An Unkindness of Ravens Read online

  When they came back over an hour later, Tyler got out of his car and greeted them warmly.

  “Tyler Ford, Baltimore Echo,” he said. He didn’t bother offering a hand as there is no comeback when someone refuses to shake your hand - a lesson he’d learned well over the years.

  “We’re not answering any questions,” Sarah Brightwater said, though she wasn’t impolite in doing so.

  “Not even your names?” Tyler asked.

  “Especially not that,” Malick laughed. They were both getting back into their car.

  “You know the words ‘Serial killer’ are going to be on the front pages on every state and local paper tomorrow, and online today.” Sarah stopped at this and looked at him.

  “There’s that and worse on the front pages every day,” she said.

  “I guess so,” Tyler said, “But not with your name in the story.” Sarah and Malick looked at one another and then back to the reporter.

  “You’re the guy who exposed that child sex ring last fall?” Sarah asked.

  “I did,” Tyler answered. Sarah nodded.

  “That was good work,” and then she said, “Sarah Brightwater,” and then got into the car.

  “I’m her understudy,” Malick said with a grin, and he too got into the car.

  Tyler smiled and watched them pull away. Sarah Brightwater - the name rang a bell with him for some reason. He got back into the car and turned the engine on, but before putting it in gear, he tapped his phone and did a search for Sarah Brightwater. What came up was as much as before, but then on the third page of results he found what he was looking for.

  “So that’s why your name is familiar,” he said as he started to read the old article about the murder of Sarah’s mother on the night of Sarah’s Senior Prom. He’d heard the story before but had never looked into it too deeply. Now that he knew Sarah and what she did for a living, he found it fascinating. And he found her fascinating as a result.

  Chapter 3

  The heavy slab rolled out of the wall to reveal the body of the as yet unknown victim found at Whitney State Forest. The autopsy had not been carried out yet, so Sarah saw that the body was in very good condition. Save a few grazes and a couple of tiny animal bite marks, there were no other wounds save the slit throat and removed finger.

  “He’s very gentle with them up to the moment of death,” she surmised. Malick nodded, looking at the fingernails for traces of skin. They looked clean.

  “You think he scrubbed the body down before dumping it?” he asked. Sarah had a look too and nodded slowly.

  “It looks like it, or else this guy was spotless just before he was killed.”

  “Just out of the shower? Killed at home, maybe?”

  “Possible. Must live alone in that case or someone would have raised the alarm by now. There must have been a lot of blood.” That’s why it didn’t make sense that his hands were clean. Surely he would have gripped his neck to stem the bleeding - that would be the natural reaction to such an attack.

  “Any sign of his wrists being bound?” she asked. Malick looked.

  “No bruises, red lines, impressions, no,” he said.

  “He must have been cleaned after death then,” Sarah said.

  “That narrows the window down to under two hours, maybe closer to an hour and a half for the finger to still bleed when it was cut in the woods.”

  “That’s only to the scene of the murder, though,” Sarah said. “Our killer could be anywhere.”

  “One step at a time, Sarah,” Malick said, flashing a dazzling smile, “This is how we catch them.”

  Sarah went to the bench and looked at the file from the first murder, noting that it seemed that body had been cleaned after death too. How far apart were the two sites? A maximum of fifteen minutes including the drive and carrying the body into the woods a little bit. That didn’t tell her much more than she already knew. She sighed.

  “Well, I guess the autopsy is not going to reveal much, so we may well try to narrow down a search radius for the murder scene for this one and then go over and see if forensics unearthed anything of use before we got here today,” she said.

  “You know you’re really starting to sound like you actually believe I’m your understudy right now?” Malick teased.

  They drove the short distance to the Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office off Lee Street in Warrenton. It was strange for Sarah to be in this town again, and everywhere she looked she was reminded of her mother and father. She’d been back in her home town only four times since she left in 2004, and each of those was a research trip for her own investigation-off the books of course and known only to her - of Dwight ‘Prom Night’ Spalding, or as she called him – ‘The Monster.’ She hoped one day she would be able to bring him in, but she knew it was a long shot. He wouldn’t be old yet, but he could be long gone out of the country by now.

  “The story is online now,” Malick said as they pulled up outside the Sheriff’s Office.

  “What are they calling him?”

  “One is going with ‘The Cleaner’; not very original. Another calls him, ‘The Mortician’ and finally,” he said scrolling on his phone, “we have the old classic, ‘Crazed Psycho Killer.’”

  “That’s all?” Sarah asked.

  “For now.”

  “Any of those by that Ford guy we met earlier?”

  “No, I didn’t look at the Baltimore Echo yet.”

  “Well, we can look at your sensational websites later,” Sarah said, opening her door, “but now we have to find a murder scene.”

  Sheriff Hannan was in his late fifties and wore his hat as he walked about the station with the air of a world leader. He greeted the two FBI agents warmly and seemed genuine in his desire to have the case wrapped up as quickly as possible regardless of who got the credit.

