CHAPTER NINE
“Damn it,” Jessica said. “We should have asked him about the epoxy.”
The two women were efficiently eating a passable breakfast in the dining room of a cheap two-star hotel on the outskirts of D.C. Turk had finished his breakfast already and was ineffectively begging for a taste of Faith’s pancakes.
“Not for you, buddy. Your arteries will clog up, and then David will give me shit about your cholesterol.” To Jessica, she said, “We can get a search warrant for that. It’ll be very difficult for him to get rid of it without leaving his house.
If he flushes it, we’ll find traces in the pipes, and if he burns it, we’ll probably find out when his apartment burns down, and we find him dead from the fumes. ”
Jessica made a face. “Beautiful image. But yes, we should get a warrant for that. Any news on the dog tags?”
Faith sighed. “Yeah, but not good news. None of the tags found on Hayes’s body were from Welling’s squad.
In fact, the names appear to be random. They’re people who died in combat, but across two decades and multiple theaters in different units and different branches of the military.
I’m still not turned off to a personal connection, but if there is one, it’s not to Welling. ”
“Shit,” Jessica cursed. “So, staying up all night instead of sleeping wasn’t worth anything after all.”
“I guess not,” Faith replied ruefully.
Her phone rang. When she saw the Arlington PD number, her face fell. Jessica saw her face fall and said, “Oh no. Please don’t tell me.”
Faith swallowed and answered the phone. “Bold?”
“Hello, Special Agent,” a curt, professional voice responded. “As the FBI has usurped the lead of the Hayes investigation, I have been directed to provide this information with the lead investigator. As you are the lead invest—”
“Spill it,” Faith snapped. “I don’t have time for bullshit.”
“Of course,” the officer replied, somewhat subdued. “The body of Major Daniel Cruz was just discovered in the World War Two Memorial in the National Mall. He was staged precisely as Captain Hayes was.”
Faith sighed heavily and dropped her gaze. “I see. Thank you for letting us know. We’re on our way. Try to keep the carrion feeders away, okay?”
The officer chuckled derisively. “I could lie to you and say we’d be successful at that, but… Well, it would be a lie.”
“Keep them away from the scene,” Faith repeated. “I get that they’re going to buzz, just make sure they buzz somewhere they’re not going to trample all of my evidence.”
“Fair enough. I can do that.”
He hung up, and Faith dropped her phone on the table and pressed her palms to her eyes. Jessica sighed heavily and folded her arms across her chest. “Shit.’
“Yeah,” Faith agreed.
Turk whined, and Faith scoffed. “Yeah, I know. Okay. Let’s go check this out.”
“I’ll call the officers watching Welling on the way,” Jessica said. “Looks like he’s off the hook.”
“Joy to the world,” Faith said drily.
***
Faith felt a touch of guilt as she stepped past the teeming crowd of shouting reporters through the police cordon into the World War Two Memorial.
Like Hayes, this memorial and many others like it were only an hour north of her house, but she’d never visited this place once.
She’d never visited any war memorials except when she needed to as part of a case.
Why was she so disconnected from her military past?
She didn’t even talk to her former squad mates, and that was unheard of for a Marine.
“Oh, God,” Jessica choked.
Faith turned to see her partner rushing away, trying to escape the area before nausea took her. Everyone had their limits when it came to gore. Apparently, this was Jessica’s.
Jessica had nowhere to go. The memorial was surrounded by police officers, press, and looky-loos. With no other choice, she bent over the fountain and vomited.
Faith heard the snap of cameras and saw reporters excitedly talking about the FBI agent who had just thrown up at the sight of the body. Her lip curled in disgust, and it took all of her effort not to extend both middle fingers to the press. They really were the lowest form of human life.
She regretted saying that immediately when she looked at the body. Turk looked it over professionally, not bothered by the macabre sight of a man’s skull picked half clean and missing one eye. The crows really had gotten to him. Hopefully they hadn’t obfuscated an important piece of evidence.
Faith approached the body, noting her lack of discomfort at the revolting sight.
She took pictures of her own, noting the teardrop of epoxy protruding from a hole at the base of the victim’s neck, the deep purple bruising of the ligature mark extending below in several places where the ruptured blood vessels had spilled into his neck.
And of course, the dog tags. Twenty of them, hung in a loose pile around his throat, gleaming dully in the morning light.
That was forty different dog tags this killer had placed around the necks of his victims. They couldn’t possibly be intentional personal reminders.
Symbolic then. But of what? The victims’ failure to save lives? They were chaplains, not medics.
That reminded Faith. She wasn’t certain yet that this victim was a chaplain.
She straightened and walked to the police officer in charge of the scene, an irritated-looking man of about forty in a senior sergeant’s uniform. “Excuse me, can I get the victim’s name, please?”
The sergeant glared at her for a moment before adopting a practiced neutral expression. When he talked, Faith recognized the sarcastic officer who had called earlier to report the body. “Major Daniel Cruz, Chaplain of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 327th Infantry Regiment.”
US Army. A Chaplain, but not a member of the same branch as Hayes. That challenged the hypothesis that the killer was someone who had served with Hayes.
“Time of death?”
“Coroner will have to figure it out for sure, but CSI estimates about five-thirty.”
“Right before dawn. Close to the same time as the last victim.” She looked around the memorial. “Except this place is completely open and accessible to the public, so how did he kill this man inject him with epoxy, and stage him like this without being seen?”
