CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Faith frowned at the phone after ending the call with David.
He had stopped paying attention to her by the end.
After joking about Michael, David had playfully retorted.
Faith had replied with another joke, but David hadn’t responded.
Something about his tone from the beginning had seemed off, so Faith replied, “Hey, I’m pretty sure you’re hiding something from me.
I’m talking cheerfully like nothing is wrong because you’re probably vaguely following my tone, but I don’t think you’re listening to a single word I’m saying. ”
When he still didn’t respond, she added, “Yeah, something’s definitely up, and you’re not telling me which really sucks. I wonder what’s distracting you?”
He still didn’t answer, and when she replied, “David? Are you getting mopey again? You know I’m kidding, right?” he answered with a quip about Michael. Clearly he hadn’t heard anything after that.
This was dumb, though. What did she suspect? It wasn’t like he was cheating on her. What else could be going on in his life that would preoccupy him so much?
But he’d been like this for a while. Since coming back from Italy, it had gotten even worse. The morning they’d discovered Iris Caldwell’s body, he had ignored her when she told him about how the murder reminded him of Trammell and what happened to Turk, Jack, and to her.
This wasn’t like him. He was always so attentive to her. It was one of the things she loved about him, his ability to listen and give her his entire focus no matter what they were talking about.
Was he okay? How could he not be okay? What could possibly be going on that she had to worry about, and if there was nothing to worry about, then why was he so distracted?
And where was he? Was he really sick at home, or was he—
“Faith!”
Faith flinched at Jessica’s interruption. Her partner winced and stepped backwards. “Sorry. I was just letting you know that we got another call, and this one looks promising.”
They were back at the Quantico PD station.
Faith had called David as soon as they arrived so she could vent about the case, which had been a non-starter when it became clear that David was distracted.
That call was over now, and Faith had a case to worry about.
Whatever was going on with her husband would have to wait.
“Okay. Turk! Come on, boy.”
Turk jumped to his feet and followed Faith and Jessica out of the station, tail wagging.
They met Meyers outside. “We got a call from Stafford County,” Meyers informed them.
“They just responded to a call from a jogger who interrupted an attack near the Stafford Courthouse Dog Park. The jogger prevented an attack on a woman from a man matching our description. This man was carrying a gun.”
“Is he in custody?” Faith asked.
Meyers shook his head. “He got away, and the caller chose not to pursue, probably due to the handgun. Stafford County Sheriff’s Office is canvassing the area looking for him.” He grinned at Faith. “But our caller saw his face and heard his voice. We have a real description now.”
“Hell yes!” Jessica cried, pumping her fist.
Faith grinned, but beneath her excitement at the break in the case was a small kernel of concern for David. What was going on with him?
Later. This is more important.
That was true for now, but at some point she would have to have a heart-to-heart talk with David and figure out what was preoccupying the man she loved. In the meantime…
“Come on, Turk,” she said, opening the back door of her car. “Let’s go catch a bad guy.”
Turk barked enthusiastically, and Faith finally managed to put the phone call with David out of her mind as they headed south to Stafford.
***
A small army of first responders was gathered along the bike path of Creekside Park, the public park adjacent to the Stafford Courthouse Dog Park where the assault had taken place.
Jessica split off to talk to the killer’s intended victim, a woman in her late thirties who had been walking along the creek when she was accosted by the attacker.
Meyers received a phone call from Stafford County Sheriff’s Office and stepped away to accept that, leaving Faith to talk to the caller.
She approached a handsome, athletic man around her age who stood a respectful distance from the paramedics tending to the victim and grinned at the deputies talking with him.
His chest was puffed out and his shoulders back, not with arrogance but with excitement.
Faith didn’t hold it against him. It wasn’t very often that ordinary people had the chance to be heroes.
She approached the man with a smile, and he turned his grin to her. Faith extended a hand. “Special Agent Faith Bold, FBI.”
The man accepted her handshake with a firm grip. “Brandon Harris.”
“Good to meet you, Brandon.”
Turk trotted across the creek and sniffed around a shallow depression on the opposite bank. Faith gestured that way. “I’m guessing that’s where the attack took place?”
Brandon nodded. “Yeah, I was running along the creek, and I heard a scream, then another. The second scream ended in kind of a…” he put both hands around his neck and made a gurgling sound.
“You heard the victim being strangled,” Faith said.
“Yeah. I freaked out because I know that guy was killed at the dog park two days ago, and I figured that the asshole who did it was hurting someone else. I ran that way, and I found the guy standing over her with his hand in his pocket like…” He realized he didn’t have a jacket pocket and made a finger gun in the air instead.
