Chapter 167: ANOTHER DISCOVERY

SEVENTEEN VICTIMS, But only few names.

Laid out on a whiteboard like this, with the photographs, the dates, the details written in Daniel's slanty handwriting inside neat squares, it's almost like any other chart or table, dry and cold and dull.

Except they all know what each of these squares represents; they've all seen it—or what's left of it—with their own eyes.

They're sitting in a conference room at the Bureau: Santina and Mikael, Daniel, James and Officer Aragon, and Mayor Valir.

They are transfixed by the grid on the whiteboard, the room silent save for the drone of an old air conditioner.

Officer Aragon is the first to speak.

"Well, we have identified most of them. What do we know about them?"

James takes his glasses off and begins cleaning them with a handkerchief. 

"They all lived in the vicinity of the dumpsite: All poor. Two trash pickers. The rest is on that grid."