Bronx High School of Science is one of the oldest and most famous high schools in the world, and the number of students is so large that 'Blonde Sweetheart' already specifies the gender as well as the color of the hair.
There are a lot of blondes, but blondes that are so blond that they can be described as gold are rare.
The FBI spent several hours interviewing two or three school staff members and reviewing student records, and also wandered around the school disguised as students, going through the entire student body to make sure that nothing was missing, and turned up three suspected victims.
Two of the victims were sophomores, one was a cheerleader and the other was a student council member, both were popular, usually optimistic, generous and well-liked, and occasionally a bit bold, very much in line with the 'Blonde Sweetheart'.
The other victim was a senior in high school, had very few friends, only a few, didn't socialize too much with other people, basically didn't participate in club activities, had been ostracized, and rarely went to parties.
This was one of the students who wasn't a 'Blonde Sweetheart', and she wasn't screened out because her hair color was so light that it almost shone like gold in the sunlight.
During the meeting, Jodie posted pictures of the three suspected victims on the whiteboard, "Note that we don't know the identity of the killer yet,"
"However, the first card Mr. Akai received said 'noon', and last night, Mr. Mystery said 'night', which means the killer has probably been eyeing the victims for a long time,"
"We don't know if he's a janitor, a security guard, or an ordinary passerby, someone on campus, or off campus," She said in a somewhat gravelly tone, "and if he's aware of the FBI's movements."
"We have tried our best to hide our traces during the necessary preliminary investigations, the interviews with the teachers were with specific teachers who were selected, interviewed before they went to work and asked to maintain their confidentiality,"
"Access to information was done through the school's direct channel with only the principal's knowledge, school-wide checks were done in the guise of students, and confirmation of blonde students' names was done in the form of accosting them..."
These were the efforts of the FBI, which had tried not to alert as many people as possible to the possibility that the killer might be on campus.
"But," Jodie added, "the stage of planning a killing and being about to do it is the stage when the killer is most alert, and anything that goes wrong could alert him,"
"We think we have been very quiet, in his view may not, and if he is prepared, then we planned ahead of the 'replacement' plan, may encounter some trouble."
Like when the FBI has replaced the victim and the killer knows it's a fake and turns around and goes to the victim's real location.
Or if the killer strikes before the FBI does.
Or, more likely, the killer stays put and lurks in the shadows.
He may strike again when the heat is off, or he may change victims, or he may never strike again.
More than either, Jodie wanted the killer to lurk after the discovery, to give them time to check the trail.
Most of the FBI investigators attending the meeting looked at the whiteboard with serious faces. There were not only photos of three suspected victims, but also several names written at a separate angle. Those names were circled with a mark on them: insider.
These were in the margins, the photo in the upper left corner, the informants in the upper right corner, and in the center were several pictures of the blonde and the scene.
Here are some other cases of the 'Blonde Hunter'.
This serial killer was not committing a crime for the first time. He had committed crimes four times before he was noticed by 'Mr. Mystery', 'The Great Savior', 'The White-haired Criminal', and 'The Master', who casually pulled him out like a mole and nailed him to a greeting card.
The FBI's file records four times, there may be other cases that were not detected, or the murderer was the same, but the modus operandi was different, so it was not included in the serial cases.
In this case, the FBI has a specialized team to track the case, so the number of people attending the meeting was more than 10 more than in the early hours of the morning.
These more than ten FBI provided very important information: the killer's behavior, modus operandi, more preferred location characteristics, the characteristics of the victims and so on and so forth.
This includes profiles of killers who are not highly educated, are handsome or harmless, or have a special identity that lowers the victim's defenses, are between the ages of 30 and 45, and own a car.
"It doesn't matter if there were accidents," Said one of the original FBI agents on the case, 'isn't it an accident that we're sitting here talking about this 'blonde hunter'?"
"The way things were going, I'm afraid we wouldn't have noticed until the blonde student died and her body was found, but now that we've found it early, there's a chance to take it, and whether we catch it or not, it's something to be thankful for."
He shared a glance with his coworkers, "Honestly, I'm a little curious about that 'Master' you guys are talking about,"
The forty-something FBI man didn't change his face when he said 'Master,' and was quite frank, as if he wasn't calling it a shameful title, but rather saying he'd like a cup of coffee later.
"A high IQ, targeting other criminals, good at provoking the FBI and seemingly interested in cooperating, with a mysterious origin and unclear purpose,"
Reciting Ichijō Mirai's characteristics, the FBI man became more and more thoughtful and added, "Well-bred, good family, many skills, good ability to capture and refine information, keen on special information, good physical strength, better force value than most criminals, great car skills,"
"White hair, suspected to be underage."
"There are plenty of psychology professors who'd love to study him if you'd just give them the information."
Jodie had to correct, "Not 'suspected minor', he's an Asian with white hair, looks younger, but is definitely an adult."
It's the contrast with New Yorkers that makes him look underage. It's an ethnic thing.
She smiled, "I'll take your suggestion under advisement,"
No, you won't.
With a criminal like this, it might have been possible to feel his way around when it came time to bite the bullet, to review his growth and withering with everything we had, to study his every trauma and aberration.
But now the other party is obviously to cooperate, then it is not quite the way to deal with criminals deal with him, but should be a little more tactful, for example: when reviewing the past, to be more subtle, at least in the two sides have not yet reached a few times of cooperation, the relationship has not gradually eased, to the point that you can joke with each other, it is best not to let him know.
It was difficult.
Jodie was cautious, preferring to take her time in finding a reliable expert rather than alerting Ichijō Mirai: Hey, yeah, I'm going to 'put the bowl up and eat the meat, but put the bowl down and yell at the bitch', haha.
