The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [114]
“Slipped on the ice.” She pointed to the report. “Helpful, huh?”
Bledsoe shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Just got it.” He looked past her at everyone in the living room and seemed to take roll. His eyes settled back on Vail. “How about you take us through it?”
“Wait a minute,” Del Monaco said. “I thought I’d do that—”
“I know, but I’d rather Karen do it. No offense.”
Del Monaco frowned and walked away, his shoulder giving Vail a slight nudge as he passed. Bledsoe winked at her, then took his seat.
Vail asked to borrow the color copy from Del Monaco, who picked up the report and held it above his head. You want it, come get it, he was saying.
Vail took the power struggle in stride and moved across the room as gracefully as possible with a bum knee. She took the papers from Del Monaco and decided to remain there to discuss the report. She stood in front of him, her back to his face. He emitted a noise that sounded like a growl, then scooted his rolling chair a few feet to the side, away from his desk.
“I asked Kim Rossmo at Texas State to put together a profile for us,” Vail started. “I’ve worked with Rossmo on a number of cases and have been super impressed with the work he’s done. This one was prepared by William Broussard, his associate.” She flipped to the front page of the report.
“I’m not familiar with geographic profiling,” Sinclair said.
Manette reclined in her seat. “Probably more might haves and might have nots,” she said.
“I think you’ll find this a bit more palatable, Mandisa,” Vail said. “It’s a computer algorithm that focuses on an offender’s projected spatial behavior using the locations of, and the spatial relationships between, that serial offender’s crime sites. A geographic profile works real well with a behavioral assessment, because how an offender chooses the areas he preys in is influenced by who he is and what motivates him.”
“So this is an objective measurement?” Bledsoe asked.
“Yes and no. It’s got both quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative part uses objective measurements to analyze what Rossmo calls ‘point patterns’ created from the locations of the victim target sites. The qualitative part comes from an interpretation of the offender’s ‘mental map.’”
“I wanna hear more about the computer stuff,” Manette said. “I got enough theories. Gimme something concrete.”
“Rossmo developed something called criminal geographic targeting that takes the locations of the offender’s crime scenes and produces a three-dimensional probability distribution of where the offender’s home or workplace would be. The greater the height of the point indicates a greater probability that this is where the offender would live or work. This 3D distribution, which he calls a ‘Jeopardy Surface,’ is then superimposed over a map of the region, giving us a ‘geoprofile’ of the offender. Rossmo says the geoprofile is a fingerprint of the offender’s cognitive map.”
“This shit actually work?” Sinclair asked.
“Indeed, this shit does work,” Vail said.
Del Monaco, still fuming over having been rebuffed by Bledsoe, craned his neck to be seen around Vail’s body. “I’ve worked with this guy. I can personally vouch for him.”
Vail turned slightly and gave Del Monaco a sharp look, wanting to tell him that neither she nor Rossmo needed his endorsement. “What this does,” Vail said, “is help us focus the investigation. And when we finally come up with some suspects, we can prioritize who to pursue first, based on where they live and work.”
“We can also then put patrols on alert in the more statistically probable areas of offender activity,” Robby said.
“I like it,” Bledsoe said.
“That concrete enough for you?” Vail asked Manette.
She bobbed her head, chewing on her lip. “I like it, too. But I’ll wait to give you my opinion till after we catch this bastard.”
“So what’s it show?” Bledsoe asked.
Vail looked to Del Monaco. “You have copies?”
He opened a brown manila routing envelope and pulled out a stack of stapled packets. They were passed around the room.
“Turn to page eight,” Vail said, finding the spot herself.