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“I’m sure he’ll still be there in twenty minutes,” Faith said. “Unless his secretary calls him anyway, and he gets suspicious and bolts.”
“Well, if he does, I guess that’s a good sign he’s guilty.”
“We’ll find out.”
They rode in silence for a minute or two. Then Faith wondered aloud. “Spitballing here, but what if he’s picking his victims based on the gravestones he finds at the cemeteries and not the other way around?”
“Like he’s just reading gravestones and looking up living relatives to kill?”
“Yeah. It’s crazy, but killers usually are.”
“That would be a convenient answer to the lack of a connection between victims,” Michael said. “But it seems a little too convenient. And it doesn’t fit with the elaborate setup with the bell and the recorded message. People don’t psychologically torture random victims.”
“The Demon of Morgan County did,” Faith reminded him.
Michael shook his head. “No, he had reasons to choose the women he did. They were whores in his eyes, remember? Maybe there’s no logical connection between this killer’s victims, but I find it unlikely that there’s no connection at all and this guy’s just randomly picking people to torture.”
“It could be his idea of a test. He gives them a chance to escape. A slim chance, of course, but a chance nonetheless. Maybe it’s like the Vampire case and this guy’s waiting to see if anyone will notice the victims, but he’s actually giving them a chance to survive instead of just propping up their dead bodies.”
“Could be,” Michael allowed. He glanced sideways at her. “Since when did you start calling these guys by their nicknames?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” he said, “I just haven’t heard you use them before.”
“Well, anyway, I was just spitballing,” she said.
“No, it’s a valid thought,” he said. “We can look into it after we talk to this guy. Of course, we might get lucky and not need to look into it.”
“Fingers crossed,” Faith agreed.
They reached the cemetery a few minutes later and found Benitez working on a new grave. He was sitting in the cockpit of a backhoe, and Faith noticed that it was one of the electric models Missy had talked about.
And it was very quiet. Although it wasn’t actively digging at the time, Faith noted, so maybe it was noisier when it was at work.
Benitez shut the machine off when the agents approached. He got down carefully, grimacing a little, and stood a few yards ahead of the grave, arms folded across his chest.
Turk trotted ahead of them, and Benitez started when the big dog approached him.
“Stand down, Turk,” Faith called. “Be patient.”
In the Vampire case, Turk and Faith had gotten in a lot of trouble when Faith allowed Turk to chase down a man who turned out to be completely unconnected to their case. Since then, she had kept a tighter leash—figuratively speaking—on the overzealous K9.
Turk stopped a few feet from Benitez and stood in front of him. His tail switched back and forth, but he didn’t seem particularly worked up the way he usually was around a suspect.
That didn’t necessarily mean Benitez wasn’t their guy. Turk was rarely wrong, but he wasn’t flawless.
“What’s going on?” Emilio said warily before the two agents introduced themselves.
“Emilio Benitez?” Faith asked.
“Who’s asking?” he said, taking a step back.
“I’m Special Agent Faith Bold with the FBI. This is my partner, Special Agent Michael Prince.” She gestured to Turk. “This is my K9 unit, Turk.”
Turk barked a greeting, causing another jump from Benitez. “Is he friendly?”
“As long as you’re friendly, he’ll be friendly,” Faith answered. “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”
