The team had been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work from the 21 cases tied to their suspected female serial killer. Even with Jack, Danny, Mac Taylor, Sheldon Hawkes, and Stella all pitching in, the task seemed endless. Thankfully, Danny had relented earlier and avoided a costly lobster dinner. Instead, Jack had swung by his place to cook up several batches of dumplings to fuel their overnight work session.
During a short break, the team huddled together, trying to figure out how many different dumpling fillings Jack had brought.
"I've definitely had three—shrimp and pork, beef and potato, and lamb with parsley," Danny said, his chopstick skills still shaky but effective enough to pierce the dumplings and send juice flying as he devoured them. He glanced into the others' bowls, hoping to spot something different.
"I've got leek and pork, and fiddlehead fern with ham," Stella added, curiously looking at Mac Taylor. The latter was inspecting a dumpling on his plate with the precision of someone analyzing a critical piece of evidence.
"I think this one has some sort of clam and crab meat," Mac announced, his voice as serious as if delivering a forensic finding.
"You guys should just use your taste buds instead of acting like you're about to throw these into a spectrometer," Jack sighed, exasperated by the lack of food culture among his companions. Deciding not to engage further in the "CSI: Dumpling Analysis" session, he shifted the conversation.
"Any luck with questioning the first Mrs. Carter?" he asked Stella.
Stella pursed her lips, her expression a mix of frustration and disbelief. "Nothing. She flat-out denies that there was a third person present during the murder. When I asked why she didn't go straight to the police after killing Kevin, guess what her explanation was?"
Everyone turned to her, curious to hear the answer.
"Deborah said she took a cab to the Ritz Hotel—the same place where Kevin proposed to her eight years ago," Stella recounted, her voice tinged with unease. "She said she had a few drinks at the bar, rented a room for the night, and, in her words, 'spent one last night truly belonging to herself' before turning herself in."
"Is it just me, or does it feel like Kevin Carter married two women with very similar personalities? What was the point of the bigamy, then?" Danny asked, clearly puzzled.
Jack, ever the profiler, offered a theory. "Maybe he wasn't in it for the wives themselves. Maybe he was addicted to the thrill of balancing two lives, like walking a tightrope. It's similar to people with compulsive lying or kleptomania—they get a rush from the act itself, not just the result."
"So, this is the kind of psycho you've been dealing with in BAU?" Danny asked, hugging his arms and rubbing them as if trying to shake off a chill.
"Here's some advice: if you ever encounter a serial killer, don't hold back if you have the chance to stop them," Jack said with a deadly serious expression. "You ever hear of the 'Boston Reaper'? My boss, Hotchner, almost didn't make it out alive."
"Ahem!" Mac Taylor cleared his throat loudly, stepping in to redirect the conversation before it spiraled further. As the head of the CSI lab, he couldn't let such morbid chatter derail his team's focus. "Did anyone find anything useful yet?"
"Maybe," Danny said, swallowing the last of his dumplings before pulling on a pair of gloves. He reached for several evidence bags from different cases.
"This 'FedEx' envelope comes from a drug-related home invasion in the Bronx," Danny explained, holding up the first bag. "The analysis report mentions cocaine residue on the package."
He pulled out two more evidence bags, each containing similar envelopes.
"This one's from a murder in Westchester County, and the other's from Greenwich, Connecticut. Both reports also mention cocaine residue. The problem was that these cases were handled by three different jurisdictions and their respective crime labs, so no one noticed the connection before."
Mac Taylor's usually stoic face lit up with intrigue, a hint of his signature sly smile appearing. "Until we grouped these cases together," he added, opening his laptop to pull up a digital map. He entered the locations of the three cases Danny had identified.
"The three crime scenes are all within a 15-mile radius. Anyone want to bet the same FedEx delivery person was responsible for all three?"
"I'm not dumb enough to bet against you on that one, boss," Sheldon Hawkes replied, taking the evidence bags from Danny. "I'll test the cocaine residue to confirm if the batches match. As for the delivery driver, I'll leave that to our two detectives."
"Marcia Vasquez. In 2016, at just 17 years old, she was arrested for possession of drugs and firearms. She got five years of probation thanks to a plea deal and the fact that she was a minor. Her records are sealed, and there's no DNA on file for her. She's now 23, with no known criminal activity since then, and she lives in the North Bronx."
Danny closed the file and accepted the coffee Jack handed him with a nod of thanks. He let out a massive yawn—he'd only managed three or four hours of sleep after leaving the CSI lab before Jack's early morning call had him back on the case.
"I stopped by FedEx this morning. She's been working there for about six months, and all three of those deliveries were made the day before the respective murders. Looks like we've found our female serial killer," Danny said, rubbing his hands together with a mix of excitement and fatigue.
"And you're not calling for backup?" Jack asked as he climbed into the passenger seat of Danny's beat-up unmarked police car. He put on his bulletproof vest, shifted his FK7.5 pistol into a quick-draw holster on his thigh, and double-checked his Glock.
"Aren't you being a little overly cautious?" Danny muttered, but he followed suit, checking his own service weapon.
"What, do you have a gender bias against serial killers?" Jack quipped, raising an eyebrow. Danny was starting to get a little too relaxed, and Jack figured a future case would probably give him the wake-up call he needed.
"Okay, okay, you're right," Danny admitted. Most of his cases were standard fare, rarely requiring him to even draw his weapon. Over the years, his marksmanship had slipped, and a little complacency was inevitable.
Starting the car, Danny pulled out of the lot and headed toward the Bronx. He glanced at Jack as they drove. "Any updates from the lab?"
Jack shook his head. "Most of the cases are a mess—no clear patterns yet. I sent everything to my BAU colleagues to see if they can provide a profile. But your discovery last night has given us a solid lead. Sheldon Hawkes confirmed that the cocaine residue on all three FedEx envelopes came from the same batch. At least we now know the motive for those three murders."
Danny nodded. "She delivered drugs to those people, waited until they sold them, then went back to kill them and take the money. There's no way she pulled this off alone—she's got to have accomplices."
"But how do these three cases connect to the other 18, or to the crime at the Carters' place? I can't make sense of it," Jack sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Who knows? Maybe the lab equipment was faulty," Danny joked, clearly not taking the broader mystery too seriously. Most of the other cases were outside his jurisdiction, so he wasn't as invested.
"That's impossible. These cases span multiple jurisdictions, and the chances of all their labs having faulty equipment—" Jack stopped mid-sentence, freezing in place. Slowly, he turned to Danny, his face filled with a mixture of shock and realization.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Danny asked, visibly unsettled by Jack's intense stare.
Jack leaned back in his seat, a look of awe crossing his face. "Has anyone ever told you that you might be a genius?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enjoying the story? Support the author and get early access to chapters by joining my Patre@n!Find me at: patre@n*com/Mutter
You can read each novel for $5 or get them all for just $15.
I Am Zeus, KING OF GODS (Chapter 79)
Fairy Tail: Igneel's Eldest Son (Chapter 391)
I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 471)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 677)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 1059)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1418)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1422)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1452)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1504)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld!(Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 703)
[+50 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter][+5 Reviews = +1 Extra Chapter]