“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!”
“Ethan, honey, listen to me. If we turn around we won’t be in Santa Barbara by Friday, and then we’ll have to wait a month. Do you want to wait an entire month to punish General Hackett?”
“We’ll do it the same way as the others. In his house-”
“He’s married.”
Ethan snorted, then he laughed so hard she had to grab the wheel to stop them from hitting an eighteen-wheeler head-on.
“Dammit, Ethan! Pull over.”
He did, still laughing. He didn’t know what was funny anymore. Or even if it had been funny. He just felt like laughing, the sound bubbling out before he could stop it. His sides hurt, those vile snakes slithering around, but he couldn’t stop.
She got out of the car and paced, swearing. Ethan couldn’t hear her words, but he recognized the body language, her clenched fists, that look on her face that said, I could kill.
It made him laugh harder.
His door opened.
“Move over.”
He couldn’t talk. Tears ran down his face. She unbuckled his seat belt, pushed him over, and got into the driver’s seat. “You bastard! Driving like that, you’re going to get us pulled over. Stupid fool.”
She pulled back into traffic. Ethan’s laughter began to subside when he pissed in his shorts.
“Whoops,” he said, giggling.
“We’re staying in Benson for the night. You need sleep. I need sleep.”
“Let’s go back to Hidalgo and kill Cardenas.”
She didn’t answer.
“I don’t need you.” He pouted and crossed his arms. He stared straight ahead. The endless road widened and shrunk in front of him. The cars passed and he kept turning to look. His fingers began to tap. He shuffled in his seat, rolled the window up and down. Up and down.
“I have to drive.”
“We’re almost there. Less than ten miles.”
“I can’t sit. Not here. Not doing nothing. I have to drive. Please. And we’ll go back to Texas.”
“Ethan, I’m not missing this opportunity with General Hackett. It’s all set up. We can go back to Hidalgo after.”
“Really?” He brightened. “I can poke the priest?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you’d see it my way. We can’t leave the job undone, right?”
“You’re absolutely right, Ethan.”
Karin stared at the road, trying to tamp down on her anger. She wanted to kill Ethan in the worst way. She couldn’t look at him. He was almost over the edge permanently. She’d saved his life at least a half dozen times over the past two years, three of them in the last six months. His hold on reality had been diminishing, though it had been tenuous from the moment they’d hooked up.
She’d been working in a gym in New York City, trying to forget how screwed up her life was, when Ethan came in. He’d been ordered to exercise by his doctor to work the muscles that had weakened while he’d been tortured. At the time she didn’t know what had happened to him, had assumed he’d been in some sort of accident. But she quickly saw in Ethan a quiet lunacy that she could use. And when she learned of his skill with needles … a plan was born.
She gradually pulled him away from his shrink, away from his doctor. Karin became Ethan’s caregiver. She gave him everything he needed-someone to talk to, someone to fuck, someone who cooked for him and cleaned up after him, someone who stopped him from killing himself. She gave him a purpose: torture those who had left him to die. “An eye for an eye, Ethan. You do to them what was done to you. Then you’ll be healed.”