Chapter 6
Ryuichi, aka Ryan, sauntered out of the office, not even bothering to pack his things on his desk. He truly and really didn’t care. What’s there to care? With his brains and his academic record, he can go anywhere. Even without the academia benefit, with his charm and his way with words, nothing has ever stopped him. He’s decided he will not work in such a boring 9-to-5 job again. Makes it difficult for him to plan his little escapades, his little fun murders. Rather, to him, they are not murders. He is sending these people straight to heaven. Prematurely. They get to enjoy the benefits of paradise early, courtesy of him. These girls should thank him.
Feeling extremely proud of himself, he roamed the roads of Vegas. Popping into a casino here and there and played some easy games of blackjack and roulette, he was there to cruise for his next target. They had to be of the same – what was that word the profilers used – type. They thought they had him down pat. So they thought. He was laughing so hard when they labeled him tall, white male in his mid-thirties. Well-educated, possibly victim of a single-mom home child abuse. Good looking (that part he liked), and eloquent. They would be looking for the wrong person! He was short and asian! Mid-thirties? He’s not yet 30! A few more months to go, that’s the real truth. Maybe he ought to help them a little. That star thing obviously wasn’t much help. They thought it was a trademark. Part of his Modus Operandi. What a joke. They need more education. All of a sudden, he knows what he can do to help them along.
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“Inspector Kim Ji Hon, please come to the reception counter. There is an urgent package for you.”
“Urgent package?” Kim was curious about the intercom announcement looking for her. She let her boys take a break and hurridly headed down to level 1, where the reception was.
Receptionist Ursula saw her and quickly waved her over. “Inspector Kim, this is for you. The delivery guy said it was super urgent and had to be delivered to you immediately without delay so I had to intercom you. Wasn’t sure if it is dangerous so I took the liberty to call Bomb Squad as well.”
“Woah Ursula. That was detailed of you. No problem. I’ll wait for them to come before I open this package. Look, there they are,” Kim became wary after hearing Ursla’s words.
“I thought I’d better be careful. We all know what case you are working on,” Ursula said while the bomb squad investigated the package.
20 minutes later, the squad announced that there was no danger of anything going off. The package was deemed ‘clean’. Kim decided she should open it in her own office.
Inside the box was a simple envelope. A plain manila envelope. And a Jewish text. A copy of Eshkol Ha-Kofer, one of the oldest Jewish text. One page was bookmarked.
Kim opened the envelope and slipped out a few pages. It was a printout from Wikipedia. It was an article on the number ‘seven’.
She flipped to the dog-eared page of the text and it was the section where the Star of David was mentioned.
“Seven names of angels precede the mezuzah: Michael, Gabriel, etc. … Tetragrammaton protect you! And likewise the sign, called the ‘Shield of David’, is placed beside the name of each angel.”
This particular line was hi-lighted, with the word ‘seven’ especially underlined. Kim took out the Wikipedia print-out and found the section which mentioned about the Judaism relevance of the number seven.
“A highly symbolic number in the Torah, alluding to the infusion of spirituality and Godliness into the Creation.”
Without a doubt, this package was from the killer that they have been tracing for so many months. Kim sent the contents of the packages for analysis, with a short report on the people who might have touched it, therefore leavivng fingerprints or trace.
After that, she fell into deep thinking.
What did the killer mean by sending her these things?