Chapter No.38. Criminal mind.

Sunday afternoon, and the Steris family decided to take a walk in the park However they elected to take some less used trails through the woods.

The weather was perfect, a beautiful Spring day with blue skies and a refreshing breeze. As they hiked along a dirt path, James turned off suddenly.

"What's wrong?" his mother asked.

"There's a body over here," he replied while kneeling behind a bush.

His parents rushed over to him and looked at what he had discovered.

Robert knelt down near the corpse of a young woman dressed in skinny pants and a short-sleeved top with a Japanese Kanji symbol that meant Love. Her shoes were missing. "I don't think she's been here long. I would place it at a couple of weeks."

"Are we going to notify the police?" Janet asked.

"Yes, but I think we could identify the killer."

"How?"

"We'll hide near here and reverse time."

"Are you suggesting that we prevent the murder?"

"No, but you can take a photo of the killer."

"Why don't we stop him from killing her?"

"It's too far along the timeline. Our job now is to see that he doesn't kill again."

"I have a good place to hide over here," James said. He was standing near a heavily bushed area.

Robert and Janet went over to the bushes, but Robert had a different idea. "Let's just remain invisible. It'll allow us to get a much better look at the murderer."

Janet squinted. "We can do that?"

"Yeah,"

"Cool!" James reacted.

They became invisible and then reversed time to the time of the incident. It was dusk on a Saturday evening two weeks ago. They watched as the girl and a tall, thin young man with dark hair approached. The girl didn't show any signs of realizing what was going to happen to her. She smiled as if nothing was wrong.

They stopped and kissed. Amazingly, the girl suddenly dropped to the ground. The man dragged her into the bushes, removed her shoes and then nonchalantly walked away.

"Did you get good photos of him?" Robert asked his wife.

"Yes," she said. "I wonder how he killed her so quickly."

"I suspect a nerve paralyzer, but we'll leave that to the experts." Robert returned time to the present. "Ring up Mark on your phone and tell them that we found a murder victim, but to not bring a CSI team here until they see it first."

The Steris family waited until Mark and Joe arrived. The two FBI agents looked the body over before reacting.

"How did you find this?" Mark asked.

"We were just on a walk through the woods here when our son found her. We reversed time and observed the murder. We have good photos of the murderer."

"Why didn't you save her?" Joe asked.

"If we had done that, the murderer would have gotten away with a crime he did not yet commit."

"You know what I think," Mark said. "I think this is the work of the Midnight Murderer."

Robert looked at him with confused eyes. "The Midnight Murderer?"

"Yeah, he's been committing these crimes for over five years. The reason for the name is that the crime is usually committed at night."

"How many crimes did he commit?"

"Fourteen," Mark said.

Robert shook his head. "Good grief." He turned to Mark. "You're going to need evidence to convict him. If you could get an identification, we could go to where he's living and see if there are any clues there."

"Yeah, that would save time and hopefully prevent another crime."

"Okay then, let us know what you find. We'll leave now and allow you to do your thing."

The Steris family teleported back home.

Later that day, Mark called them.

"We've made an identification. He's Kevin Fix and he lives on 1011 Helms street. It's an older house in a run-down area."

"Okay, we'll check it out and get back to you."

"We'll have to pick a time when the killer is not at home," Robert said,

"If that guy is a night owl, that's when we should go there," James said.

"Yeah, that makes sense,"

They waited until late that night to teleport to the house, an old craftsman colonial that needed a lot of work. The killer was not at home, so they were able to search for clues, but they didn't have any luck until they went down into the basement.

"Holy hell!" James cried. "He has all of his victim's death photos pinned to the wall."

"Get photos of that," Robert told his wife. She went to work capturing as much as she could.

"Look at this," James said as he looked through a notebook. "It has all sorts of information about his victims."

"I found his collection of his victim's shoes," Robert said from a stack of carboard boxes.

"Look at all of these bottles," Janet said from a shelf unit. "I'll bet this guy is creating his own poisons."

"Photograph all this stuff and let's get out of here before he comes back."

They appeared in Mark and Joe's FBI office after completing their work.

"All the evidence you need is in the basement," Robert told them. "James will transfer the photos we took to your computer."

"Wow!" Mark exclaimed. "You just cracked one of the most important crime sprees ever."

"No, you just cracked it," Robert said. "We don't want to be connected to any of this."

"We understand. We'll take care of it," Mark said.

"Thanks," Joe added,

Robert nodded before he and his family disappeared.

They returned home to relax.

"How come we just happen to come across these incidents?" Janet asked.

"I think it's our destiny," Robert said. "It's the way that God can help us prevent crimes and disasters."

"That suggests that God does know the future," she said.

"Yes, but He obviously doesn't know what we're going to do."

"That doesn't make sense," Janet said. "If he knows the future, he will know what we're going to do.

"It's a dilemma for sure," Robert said.

"It's part of the experiment," James said. "We're being evaluated as to how effective we are as a force for good."

"Hopefully, we'll get a passing grade," Janet said.

"I think we already have," Robert said.

Janet sighed. "Is this what we're going to do for the rest of our lives, run around helping solve crimes and saving NASA?"

"It sure looks like that," Robert said. "At least we're able to survive in this crazy universe."

"What am I going to do?" James asked. "Am I going to hang out with my parents for the rest of my life?"

"Good question. Right now, it's not a concern. You'll be on summer break before your Senior year. After that, you'll go to college. Even if you're away, you can always join us."

James sighed. "No one has ever gone through this. We have no model to go on for instructions about how to be superheroes."

"There are many unknowns," Robert said. "However, right now we are on the spot, so to speak. We must continue doing what we were born to do."

That pretty much summed up what the Steris family was destined to do, but it's not exactly that simple.