Maybe because they all had weird markings on them? Maybe because if it walked like a duck, and quacked like a duck, it wasn’t a wildebeest.
That might be why.
Instead of being snarky, he was laid back and just told him.
“We have three isolated victims that all seem to have died in similar ways, and have the same markings,” he offered. “That gives us jurisdiction, and since I found the body, I’m stuck dealing with it. We are taking back jurisdiction rather than let the cops help in tandem.”
Ben laughed.
“Agent, you have shit luck.”
Yeah, tell him about it.
Because they would want everything, he rolled over to a file cabinet, and pulled out the file on the second victim. Then, he rolled back.
“Which do you want first?” he asked. “Order of deaths, or order most recent?”
Gene went there as Ethan was building his profile. It was early, so he wasn’t expecting much. Gene wanted to get situated in his head and out of vacation-mode.
For.
Now.
“Start with the most recent, if you don’t mind. I’m balancing a lot of balls right now. I need to get my head straight and into this because I’m running it. My partner here does the profiling,” he said.
He could do that.
To Ben, it didn’t matter.
“Okay, well, Agent Shand was put through it, and I can tell you that it most definitely is him. There is your positive ID.”
Oh, great.
Gene rattled off a text to Greyson so he could update their boss that they had been right last night.
One of their agents was definitely dead.
Instead of saying anything, he let Ben talk.
“He had multiple broken bones in his arms, his feet, his ankles, and his fingers. I counted five broken ribs, and what did him in as COD is BFT and a skull fracture. Someone beat the stuffing out of him, so to speak.”
Yowza.
That was some anger. It appeared that this killer wasNOThappy about something.
But what?
Ethan was sitting there listening, and what he did know was that this didn’t sit well with him. Something was already bothering him.
But he said nothing.
For now.
When he got Gene alone, he’d voice his concerns on the matter—in private.
Instead, he let the man talk.
“Then, we found nothing odd in his toxicology. He wasn’t drunk, and there were no weird substances on board. So, he wasn’t drugged that I can tell. If someone roofied him, or chloroformed him, that leaves the system after twelve hours, and it would be gone by the time I did tox.”
