“Both. Either. We don’t know yet. We still have no identity for the woman found with Mr. Highsmith. Hopefully, when we’ve discovered who she was, we’ll learn more.”
“Well, they’re not officially serial killings, are they? Two dead, found together. At least three need to be dead with a similar M.O. for it to be classified as so, right?” another officer asked.
Purbeck gestured at Aidan, who set his coffee down and walked to the front of the room. Purbeck introduced him, although he’d met many of the officers already.
“As Lieutenant Purbeck said, we don’t know what we’re looking for yet and we can’t rule anything out. You’re aware that we categorize killers as organized or disorganized when we’re seeing a potential serial situation. Whoever did this is extremely organized. He or she—most likely a he, since the victims were strangled before they were beheaded and that takes considerable strength—managed to whisk away a well-known political figure from a conference center crawling with security.
“Perhaps our Jane Doe saw something and was killed to silence her. Perhaps, in an attempt to confuse us, the killer liked the idea of us discovering the head of a man and the body of a woman first. Who knows if he suspected we’d take it further and search the vault? We certainly have enough vaults and mausoleums around here.
“The thing is, right now, we need to find where the victims were beheaded. We need the tool used for the beheadings. We have to be vigilant regarding everyone and everything we see. Thanks to you and your fellow officers, the convention quarters have been thoroughly searched and anyone with access to the facility or to Mr. Highsmith has been questioned.
“We’re still sifting through information here and at our main offices in Virginia. We’re also searching records for enemies Mr. Highsmith might have had. When the toxicology reports are in, we’ll know if Mr. Highsmith was drugged before he disappeared.
“It definitely wasn’t a case of robbery. Highsmith was found with all his belongings, except his cell, and we don’t know yet if that was significant. He was also found with a matchbook from a strip bar called Mystic Magic. The employees I was able to interview are positive that they never saw him in the place. There was a note on the matchbook—Lizzie grave. Does that mean anything to anyone here?”
Aidan waited. No one spoke. They all glanced around with puzzled expressions.
“Strange name for a hooker,” one officer said.
Aidan sighed inwardly. “I don’t believe it’s the name of a hooker. I believe it’s something Richard Highsmith was looking for.”
“We have a lot of graves around here,” another officer muttered.
“And hundreds of people named Lizzie have lived and died in the area over the centuries,” said a third.
“If anyone does think of anything, however wild or improbable your theory might be—please come to Lieutenant Purbeck, Detectives Voorhaven and Van Camp or me. Pooling all available information and suspicions is going to be of the utmost importance,” Aidan told them.
“Two of my coworkers are there in the back—Jane Everett and Sloan Trent—and you can seek them out, as well. Jane is one of our country’s foremost forensic artists, so if you have a witness who can provide any description of a suspicious person, she’s here,” Aidan advised them. “Thank you for working with us, and thank you for your diligence in so quickly shutting down the convention center the other night, conducting such thorough interviews and simply doing such exceptional police work.”
“That’s it,” Purbeck said. “Oh, one more thing. We closed our attractions yesterday, and the city, village, town and county offices have asked that we let them reopen. This is going to be a nightmare for us, of course. As we’ve already experienced, it’s not always easy to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s fabricated for Halloween.”
The meeting broke up. Jane and Sloan joined Aidan and Purbeck at the front, followed by Voorhaven and Van Camp.
“I’ve done this for years,” Purbeck said. “And I’m not even sure where to go from here.”
“Jane will head to the morgue now and try to get us a better image. I’m really hoping that will help,” Aidan said.
“Our computer renderings are pretty good,” Purbeck told him, a bit defensively.
“They’re excellent,” Jane agreed.
“Not to be obvious, but they lack a sense of life,” Aidan said. “Hey, let’s try everything we can, okay?”
“Yes, absolutely. Any murder is obscene, an affront to all of humanity, but the pressure on us in a case like this, when we’re looking at the death of such a high-profile man, is staggering,” Purbeck said. Van Camp nodded. “We’re going back over everything at the convention center.”
“Good,” Aidan said. “There’s no such thing as a locked-room case. Somehow, a door is always opened. Or a window.”
“I’ll get Jane to the morgue,” Sloan said. “And where should I go from there?”