Art versus science? No, there was definitely an element of art in what Mac and the other CSI detectives did. Art was imagination, creation, an essential element in science, but not a game.
Mac took his notebook from his pocket and opened it to the last page on which he had taken notes.
Approximately 2:45 in the morning, three members of the Vorhees family are murdered with a knife from their kitchen. Why 2:45 a.m.?
The Vorhees' son, Jacob, is missing. Did he hear what was happening? Maybe even open the door to his sister's bedroom and see some or all of what had happened? Did he see Kyle Shelton, his dead family?
ME report shows the dead girl had intercourse, and, judging from the vaginal bruising, the penetration minimal. There were no signs of semen. Was Shelton interrupted by the parents? Was he planning to kill them before he even entered the house? Why did he have a knife from the Vorhees kitchen if he wasn't planning to use it?
Bodies are laid out, women respectfully on the bed, father on the floor in a heap. Likely Shelton's doing but what did it mean?
Garage door is open. Jacob's bicycle is missing. Did Shelton see him, hear him, go after him? Why didn't he catch the boy before he got on the bicycle and rode away?
Neighbor sees Shelton's car drive off heading toward Queens Boulevard. Was he chasing Jacob?
9:25 a.m. the next morning bicycle found along with Jacob's clothes. One shoe fifty yards from site. Did he lose it running from Shelton? Did Shelton throw it there? Why?
Linden leaf partially chewed by caterpillar and a piece of the insect on the leaf found in boy's bedroom. Leaf did not come from neighborhood. Did it come from site where bicycle and clothes were found? Had it been stuck to Shelton's shoe? Why had he returned to the house later that night? Where is boy or his body?
1:40 p.m. Wednesday Shelton calls the lab from the Vorhees' house to let us know the knife is there. He also makes a remark about having eaten and suggests CSI detective have a snack. Why does Shelton return to the Vorhees house? Why does he leave the knife with his prints? Death wish? Guilt? Part of the game he is playing?
The phone in his pocket vibrated. Mac took it out and opened it.
"That quote," said Danny, "wasn't from Anne Frank. It was from Henry Ward Beecher."
"Thanks," said Mac. "I'm coming in."
It struck Mac as he turned off his phone. This was not a game Shelton was playing to win. He was playing it to lose. The house creaked around him, settled and was still. He had the beginning of an idea. When he had Hawkes' report on the knife and Danny's on the prints, he would be closer to drawing a possible conclusion.
He closed his notebook, put it away and imagined the computer screen with the virtual images of Shelton and the Vorhees family. He began to move the images around to form a picture they had not considered before.
Aside from the fact that she had pieced together photos of the man in the baseball cap and come up with most of what was written on it, Aiden had found little of interest in what she recovered from the Sirchie vacuum Stella had used on Joel Besser's body. Dust mites, sloughed skin, the usual. There was, however, one thing she had almost missed. It had been tiny and looked like all the other microscopic flotsam you picked up in the city, except this microscopic bit had something about it that looked familiar.
She hunched over the microscope and kept increasing the magnification. She took photographs with the camera mounted on the scope as she moved along.
When she had finished, Aiden carefully placed the glass slide in the slotted box on the table.
No hasty conclusions. She had learned from Mac and Stella that if you have a theory, you test it inside and out and look for evidence.
On the computer screen, Aiden found eight web sites that fit her needs. If she had made the search too broad, she knew she would have come up with thousands of sites.
Before she made her phone call, she called Stella, who answered immediately.
"We've got a name," Aiden said. "It's on his cap. Name is Walke. I think there's a short name or initials before the name, but I can't find an angle to pull them up."
"Walker?" asked Stella. "It might not be his. Could have bought it at a thrift shop."
"I don't think so," said Aiden. "His clothes don't look like thrift shop buys."
"I don't think so either," said Stella. "I'm on my way back."
She flipped her cell phone off.
Aiden went through the eight sites, found exactly what she was looking for and reached for the phone.
There was no problem finding and talking to many of the people in the crowd outside the two scenes of the crucifixion murders. Rabbi Mesmur had helped identify some of them and when Flack and Stella found them they were quite willing to talk, mostly about their theories of who had committed the murders and why.
A woman, Molke Freid, in a long dress, her head covered with a scarf, was at home with her three youngest children five blocks from the synagogue. The other four children were in school. It was obvious that the woman was pregnant and close to delivery.
They sat in the kitchen at a large table, a plate of cookies and a cup of coffee in front of them.
"You want to know who did it?" Molke asked, as if the answer were obvious. "One of those crazies for Jesus."
"Why would they murder one of their own?" Stella asked.
"To create a martyr, to send you looking in the wrong place," the woman said. "They killed Asher Glick. You were investigating them, so they killed one of their own so you would look someplace else."
"Where?" asked Stella.
The cookies were good. Stella was working on her third.
"Or maybe it was anti-Semites," said the woman. "Maybe a group of them, maybe just one. Who knows?"
Flack and Stella nodded. They had, of course, considered this and were checking out groups and individuals who might have committed similar crimes.
"We're looking for a man in a baseball cap," said Flack. "He was standing next to you in the crowd outside the second murder. An older man. Something was written on his cap, possibly Walker."
Molke was shaking her head, her thoughts elsewhere.
"The man in the cap," Stella reminded her.
Molke came back from her reverie, touched her hand to her forehead and looked at them.
"Not Walker," Molke said. "Walke. The words stitched on the man's cap were 'USS Walke.' "
Flack jotted that down.
"USS Walke," Molke continued. "December 3, 1950. Hit a mine off the east coast of Korea. Twenty-six died, forty were injured. Bad luck ship. In World War II, July 1944, the Walke was escorting minesweepers and was attacked by a group of kamikazes. Thirteen members of the crew died, including the captain."
"Are you sure about all this?" asked Flack.
"My uncle had a cap like that," said Molke. "He was proud of his military service and the ship. The Walke served combat missions in three wars, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. It was often hit, never sunk. The Walke always came back. It was turned into scrap metal in 1976. I asked the man in the cap if he knew my uncle. He said he didn't."
"He give you his name?" asked Flack.
"No," she said. "Just kept looking at the door across the street till you walked out."
The woman was looking at Stella.
"He gave you a long look, then turned and walked away."
When they were back on the street, Flack said, "It doesn't make sense. He's killing Jews because of you?"