Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,91

used in a year, by the US only.”

Everyone in the room except Aaron stared at the beautiful woman who rattled off obscure facts like a computer app and just did math in her head in a split second.

“She’s good with numbers,” Aaron said as if it was a known fact between them.

Interesting. Carson got the idea that the two were more than just colleagues yesterday. Now, he suspected they had a deeper connection than just physical attraction, whether they knew it or not.

“I hate to ask this,” Brianna said, looking around the room. “What if the blood is contaminated, like HIV or hepatitis positive? Could that be his plan?”

Shock and fear once more registered on the faces around the room.

Brianna hit the problem on the head.

Carson understood why Jeffers insisted on keeping her in the loop on this case. No one had considered that in this room of highly suspicious by nature and profession individuals. It took the outsider.

“The tests we ran on our victims didn’t show HIV or hepatitis for either,” the coroner’s investigator said, flipping through the file in front of her.

A visible sigh of relief ran through the room.

“Besides, that’s not something he’d be able to hide,” Kirk F said, once again drawing the room’s attention to him. “That tube of blood I told you got drawn first? It accompanies the bag of blood to the blood bank and is used to test the blood for any diseases like HIV and hepatitis. If it comes up positive, that blood with the matching numbers on its label are tossed out.”

“If he’s capable of doing the fake labels, couldn’t he bypass the testing portion?” One of the uniformed officers asked.

“He’d have to be a computer hacker,” the younger man said. “According to my source the test are done by machines which automatically transfer the information to the state. Then the blood and matching test tube are shipped to various hospitals and clinics. The test tube blood is used to crossmatch the blood to the patient, so they get the right kind.” He shrugged. “Not sure what that means, but it’s important.”

“Okay, we’ll hold off contacting the blood banks and hospitals for now,” the chief said, then turned to Carson. “If he’s not trying to contaminate the blood supply, what is this guy up to?”

It was his turn to give them a profile of the man they were looking for. A look into his physical, emotional, and social background. A tool that would help them home in on both their perpetrator and his victim pool.

“From what we learned today, and what I’ve observed from the crime scenes and victims, I believe your murderer is trying to bolster the blood supply as opposed to destroying it. He is choosing victims that he believes once held a place of prominence or potential but have fallen on hard times, living on the streets.”

“How’s he learning that about them?” one of the plain clothes detectives asked.

“He’s posing as a journalist who is doing some sort of exposé about them and how they ended up homeless,” Brianna said.

“Are we sure he isn’t a reporter?” another policewoman asked.

Aaron shook his head. “No. We think he is posing as one to gain their confidence. We have a witness who said our man was taking pictures of various homeless people, but seemed selective in who he spent time with. Another witness informed Ms. Matthews that the first victim, Mia Tanaka had met with him several times before she went missing.”

Time to take over.

“The man you’re looking for is probably a white male between the ages of thirty and fifty. He’s physically fit, since lifting and moving the bodies to their posed destinations requires strength and mobility. Freezing the female victim and waiting six months before he started showing us his work, tells us he’s patient. Cleaning them corpses and dressing them in outfits that represent their previous lives before they became homeless, tells us he’s meticulous, possibly a germ-a-phobe and intelligent enough to find the correct outfits.”

Carson paused to let the officers taking notes to catch up. “He’s facing them so that the rising sun will shine on their faces. This could be a sign of them being resurrected into a new life, reclaiming them from the streets.

“The collecting of the blood tells me several things,” he paused again, looking around the room to make contact with the officers and be sure he had their attention. “First, I believe he’s had someone in his life that died from