‘But how about the crime scenes staged as a canvas?’ Agent Fisher asked. ‘Was that just a coincidence?’
‘Maybe they never really were staged as a canvas,’ Hunter said, and quickly decided to better explain his logic. ‘We see what we want to see. That’s the way the human brain works. At first, when you believed that Kristine Rivers’ murder had been vengeance against Adrian Kennedy, you managed to link the killer’s Latin phrase — beauty is in the relationship — to that theory, remember? You assumed that the killer was talking about a family relationship. The same happened with the second victim and the second crime scene. You linked that Latin phrase — beauty is in the eye of the beholder — to the theory you had at the time, believing that the killer was maybe referring to something Albert Greene had seen, which was improbable, but still plausible. It was the killer’s third outing, Linda Parker, that put an end to the “payback” theory. You just couldn’t link all three victims to a revenge act. Understandably, after spending two months going down wrong avenues and dead-end streets the FBI was frustrated. Then along came a new possible theory, which fitted the third crime scene well, but not the others. Still, frustration, pressure, desperation and the need for answers has a way of forcing the human brain to take different points of view, and that’s what we did. We were desperate. We needed something we could work with because we had nothing. The art-piece theory was a possibility, so just like with the payback one, we shaped our point of view, we found an angle and we made it fit.’
‘And aren’t we doing the same with this new “collector” theory?’ Agent Fisher asked. ‘I’ll admit that it does fit into place a little better than anything we had before, but it isn’t any less crazy. And figuring out what this killer is actually doing — whether it’s creating works of art with his crime scenes, or collecting rare human body parts, which he extracts from his victims so he can preserve them — doesn’t really get us any closer to catching him.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Garcia said, beating Hunter to the punch.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If Robert is right about this,’ Garcia explained, ‘if what this killer is really doing is collecting rare body parts to create his own gallery, or to make a casserole, or whatever, then Robert’s theory would also explain the one thing that we were having trouble linking to the “art” theory.’
‘And what would that be?’ Agent Fisher asked.
‘The victim-selection process.’ This time it was Agent Williams who beat Garcia to the punch, his tone thoughtful, his eyes back on the photos on Hunter’s desk.
‘The victim-selection process,’ Hunter agreed, rearranging some of the photographs. ‘How are these victims being chosen? Why are they being chosen? That was the one piece of the puzzle that we just couldn’t slot into place. The best we could come up with was a random selection process, but if this killer really is collecting rare body parts, then there’s nothing random about his victim selection. On the contrary, it’s very specific. That’s why he travels. He’ll go to wherever they are because these people are unique, and what they have to offer him — real, natural beauty — cannot be fabricated or copied.’
Agent Fisher’s jaw tensed. If Hunter was correct, then the victim-selection process was not random. The killer wasn’t driving around, picking his victims off the streets by flipping a coin. He knew who his victims would be beforehand and that gave them something they could work with.
‘So how is he finding them?’ she asked, her voice gaining a new, excited tone. ‘How would anyone find people with rare conditions or something unique or special about them like rare blood type, rare eye color, or whatever? Medical records?’
‘Very possibly,’ Agent Williams agreed, excitement also finding its way into his voice. ‘The information the killer would’ve needed to guide him to most of his victims could’ve easily been found through medical records, with the exception of Linda Parker.’
‘The killer wouldn’t need her health records to find out about how perfect her skin, her hands and feet were,’ Hunter cut in. ‘That information was available on her website and on every single one of her social-media pages. And since she’s registered as a public figure, all of her profiles are visible to absolutely everyone.’
‘Still,’ Agent Williams said, ‘our best bet right now is indeed health records, isn’t it?’
‘Sure,’ Garcia replied. ‘But I think maybe we’re forgetting something here. There’s no Universal Health Records Archive; no national unified database for medical records, which means that running a search across the whole of the United States for something like specific blood types, or specific eye/hair color combinations, or anything else using only health records is impossible, so how is the killer able to do it? Unless he has managed to tap into the database of every major hospital in the USA, which is a pretty impossible task, how is he—’
‘Health insurance,’ Hunter interjected.
Everyone looked at him.
‘You’re right,’ he said to Garcia. ‘Health records can’t be shared, but health-insurance companies do have central databanks and the information in them can be shared between all the branches and subsidiaries of the same insurance group, no matter which city they’re in. If the killer has managed to hack into the database of any of the top health-insurance companies in this country, he would have access to millions of health records from people all over the land. Finding his victims would be just a question of time.’
‘So our first step would be to check which health-insurance company each of our victims were with,’ Garcia said.
‘I’m on it,’ Agent Williams said, reaching for his cellphone.
‘How easy do you think it would be to hack into a health-insurance company database?’ Garcia asked.
‘Not easy at all,’ Hunter replied. ‘But I know just the person to ask if it can be done and how it can be done.’