Double Vision by Colby Marshall

head a fraction to catch a better glimpse of the girl with the bush of tousled red curls atop her head. She sat in the black wrought-iron chair, dipping a French fry into ketchup. Diana caught up, pulled up a seat, and stared at the table the entire time the redhead yammered on and sniggered to her.
    Today wasn’t a waste after all.
They
did
lead me here, it just wasn’t about who I thought
.
    As he watched, the red-haired girl gestured animatedly to her friend, coughing as she nearly choked on a bite of her sandwich, she was laughing so hard.
    That’s right, little girl. Live it up. After all, it’s time to die.

10
    J enna brushed through the gaggle of reporters camped out at the local police department, not even venturing a “No comment” to the questions they yelled at her. It was the unfortunate part of having a known face in this job. But she wasn’t prepared to say anything to the press. Not until she knew more about what they were dealing with. After all, the grocery store murders deviated strongly from the Triple Shooter’s other killings, and she didn’t know why. All she did know was that it sure as hell didn’t mean he was stable.
    When she reached the conference room, Saleda and Teva were already waiting, flipping through pages and pages of Triple Shooter case notes. She’d called them as soon as she’d left the Tyler house to tell them to pull the files and meet her, that she thought she had a lead. Normally she’d never have overstepped Saleda and instructed the team to do
anything
, but in this case, any information about the Triple Shooter’s profile was vital. His
old
crimes were where they would catch him. More consistency, more to go on. The grocery store massacre trail was hot, but the pattern was so off that the only way to use it to find him was to figure out where his old style and these new killings converged.
    Saleda glanced at her watch when she saw Jenna come in. “About time.”
    â€œTraffic,” Jenna muttered.
    â€œProbably the dozens of roadblocks the locals have set up on every street from here to Saskatchewan, which is cute, ya know. Stopping people to check if they’re someone you don’t know you’re looking for. We have no physical description, getaway vehicle, nothing, but these heroes would rather employ martial law to find a phantom than work with what we have, which is a profile.”
    Jenna smirked as she pulled out a chair next to Teva. “Aw, come on, Saleda. Everyone knows the ‘real’ cops shouldn’t listen to our voodoo shenanigans. ‘Behavioral Science,’” she said, miming scare quotes. She flicked her hand, dismissing the thought. “What a crock.”
    Saleda chuckled, shook her head. “For what it’s worth, I stationed Porter and Dodd with the head of the local task force so they can at least help vet any suspicious characters stopped for no good reason.”
    â€œDodd’s back already?” Jenna asked.
    Saleda waved away the question. “Yeah, they called him in about something regarding the Cobbler case.”
    â€œWow. I had no idea he worked that one,” Jenna answered. The case was one of the more famous these days. A while back, a killer had murdered twelve people in the Chicago area. The police arrested the alleged murderer after an anonymous tip call sent them straight to the bastard’s door. They found ten feet in the guy’s freezer. There were twelve victims.
    â€œYeah, unfortunately for him. It’s a dilly. The defense appealed the court’s ruling that the defendant is competent to stand trial, citing new psychiatric evaluations suggesting the perp is criminally insane and needs institution, not jail. Dodd went down there to try to stop a reversal. He worked his ass off for that case, and between us, it was the one that almost broke him. He’ll die before he sees that psycho let loose. But yeah, he got to say