What sixteen years will do to someone.
She looked at Jessica and compared her smooth, flawless skin to her own harder, looser skin.The crow’s feet at the corners of Faith’s eyes now remained even when she wasn’t laughing, and new lines were forming at the corners of her mouth.She still looked far from old, but she definitely didn’t look young anymore.
She forced her thoughts away from this odd and disturbing intrusion and focused on the image as a professional.“Any information on the dog tags hanging around his neck?”
“Arlington PD is obviously very interested.They’re cataloguing the names, getting what info they can, and looking for any connection between them, Hayes, and Winslow.We’ll see what comes up.”
“Our killer is probably connected to them regardless of any connection to Hayes and Winslow,” Faith said.
“All of them?That’s a lot of people.”
Faith looked at the tags hanging around Hayes’s neck.There were twenty of them, piling on his chest like an ostentatious collection of jewelry.“Could be the killer’s platoon, or one to which Hayes was assigned.Not all the names have to be equally important, but at least one of them is.”
“Right,” Jessica said.“Yeah, you’re right.Oh, by the way, I noticed something interesting in the medical examiner’s report.It appears that Hayes was strangled from the front.”
“The front?They’re sure?”
A garrote was any handheld wire or cord used to strangle someone to death.While it could work anywhere so long as a person’s blood or air was cut off, it was most effective when used from behind where physics naturally allowed greater leverage and where the victim couldn’t defend themselves.Not that the sixty-nine-year-old Hayes was going to be able to put up much of a fight.
“That’s what they said.”
“What exactly did he use?”
“They think it was a thick, waxed cord of some sort.”
“A waxed cord?What’s that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.A cord covered in wax.I guess it’s common for jewelry making.This one was thick, though, like I said.Three millimeters, they believe.With the wax, that’s thick enough to explain why it didn’t cut through his neck despite the force applied.”
Faith shivered slightly, imagining the hate someone must have had for Hayes to watch his face while they used considerable force to strangle him to death with a wire.“Defensive wounds?”
“None.”
Faith took a deep breath and pushed it through her nose.“Figures.Hayes took God’s command to turn the other cheek seriously.”
Jessica shifted her feet a little.“He was probably unconscious in less than five seconds.The strangulation was rapid enough to burst blood vessels.You can’t see the bruising in these pictures, but… Well, you can look at them if you want, but—”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Faith said.
She looked up from the pictures at the gravestone ahead.Turk was trotting back and forth, sniffing, but with the scene already cleaned and trampled on by a bunch of other people, there was little for him to find.
Faith tried to imagine the murder.Hayes kneeling in front of Annette Winslow’s grave, praying for her and her family, perhaps remembering the tragedy.The killer approaches, and instead of killing him from behind as they easily could have, they call out to him.They want to see his face as he dies.Hayes turns around and…
And then Hayes dies.But how, exactly?Does the killer just attack?Maybe, but Faith didn’t think so.Hayes believed in turning the other cheek, but despite Faith’s emotional outburst earlier, she didn’t really thing that Hayes would just take his death lying down.
Unless he knew his attacker.Unless maybe, in some way, he felt responsible.Or he felt it was better for the killer’s soul that he didn’t fight back.
So, they talk first.The killer reminds Hayes of something, tells him why he’s doing this.Hayes doesn’t resist.The killer murders him, then stages his body, injecting him with something that will keep him in that prayer position so that whoever finds him will see the dead man praying to the false God.
“This guy was angry,” she said.“He wasn’t just killing Hayes.He was punishing him for some perceived wrongdoing.He wanted Hayes to know who was killing him and why.I think he might have talked to Hayes for a moment before attacking him.”
“Then why didn’t Hayes run?”
“When someone approaches you to talk, do you immediately think about the possibility that they’ll strangle you to death?”
“I mean… kinda.”
Faith smirked briefly.“Fair enough.Most people don’t make a living out of investigating serial killers, though.This level of violence is unfathomable to most people.”