  “The papers are on it, and if they don’t know already FBI are involved, they very soon will,” Hannan said when they got to his office. “We need to catch this asshole pronto!”

  “Agreed,” Malick said flipping his laptop open.

  “We’re going to narrow down the search radius for where the murder had to have taken place, and we need as many men as you can spare searching on this,” Sarah said.

  “You got it,” Hannan said.

  “The murders must have happened within a ninety mile radius of the forest. That’s this area,” Malick said, holding out his laptop to show Hannan the map.

  “That’s a heck of a big area!” the Sheriff said.

  “We know. Other police departments and Sheriff’s offices will be involved in the search but we have to move now before he’s had a chance to clean the place up,” Sarah said.

  “I’ll get my team together for a briefing and they'll be out on the streets within half an hour,” he said getting up from his seat to start calling people. He was just about to pick up the receiver when the phone rang.

  “What is it?” he barked into the phone. As Sarah watched, she saw the colour drain from his face. “OK,” he said and then hung up. “There’s been another one,” he said grimly.

  Sarah and Malick were the fourth car to arrive at the scene on Springs Road on the bridge over the Rappahannock River, a mere ten minutes from the Sheriff's Office. They had arrived just behind Sheriff Hannan and Sarah saw the patrol car of the first officer and the familiar Toyota of Tyler Ford she’d seen this morning in the forest.

  “Damn press are here already,” she said.

  “He must have a police scanner,” Malick said. Sarah didn’t like the press being so invasive on these cases, but since she’d started in the police force before coming to the FBI, she’d known this was a fact of the job. On more than one occasion in the past the press had been helpful in cases for her as well.

  Tyler was leaning against his car watching the new arrivals. He didn’t seem to be too interested in the crime scene and this made Sarah wonder why - this was a scoop for him wasn't it? She would ask him about it later; there was work to be done.

/>   They walked to the body, which was just off the side of the road. Sarah felt at once that this was not the same killer as the others.

  “Officer Jones, these are Agents of the FBI, you can give them access to the site and answer any questions they have,” Hannan said to the officer protecting the scene.

  “How was the body discovered?” Sarah asked Jones.

  “The man by the Toyota, Tyler Ford is his name, he called it in,” Jones said pointing to Tyler. Sarah looked at him and then back to Jones.

  “He found the body?”

  “Yes, though found is a bit of an exaggeration. I’d say he was simply the first person to pass by after the body had been dumped. It’s hard to miss.”

  This was true. The body was that of a woman, small in stature and fully clothed. Grime and muck from the side of the road covered her body with heavy blood showing through this. Her small finger was missing like the others, but the cut was rougher. Nothing about this seemed like the other two.

  “Is this generally a busy road?” Malick asked.

  “I’d guess at least four or five cars an hour, more maybe,” Jones said.

  “So the body can’t have there too long,” Sarah said. “Sheriff, can you set up roadblocks in a fifteen-mile ring around us here, please? His car must be covered in blood!”

  “Done,” Hannan said taking out his phone to issue the orders.

  “Has anyone else passed since you’ve been here?” Malick asked Jones.

  “Three cars, all locals, I have license plates written down here,” he said showing them his notebook. Malick took a quick photo of the plate numbers.

  “You knew the people driving?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes, and there was nothing suspicious in how they were acting. I told them each we would have to talk to them again later.”

  “Did Mr Ford say how he happened to be on this road today?” Sarah asked.

  “He said he was heading back out to the highway after taking lunch in the cottage coffee shop just up the road.”

  “Well, that’s easily checked out,” Malick said.

  Sarah and Malick did a preliminary forensic check on the body and the ground around it. Sarah walked along the side of the road and came back to Malick, who was making some notes about the wounds on the woman.

  “It looks like she was just dumped from a moving car,” she whispered to him. “That would be consistent with the injuries to the body and face I’m seeing here,” he nodded.

  “This isn’t our guy,” she said. Malick looked at her.

  “You don’t think so?” he said. “I see the differences alright, but I’m thinking this might be him but rushed for some reason. He might have been disturbed?”

  “I just feel it,” Sarah said. “This isn’t the same killer.”

  Chapter 4

  On Wednesday morning, Sarah went to her office at seven in the morning and put the file on SAIC Bobrick’s desk. It had been a frustrating few days as she prepared the file. They hadn’t caught either killer, found the car the body was dumped from, or any of the murder scenes as of yet. To make matters worse, Malick had dug his heels in about there being only one killer, and she’d had an argument with him about it that ended with him saying

  “It’s your report, you put in what you like!”

  Sarah hadn’t liked anything she’d put into the report. She stressed that she believed there were two different killers and the man who had killed the first two was the really dangerous one likely to strike again. Sarah saw nothing but panic in the third murder, and she was sure it had been something personal that the killer had tried to make look like the work of the other killer.