This isn't a tacit agreement to pull back, it's a deliberate attempt to cause trouble because she's having too easy a time.
But if she were this 40-something FBI agent, interested in another group of criminals being pursued by a temporarily merged team, she would have said something like this in all seriousness, introducing another professor in the meantime, getting information about the criminals, and then blaming the professor for being unavailable.
So she just smiled and changed the subject, "I'm going to disguise myself as that last blonde lady."
The FBI agents looked on in surprise, "Huh?"
Until Jodie confirms otherwise, they're assuming Jodie's going to be a cheerleader or a student council member, after all, the chances of those two students being the victim are high, over 80% combined.
The likelihood that the last blonde student was the victim was a little lower, just over 10%.
"According to the research, Number One's after-school range of maneuver is in this area," Jodie drew on the map on the whiteboard to show the cheerleader's range of maneuver, "the upper left corner,"
"Her house is also in the neighborhood."
"And Two's range of maneuver is here," Jodie drew the range of maneuver of the student council members in the lower right corner again, "lower right."
"Option one, I won't be able to get there when something happens to Two, and option two, I won't be able to get there when something happens to One, they're both single choice questions."
"But," she drew the range of action of No.3, 'No.3's action is very fixed, every day after five o'clock, she will go to this fast-food restaurant or another fast-food restaurant to work part-time, the two fast-food restaurants are not far away from each other, and both of them are in the middle of No.1 and No.2,"
"If I chose her, I could be there no matter which side of One and Two was in trouble."
And: "The other two victims, one went to an amusement park for a date, and the other went to a bookstore for a date, and they knew fewer people there, so as long as the agent put on a good disguise, it was easier to replace them and monitor them closely, and if it was not feasible, you could replace their boyfriends as well."
"The blonde student is to work in a fast food restaurant, is in a fixed location to work, fast food stores have a lot of clerks and customers know her, can only be used in the form of close surveillance, after she left the convenience store before you can try to replace, fishing murderer."
This line, a little more difficult than the first two lines, but less profitable.
If it is other FBI investigators to go, it is like a layer of debuff, but if it is Jodie to go, that can not disguise, can only be monitored at close range has become an advantage: in the surveillance of the target person, she can remotely monitor the dynamics of the other two lines.
The FBI investigators nodded.
"And," Jodie spoke again, "Mr. Akai will show up,"
Her eyes flicked to the only empty seat in the conference room, still smiling, "According to Mr. Akai, he's a dabbler with sniper rifles and can help from afar,"
A little?
Sniper rifles are not something you can touch with a little knowledge. If you accidentally miss the enemy and hit a friendly, it's fine, but if you accidentally hit a passerby, it's bad.
Some of the FBI investigators can not help but frown and look at each other, most of the FBI investigators do not change their faces, do not seem to have any idea, do not seem to care, such as the forty-something years old FBI investigator.
He just politely stated in advance, "We don't have much contact with Mr. Akai, and this is the first time we're cooperating, so please don't shoot Mr. Akai until you hear the command to shoot."
If nothing else, he wouldn't have asked Akai Shūichi to shoot even if the murderer had killed and escaped on the spot.
Jodie glanced over and smiled, "Of course."
"Mr. Akai would have contacted the head of the operation for instructions before planning to shoot,"
"However, there are too many targets for Mr. Akai to spare, so I've given him a summary of all the information so far, and at noon, he'll be on the move, heading to where he thinks he's most likely to come into contact with the criminals, and monitoring them remotely."
Briefly explaining Akai Shūichi's whereabouts, Jodie clapped her hands again, "So, let's get moving?"
The FBI investigators nodded their heads and dispersed into groups.
*
The fast-food joint is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Williamsburg is a bustling city, dotted with moons and sixpences, thriving on the arts and blossoming with food and drink.
There aren't a lot of fast-food joints, but every once in a while you'll come across one, and target number three is in the center of it all.
Jodie chose to sit by the window when she went there in her young man's casual clothes.
The clerk who came to inquire about the order was target number three.
Over lunch, FBI investigators had talked to the three suspected victims and calmed them down, letting them know that they were under the protection of the FBI and that no matter what happened to them before, nothing would happen to them afterward.
Considering the reputation of the FBI, and considering the whims and fancies of high school students, this was a reassurance that the victims didn't quite believe.
But target number three believed it, because the person who came to protect her was a leader who obviously had a lot of standing with the FBI.
She smiled at Jodie and said, "Hello, what can I get you?"
At school, the student wore her hair long and blonde, often leaning on her desk with her head propped up in class, her hair long enough to cover her face, and with no pretty face and a quiet demeanor, not many people noticed her, except for the weirdos who didn't fit in with the rest of the group.
But at the convenience store, her blonde hair was all tied up, her whole face was exposed, her facial features were soft and clean, her cheeks were fair, her eyes were a darker blue, her clothes were the red uniform of a fast-food restaurant, and she wore a smile that belonged to a waitress.
In all seriousness, the smile was a little strained and stiff.
But this was a teenage blonde girl.
When she revealed her full face and curved her eyes, the tight smile took on a youthful charm, like a freshly baked cake glowing in the sunlight from the window.
She was so different from her school self.
Jodie was on the phone with Akai Shūichi, trying to ascertain his whereabouts, when she looked up at the sound of his voice, and was startled for a moment when she saw him.
The clues that Ichijō Mirai had mentioned flashed before her eyes, and her expression changed subtly, as if in an afterthought.
She opened her mouth, "Uh, did you, uh, did you find the church that wasn't right?"
"I think, I think I found the Blonde Sweetheart..."