CHAPTER THREE
Since then, she’d been coordinating with local authorities and doing her best to get a full understanding of what was going on. And now here she was, at the latest strange crime scene.
The construction site sprawled across what had once been a block of historic buildings, now reduced to rubble and scaffolding as part of the Financial District's ongoing renovation.
Orange safety fencing cordoned off the area, but it did little to contain the chaos of police cars, crime scene vans, and curious onlookers that had gathered since the body's discovery three hours earlier.
Vic flashed her badge at the uniformed officer manning the perimeter and ducked under the tape.
"Agent Stone?" A burly man in a hard hat and reflective vest approached her, his face grim beneath a layer of construction dust. "I'm Jim Castellanos, site foreman. I'm the one who called this whole mess in."
Vic nearly asked how he knew who she was, forgetting that she was wearing a lanyard with her name, photo, and badge number on it. She studied the man’s face, noting the pallor beneath his weathered features.
"Can you explain to me what happened?” she asked.
"We were clearing debris from the basement level of the old Morrison Building," he said, gesturing toward a partially demolished structure roughly fifty yards away from where they stood.
"My crew's been working that section for two weeks, but we had to stop work yesterday because of some permit issues.
When we came back this morning..." He shook his head.
"Jesus, I've been doing construction for twenty-three years, and I've never seen anything like it.
" He started walking to the left, waving at Vic to follow him.
They walked deeper into the site, navigating around piles of concrete and twisted rebar. The morning air carried the scent of dust and diesel fuel from the heavy machinery.
"The body was positioned in what used to be a conference room," Castellanos continued.
Vic's mind was already working through the implications.
Three bodies in two weeks, all discovered in locations connected to San Francisco's ongoing urban renewal projects.
The killer wasn't just selecting victims randomly—they were choosing their crime scenes with the same deliberate care they used in their murders.
The basement level of the Morrison Building opened into a cavernous space that had once housed offices and meeting rooms. It now looked like nothing more than a well-chiseled hole in the ground.
Local crime scene technicians moved through the area with methodical precision, photographing evidence and collecting samples.
But Vic's attention was immediately drawn to the center of the large room.
The body of a woman identified as Patricia Vance lay in a pool of artificial light cast by portable work lamps.
According to what local PD and the small bureau presence had told her, the work lamps were not there the night before.
The killer had apparently left them, as if to make sure those who saw the body could truly appreciate what had been done.
Like the previous two victims, Vance had been transformed into something that belonged in a museum rather than a crime scene.
She was completely nude, and her body was positioned with careful attention to detail, arms at her sides, legs straight and together, lying atop a plastic tarp that protected the concrete floor.
But it was the gold coating that made the scene both beautiful and horrifying.
Every visible inch of Patricia Vance gleamed with pure gold leaf, applied with painstaking precision to create a flawless metallic finish.
The gold caught the work lights and threw them back in warm, radiant reflections.
Her face maintained a peaceful expression, as if she'd simply laid down for a nap and been transformed by some magical process.
Vic had seen violent death in every form imaginable during her thirteen years with the Bureau, but this killer operated according to a logic she couldn't yet grasp.
The method was elaborate, time-consuming, and required significant preparation.
This wasn't a crime of passion or opportunity; it was performance art with a body count.
Some real time and planning had gone into this.
She thought of the first victim, Rebecca Thornfield, found in her gallery's storage room.
Thornfield had been a prominent art dealer with connections to collectors worldwide, someone who understood the value of beauty and the price people would pay for it.
The irony of her death, transformed into a golden artwork herself, hadn't been lost on the investigating team.
The second victim, Nelson DeWalt, had been discovered in the back room of a shipping warehouse just two days ago.
A small-time investor of several online start-ups with a reputation for partying a bit too much and spending money on frivolous things, DeWalt had also been coated in gold leaf with the same meticulous attention to detail.
Now Patricia Vance, a real estate mogul whose development projects had displaced hundreds of low-income families over the past decade.
The pattern was becoming clear, even if the killer's ultimate motivation remained obscure.
All three victims were wealthy, all had made their fortunes in ways that could be considered exploitative, and all had been literally gilded as if to highlight their obsession with money.
Vic approached the body carefully. It was odd to study a dead body that had such a beautiful element to it. The gold was hard to ignore; its shine was eye-catching.
"The metaphor's a little on-the-nose, isn't it?" she muttered to herself, crouching beside the body. If someone wanted to make a statement about the corrupting influence of wealth, coating victims in actual gold was about as subtle as a shotgun blast to the face.
But Vic's instincts told her there was something deeper happening here.
The killer's methods were too sophisticated, too precise, for simple vigilante justice.
If there was some sort of message the killer was trying to convey, it was a complicated one.
The careful positioning of the bodies, the selection of crime scenes, the elaborate preparation required—all of it suggested a mind that was both brilliant and deeply disturbed, operating according to a plan that went beyond mere symbolism.
Her phone buzzed, making her jump slightly. She sighed and took it out. It was an incoming call from Quantico. She chuckled; if they were looking for an update already, they were shit out of luck.
"This is Agent Stone," she answered.
"Agent Stone, this is Assistant Director Hayes. Did you arrive without hassles?”
