[news: sherrif's office]
[The morning the mist dissipates, it reveals a dead man in the doorway of the sheriff's office.
No thoughtful stringing up, no note-leaving, no signature, no sign. He's about 30, attractive and placid, eyes staring up at the cold blue sky of a February morning, and simply dead, killed by a deep, precise stab wound to the heart.
Identification will prove difficult - the man is not a local. He was seen around town over the past week, including in the bars. Soon after he appeared, however, one of the regulars at the Mean-Eyed Cat went missing. She was young enough and pretty enough that there was some speculation she ran off with a sweetheart.
The manager of the motel can confirm that the man was staying in one of their rooms under an obvious alias, and a few long-term residents have complained about a smell emanating from the mystery man's door.
The girl is pretty, blonde, and too young to be dead on a hotel bed, killed by bare-handed strangulation about two days ago. The man laying in front of the Sheriff's office left his DNA all over her, but there are no signs he was also killed in that room. Considering the amount of blood he lost his death left its mark somewhere, but it's not the hotel, and not on the sidewalk where his corpse was found.
Run the DNA and there's another layer. The dead man's DNA is a match for three other killings in surrounding states, all pretty young girls, all strangled. On his own body there's no trace of anything. The only real clue is the unusual shape of the murder weapon, rippled and viciously sharp.]