to things makes that seem unlikely. Doesn’t suit his personality. People that anal usually behave more coherently...”
“But the murder methods—strangulation, blunt force trauma, stabbing... they don’t show any kind of consistency.”
“Except that they’re consistently different. He’s painstakingly trying something new every time. But alternating is different from varied. Which is why, Ryuzaki, when I was looking in the mirror a moment ago, it hit me—B and Q are shaped the same.”
“B and Q? They’re completely different!”
“As capital letters. But what about lower case?” Misora said, drawing the letters on the table top with her fingertip. b and q. Over and over. b and q. b and q. b and q.
“See? Exactly the same shape! Just the other way around!” “So that’s why she’s face down?”
“Exactly,” Naomi Misora nodded. ‘A rough estimate of one in 676 people have the initials B.B., so if we take that as the missing link, then the killer must have had a lot of trouble finding victims. One was easy enough, but two, three, even four... even more so. He had no choice but to use a Q.Q. instead.”
“I agree with everything except that last sentence. I don’t believe it would be easier to find someone with the initials Q.Q. than it would be to find someone else with B.B. Even if it was, I think it’s better to view the replacement as part of a puzzle designed for the investigation team. If they were all B.B. right from the start, the missing link would have been too obvious. But this is only supposition. No more than a thirty percent possibility.”
“Thirty percent...” Annoyingly low.
If this were a test, she’d have failed. “Why?”
“According to your theory, your conclusion is that all of that tells us why Quarter Queen was found lying face down. Face down led you to reverse theory and to b and q... but this progression doesn’t work logically, Misora.”
“Why not?”
“Lower case,” Ryuzaki said. “Initials are always capital letters.” “Oh...”
Right.
Initials were never written lower case. They were upper case every time. Quarter Queen was always
Q.Q., never q.q. Just as B.B. was never b.b.
“And I thought I was on to something,” Misora said, burying her face in her knees.
So close... but even the assertion that a killer this anal would never alternate had been more than a little bit of a stretch. But even so, the connection between b and q seemed so meaningful...
“Come now, Misora. Don’t be so disappointed.” Sigh...
“Frankly, I’m glad your theory was wrong. If Quarter Queen had been killed as a substitute... that’s a horrible reason for a child in her teens to die.”
“Yeah... if you put it that way...”
Mmm? Misora frowned, suddenly. A moment before, Ryuzaki has insisted there was no difference between killing a child and killing an adult, but the motive for it bothered him? A reason like this one... did that have anything to do with anything? A child in her teens...
A child? A child? A little child? “…No, Ryuzaki.”
“In this case—lower case is perfect,” Misora said, her voice shaking. Shaking with anger.
“That’s why the killer chose a child.” A thirteen-year-old child.
Her initials.
Upper case, lower case.
“Because she was a child—lower case. And that’s why she was face down—upside down!”
It would be some time later before Naomi Misora realized that it was Ryuzaki who had enthusiastically pointed out the matching initials, who had pointed out that the victim was a child, and who had given her the sugary coffee that had sent her into the bathroom, where the mirror provided the inspiration she needed to figure things out.
But either way... the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases.
The missing link had been found, the critical detail that would, in later years, give the case its name.
e� � r s �- ( - ntry, around the world. Why Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
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