“There’s construction on 17th Street,” the sergeant replied. “A lot of people are detouring around the mall. We get joggers, but they’re thin until dawn, especially after the Moss killings.”
Faith frowned. “Right. I guess if the killer was aware of his surroundings, he could find a way to avoid attention.”
“The sad truth is that people don’t like to pay attention unless it’s happening to them. They’d rather look the other way and hope the problem passes them by before they can be seen.”
Faith looked back at the body. “Hell of a problem to let pass them by.”
The sergeant nodded. “Yeah. I agree.” He extended his hand to Faith. “Franklin.”
Faith smiled slightly. Apparently, she had earned Franklin’s respect somehow. “Bold.”
She shook his hand, then gestured at the body. “Anyone to notify?”
“No. He’s Presbyterian, and they’re allowed to have sex, but he didn’t have a wife or a family.”
Faith frowned again. Hayes and Cruz weren’t even the same denomination. Ideally, a new victim would bring more connections to explore, not confirm the absence of connections.
Ideally, there wouldn’t be a new victim.
Turk trotted to Faith and snorted, a sign that he had found nothing. Faith glowered at the reporters ringing the memorial. They and the crows—most of whom waited patiently atop nearby powerlines—had obfuscated any scents Turk might have followed.
That could have been part of the killer’s strategy.
This case had nothing to do with animals, but Turk’s help solving several high-profile cases in recent years was well known, and the FBI’s K9 program was robust and leading the way for many law enforcement agencies to develop similar programs. The killer probably knew that it would be nearly impossible to completely conceal his presence, but he could at least arrange to kill people in places where he’d have a chance to get far away before he was noticed, either at Arlington before visiting hours when no one else was there or here at the Memorial where construction had left a small window of opportunity before sunrise brought crowds here to obscure his scent.
“You can turn this back over to CSI,” Faith told Franklin. “Have them work quickly and get the coroner out here to take this body ASAP.”
She glanced at the press, then at the body. No doubt pictures of the dead man’s mutilated face were going to appear on a plethora of unscrupulous news sites within minutes. If they weren’t already uploaded.
“It’s a good thing he doesn’t have a family to notify,” Faith said. “I wouldn’t want them to see him like this.”
“Yeah,” Franklin agreed. He shivered slightly. “Poor guy.” He chuckled nervously and scratched his shiny bald head. “You know, it never gets easier. Fifteen years on the force, and I still get goosebumps when I have to see people like that. You know what I mean?”
Faith lowered her eyes briefly, then said, “Make sure we get the coroner’s report ASAP. I want the composition of that epoxy.”
“Sure,” Franklin said. “We’ll have to coordinate with Metropolitan PD about the epoxy from this victim, but we have the report on Hayes. It’s an industrial-strength insulated filling designed to lend rigidity to flow-form structures.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I, but they showed a picture of a windmill when I looked it up. Not an old farm windmill. Like the ones on those big wind generating stations in California.”
“Right,” Faith said. “Got it. Is that kind of thing easy to get?”
“Hell, if I know. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. I was on a case once where a guy was poisoned with a type of pesticide that’s not even legal in the United States. Turned out to be his ex-wife. She bought it online with her own credit card. Got it shipped to her house in four business days.”
Faith nodded. “Well, hopefully this stuff is a little more unique. We really need a solid lead.”
Behind her, a familiar female voice called, “Agent Bold! Are you saying you have no leads in this case? Are you stumped?”
Faith turned around and saw the female reporter from the night before, the first one who had sprinted ahead of the others. She grinned at Faith with a malevolent triumph that didn’t look far off from that worn by some of the serial killers Faith had hunted.
Faith considered ignoring her, then had a better idea. The press was annoying, but they had their uses.
She turned around and said, “Our killer uses an industrial-grade insulating epoxy to freeze his victims in the prayer position. We’re currently investigating to determine if any suspiciously small quantities of that substance have been stolen or sold recently.”
Another thought came to her, but she kept her eyes on the reporter and didn’t let it show in her face. She didn’t want the press following her.
The reporter’s eyes widened. She looked at Faith with something approaching love. She even mouthed, “thank you” before asking, “Do you believe this is a campaign against religious leaders?”
Aaand, now the press had lost its usefulness. “No further comment.”
She walked away, ignoring the cacophony of questions from that reporter and others. She called Turk to her and approached Jessica, who sat on the rim of the fountain with her head in between her knees.
“Sorry, Faith,” she mumbled.
“Don’t be sorry,” Faith said. “It just means you’re human.” God knows what that says about me. “Come on. I might have another lead.”
Jessica’s head popped up. “Really? What?”
Faith glanced up at the reporters throning the police cordon. “I’ll tell you in a minute. Follow me.”
The three agents made their way out of the police cordon and away from the thronging masses of press. Faith glanced back at Cruz on her way out, hoping to feel at least an inkling of the revulsion Jessica felt.
She felt grief for his loss, anger at the killer who had murdered him, frustration at their lack of progress in this case, excitement for the possibility of a lead that could provide some answers.
She felt no revulsion. No disgust. No horror. Death had become an inescapable part of her life. She hardly thought about it anymore.
She sighed and turned away, moving patiently away from the looky-loos trying to slake their morbid fascination at Daniel Cruz’s expense.