The Caller

Twenty-Six

Hunter and Garcia spent the next hour revising crime-scene photographs, going over various documents, and trying to obtain a more thorough profile on Karen Ward. Garcia had been searching the Internet for the past thirty-five minutes when he paused and frowned at his computer screen.

‘Wait a second,’ he whispered, leaning forward and placing both elbows on his desk.

Hunter looked at his partner over the top of his screen.

Garcia looked completely absorbed as he began scrolling down the webpage.

‘Something wrong?’ Hunter asked.

Garcia lifted his index finger. ‘I’m not sure yet. Give me a minute.’

Hunter went back to the file he’d been reading, but his thoughts were still on the four 911 calls they’d heard. The more he tried, the less sense he could make of everything — the less sense he could make of everything, the more the stalker theory bothered him.

In general, stalkers were fragile people who were highly impulsive and almost always enslaved to their own emotions, rarely being able to control them. Sure, some were known for being very well organized when it came to certain aspects of their obsession. They observed the object of their affection compulsively because they simply needed to know all there was to know about them. They followed them. They took pictures. They fed the fire of their obsession in any way they could because, the sad truth was, most of them led somewhat boring, unadventurous lives and, strangely, that obsession gave their lives a ‘sense of purpose’, something to live for, and that was the catch.

If the object of their affection were to die all of a sudden, then so would that ‘sense of purpose’, substituted by a void so deep that it could potentially tear them apart inside. So why kill them?

History has shown that in most cases, when that had actually happened, it hadn’t been a planned action. They hadn’t set out to kill the one they were stalking. What happened was a return to that volatile individual who struggled to control his/her emotions. In short — a thoughtless, impulsive act that resulted in the death of the one being stalked. And that was nothing like this killer had shown so far. No, this killer was well prepared, methodical, very clever, resourceful, and if he’d begun clocking the police response time three months before the actual murder, he no doubt planned well ahead. Impulsiveness... thoughtlessness... simply didn’t come into his equation.

‘Sonofabitch,’ Garcia said, ripping Hunter away from his thoughts.

They locked eyes.

‘Maybe there’s a different reason why Tanya can’t remember having another one of those conversations with anyone else.’

‘And what reason would that be?’ Hunter asked.

Garcia pointed at his computer screen. ‘You’ve got to come have a look at this.’