, the victims were found dead.” Detective McCraig spoke up in a low and ominous tone. Both Kate and Derrick stared at him, processing what he was saying.
“All of them?” Kate repeated, it was phrased as a question but really it was a statement of shock, her attempt to process the information she was hearing. Why was she alive and seventeen other women were dead all at the hands of the same man?
“They have dubbed him ‘The Photographer’, Kate. He has been doing this about five years from what we can tell and most likely there are more victims than these but this is just what was discovered.” Detective Snow interjected and continued to explain, wanting Kate to know that things were progressing.