Chapter Twelve #2
“Okay, we’re in a cab, and heading toward the FBI building. Where should we meet you?”
Gene told him.
“Find Greyson at the FBI office, and stay with him until we get done with talking to the FBI ME. We’re going into the morgue to get the autopsy reports for the cop and the Fed since Ben Crowley did both of them.”
That worked for Corbin.
“I’ll get you guys some good coffee so you’re not drinking office swill. We’ll see you there.”
With that, Corbin hung up.
Well, so much for having to wrangle their curious Corby. It appeared he’d learned a valuable lesson—that the shit could go sideways.
And it almost always did.
“I’m a little caught off guard, since I fully expected him to bitch and moan,” Gene admitted, tucking his phone away.
Ethan snorted.
Yeah, him too.
The past had taught them that when it came to Corbin Price. He was a wildcard.
And not in a good way.
“I know. You should have seen your face when he actually agreed.”
Oh, he bet.
Only, this turned out to be a good sucker-punch.
For.
Once.
Shaking his head in amusement, he pointed at the morgue.
“Let’s get this done, because now we have to add a club to the interview list, on top of searching the dead agent’s home, and interviewing the people who work at Jaden’s restaurant.”
Yeah, it was a growing list.
That was for sure.
As they headed in, Ethan stayed behind Gene, mostly because he was admiring his ass in his jeans. The other reason was his perpetual hard-on—thanks to a cage.
The bear was blocking any view of his…situation.
The last thing he needed was everyone in the whole world to know what was going on in his pants. Not that it was embarrassing, but because it just made it more difficult to not think about it.
Oh, and he was definitely thinking about it.
Next time, he was wearing less snug pants. That he wanted there to be a next time gave him chills because Ethan absolutely did.
He was living his best life with this man.
And he couldn’t wait to see what else he came up with in the future.
Once in the morgue, they found Ben Crowley sitting on a rolling stool, working on a clipboard.
There was no doubt he was handling the paperwork that went with the dead body they’d tagged him in on last night.
They’d been to this rodeo before.
That and they’d given him PLENTY of time to do a full autopsy, and have tox back.
“Agents,” he said, getting up and heading their way. “I was wondering when you were coming in for an update,” he offered.
Yeah, well, they were here now, and hopefully, he’d have something they could use of value.
Because they needed something.
For them, this was day one, and they were hitting the ground running. The last thing they wanted to do was stall this investigation, and have it take all week.
Gene was hoping they’d knock it out in a matter of days so the vacation would continue.
That was the plan.
It was time to get down to work, and for them, when dealing with homicides, it started with the ME who autopsied the victim.
Since this man only did two of the autopsies, they were curious that when they compared with the city ME, if they’d match up.
MEs sometimes had varying skills and techniques. The FBI hired the best, so they expected Ben Crowley to be the gold standard.
“Hey, Doc,” Gene began. “This is my partner, Special Agent Ethan Blackhawk. He’s the profiler on our team. He just flew in this morning from his vacation,” he offered, covering for them.
Ben held out his hand.
“Agent, it’s a pleasure. Hopefully, you can get back to your vacation sooner rather than later.”
Oh, Ethan hoped so.
“Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate your help on this,” he said, being his normal, polite self.
Gene knew his partner was taking it all in.
So, it was time to start.
“So, Doc, tell me about the body. You know, the COD, TOD, and all the other things that agents are going to harass you about while working a case.”
He laughed.
Well, at least agents were consistent across the board. That he knew how to manage.
“Can do, Agents. Coffee?” he asked, leading them to a space they could work in the tiny morgue.
Some might call it cozy.
But Sasha even had a bigger space than this. Gene was borderline living in sin with the two men—that’s how close they were together.
As for coffee, they both declined since Corbin would be hooking them up when he got to the office.
“Pass. We’ve been caffeinated since we started earlier this morning.”
That worked for him.
So, he got down to business.
“Ask,” Ben said, taking a seat and opening up the file he’d created on this victim for the files.
Gene went there.
“Tell us about the newest victim. Start there, and then, we’ll need your autopsy for Aaron Figueroa,” he stated.
The man lifted a brow.
That clearly caught him off guard.
“We handed over jurisdiction on that one,” he said. “I mean, I have copies of the autopsy, since I did it, but why him? Are you saying that you’re back in possession of handling his death, or just being thorough and asking questions?”
