“Can you provide an alibi for three nights ago?”Faith asked.
James nodded.“Sure.Yeah, I was here.”
“You werehere?”
"Yeah.Sometimes I spend the night here instead of going home.The teacher's lounge has snacks and cable TV, and I have a bottle of Jim Beam stashed in my file cabinet.If you can keep from telling the administration, that'd be nice, but hey, whatever.Something's gonna bite me in the butt eventually.If it's not talking about Anna's tits, it might as well be the drinking."
Now, remorsefulness had been replaced by bitterness.Whether he was their killer or not, he was heading to a very ignominious end if he didn't change course soon.A part of Faith hoped that he could avoid that end.
But she was an investigator first, and they didn’t know for sure that James was innocent yet.“Is there a way to verify you were here?”she asked.
“Yeah,” James replied.“You can check the security footage.There’s a camera in the break room.We don’t have a guard on duty at night anymore, but the cameras record so security can review them in the morning in case of a problem.Security office is in the basement, room seven.”
While Michael left to check on the footage, Faith faced James and said gently, “Dr.Furlong, you need to pull yourself together.I won’t pretend to know what it’s like to lose my unit, but I did serve in the Middle East, and I understand the toll that job takes on you.I also understand—as do you—that drinking yourself to death and living right behind the edge of a meltdown isn’t going to do anything to honor the men who gave their lives.If you want to do right by them, live a life they would be proud of.And please understand that their deaths aren’t your fault.”
From a professional standpoint, she shouldn’t have had this conversation with James before they cleared his alibi, but her instincts told her he was innocent.He wasn’t a murderer, just a traumatized veteran who struggled with a pain that only those who had fought for their country could understand.
Michael walked in a few minutes later and confirmed Faith’s instincts.“Alibi’s good.He was up all night watching movies.Looked likeBridge on the River Kwai, El Dorado,andThe Searchers.”Faith looked at him, and he cleared his throat.“Which doesn’t matter.Thank you for your time, Dr.Furlong.”
James managed a half-smile but kept his eyes on his desk.The three FBI agents made it just to the parking lot when Faith's phone rang.When she saw HANCOCK PD on the caller ID, her heart sank.She answered, and a middle-aged female voice on the other end said, "Is this Special Agent Faith Bold?"
“Speaking.”
“Hi, this is Sergeant Applewhite with the Hancock Police Department.I got your number from Penny Martinez.We’ve just received a call from Danbury, Connecticut.They’ve found a body in a shallow grave at an archaeological dig.It sounded very similar to our case here in Hancock, so I thought you’d like to know.”
Faith’s shoulders slumped.“Thank you, Sergeant.We’re on our way.”She hung up and sighed.
“Bad news?”Michael asked.
“Another body,” Faith said.“Stop by the gas station real quick.We have a bit of a drive ahead of us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The crime scene in Connecticut was very different from the one in New York.There, Faith had found no crowds either of police officers or civilians.The people whowerepresent were more frustrated at the interruption of their morning than perturbed by the fact that someone had buried a body not even a half mile from where they stood.
Here, a dozen police officers were keeping about four dozen looky-loos outside of a taped-off section of ground about thirty feet off of a popular hiking trail in the Collis P.Huntington State Park about five miles southeast of Danbury.The crowd was mostly well-behaved, but it still bothered Faith to see them craning their necks to get a better look at the scene or extending their cell phones to film CSI as they gathered evidence for their report.Did it not matter to anyone that someone had been murdered and left dead in an unmarked grave right here where they got their ten thousand steps done and munched on granola bars?
Maybe it was a good thing that people didn’t register the violence that took place around them every day.If people truly opened their eyes to how fragile life was, most of them would never leave the house.
Or maybe they would.Maybe it was human nature to ignore anything that didn’t have to do with oneself.
They flashed their IDs to the officers and were allowed behind the cordon.A tall mustachioed man with a sergeant’s chevrons followed them.When they were a few yards into the dig, he introduced himself.“Sergeant Avery, Connecticut State Police.Danbury turned the case over to us, and unless I’m mistaken, we’ll be turning it over to you shortly.”
“You’re not mistaken,” Faith replied.“I’m Special Agent Faith Bold.This is my partner, Special Agent Michael Prince, and my K-9 unit, Turk.We’re investigating a very similar murder on federally owned land by the Upper Delaware River in Hancock, New York.”
Avery nodded.“That’s what Danbury told us.One of their officers remembered the news story from a few days ago.Good thing, or it could have been a while before you two found out about this.”
They came to a stop just out of the way of the half-dozen men and women in white lab coats and masks busily examining the scene.“Folks,” Avery called.“This is Special Agent Faith Bold and Special Agent Michael Prince.They’re taking over the case, so please give them whatever they need.”
The CSIs nodded absently, probably the best they were going to get while the team was working.Avery didn’t seem bothered by the lack of a verbal response.CSI seemed a little bothered when Turk trotted to the crime scene and started sniffing around, but when they looked at Faith, they decided it wasn’t worth their time to protest.
"According to Danbury," Avery continued, "the body was called in by a couple on an early morning run.They came down here claiming they heard a woodpecker.Judging by some fibers left on the bark of the tree just in front of the grave, CSI's pretty sure they came here for another reason."
Faith wasn’t interested in salacious gossip right now.“How did they discover the body?”
"At some point, the husband was on his back.As he was getting to his feet, he brushed some dirt off of the victim's face.It appears he was buried in less than a foot of Earth."
That was new.The killer had made the grave shallower this time.That could be due to the longer and more tiring walk to this spot compared to the previous grave.They were a mile from the closest road accessible to vehicles, and the killer would have had to cross several hills on his way here while carrying a dead body.
