CHAPTER FIVE #2
Selena looked toward the chalk marks, then leaned down at several solid splashes of wax on the floor that had been labeled by forensic cards. “And there were other candles downstairs as well, weren’t there?”
“A bunch. Like this was some God damned ceremony.” His words seemed to echo in the old tower.
Selena’s flashlight moved over the wall until it caught more writing.
Scortum ducere.
Connor came closer. “I searched online for a translation to that one, too. Not sure how accurate it is.”
Selena narrowed her eyes at the letters. “It’s not a religious phrase I recognize.” She let the beam linger. “Hold on.”
One hand went into her pocket for her phone. She pulled it out and dialed her office. When it answered she was quick. “Tanya?”
“Hey, Selena, what’s up?” the voice replied.
“Can you patch me through to Wellings in forensics, please?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.”
Selena cupped the phone and whispered to Connor. “Wellings is a linguist. He can make sure any online translation isn’t botched.”
“You have in-house linguists at the Washington field office?” Connor asked, his tone condescending.
“We need textual analysis in some of our cases,” Selena said.
“Wellings,” a voice spoke suddenly on the phone. He sounded rushed, like he always did.
“Hey, Wellings,” Selena said. “It’s Selena Raven. I know you’re busy, but I’ve got some Latin that needs translated from a murder scene.”
He sighed. Wellings always acted like everything was a burden. “I suppose so.”
“Scortum ducere is the phrase.”
“Interesting…” he said, pausing for a moment. “It means to ‘take a whore.’ Sounds like you have a sexually motivated self-righteous perp on your hands. Have fun with that.”
“Thanks, Wellings.” The call ended.
Her mouth thinned. “It means ‘to take a whore.’”
Connor swore under his breath.
Selena slipped the phone away and studied the wall again. “Do you have any preliminaries from the coroner? Any sign of sexual assault?”
“As far as I know, no evidence of it.”
“Then this probably refers to the killing,” she said. “The taking of the victim’s life rather than abuse.”
Connor looked from the phrase to the chalk outline. “That’s supposed to be better?”
“No.” She looked at him. “We can’t afford to be emotional about this.”
The answer came flat.
Nothing about the scene suggested frenzy. Everything in it pointed to intention. Selection of language. Placement of the body. Candles. The church itself. The killer had not simply murdered Brenda Colter. He had used her as a statement of some kind.
Selena crouched near the chalk marks and pictured the chair there, the body set into it. “Do you have photos on your phone from the scene?”
Connor took out his cell and unlocked it. “Unfortunately, yeah.”
He handed it over.
Selena flipped through the images. Brenda in the chair. Head bowed. The cut to the throat clean and deep. Blood down the dress. Candles around her like a ritual borrowed from somewhere older and uglier than faith. “This feels like a religious sacrifice,” she pondered out loud.
Connor nodded once. “That’s how it looked to me. He must have tied her up, slit her throat, then posed her like she was praying.”
“Why do you say tied up?” Selena asked.
Connor pointed to the phone and zoomed in on the victim’s hands. “Well, I’m no FBI expert, but that looks like rope marks on her wrists.”
Selena looked at the photo. He was right. That galled her. Not so much for missing it, as the coroner would fill her in on that after a full report, but that it was Connor who spotted it first.
She tried to stay professional.
“Post-mortem body manipulation is heavily connected to feelings of power,” Selena said, handing the phone back. “The killer has power over the victim in death in a way that he didn’t in life. Could imply psychological or physical impotence on his part.”
Connor nodded. Her words didn’t seem to impress him as she thought they would. That annoyed her even more.
Her flashlight beam drifted across the floorboards, then to the back of the loft where old furniture had been shoved against the wall. A narrow cabinet, maybe once used for music or vestments, sat crooked on one leg. Beneath it, at the edge where shadow pooled, something interrupted the grime.
Selena moved closer.
A mark on the floor.
Not a footprint. Not obvious. There was no forensics card by it.
It was a clean line where pressure had been, with older dust disturbed differently around it.
She crouched and took gloves from her pocket, snapping them on before touching the wood near the base. Her fingertips traced the edge of the mark. Recently shifted. Not by much, but enough.
Selena looked up. “You said the forensics team was thorough?”
Connor’s expression hardened on instinct. “Well, I think so, but we don’t deal with things like this very often. Well… ever, really.”
Dissatisfaction must have crossed her face before she could hide it.
Connor’s voice cooled. “We don’t all have the resources of the FBI, Selena. We’re doing our best.”
Selena stood without responding to that. “This has been moved. Help me with it.”
He stepped forward, reached for the cabinet, then stopped when she held up a hand.
“Gloves.”
Connor looked down at his empty hands. “I don’t have any on me.”
Selena pulled an extra pair from her pocket and handed them over.
A flicker crossed his face. Pride, annoyance, something else. Then he put them on without argument.
They each took one side.
“Easy,” Selena said. “Straight back.”
The cabinet scraped over the boards with a low grinding sound that set her teeth on edge. Dust puffed up from beneath it. Something dead and dry rolled away in the corner, maybe an insect husk, maybe a fragment of old debris.
Then the wall behind it came fully into view.
Connor went still.
Two vertical lines had been drawn there in dried blood.
Simple. Deliberate. Hidden.
For a second neither of them spoke.
Connor was first. “The number eleven?”
Selena stared at the marks, then glanced at the Latin phrase on the other wall.
“I don’t think so. The killer seems enchanted by the classical world.”
He looked at her. “What does that mean?”
Her pulse had picked up without her permission.
The lines were another message, this time in numbers rather than letters, placed behind the cabinet as if someone wanted them missed unless the scene was examined properly. A secret to be found by the worthy, perhaps.
Selena turned back to them. “Roman numerals.”
Connor frowned. “So, a number?”
She met his eyes.
“For the number two.”
The room went silent again.
Below them the abandoned church held its breath. Wind pressed faintly against the shutters. Somewhere in the woodwork a soft knock sounded and stopped.
Connor’s face shifted as the meaning found him. “What does the number two mean?”
Selena looked once more at the phrase on the wall, at the hidden blood mark, at the place Brenda Colter had been arranged like an offering.
Then she said, “It means this isn’t our first victim.”