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Raisa toyed with her phone for a moment and then texted Kilkenny.
What can you tell me about two vics?
Jason Stahl and Tyler Marchand
Dots appeared almost immediately, and she waited him out. What she got was a long list of facts that were nearly verbatim to what she just read.
Not what’s in the files, she typed, rolling her eyes.
This time it took longer.
They disrupted the pattern, but not enough for me to change my profile.
Raisa chewed on her lip.Can I call?
A second later her phone rang.
“What’s up?” Kilkenny asked.
“Are you with Kate?”
“No, she’s driving in. She didn’t want to send us the footage via any digital pathway,” Kilkenny said, and she heard the frustration clear as day. The FBI had secure drop boxes that would have made it both safe and easy for Kate to send in whatever interview file she had. But the move didn’t surprise Raisa. Kate seemed to want to be in control of every aspect of her work.
Raisa wasn’t sure she could blame her for that. “Are you with Pierce?”
“Yup, putting you on speaker,” Kilkenny said.
She quickly filled them in on her process with the letters and how that had helped her isolate the three victims she was fairly confident had been killed by their second author rather than Conrad.
“Shay was personal,” Kilkenny said. “The last victim had to do with turning Conrad in.”
Raisa smiled at the reminder of how well they worked together. “Yeah, those were my thoughts. That’s why I wanted to focus on Stahl and Marchand.”
“Stahl was the first male victim,” Pierce chimed in. “We got a lot of questions then about copycats.”
“Did you ever wonder that yourself?” Raisa asked delicately. She really didn’t want to start an argument again.
“The ink Conrad used for the tattoo process was a dark gray, not black,” Pierce reminded her. “Even if you saw a picture of the cipher, you would think it was black.”
“Right.” She had mostly forgotten that little detail. But it was incredibly unique. Their second author had either known that through Conrad or ... or they’d worked on the task force.
She wondered how Pierce would react to that theory. From her experience with him over the past couple of hours, she’d guessnot great.
“I think these two guys are key to something,” Raisa said, sidestepping that land mine for now. She wouldn’t be forgetting it, though. “Is there anything else we know about them?”
“Sasha,” Kilkenny murmured, and Pierce made an agreeing sound.
“What?” Raisa prompted them with that feeling of being outside an inside joke.
“Aleksander Malkin,” Kilkenny said. “He was the journalist covering the entirety of the Alphabet Man case.”
“Why would he know more than you?” Raisa asked.
“He found the male victims intriguing as well,” Kilkenny said. “I think he might have started writing a book on them, but it never got published. He’s worth talking to, though.”
“Okay, send me his number. I’ll see if he’s available while you guys wait on Kate.” Hopefully, given Houston’s traffic, she could get back in time for that interview. But she likely wasn’t needed.
“Yup, will get it over to you,” Kilkenny said, sounding like he was about to sign off.