  The sketch of a profile of the killer she added to the file stated that she believed the cleaning of the body was something meaningful to the killer. It was possibly religious in nature and unlikely to be for the purpose of getting rid of evidence. She felt that this man was clean and calculating and he didn’t leave any evidence to begin with. He was a white male, intelligent, physically strong, most likely participated in outdoor pursuits, possibly hunting or fishing as he has skill with bladed weapons. He would be in the higher end of the age bracket for serial murderers, thirty-five to forty-five, as accounted by his calmness and patience after each murder. He may be highly regarded in his own community.

  Of the second killer, Sarah stated only that this man was sloppy, rash and would probably turn himself in soon, if someone close to him didn’t do it first.

  Bobrick came in only ten minutes later, and when he entered his office he closed the door - a clear and known sign in the office that he was not to be disturbed for any reason. Sarah wondered if he was looking at the file now, or would he have other things to get to first. She hated this part, the waiting.

  It was close to nine and the post boy was dropping letters off at all the desks when Bobrick’s door opened and he called out,

  “Brightwater, get in here!” He didn’t sound happy and had only been at the door a moment, not long enough for her to even see his face. The post boy - whose name she just realised she didn’t know - looked at her in sympathy and moved on with his trolley.

  “What’s this bullshit about two different killers?” Bobrick said, throwing the file down on his desk as she came into the room. She closed the door knowing there was no way those outside hadn’t heard what he’d just said.

  “That’s what I believe, Sir,” Sarah said.

  “Do you know what people will hear if this gets out?” he asked her.

  “I don’t follow, Sir?” Sarah replied.

  “They will not hear two killers, they will hear two serial killers!” he growled.

  “That’s not at all what I’m saying...”

  “What you think you’re saying is not the point, Brightwater. It’s how the media will spin this that’s the trouble.”

  “I....”

  “Stick with the first profile,” he interrupted her as she started to speak. “The last kill was rushed, that’s the only difference for now. We have one man, one killer, got it?” His face was stern, and Sarah knew that there was no going against him on this. The SAIC could make her life miserable, unbearable even, if he saw fit to.

  “Yes, Sir,” she said.

  “Have you anything else you want to add to this?” he asked, her taking up the file again and holding it in the air.

  “Not yet, I’m going to make calls to the Fauquier Sheriff's Office and see if they have anything to report now.”

  “You need anything on this let me know. We want to take him in as fast as possible.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Sarah said. She was seething inside at the dismissal of her second killer idea. She knew she was right on this, and now she would have to do any investigating on that under the radar in case she got in trouble for it. “I’m going to go and help with searching for murder scenes later this morning.”

  “Do as much as you can in the field on this one,” Bobrick said, “The police are fine and will do their job, but it’s minds like yours that bring these scumbags down. Go get your hands dirty on this one,” he smiled at her, though his anger was still visible just below the surface.

  “I’ll get him, Sir,” she said, and she meant both of them.

  Sarah’s phone call to Warrenton wasn’t good. Though plenty of places had been ruled out, there was still a multitude of places to look into. They had to narrow the search down further. Where could he have the privacy and the time to both commit the murder and then clean the body? He was so time constrained that she felt it had to have been done in the same place. Where could that be?

  It didn’t help that the police still hadn’t been able to identify any of the people who were dead. That would be the major clue to point in some way towards a crime scene. She decided this was her best line of inquiry. Finding the victim’s names was the crux of it.

  Sarah sent an email to some of the clerks on her team and asked them to start searching missing persons, both US and foreign, and to search the internet for any cl
ues to who those people could be. She was going to recheck the police records for the victims and also international police files. She had to find at least one of them. That was all it was going to take to narrow this down. The floodgates would be open then.

  By eight that evening, she’d had enough of the Academy building and she set off for home. As Sarah drove home, she thought about Marcus, who would be there when she got in. She knew she was pissed right now, so perhaps she should stop off for a beer on the way and cool down. Things hadn’t been fantastic between the two of them lately, and she didn’t want to start another row by coming home angry.

  McCardle’s was half filled but lively as ever as Sarah came in through the old creaking doors of the pub. This place was only a few blocks from where she lived and she liked that; she could leave the car here and walk if she ended up having more than she planned.

  She felt the eyes of everyone on her for a moment as she walked to the bar, and then their interest waned and people went back to their lives. Sarah ordered a bottle of beer and sat up at the quieter end of the bar. The cold beer felt good at the first taste and she was glad she’d come. She could feel herself starting to unwind already.

  “We meet again,” a voice said, and she turned to see Tyler Ford leaning on the bar and motioning to the barman for a drink.

  “What in the name of hell are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Work,” he said, “It’s generally the reason I’m anywhere,” he smiled at her.

  “Don’t you take time off?”

  “Not really. I guess you must be the same in your line of work?”

  “I’m not working now,” she said, raising her bottle.

  “But I bet you were thinking about work before I spoke to you,” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  “I haven’t run my story yet, but I suppose I should tell you that I agree with you,” he said, looking serious now.