She steepled her fingers and turned the details over in her mind.What qualities did all three share that might have set the killer off?Dog ownership had nothing to do with it because Rebecca didn’t have a dog.
Two older people, one younger person.Two women, one man.A widow, a single woman, and a recently engaged man.A mother, a confirmed childless man, and a young woman who probably was years away from deciding for sure what she wanted in that regard.
It wasn’t even exercise.Rebecca Hartley was in shape, and Iris was in excellent condition for her age, but Mark Patterson… Well, he wasn’t in terrible shape, but he looked like a normal man pushing seventy.
So, what was it?What did these three people have in common?
She tapped her fingers on the desk, pursing her lips and mulling the problem over in her mind.Other than the fact that all three victims appeared to be happy with their lives, she wasn’t sure what attributes they shared.
Could that be all it was?Just envy?Certainly, that had been a motive for killing before.Several people who knew Ted Bundy expressed that he seemed envious of people who were happy and normal, perhaps because he knew from a young age that he would never have the mundane lives they had.Elliot Rodger’s manifesto ranted about the romantic and social success others had that he felt he was unfairly denied.
If that was the only thing that the killer was lashing out against, then finding him was going to be next to impossible.They couldn’t narrow things down much by looking for happy people.
The door to the break room opened, and Meyers walked inside, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“There’s coffee,” Faith told him.“It’s...”She glanced at her phone.God, had that much time passed already?“Reasonably fresh.”
“‘S fine,” he mumbled, pouring himself a cup of the steaming liquid and drinking it far too fast for Faith’s comfort.“Did you guys find anything?”
Faith sighed.“Not yet.”
“I hate to say it,” Jessica said, “but I think we’ve hit a wall we’re not going to break through tonight.I think the best thing we can do is issue a warning to people not to be alone in public parks and to keep an eye out for anyone behaving suspiciously.”
Meyers nodded.“Yeah.I think you’re right.Hey, who knows?Maybe we’ll get lucky.Maybe telling everyone to be on the lookout will make them more aware and we’ll get an actual answer when we ask if anyone’s seen anything suspicious.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Jessica replied.
Faith didn’t say anything.She agreed with the other two that putting a warning out was wise, but she didn’t like relying on luck.Shereallydidn’t like thinking that they were waiting for their killer to go hunting again so a concerned citizen could report suspicious behavior.It was a little too close to using innocent people as bait.
And Faith feared that their killer would catch the scent of the dogs on his tail and grow more cunning.Without knowing who they were looking for, they could just be driving their killer underground where he would linger like a snake waiting to strike until someone strayed a little too close to his hiding spot.
The only thing Faith knew for sure was that he wouldn’t stop.Envy was the kind of emotion that ate at a person’s soul until it consumed it.Someone in that condition would never stop hunting for a soul to replace the one he had lost.
And no amount of souls taken would satisfy him.They would vanish like wraiths, leaving only deepening hunger behind.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By nine in the morning, the Quantico Police Department had fielded one hundred eighty calls from citizens reporting suspicious behavior in parks.Of those calls, about sixty were people complaining about dog owners not picking up after their dogs or allowing their “vicious breeds” to walk without a leash.Three of those calls came from Brian Meadows, whose experience with the investigation the day before wasn’t enough to deter him from ranting about people allowing their “wild animals” to run free.
Of the remaining calls, about forty involved city employees picking up trash, trimming bushes, or enforcing park rules.Fifty or so were frivolous for a variety of other reasons: playing music too loud, “being rude”, and even a few calls for people dressed inappropriately.
That left about thirty calls that were worth investigating, and since even that small number was more than Quantico PD could handle, the sheriff's offices for Stafford County and Prince William County assisted.All thirty of those calls turned out to be innocuous.
Faith had hoped to find a needle in this haystack.Instead, people kept piling on more hay.As she and Turk left the scene of the most recent call, a homeless man rummaging through trash cands for food (Faith dropped him off at a nearby shelter) she decided to take a break for food.They weren’t getting anywhere with this warning, and she needed a moment to think.Sometimes letting her mind settle and think about the problem without any pressure would lead to a spark of insight that broke open the case.
She called Jessica on the way.The two of them had split their efforts to maximize (or so they thought) their chances of finding something useful.Jessica was responding to a report of suspicious behavior at Rooster Memorial, the site of Iris Caldwell’s murder.
“Hey, Jess,” Faith said.“I’m stopping for breakfast.My call turned out to be a homeless guy looking for food.I dropped him off at the shelter.You want anything from Ringo’s Bakery?”
“I’ll take a ham and Swiss bagel,” Jessica replied.“My call turned out to be nothing too.A guy passing out religious pamphlets.The caller was very irate that we refused to arrest him.I think that was the most creative use of ‘separation of church and state’ I’ve ever heard.”
Faith chuckled.“Yeah, there are an awful lot of Karens and Darrens on the phone today.”
As that thought settled, a frown came to her face.“Do people not take things like this seriously?I mean, three people have been killed in as many days.At that pace, we should be expecting someone else to die today.You’d think people would know better than to take advantage of this situation to make minor complaints.”
“Really?I’m not surprised at all.”
Faith chuckled again, but there was no mirth in it this time.“God this sucks.I really hate that we’re relying on a damn hotline to find this guy.”
