Beth arrives at the bleak concrete station half an hour later, a brief stop for coffee and donuts to butter up the crew delaying her. Her old partner, Steve Stepp, taught her never to arrive empty-handed when she was a guest. And since this case was still the purview of the Justice Mills PD, she was by all means a guest.

She wondered momentarily why all of these somewhat rural stations looked more like jails than police stations – granted they often served double duty, but did they all have to look so depressing? Would it kill the building designers to put even the slightest cheerful spin on these buildings? From her experience, she’s guessing it would.

Heading for the double door entrance, she pauses to balance her load before pushing through, and almost loses her balance when a tall, well built man opens the doors for her and graciously invites her in.

“You must be the FBI agent? I’m Robert Stafford, I‘ve been working the murders with my partner Jill Lewis since the second body was found. It’s a pleasure, and I have to say a relief, to have you here. We’ve heard good things! Beth is a bit taken aback, given that it’s rare for law enforcement to welcome the FBI into their cases, but she’ll take it! “I’m happy to be here, Robert, thanks so much for the welcome!” “No worries, he says, call me Rob!”

Rob leads Beth down the main hallway to a conference room on the side. Beth takes the spare coffees and donuts and sets them up on the side table as people file into the room. She notices the broad man standing behind the head table, he’s a bit out of shape and balding, but she won’t hold that against him if he has a keen mind.

He doesn’t appear overly eager to lead the proceedings, but Beth stalls heading up to the table before catching his attention.

“Agent Barron! How good of you to come!” the man declares brightly. “I’m Tim Sharp, the Police chief of this little berg! I can’t begin to tell you how grateful we are to have the assistance!” Beth could have toppled over with a feather. This was not at all the welcome she had expected. Usually local LE was resistant to assistance, if not downright uncooperative. Beth tries to see the best in people, but these folks were so cooperative, she began to wonder when the other foot was going to fall, it was just too good to be true.
Sharp clears his throat and calls everyone to attention.

“OK gang, we have a lot of information to review, so let’s settle down and pass around the packets.” Sharp says as he addresses the room. Stafford and Lewis take seats on the first row and dig into the materials. As the uniforms and detectives dig in, Barron hears the occasional sigh and groan as the individual members take in the extent of the damage to these poor souls represented in the files. It could be worse, there could be apathy.

“Now as you all know, there have been three murders linked to our current case, so what we’re dealing with is something beyond our run of the mill murder. This is why we have a special guest with us, and with that, let me hand over the podium to Special Agent Beth Barron.” Beth drags herself to her feet, and tries to clear the cobwebs from her head. She knows Sharp expects a profile, and while it’s early days yet, she has a general idea, but not enough to be as specific as she would prefer. But there is no time to waste, so let’s do what we can, she thinks.

“Good morning folks” Beth replies. “I’d like to be able to give you a more thorough profile than I can at the moment, but time is short, so we’ll make this as short and sweet as possible, and hope that the profile develops more in the hours, and likely days, ahead.” Grumbles issue through the crowd. Beth knows that profiling is considered at best a fuzzy science to most law enforcement, but it’s still their best starting point. And most of them know it.

“First, as you might expect, we’re looking for a strong, healthy male in his 30’s to 40’s, and judging by his victims, he’s likely to be white. We know he’s strong because the bodies were carried, not dragged, then posed in place. We know he’s over 30 because the youngest victim was 23, making it unlikely that our killer is younger than that, and the oldest was 35. It’s a little more of an age range than we usually see in clusters like this, but all 3 victims looked similar in age, so it may be that they are essentially a substitute for the killer’s victim Zero – the person they either did kill first, or wish they had.”

“All three victims resembled each other – dark hair, blue eyes, fair skin, slender builds and short in height. They could have been sisters.” As the whispers quiet down, Beth continues “But the similarities didn’t end there. He posed them in public places. Each woman was dressed in a red coat, black cap, and positioned in a tableau of sorts. They were clearly posed.” Hands begin to rise in the audience as Beth concludes. “Yes, you had a question?” she asks the attractive young woman at the first table. “Are the similarities in clothing intentional or accidental?” “Excellent question”, Beth replies. “We believe the killer may have substituted their original clothing with the outdoor wear they had on when found.” Another hand goes up, “Yes?” Beth replies. “Are we sure they were posed” asks a young officer in the second row.

“That’s also a good question, and yes, we can say with some certainty that each young woman disappeared from a public area, only to be found posed in a Christmas scene of one type or another. The identical outer clothing and the unnatural positioning of the bodies does indicate the places we found them were staged.” As Beth turns to set the next slide, a voice near the door catches her attention “Agent Barron?” “Yes?”, Beth replies. “We have another missing girl.”