Chapter 37: Unmasking the Suspect

Spoiler Notice: This chapter contains major revelations about the identity of the perpetrator and the connections between multiple murders.

Summary

Alex calls Milo early in the morning with a breakthrough. He explains that Robin helped him identify a common theme among the cases: protecting children. This led him to consider the families’ tutor, Cameron Flick. Alex previously noted similarities between the body dumps of Marissa French and Vicki Saucedo, and discovered that Vicki’s college-student brother studied at Oberlin College. Research showed Flick had been a tutor for Keisha Boykins, Errol Moffett, and one of Sterling’s college-aged twins. Flick also graduated from Oberlin and was present when a second Ohio victim, Steckel, worked as a campus custodian. Milo confirms via NCIC that Flick was born in Vantage, Ohio—the same town where Leonard Wiebelhaus was killed. Marriage records reveal Flick’s mother, Felicia, married Wiebelhaus when Cameron was eleven. Alex theorizes that Flick killed his stepfather at fifteen, possibly due to abuse, and later killed others as a twisted form of protection for his students. Milo is initially skeptical but begins to accept the possibility.

Key Events

• Alex telephones Milo early morning to present his suspect.
• Milo arrives and demands a full explanation.
• Alex outlines the Oberlin connection linking Flick to multiple victims.
• Milo runs NCIC and Social Security searches, confirming Flick’s Ohio origins.
• Records show Felicia Flick married Leonard Wiebelhaus when Cameron was eleven.
• Alex posits that Flick murdered Wiebelhaus at age fifteen and continued killing.
• The two discuss how Flick might have rationalized later murders as protecting his students.
• Alex asks for a spare office to investigate the connection to Marissa French’s brother.

Character Development

• Alex Delaware: Demonstrates deduction and collaboration with Robin; his hypothesis builds methodically from shared themes and concrete evidence.
• Milo Sturgis: Moves from skepticism to grudging acceptance; his exhausted reaction shows the weight of the case but also trust in Alex’s instincts.
• Cameron Flick: Emerges as a highly intelligent, possibly abused individual who graduates from Oberlin and becomes a tutor—using his position to identify targets for vigilante murder.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

• Protectiveness as justification: Alex argues that Flick reframes murder as a noble rescue of his students, echoing his own adolescent killing of an abusive stepfather.
• The Oberlin connection: Serves as a geographic and intellectual thread linking early Ohio murders to later California crimes.
• Math as a double-edged skill: Flick’s mathematical brilliance enables both academic success and careful planning of murders.
• Abuse cycles: The chapter suggests that childhood abuse can produce extreme violence, especially when combined with high intelligence and lack of intervention.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter marks the turning point where the investigation crystallizes around a single suspect. Alex’s theory explains all the disparate murders under one motive—protecting the vulnerable—and connects them through Flick’s unique access to each family. The establishment of a direct link between Flick and the Ohio cold cases transforms him from a peripheral figure into the likely perpetrator, shifting the story from discovery to pursuit.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Alex connect Cameron Flick to the earlier Ohio murders? Alex notes that Flick graduated from Oberlin College—a short drive from the Wiebelhaus and Steckel crime scenes—and that Flick was present when Steckel worked as a campus custodian. Social Security records later confirm Flick was born in Vantage, Ohio, where Wiebelhaus was killed, and that Flick’s mother married Wiebelhaus when Flick was eleven.

2. What role does Robin play in Alex’s deduction? Robin helped Alex identify the common theme of “protecting kids” across the Boykins, Moffett, and Sterling cases. This pattern led Alex to think about who had access to the victims’ families and a motive to defend them, ultimately pointing to tutor Cameron Flick.

3. Why does Milo initially resist the idea that Flick acted without direct contracts from parents? Milo finds it hard to believe that a tutor would initiate murder without being asked, because revealing such an offer would risk exposure if the parent reported it. He suggests that parents like the Boykinses or Sterlings might have contracted directly, but Alex counters with the theory that Flick acted on his own, using students’ complaints as justification.

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