“He appeared to be pointing a concealed weapon at her,” Faith said.
Brandon nodded again. “In hindsight, it was kind of stupid for me to do anything. The guy could have just killed me, but I was kind of… Well, I was feeling guilty about not being here to stop him the other day.” He chuckled and ran a hand through his close-cropped brown hair.
“I just kept thinking about that poor dog standing over its dead owner’s body while a bunch of other people and dogs were playing for hours.
I don’t know. I guess I just wish people would be more… I don’t know.”
Faith thought of the pain in Luna’s eyes when she trotted out of the trees and led Turk to Iris’s body. “I know what you mean. It’s hard to think that killers like that lurk in the shadows and the rest of the world just ignores them.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said. “Exactly.”
Faith looked over at the depression where Turk continued to investigate. She tried to picture the scene. “You said the guy was standing over her?”
"Yeah. She was on her butt with her hands up like this." He brought his hands in front of his face in a cringe. "She was begging him to leave her alone, and he said, 'Now! Do you want me to hurt you?"
Faith frowned. “She was uninjured?”
“No, he strangled her. I guess with her purse strap. She tried to tell me, but her throat closed up, and I couldn’t get all the details.
From what it sounded like, he tried to steal her purse.
She tried to stop him, and he wrapped the strap around her neck and choked her.
She said she passed out for a second, and when she woke up, he was digging in her purse and swearing.
I guess her wallet was in her pocket, so she didn’t have money in her purse.
He pointed the gun at her and was asking her for the wallet. That’s when I showed up.”
Faith crossed her arms. This didn’t fit at all with the MO of the other murders.
The killer hadn’t robbed his other victims. Hell, he’d left Iris with her purse, jewelry and wallet where it fell.
She was beginning to think this might be an unrelated incident.
“Did either of you actually see the weapon?”
Brandon shook his head. “He had it in his coat pocket. I don’t know if she saw it, but I didn’t.” He frowned. “Huh. I wonder if he didn’t have a gun after all. That might be why he ran away when I showed up. Do you think he left his gun at home this time?”
“I’m not sure,” Faith said. “Can you describe him to me?”
“Sure. He was tall, like six-three or six-four. Maybe two hundred twenty pounds. A lot bigger than me.”
“Hair color?”
“Brown. Like medium-brown. Short but not as short as mine. His eyes I think were hazel or a little lighter brown. He had a short beard that looked really rough and mostly gray. He kind of looked dirty. Like a homeless guy.” He quickly added, “Not that I’m trying to judge.
Just… You know, like it had been a while since he showered. ”
Faith took a deep breath and pushed it out through her nose. It was very unlikely that a homeless guy had access to ceramic bullets, and considering how composed their killer had been for the previous attacks, it seemed even less likely that he would have been involved in a clumsy robbery gone bad.
But it was too early to rule it out. It was possible that Brandon had misheard something the killer said, and it was also possible that their killer was scared off when Brandon showed up.
Killing two people was a very different animal than killing one.
And he had to know that people were looking for him.
He could have chosen to abort the murder and run back into hiding.
Meyers and Jessica joined them a moment later. “The victim is Fatima Bedouin. She couldn’t tell me much because her throat was swollen. Paramedics are taking her to the hospital.”
“Damn,” Brandon breathed. “Is she going to be okay?”
Jessica beamed at him. “She’ll be fine, thanks to you.”
“Sheriff’s Office found a trench coat a mile up the creek,” Meyers informed them. “They’re going to examine it for DNA and fingerprints.”
“No weapon?” Faith asked.
Meyers shook his head. “He won’t dump that close. He knows we’re looking for a gun that fires ceramic bullets. Now that we have his description, I don’t think he’ll dump it at all.”
Faith nodded. Jessica noticed her expression and frowned questioningly.
Faith shook her head slightly. She didn’t want to air her doubts out in front of Brandon.
She still couldn’t be sure there was any basis to her doubts.
“Brandon, will you accompany Sergeant Meyers to the Quantico Police Department and provide a description of the attacker to a sketch artist?”
“Sure. Yeah, of course.”
“Thank you.” She managed a smile. “You did good.”
Brandon looked like a kid who had just been given a medal. “Thank you.”
The group headed back to their cars. Turk caught up after a few seconds.
He wore a pensive expression, indicating that whatever he’d smelled at the scene, it didn’t match with what he’d picked up from the previous scenes.
That wasn’t a foolproof indicator that they were on the wrong track, but it was another cloud in their sky.
Uncertainty was everywhere in Faith’s life right now. This case, and whatever was going on with David. She hoped for clarity, but as she started back toward Quantico, she feared she was wading into thicker and thicker fog.