Gene wasn’t shocked he was asking. That body had been passed around like a hooker on shore leave. He just hoped he and Ethan didn’t get the ick from it.
Hot Potato Victim was a shitty game to play in an investigation. Things got dropped.
Maybe because they all had weird markings on them? Maybe because if it walked like a duck, and quacked like a duck, it wasn’t a wildebeest.
That might be why.
Instead of being snarky, he was laid back and just told him.
“We have three isolated victims that all seem to have died in similar ways, and have the same markings,” he offered. “That gives us jurisdiction, and since I found the body, I’m stuck dealing with it. We are taking back jurisdiction rather than let the cops help in tandem.”
Ben laughed.
“Agent, you have shit luck.”
Yeah, tell him about it.
Because they would want everything, he rolled over to a file cabinet, and pulled out the file on the second victim. Then, he rolled back.
“Which do you want first?” he asked. “Order of deaths, or order most recent?”
Gene went there as Ethan was building his profile. It was early, so he wasn’t expecting much. Gene wanted to get situated in his head and out of vacation-mode.
For.
Now.
“Start with the most recent, if you don’t mind. I’m balancing a lot of balls right now. I need to get my head straight and into this because I’m running it. My partner here does the profiling,” he said.
He could do that.
To Ben, it didn’t matter.
“Okay, well, Agent Shand was put through it, and I can tell you that it most definitely is him. There is your positive ID.”
Oh, great.
Gene rattled off a text to Greyson so he could update their boss that they had been right last night.
One of their agents was definitely dead.
Instead of saying anything, he let Ben talk.
“He had multiple broken bones in his arms, his feet, his ankles, and his fingers. I counted five broken ribs, and what did him in as COD is BFT and a skull fracture. Someone beat the stuffing out of him, so to speak.”
Yowza.
That was some anger. It appeared that this killer was NOT happy about something.
But what?
Ethan was sitting there listening, and what he did know was that this didn’t sit well with him. Something was already bothering him.
But he said nothing.
For now.
When he got Gene alone, he’d voice his concerns on the matter—in private.
Instead, he let the man talk.
“Then, we found nothing odd in his toxicology. He wasn’t drunk, and there were no weird substances on board. So, he wasn’t drugged that I can tell. If someone roofied him, or chloroformed him, that leaves the system after twelve hours, and it would be gone by the time I did tox.”
Well, shit.
That was a pain in the ass. That cut off a whole avenue of investigation. The last thing Gene liked was flying by the seat of his pants.
Ben got his attention.
“BUT I found some interesting things.”
Gene was curious, and he was keeping what Corbin found in the back of his head.
“What did you find, exactly?” he asked, hoping it was, indeed, big.
Ben shared.
“He had plant-based trace all over him. We found white sage inside his mouth, along with traces of it on his skin. Whatever was smeared on him had it in it. The substance is tar-like, but not tar. It didn’t come off easily.
I tried a test patch to see what would remove it on his feet.
It was greasy but NOT greasy. In it, there was calamus, cedar, and althea root, along with something akin to a sap from a tree found here on the island. ”
Gene was making notes, but this aligned with exactly what Corbin had shared with them. Apparently, both MEs were on their game.
“So witchy shit?” he asked. “Sage is something ritualistic and goes along with the markings, right?”
The man nodded.
“I mean, that’s more your area. I do the facts, but in this case, he was covered in it. So much so, that it didn’t wash off in the water.”
Gene didn’t like any of this.
Not.
At.
All.
Ritualistic cases were a bitch to deal with, and whenever they got them, someone got hurt.
Like an agent.
Despite that feeling in the pit of his stomach, Gene pushed on.
“So how about TOD?” he asked. “Hit us with what you know because I need to figure out how these men were taken, and if there’s no tox, there’s no defined path.”
The man was honest.
And the agent wasn’t going to like that.
“It’s safe to say that the killer was trying to make this difficult.”
Gene lifted a brow.
“Explain.”
He did.
“The water temperature screwed with time of death. I can give you a general range, due to the bloating and how his skin was behaving out of the water, but not a direct time. If you expect me to pinpoint it, you’re about to be disappointed.”
Well, that was a norm in his life. If he had a dollar for every time an ME couldn’t give them TOD due to weather, especially up North, he’d be rich.
For now, they’d take what they could, and work around it.
Beggers couldn’t be choosers.
“Hit us with it.”
Ben shared.