CHAPTER FIVE #2
The victim was a white male, probably mid-forties, based on the gray in his dark hair.
He wore a Public Works uniform—dark blue coveralls with a name patch on the chest. His wedding ring caught the harsh glare of the portable lights the techs had set up, a small gold band that somehow made everything more tragic.
His eyes were open, staring at nothing, and his mouth was slightly agape.
But it was the marks on his exposed skin that made Isla's breath catch.
Burns. Strange, patterned burns that covered his face, neck, and hands—everywhere his skin was exposed.
They weren't the typical burns she'd expect from contact with hot pipes or steam leaks.
These looked almost... deliberate. Carefully placed.
The tissue was red and blistered, but in patterns that suggested someone had methodically applied heat to specific areas.
"Cause of death?" Isla asked, crouching beside Henley.
"Hyperthermia." Henley gestured to her thermometer, which showed an ambient temperature of 157 degrees Fahrenheit. "Core body temperature was 109 when I arrived. At that level, you're looking at organ failure, neurological damage, cardiovascular collapse. He essentially cooked to death."
Isla's jaw tightened. She'd seen heat-related deaths before, but never in circumstances like these. "How long was he down here?"
"Based on rigor and lividity, I'd estimate four to six hours. Time of death probably between midnight and 2 AM, though I'll have a better estimate after the autopsy."
“We have him on camera entering just after midnight, so it seems safe to say he died shortly after entering.”
“That’s right.” Henley pointed to the strange burn patterns. "But these marks—they're inconsistent with the heat exposure that killed him."
"What do you mean?"
"These are contact burns, or possibly some kind of radiant heat injury.
But they're too controlled, too patterned.
If he'd simply collapsed down here from the heat and died, I'd expect more uniform damage.
These look like someone deliberately marked him.
" Henley met Isla's eyes. "I think we're looking at torture, Agent Rivers.
Someone kept him down here in these conditions, possibly restrained, and used heat as a weapon. "
The words hung in the superheated air. Isla forced herself to breathe slowly, to maintain her professional detachment while her mind raced through the implications.
"Lieutenant Morrison," she called, not taking her eyes off the body. "I need to see that security footage you mentioned."
Morrison moved closer, pulling out his phone. "The entrance has a camera—standard security for critical infrastructure. We pulled the feed for the last twenty-four hours." He held up his phone, showing a grainy black-and-white video.
Isla watched as David Langford appeared on screen, approaching the access door at 12:47 AM according to the timestamp.
He looked around briefly—not furtively, exactly, but with the caution of someone who knew he shouldn't be there—then pulled out a key card and swiped it through the reader. The door opened, and he stepped inside.
"He had authorized access?" Isla asked.
"To the tunnels, yes," Morrison confirmed. "He was a pipe fitter. They do maintenance and repairs down here regularly. But there was no work order for last night, and usually all tunnel work is done in pairs. People don’t often enter alone.”
"So why was he here?"
Morrison scrolled forward in the video. "Watch this."
The timestamp jumped to 12:41 AM—six minutes before Langford's arrival. The screen showed the same view of the access door, empty and still. Then a figure appeared at the edge of the frame.
Isla leaned closer, squinting at the grainy image. The figure was bundled in a heavy coat with the hood pulled up, making identification impossible. They moved with purpose but not haste, approaching the door and—
"He enters a code," Morrison said as the figure's hands became visible on screen. "We don't know how he got the access code. It's changed monthly and only given to authorized personnel."
The door opened, and the figure disappeared inside. Six minutes later, Langford arrived and followed.
"Run it back," Isla said. "Let me see the first person again."
Morrison complied, and Isla studied the hooded figure frame by frame.
The gait was distinctive—confident but slightly uneven, suggesting someone older or injured.
The build was difficult to determine under the bulky coat, but she estimated five-nine or five-ten, average weight.
The figure never looked directly at the camera, suggesting either luck or knowledge of its location.
