“The scene’s on top of that hill over there,” Jessica said.“I guarantee you that the vultures have people watching it, but they won’t be allowed in, and we can get out of here before they find the car.”
“Even with your hazards on?”
Jessica blinked.“Shit.That’s what I get for thinking like a law-abiding citizen.”
Faith smiled and clapped her shoulder.“Don’t worry about it.Practice the phrase ‘no comment.’We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation anyway, not with no leads and no one in custody.If the FBI wants to issue a statement, it has to go through people above our pay grade.”
“I know.I just hate dealing with the media.”
“You and me both.”
The duo climbed the hill, Turk, as usual, outpacing them easily and waiting every few seconds for them to catch up.Faith smiled at her dog, despite the other emotions fighting for control of her mind.He was eleven years old, but that hop over the fence proved he was still spry enough to handle this job.Meanwhile, Faith was still on the right side of forty and had to think about her knees before doing anything more difficult than getting out of bed in the morning.
Michael would love to hear me grumbling about this right now.
Thoughts of her grumpy ex-partner vanished when she crested the hill.The hill was perfectly manicured and organized now, but only twelve hours ago, a man who had helped Faith find the strength to survive war had been murdered and left in prayer.
“It’s the mockery that gets me,” Faith said, thinking aloud.
“The prayer position?”Jessica guessed.
“Yes.The murderer didn’t just kill him.They ridiculed him.They mocked his beliefs.”
“Where’s your God now?”
“Exactly.That’s personal.Whoever did this was angry.I just can’t understand why they’d be angry with Hayes.”
“Maybe they’re angry with God.”
Faith nodded.She looked around and frowned.“No police to meet us, huh?They’re really not happy that we’re here.”
“They might just not want to deal with the press.I have pictures, though.The detective assigned to the case sent them to me.”
She pulled her phone out and showed Faith the pictures she’d received.The first one showed the body from the back.Hayes was on his knees, his shoulders sagging, his head invisible from lolling forward on his chest.He wore a windbreaker, a pair of faded jeans and a pair of scuffed work boots.Not combat boots, just run of the mill boots.
“What gravestone is he kneeling in front of?”Faith asked.
Jessica switched to a picture of the gravestone.Msgt.Annette Winslow.Faith didn’t recognize the name.
“Someone he lost in combat, maybe?”
“Or someone he performed last rites for,” Faith replied.“He was a Catholic chaplain.He might have felt obligated to pray for her soul.”
“From what you told me about him he sounds like the type to do that out of genuine care rather than obligation.We should still figure out what the connection is.”
She switched to another picture.This one showed Hayes from the side.He was sitting on his heels; his legs folded neatly in half.His head sagged forward, and his face seemed to have melted over his chest.
“I thought you said he was given something to stiffen his muscles,” Faith said.
“Well… That’s not exactly true.”
Faith looked more closely and saw something leaking out of the corner of Hayes’s mouth.It was a thick, grayish green fluid that looked somewhat like putty.Her stomach turned.
“He was injected in several different places with a quick hardening epoxy,” Jessica said.“According to the coroner’s report, this happened after death.The epoxy held him in an upright position and also prevented rigor from setting in.So, it didn’t stiffen his muscles.It prevented muscle stiffening from changing the position of the body.Something about interrupting the natural chemical changes in the muscle after death.It only prevented rigor in some of the skeletal muscles, but… Well, you can read the full report later.”
Faith stared at the picture, struck by Hayes’s appearance.Not just his death but his age.He hadn’t been a young man when Faith knew him, but he had aged noticeably in the years since.His gray-brown hair was now silver white and thinning badly in the front.His rugged good looks had receded, leaving deep wrinkles around his eyes and thin, sagging flesh around his jaw.His hands, frozen stiffly over his lap, were spotted and leathery, and the hair that poked up from the knuckles was as silver as the hair that grew on his head.
Faith couldn’t believe that this was the same man she knew in the Corps.He looked like his own father.
