The young detective was assigned to wade through the case files of all seven victims.
This was despite his begging the police chief to give him an active role on the case. Unfortunately, his earnest request had backfired on him when he had stood his ground, saying that all his time on the force, plus his recent up to date training made him perfectly capable of being a real benefit to the current investigations. This had gone down badly and as a consequence he was relegated to working his way through all of the paperwork in the files that were almost thrown at him. It was certain that the police were dealing with a serial killer. Although it had been decided to withhold such information from the public for fear of starting a panic, each of the bodies had a small, red asterisk stencilled under the chin.
After several hours of wading through material that in the main shed no light on the case at all, he suddenly realised that he may have found a tenuous link between all seven victims of the recent crime spree. It seemed that five of the victims, and probably the remaining two, had recently had dental work carried out. The surgery in question was one that the detective was familiar with, but he had never used their services. He felt sure that this was a really viable lead to follow up on. After careful consideration, he decided that making the discovery known, following the argument with his chief, he would receive little thanks for his contribution.
He decided that to get to the bottom of the affair on his own would be the best way of proving himself. With this in mind he called the surgery and made an appointment for the following morning.
His body turned up a couple of weeks later, with a small, red asterisk stencilled under his chin.