Wolf in the Big City

Chapter 16 - Family

We arrived back at the office just past one in the afternoon. I'd called Max earlier, let him know we'd be going to his lab after lunch. With all the stuff we'd learned from Connie about our killer, there were a few things I wanted to cross-reference and confirm.

The First Precinct's computer lab wasn't, well, small. It dominated the floor above our office, where Max and a handful of other technicians worked all sorts of fancy machines and gadgets. IT these days was getting way over my head too; the glass screens in our meeting rooms were recent inventions. So were our radios. Hell, some of our patrol officers had these fancy bendable LED screen things on their wrists that were paired with a license scanner for traffic stops.

Kinda felt like the start of one of those cyberpunk stories, like Total Recall. I wouldn't have been surprised if a company like Apple or Samsung came up with a phone that we could wear, or if it were implanted into our brain and projected through our eyes or some weird shit like that. We had Google Glass. Oculus Rift. Who was to say that those big goggles wouldn't turn into, I don't know, eye implants or something?

I knocked on Max's door and stepped on in. The young man was seated at his workbench, busily tapping away at his laptop, so absorbed by his work that he didn't notice me and Louis approaching him. Up until I tapped him on the shoulder.

He started, adjusted his glasses and then pointed to his laptop. The second victim's phone and laptop were both attached to it with cables and I saw a few folders open on Max's desktop. Of course, I didn't exactly understand what the hell was going on, so I waited for him to explain himself, which he did.

"So uh, detectives. Good news. I've managed to crack the security on both the phone and laptop. Spent the last day or so looking through her search history, emails, stuff like that. Nothing on either device stood out at first, but I found a set of text messages that caught my eye. Check it out."

He pointed to his screen and I got closer as he pulled up a string of text messages from the phone. The exchange was between her and someone else, asking- no, telling her that they were coming over right now. The name of the contact was a 'Benjamin'. Fat load of good that told us; that name was common enough that it didn't narrow down our list of suspects any. Max highlighted the time stamp with his cursor and I raised an eyebrow. Huh.

"Same day, just before she was found dead. Nice find, Max. This Benjamin fella, he any important?"

"Actually yes. Here, let me show you."

Max tapped a few keys and brought up a picture of a rather young looking man. Dark brown skin, narrow-set eyes, thin nose and full lips.

"This is Benjamin. Or, more accurately, Anirudh Benjamin Prasad."

I exchanged a brief glance with Louis. He'd caught the same clue I had. The name was Indian. And he definitely looked the part too. Max, oblivious to what was going on, continued.

"He's an ex-classmate of Alexandria's. Actually, not just ex-classmates. They were dating at one point. Broke up about... A year ago? Ish? Anyway, point is: these text messages on the day of her murder are mostly from Benjamin, asking her if he could go to her place. Something about an emergency. She said yes and that was that. Last text she ever sent."

Max brought up some older texts from when the two were dating and I nodded in understanding. That was a strong connection, most likely the reason why Benjamin had reached out to her in the first place. But why? What was this emergency? And why was it so important that he go to her place?

There was another thing I wanted to test out. From the autopsy of both the Princes and Alexandria, we'd determined that there was a connection between the two murders: the killer's MO. But I wanted to see if more than just that linked these two cases together. And that laid with this mysterious Benjamin person.