She looked at Turk.“What do you think, boy?Got anything?”
Turk dipped his head and snorted.That was a no.“That’s all right.We’ll get him sooner or later.”She smiled at Brad and Anna.“Thank you two for your time.If you think of anything else, please let me know.Other than that, I suggest you make sure that everyone on your team arrives and leaves in groups, or at least in pairs.Killers often return to the scenes of their crimes.It’s rare in crowded spaces but not unheard of.”
“Good idea,” Anna said.“We’ll do that.”
“You’ll find this guy, right?”Brad asked.“I mean… the cops said he had a wife, and he was a veteran and everything.It just kind of sucks that he survived war only to come home and get killed by some asshole when he was supposed to be safe.”
Faith knew all about being unsafe at home.“It does suck.And we will get this guy.Count on it.”
He gave her a dazzling smile, and heat climbed her cheeks.She wasn’t immune to his charms either, apparently.
CHAPTER FIVE
The three agents headed back to their car, leaving Anna and Brad to discuss his return to work.When they were out of earshot, Michael asked.“First impressions?”
She shook her head.“I don’t know.I don’t think this guy was an exhibitionist.If he wanted to be found, he could have dumped the body on the riverbank or left it exposed.The fact that he buried it suggests that he was either trying to hide it or he wasn’t thinking about being caught at all.”
“You mean burying the body could have just been part of the ritual?”
“Right.”
“How delightfully mundane.”
Faith looked at him, and he shrugged.“I get tired of finding people flayed or torn to pieces or suffocated inside blown glass or paralyzed alive and left to starve or all of the other crap we usually see.Might be nice not to see that for a change.”
They got into the car, and Michael said, “Wife’s house?”
“Yes.Do we have an address?”
“Yeah, it’s in the file.Seriously, Faith, do you read reports, or do you just look at pictures?”
"Normally, you're the one who reads them," Faith said."You're the info guy, and I'm the genius who tells you what it all means."
“As long as I don’t write it down,” he quipped.
He put the car in gear, and the two continued to talk about the case as they drove.“Why only a couple of feet, though?I get that most people don’t have the physical fitness to dig a six-foot grave in one night, but why only a couple feet?”
"The body was still in rigor when Brad discovered it," Faith said."The call came in at three in the afternoon.Rigor almost never occurs more than twenty-four hours after death unless there's some kind of chemical intervention.We'll follow up on that with the medical examiner, but assuming no such intervention, Paul Martinex couldn't have been murdered earlier than three in the afternoon two days ago.Most likely he was killed some time after nightfall.We'll be generous and say ten o'clock, give or take.How far away is his house from here?"
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Okay.So again, we’ll have to confirm this, but for the sake of argument, say he was killed without a struggle.Probably five minutes to kill him and put him in the bed of a truck or the trunk of a car, fifteen minutes to drive here, and another ten or so to drag him or carry him to the top of the hill.”
“That’s beingverygenerous,” Michael said.
“Yes, it is, but even being very generous, he gets here at ten-thirty at night at the very earliest after killing someone and carrying his body to the top of a hill.Then he has to dig the grave, bury the body, fill in the hole, and get back down to the car, then get home with enough time to clean himself, his car, his clothes, his shoes… you get the picture.”
"It's doable," Michael said."The soil's soft.True, that means it's crumbly, but if he digs the hole wide enough, it could be done in four to six hours by a healthy guy with a shovel."
“That’s still pushing it,” Faith said.“That’s grave dug by two-thirty at the earliest, filled in by three-thirty at the latest.Home by four, sunrise around six-thirty, seven.”
“Pushing it, maybe, but doable.”
Faith relented.“Okay, it’s doable.I still don’t think it’s likely.”
“Do you have a reason, or is it just a hunch?”
She rolled her eyes.“Just a hunch for now.”
