“It looks scripted,” he said.
Ethan pointed at him.
“BINGO.”
Gene saw what they were talking about.
“So someone is mapping out the bodies like with a script?” he asked.
Ethan tapped the photos.
“It’s early, but I’m going to say this is someone who is doing this for completely other reasons. I’m not buying it. The Feds here might not be accustomed to serial killers who use a ritualistic angle, but we are. This is way off the mark.”
Oh, please let that be true.
Gene would give anything for this not to be a religious crime. They were a nightmare, and he was running on fumes.
“Then, there’s my second reasoning on this—and while I’d normally keep it to myself until I was one hundred percent sure, I’d like to not be here for a week working a case, but instead on vacation.”
Oh, he was preaching to the choir on that one.
Gene.
Too.
“Go ahead,” he said, giving his partner the floor on this one.
“This won’t be about some Voodoo practitioner for another reason. Whenever we have ritualistic cases where a religion is involved, it’s seldom what it seems to be—unless this person is brainwashed or‘off their rocker’.”
Will laughed at the air-quoted term.
“Is that a professional term?” Will asked. “Can I use it in court?”
He laughed.
“Probably not since I’m just an agent, Counselor. What I’m saying is a person who practices Voodoo isn’t going to point it at themselves. It might be a Christian doing something and trying to sleight-of-hand this toward another religion, or vice versa, but it won’t be a Voodoo practitioner running this. It doesn’t benefit them to point the blame at themselves.”
Corbin was disappointed.
“And here, I was hoping it was. I wanted a Voodoo ritual case,” he said, pouting. “That’s more fun.”
All of the Feds looked at him.
IN.
HORROR.
The only person who said shit like that was a person who never had to deep dive into shit like that.
“Are you loco?” Gene asked. “Rule twenty-five. When you fuck around with someone’s religion, they get mean.REALLYmean. Can I point out the whole David Neives clusterfuck?”
Oh, Corbin recalled.
“For the record, Gene, I’m still not writing them down,” he said, when Gene was watching him and waiting. “I can remember them.”
He hoped so.
Because if anyone needed them, it was their baby detective.
