John shook his head slowly. “No, sir.” He managed to turn his eyes away, but remaining looking at the sergeant’s face. “I . . . just found it.”
He felt tired, weary. He just wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and pray that the past several days had been some kind of weird nightmare.
“You do seem to.”
John thought he saw a hint of puzzlement on the sergeant’s face. He felt a faint ember of hope that the officer might actually be beginning to believe that he had nothing to do with these deaths—even if he could not explain why he kept being present when they were found.
The sergeant checked his tablet and then looked back up. His eye fixed on John’s without quite holding them.
“Until the coroner determines a cause of death,” he said. “It looks like you’re free to go.”
John hesitated. It was not that he did not want to leave . . .
“Is there a problem?”
John’s cheeks burned. He felt foolish, but he had policies to follow.
“I’m not supposed to leave . . .” he faltered, and then regained some of his confidence. “Until the site is secured.”
The sergeant stared at him. He blinked, twice, before he said anything. John braced himself. He felt foolish enough as it was.
After all, how much secure could it be with two squad cars of officers swarming over the place?
Still, he knew, they did not have the keys or alarm codes, so no way they could lock the place back up when they were done with their investigation. They could call his security company when they were finished, but that would just mean that he would have to come back.
Easier just to stay . . .
John could not be certain, but he thought he saw the sergeant’s feature soften for an instant. His eyes brightened almost to a twinkle, but it was gone before John was sure he had seen it.
“Fine,” the sergeant agreed. He sounded, John thought, just slightly less gruff than usual. “Just try to stay out of the way.” Now he did fix his eyes on John’s. “And, for God’s sake, don’t touch anything.”
John’s cheeks grew warm again even as he bristled. He nearly opened his mouth to protest, but managed to hold back his remarks.
I’m not some kind of rookie!
Still, he stepped back into a corner of the office, away from the main flow of activity, while still giving him a good view of it.
After the body had been carried out, the rest of the officers and other investigators began to disperse. Some carried small boxes or translucent bags marked as containing possible evidence. John thought that he spied a small box about the same size and shape as the ones he had seen at the other murder scenes.
I wonder what color gym bag it has this time.
The color choices, as far as he knew, were random. Still, he was a little surprised at that being his first thought.
And at least there weren’t any snakes this time.
The snake, he realized, seemed to have been a one-time thing. The murderer, whoever he—or she, he reminded himself—was, appeared to be choosing a different method of execution each time.
Execution? John paused, startled by the revelation. Something about it rang true. “Is that what it is?” he murmured.
Thinking back over the victims, he had trouble imagining anything that might link them together. There were, from what he knew, as random a collection of people as he could ever imagine.
A loan shark? he wondered, and then dismissed the idea. No, then they’d never get their money.
Often, from what he had learned, while serial killers often had a pattern to the victims they selected, it was often not always clear what it was until later.
John’s looked toward the front of the office at the retreating back of the sergeant.
Maybe he knows something.
That same sense that told him that these murders were some kind of executions now informed him that the police sergeant knew little more than he did.
But he probably does know more.
John watched the older officer become a silhouette as he exited the office onto the parking lot. It was darker beyond the windows now, lit only by the overhead streetlights and the headlights of the squad cars.
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