“I haven’t studied homeless psychology in detail,” Hans said, “but many who congregate in an urban environment like this have mental problems, often including drug addiction.”
Megan nodded. “But here’s Price, who didn’t appear to be an addict, who was AWOL and even the army didn’t know where he was. So how did these two killers rout him out? He was a specific target. How did they find him?”
“That’s a damn good question.”
Megan pulled out her cell phone and dialed Detective Black. She posed her question to Black, and added, “There may be a witness. Someone who saw something, maybe someone following Price.”
“The homeless in this area have had regular skirmishes with the local police. They’re suspicious by nature. They’re not talking to me. I’ve been trying.”
“What about your friend Abrahamson? The guy who went undercover? Pose the dilemma to him, maybe he can come up with something.”
“Good idea. When will you be back from Texas?”
“Anyone’s guess. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“Appreciate it.”
Megan hung up and told Hans about the conversation. He was deep into reading the files. She picked up the evidence report and pored through it. The victim, Duane Johnson, had left his restaurant, Duane’s Rib House, at just before eleven Wednesday night, February 11. This was habitual, the restaurant stopped serving at ten, according to his employees, and they were always out by eleven. Duane worked every day except Mondays and had an assistant manager who opened five days a week.
It was this assistant manager, Joanne Quince, who began to worry when Duane was late on Thursday.
At four-thirty, she called his cell phone, then his house phone, then his ex-wife, Dawn. Joanne left one of the waitresses in charge, picked up her kids, then left them with a neighbor and drove to Duane’s house. Dawn was already there, crying, and on the phone with the police department.
When the police arrived, they found evidence that someone had picked the garage door lock. Duane didn’t have an alarm system, he lived in an attractive middle-class rural neighborhood-everyone had a couple acres, the modest ranch-style homes were set far back from the road, and a flood canal separated the front yards from the street. There were no fences, but no one would have been able to see inside the house. The blinds were all closed.
Johnson had been attacked in the garage after pulling in and closing the door behind his truck. The garage light had been loose, and while no fingerprints were on the bulb or surrounding assembly, the dust had been disturbed, indicating that someone had deliberately disabled the light. Johnson’s hamstrings were cut in the garage, then he was dragged into the house and duct-taped to a chair.
“Here,” Hans said, tapping a toxin report. “He had trace amounts of a tranquilizer-benzodiazepine class. He was a big guy. I wonder if he fought back even after being sliced.”
“Or,” Megan said, “maybe he saw someone. It says in the report that there was a disturbance and possible scuffle in the garage-two paint cans and a box of screws had been knocked over.”
“Did you get a tox report before CID took Price’s body?”
“No, but there are blood samples at the morgue and the pathologist sent them to his lab.”
Megan finished reading the reports, viewed the crime scene photos. The killers were precise. They knew their target and why they chose him. They had all the necessary supplies-knife, duct tape, needles to torture their victim. The attack and murder were well planned and well executed.
“I know what’s been bugging me,” she said.
“Shoot.”
“The evidence here-the plan. The methodology. This wasn’t their first kill. At least one of them had to have practiced, wouldn’t you think?”
Hans weighed her statement. “It’s a good bet that Johnson wasn’t their first victim, but there’re no other like cases in the country that have been reported to the FBI. I scoured the databases. I have an analyst on it full-time as well, contacting smaller local agencies who don’t regularly report or where the information was incomplete. Maybe something will pop-”
“But it might not be exactly the same. Maybe the first victim wasn’t hamstrung.”
“I’ve taken that into account.”
Megan looked at the photos but didn’t really see them. She wasn’t articulating her point well. “Where would someone learn how to use needles to torture? It’s like acupuncture, but with pain as the goal instead of relief.”
“A doctor. A trained acupuncturist. Anyone in the medical field or with some anatomy training.” Hans wrote rapidly on his pad. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before. But it makes sense. I’ll talk to my analyst and see what she finds after adding in that information. Perhaps an army medic.”
“But we don’t train our soldiers to torture like this,” Megan said.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“What if they practiced and then hid the evidence?”
“Such as destroying or burying the body?”
“Yes. Or allowing the wounds to heal. The coroner wrote in his notes that he almost missed the punctures, they were so small and many had already started to heal. I think we should be looking for executions.”
“Executions?”
“People killed with a bullet in the back of the head.”
“Ballistics would have matched Johnson’s with anything in the system. I have the ballistics report right here.”
“The detective in Vegas said they didn’t have their report back yet.” Ballistics could take weeks, sometimes months, to run through the system and find all crimes where the same gun was used. Unlike television, they couldn’t pop the bullet in a machine and yield every crime in which a particular gun was used within an hour, primarily because of a backlog of work. Expediting such tests and analysis was certainly something the FBI could help with.
All ballistics reports eventually ended up in an FBI database, but it was a product of time and manpower. The system was as up-to-date as possible, but still there were thousands of local law enforcement agencies sending in their records. A clearinghouse, yes, but nothing happened overnight.
“Maybe we should put out a call for execution-style murders within the last …” Megan paused. She wasn’t sure how long these two had been operating.
“Let’s go back twelve months to be safe,” Hans said. “Once they perfected their system, they would want to get started right away. I’ll call in the information. Good thinking, Megan. I should have thought of it earlier.”
The farther they drove away from Hidalgo, the more upset Ethan became. Agony tore at his gut. His intestines slithered around: snakes, twisting, tightening, poisoning him with sharp fangs. He’d fucked up. He let one get away. The overwhelming urge to turn around and cut the priest’s heart out had him whimpering.
She said, “It’s over, Ethan.”
“We can still go back.”
“No.”
Ethan slammed his head hard enough on the steering wheel that they swerved into the next lane.
“Don’t,” she said.
He slammed his head again. “I have to go back.”
“We stick to the plan. We’re halfway to Santa Barbara. There is no turning back.”
He cried out. “I can’t let him go. I can’t let him go. You changed the plan. It’s your fault!”
“You’re tired. Let me drive.”
“No!”