"And Langford never came back out," Morrison finished. "Neither of them did. The next person through that door was Jerry Walsh at 5:15 AM."
Isla straightened, her mind working through the timeline. The hooded figure enters at 12:41 AM. Langford follows six minutes later. Henley estimates death between midnight and 2 AM, which meant Langford probably died within an hour of entering the tunnels.
"The hooded figure is still down here," James said quietly, voicing what Isla was already thinking. "Or they found another way out."
"There are multiple access points throughout the system," the woman in Public Works coveralls spoke up.
She was in her fifties, with gray hair pulled back in a practical bun and sharp eyes that suggested decades of experience.
"I'm Carol Martinez, tunnel operations supervisor.
If someone knows the system well enough, they could enter at one point and exit at another without ever being seen on camera. "
"How many access points are we talking about?" Isla asked.
"Seventeen within the downtown network. Some are in public buildings, others in utility stations or industrial areas. Most require key card access, but if someone has the codes..." Martinez trailed off, the implication clear.
Seventeen possible exit points, not all of which had cameras facing them. Any one of which could have been used by the hooded figure while Langford died alone in the superheated tunnels.
Isla moved closer to the body again, studying the chamber itself.
The pipes overhead were massive, wrapped in aged insulation that showed signs of decades of use.
The concrete walls were stained with moisture and rust, and there were several valve assemblies mounted at intervals along the pipe runs.
"What controls the temperature down here?" she asked Martinez.
"The main system is automated, but there are manual overrides at various junction points.
We use them for maintenance or emergency shutdowns.
" Martinez looked troubled. "But the readings Jerry got before he found the body—temperatures up to 160 degrees in this section—that's way above normal operating parameters.
Someone would have had to manually override the system to get it that hot. "
"Could Langford have done it himself?"
"No." Martinez was certain. "He was a pipe fitter, not a systems operator. He'd know how to fix things, but not how to manipulate the temperature controls. That's specialized knowledge."
Isla absorbed this, adding it to her growing list of questions. Someone with specialized knowledge of the tunnel system. Someone who could get access codes. Someone who could lure or coerce Langford into the tunnels at nearly 1 AM, then trap him in these lethal conditions.
"Agent Rivers." One of the crime scene techs called from the corner of the chamber. "You need to see this."
Isla picked her way across the concrete, avoiding disturbing any potential evidence. The tech—young, maybe late twenties, with the intense focus of someone who took their work seriously—was crouched near a junction box mounted on the wall.
"Fresh tool marks," the tech said, pointing to scratches around the access panel. "Someone opened this recently. And look—" He shone his flashlight into the exposed wiring. "These connections have been tampered with. This is part of the temperature control system."
Isla felt her pulse quicken. "Can you tell what they did?"
"Not without bringing in a systems specialist, but based on the configuration..." The tech frowned, studying the wiring. "It looks like someone bypassed the safety limits. Basically rigged it so the system could pump way more heat into this section than it's designed to handle."
"How long would that take? To make those modifications?"
"With the right knowledge and tools? Ten, maybe fifteen minutes."
Isla looked back at David Langford's body, at the deliberate burn patterns on his skin. Someone had brought him down here, trapped him in lethal heat, and possibly tortured him before he died. This wasn't an accident. This was murder.
But it wasn't Brune's style. Everything about this was wrong for the Lake Superior Killer—the indoor location, the use of heat instead of water, the deliberate torture element. Brune drowned people and staged it as accidents. This was theatrical, cruel in a different way.
"We're looking at a homicide," Isla said, her voice cutting through the ambient noise of dripping water and humming pipes.
Everyone in the chamber turned to look at her.
"Someone lured or forced David Langford into these tunnels, modified the heating system to create lethal conditions, and left him here to die. The burn patterns suggest torture, though we don’t know if he was torturing him for information of some kind, or just for the fun of it.
Either way, this wasn't an accident, and it wasn't opportunistic. This was planned."
Morrison nodded grimly. "That's what we thought. That's why we called you in."