“Yeah, I’m already on the scene. It’s…it’s a weird one for sure.” She took a moment to consider why Hayes was calling her. He wasn’t her assigned director, though she had worked with him on a few cases here and there. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I wanted you to know that I'm sending someone to assist with your case."
Vic straightened, immediately wary. Though she’d never worked under Hayes, she knew what the lingo meant. When he said "assist," he probably meant "supervise" or "second-guess."
"Sir, I've got local support from PD and the bureau field office. What kind of assistance are we talking about?"
"Dr. Miles Sterling from our Laboratory Division.”
She knew the name, but didn’t actually know the man.
He’d garnered a bit of a reputation for out of the box thinking.
She was pretty sure he was a lab geek or something of the sort.
But she’d also heard other agents describe him as someone who could find connections in evidence that others missed, though his theories sometimes pushed the boundaries of plausibility.
“With all due respect, sir…why?”
“Sterling is a forensic toxicologist with some insights that might be relevant to your case. He…well, he has some bizarre theories on this, but the man’s got a brain that works a little differently."
"What kind of insights?" she asked.
Hayes paused, and Vic could hear papers shuffling in the background.
"Sterling believes your San Francisco murders might be connected to a series of deaths across the country over the past several years. He's developed a theory about the methodology that could be...unconventional. To be fully transparent, I don’t know that I buy it just yet but if he’s even remotely right on this, it could be big. ”
"What sort of unconventional methodology are we talking about?" she asked while still looking at the golden body of Patricia Vance.
"He thinks the killer might be working through the periodic table of elements. Using different chemicals as murder weapons in sequential order."
Vic looked at the golden figure of Patricia Vance and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning air. "Gold is an element."
"Element seventy-nine, according to Sterling. He's convinced that your case fits into a larger pattern of murders spanning the past three years… murders using other elements from the periodic table."
"Sir, with respect, that sounds—"
"Insane?" Hayes interrupted. "Sterling knows how it sounds. As do I, believe me. But he's also one of the best analytical minds we have, and he's been tracking these cases longer than anyone else. And as I said, if he’s even close to right on this…”
“Yes, sir. I get it.”
And even though the last thing she wanted was one more bureau-head on her case, she had to admit the extra help might be warranted.
Three murders in under two weeks, each more elaborate than the last, each demonstrating a level of sophistication that suggested advanced planning.
If Miles Sterling was right about a larger pattern, it could explain the killer's confidence and technical expertise. And maybe there were breadcrumbs from the cases he’d been studying that could help her here.
"When will he arrive?" she asked.
"His flight lands at SFO in six hours. Agent Stone, I should warn you—Sterling can be intense about his theories. He's been working on this for three years, and he's completely convinced that these deaths are connected. He might need some...grounding in practical investigative reality."
Vic smiled grimly. She'd worked with obsessive analysts before, academics who saw patterns in everything and sometimes lost sight of basic police work. But she'd also learned that the best insights often came from unexpected directions, from people who looked at evidence differently than she did.
"I believe I can handle that, sir.”
"Thanks for the flexibility, Agent Stone.”
“Of course. If you’ll send me his flight details, I can meet him at the airport.”
They ended the call, leaving Vic to look around the construction site, her eyes once again going to the work lamps and the nude, golden figure near its center.
The case was definitely bizarre already, and conventional approaches would not yield much progress.
If Sterling could provide a new perspective, even a wild one, it might be worth listening to.
She approached one of the crime scene technicians who was photographing the lights around Vance's body. "What can you tell me about the gold itself?"
"All I know is that it’s professional grade," the tech replied. "Whoever did this knows their way around gold leaf application. And it’s been melted in a way that indicates the killer knew exactly how to do it; it’s done in such a professional way, I’d assume they also had high-end materials to work with. ”
“So would you agree that this wasn’t done in haste?”
“Hell no. This took some time. This isn't something you could improvise."
"How long would it take to do this?"
"I don’t know, exactly. Gold isn’t really my field of expertise. But this is a very expensive corpse right now…I know that much.”
“You think they could have done it here?”
The tech shook his head. “No. No way. I say they did it elsewhere and then brought her here last night.”
Vic nodded, adding another piece to the puzzle.
The killer wasn't just sophisticated in their methods—they had access to specialized equipment and secure locations where they could work undisturbed.
That suggested either significant financial resources or connections to industries that used these materials.
Her phone buzzed with a text message from Quantico. It was Sterling’s flight information. And just seeing it, she truly hoped he could answer some of the questions that had everyone baffled so far.
If Dr. Sterling was right about the periodic table connection, if these murders really were part of a larger pattern, then they were dealing with something unprecedented.
A killer who wasn't just selecting victims randomly, but following some twisted scientific methodology that spanned years and crossed state lines.
And if they could handle and manipulate gold in such a way, what else could they do?
Vic wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She had built her career on gut instincts and practical investigation, but she was pragmatic enough to recognize when she needed help. If Sterling could provide insights that conventional methods couldn't reach, she was willing to listen.
After all, in a case where the victims were being turned into golden statues, conventional wisdom probably wasn’t going to have a seat at the table anyway.