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“The body was found here,” Tom said, pointing a few dozen yards away at a portion of the fence. The ground was stained dark brown in front of the fence and flies coated a few patches of sticky liquid that Faith knew was blood.
“The coroner will be able to give you more details about her injuries,” Tom said, “but she was found here last night or rather very early this morning, just after two a.m. She was essentially torn to pieces. Her face, miraculously, was decent enough we could ID her, but the rest was as mangled as you would expect it to be.”
“Did she have a reason to be here?” Michael asked.
Tom shrugged. “I can’t imagine what that reason might be. Teens sometimes come here to drink or smoke weed, but if she wanted a toke or a private drink, there are a hell of a lot of places better suited to that, so I doubt she was looking to get high, although I guess the tox screen will tell us that.”
Faith recalled a recent case in Washington, D.C., where the killer used a cocktail of exotic drugs to paralyze and then kill his victims. None of the drugs had shown up on the tox screen then either. She didn’t air her concern to Tom, though.
Turk sniffed around, poking his nose into the blood stains and trotting along the path marked by the dogs' footprints. Michael took his phone out and started taking pictures, leaving Faith alone with Tom.
“No witnesses?” she asked.
He chuckled with more than a hint of bitterness. “No one comes out here,” he said. “The big construction companies—the ones that own the actively used lots you saw up the street—close their buildings at six and stay closed until nine.”
“Every office building has night security,” Faith replied. “Maybe one of them saw something.”
Tom shrugged, evidently his most predominant tic. “You can ask them if you want,” he said, “but they didn’t see anything when they talked to us.”
Michael returned to them. Faith lifted an eyebrow, and he shook his head. He hadn’t found anything.
Turk was equally confused, walking around and sniffing aimlessly.
“It’s all right, Turk,” Faith called. “Let it go.” As the dog trotted over to her, she said to Tom, “Can you take us to the coroner’s office, please?”
“Sure thing,” Tom replied. “Place gives me the creeps anyway.”
***
Michael glanced back at Faith in the back seat. She offered him a brief smile, then turned her attention back out of her window at the passing streetlights. Michael turned back around in his seat, ignoring a knowing half-smile from Tom.
He was worried about Faith. He knew better than anyone how much of a toll the original Donkey Killer had taken on her. She had walked a fine line between professional interest and paranoia the moment she learned about the Copycat Killer, and it had nearly cost her job, and—Michael hated to admit—her friendship with him when her paranoia extended to Ellie.
For a while, she seemed to be getting better. Her sessions with this Doctor West seemed to be helping her gain perspective on her suffering and find a way to process the pain she’d gone through. She was smiling again, and even managed to step away from the case, though privately Michael wondered if that had more to do with Gordon watching her like a hawk once the Boss assigned him as Faith’s supervisor.
Gordon.
Michael's lips thinned slightly. He and Gordon hadn't been especially close, but any time an agent was killed, it was like losing a family member. He had been just as ready as Faith to launch a full-scale assault on the person responsible, but a night's sleep brought clarity to him, and he realized the Boss's decision to transfer the case away from people too close to it emotionally was the right one.
But did Faith realize that?
She was getting paranoid again. He didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was right there in front of his face. She had sent David away to stay with family and had goaded Michael into doing the same with Ellie.
And he had gone along with it. Part of him wished he had stood his ground a little more, but that would only have meant Faith went to talk to Ellie herself, and he definitely didn’t want that. The two women were already on less-than-agreeable terms after Turk had behaved with surprising hostility toward Ellie the first time they met. If Faith showed up at the house ranting and raving about a note and a veiled threat to everyone Faith loved, Ellie would have locked the doors and windows and immediately called the police.
He tried to stamp out the next thought before it reached his conscious mind, but he didn’t quite make it.
Maybe it would be better for Faith to take some time off.
He shook his head. That wasn’t the solution. They had tried putting Faith on leave before, and she had simply worked under the radar.
An even more uncomfortable thought wormed its way in.Maybe it would be better for Faith toleave.
He hated that he was even considering that possibility, but the evidence was not working in Faith’s favor. She was creating shadows to jump at now. Her obsession with the copycat killer case had affected her judgment before, and all signs suggested it was having the same effect now.
He wasn’t angry at Faith, only worried. She had suffered so much. She hated to think that he was suffering more. Maybe it reallywouldbe better for her to move on before the job broke her Tiff.
“We’re here,” Tom replied, pulling the SUV to a stop. "If you two don't mind, I'm going to leave you here. I've had a long day, and I'm not much of a night owl. I'll have them leave you a cruiser you can borrow while you’re out here.”
