“OK, everybody calm down!” Chief Sharp implores. Sharp takes Beth, Stafford and Lewis aside and leads them to his office. The officer who made the announcement follows and Sharp nods to let him know he should proceed as soon as the door closes.
“OK Pruett, spit it out, what’ve we got?” “Well sir, we just got a missing person’s report, one Mary Brady. According to her family she was expected in last night for the holidays. She was driving in from New York, and her mother said she last heard from her last night and expected her to arrive this morning.”
“So what you’re saying” Sharp replies, “is she’s running late?” Pruett looks abashed, but remains steadfast “Sir, her mother says she was just a few hours outside town when she last heard from her, and that was over 6 hours ago. Things being what they are, the mother got right worried when she didn’t show up. She’s got one of those apps on her phone to track her daughter, and it went off suddenly about 3 hours ago. She’s not answering her phone, and no one’s heard from her since.”
“Well”, Sharp replied, “do we have an APB on the car?” “Yes sir, under the circumstances we thought it best to err on the side of caution, but so far there’s been no sighting.” “Damnit!” Sharp exclaimed. “Chief Sharp?” Beth says, “as frightening as the situation is, it may be the break we need. Can you call a press conference?” “What do you have in mind, Barron?” Beth thinks it over, “He’s accelerating, Chief, and we need to slow him down. This might be a chance to both deliver our profile, and spook him into a mistake.”
They discuss the logistics of throwing together a press conference, and Beth puts in a call to get a warrant to track down Mary Brady’s car. It will take a few hours to get anything back on that, time they don’t have, so it’s something of a gamble. In the meantime, anything they can do to slow this guy down will help.
Later, as they gathered before the growing network crowd, Beth worried that she’d spoken out of hand, that this wouldn’t actually slow down the killer. But in her gut, she ultimately felt it would. Letting the killer know they were looking for him might make him lay low long enough to spare Mary Brady. It was the best they could do under the circumstances. Just buy some time.
Beth excuses herself for a moment to take some time to develop the best approach to this particular killer. She needs something to chill him out, not rile him up. And it’s a tightrope with these situations, so she needs a little peace and quiet to determine the best approach. No pressure, just the life of an innocent woman hanging in the balance. While she runs inside to jot down a few thoughts, Chief Sharp begins to explain the current situation to the press.
***
As Beth gathers her thoughts, Jill Lewis steps into the office and sits at her desk. “Not taking in the circus?” Beth asks. “Not my scene. Give me a good lead and I’ll run with it, but public speaking is not my forte.” she replies. Jill is an attractive woman, and she’d make a great spokesperson for the station, but Beth understands, she’s not a fan of the need to interact with the media herself, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “So, what are you thinking? Scare him straight, or play into his fantasy?” Jill asks. “That’s what I’m trying to decide, and I need to decide fast. Which is my least favorite method of making decisions, but it is what it is.” Then she has an idea, “Run through this with me, would you?” Jill looks confused,”Sure, but what can I do?”
“Well, let’s walk through it. All of the girls were a similar age, or at least looked it, and had similar characteristics. All of them were taken within a 20 mile radius, and if we’re correct in assuming he has Mary she’ll probably be found to be missing from within that range. Now does that suggest to you that the killer is local?” Jill thinks for a moment. “He’d almost have to be to know when the local attractions the bodies were found in wouldn’t be observed, wouldn’t he?” “Yes, exactly! That’s what was rubbing me wrong, he’d have to know the schedules and patterns to pull it off!” Beth replied.
Beth continues, “So why those locations? What’s so special about the Christmas scenery in his imagination?” Jill scrunches her brow in thought. “Well, maybe something about the Christmas season relates to something traumatic that he can’t get out of his head?” Beth’s eyes widen slightly. “I could kiss you! That’s it! Do me a favor will you? Look into death records of women in their mid 20’s to early 30’s that met traumatic deaths in the months of late November to early January. Go back at least 10 years, preferably 20, and look for women who were mothers or sisters. I’ll owe you big!” “Sure”, Jill replies, “anything to help!”
With a stronger hunch of her true profile, Beth heads back to the parking lot. A moment after she steps up to the staging area, Sharp concludes “And now I’d like to introduce Special Agent Beth Barron with the FBI, who was kind enough to lend her expertise to this situation.”