PERSUASION

Daniel's stubby fingers with its ridiculously polished nails kept on flipping through the pages as though he was skimming through the report but seeing him acting like that only made Mikael more frustrated than how he already was.

This in return made Santina sighed inwardly as she thought of how the other party never changed. Despite spending years in the seminary, it did not seem to fixed Mikael's temper yet. He was still the same hot-tempered man she met years ago.

Santina watched at the side as her companion shifted impatiently on his seat, not just once but twice! Mikael fidgeted and played with the wooden crucifix hanging from a cord around his neck, yet it did not seem that he was intentionally doing it.

Santina continued to observe Mikael in her own silent way and only when she noticed that a green vein was almost, already popping out from the other party's neck did she made her move.

When Mikael sighed audibly and made his exasperation clear for all eyes to see, it was only then that Santina finally decided to put a stop on it before anything could even blow out of proportion.

She put her hand over Mikael's to gesture him to calm down. She eyed him warily in a way as if she was actually trying to talk him out of his frustration and then she glanced over Daniel's direction and spoke to him directly.

"Well, as you can see Mr. Sapiro, we believed that the killing takes place every last week of the month."

Santina swiftly made an introductory speech to discuss their report lest the other party did not understand a thing from it. Then after a brief pause, she continued.

"Putting together all the results from the different victims that we handled on our case and taking into consideration various factors, we believed that the killings would appear to have taken place on weekends, mostly during Saturdays. Other than that, we could also say based on the autopsies that the suspect we are looking for was right-handed."

She said using the same business-like tone that the other party used when talking to them. However, it did not seem that the lawyer was impressed nor convinced with their report yet and his reply made it all apparent.

"Hmm...I believe we could find a lot of right-handed people just within the dumpsite, let alone in the entire district, Professor. I am afraid to say this but your criminal profile was simply way to broad and I think that it still needed some adjustment. Don't worry though, once you guys come up with another theory or whatsoever, I will be more than willing to entertain you again."

Daniel said with a casual wave of his hand as he flashed them a perfunctory smile.

His nonchalant attitude partnered with the layer of dismissive indifference on his voice was just some of the glaring warning signals that made it all the more obvious that he was not exactly impressed with the case report presented to him; and even without him telling them directly, Santina and Mikael could already sense that the other party was planning to turn them down. 

Most likely than not, he was already thinking of a good reason not to take their case. In fact, it did not look like it was even up for discussion nor, negotiation.

However, the two deliberately ignored these signs. Choosing a gentler and more patient tone this time, Santina tried to talk the head lawyer into agreeing again.

"Believe me, Mr. Sapiro. We truly understand your reluctance to adopt these theories that we had at the moment. If I were in your shoe, I would probably feel the same. However, as you might probably know by now, the psychological profiling of criminals is still an evolving science. Yet despite that, it still remained a fact that it had produced a significant number of arrests and convictions."

Santina first went on with her fact check to make her argument more convincing. She paused for a while to create an added drama and only when she already achieved the effect that she intended did she continue.

The young professor resumed and deliberately tried to put out a few good words of commendation about the other party's effort to appeal to his ego in the hope to eventually fall on his good graces.

"Most of the people from your department have a solid legal background, and that is all very good. You got a great and highly competitive team under your wing. Likewise, I understand that this job must have been truly hard for you. After all, trying to allocate resources and budgeting the funds to make the most out of it was a really tough job. Yet you still managed to do a great job. You had a very good eye for cases, Mr. Sapiro, and that was why I wish that you could also recognize that this situation demands far more of you and the Bureau than just legal expertise. "

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