Apparently, she wasn’t the only one praying for the memories of the fallen.A man in a military uniform knelt in front of the Atlantic Theater arch, hands clasped in front of him like the little kid from that bedtime prayer.
Lisa came to a stop.Normally, she would walk from here around the reflecting pool to slow her heart rate, but something about seeing a man in uniform praying for his fellow veterans touched her.She didn’t want to disturb him, so she stood a respectful distance away and waited for him to finish his prayer.
And waited.
And waited.
After fifteen minutes, her heart rate had slowed, but she still felt a tightness in her chest.Something wasn’t right.The man hadn’t moved.Not a muscle.Not a twitch, not a sniffle, not a shuffle.No rise and fall of his chest.His uniform could be hiding his breathing, but Lisa was at least twenty years younger than the guy, and she couldn’t kneel like that for fifteen minutes without her ankles cursing her in three different languages.
She should go check on him.Make sure he was okay.
She stood still.In the deeper parts of her mind, the primal places where everyone remained afraid of the dark and wondered what lurked under their beds, she understood that checking on him could mean finding out something was wrong, and those same primal places clung to the superstitious belief that if she discovered evil, she would be dragged into it against her will.
In the end, she didn’t need to overcome her fear.A raven landed on the man’s clasped hands, perched carefully, and regarded him.Then it plucked out his left eye and swallowed it with a quick flick of its beak.The man didn’t move.
But Lisa did.A bystander called the police after the shrieking Lisa ran sobbing into a café across the street and shouted about a bird eating a dead man in the World War Two Memorial.That night, she would sleep with every light on and every interior door in her house open.
CHAPTER NINE
“Damn it,” Jessica said.“We should have asked him about the epoxy.”
The two women were efficiently eating a passable breakfast in the dining room of a cheap two-star hotel on the outskirts of D.C.Turk had finished his breakfast already and was ineffectively begging for a taste of Faith’s pancakes.
“Not for you, buddy.Your arteries will clog up, and then David will give me shit about your cholesterol.”To Jessica, she said, “We can get a search warrant for that.It’ll be very difficult for him to get rid of it without leaving his house.If he flushes it, we’ll find traces in the pipes, and if he burns it, we’ll probably find out when his apartment burns down, and we find him dead from the fumes.”
Jessica made a face.“Beautiful image.But yes, we should get a warrant for that.Any news on the dog tags?”
Faith sighed.“Yeah, but not good news.None of the tags found on Hayes’s body were from Welling’s squad.In fact, the names appear to be random.They’re people who died in combat, but across two decades and multiple theaters in different units and different branches of the military.I’m still not turned off to a personal connection, but if there is one, it’s not to Welling.”
“Shit,” Jessica cursed.“So, staying up all night instead of sleeping wasn’t worth anything after all.”
“I guess not,” Faith replied ruefully.
Her phone rang.When she saw the Arlington PD number, her face fell.Jessica saw her face fall and said, “Oh no.Please don’t tell me.”
Faith swallowed and answered the phone.“Bold?”
“Hello, Special Agent,” a curt, professional voice responded.“As the FBI has usurped the lead of the Hayes investigation, I have been directed to provide this information with the lead investigator.As you are the lead invest—”
“Spill it,” Faith snapped.“I don’t have time for bullshit.”
“Of course,” the officer replied, somewhat subdued.“The body of Major Daniel Cruz was just discovered in the World War Two Memorial in the National Mall.He was staged precisely as Captain Hayes was.”
Faith sighed heavily and dropped her gaze.“I see.Thank you for letting us know.We’re on our way.Try to keep the carrion feeders away, okay?”
The officer chuckled derisively.“I could lie to you and say we’d be successful at that, but… Well, it would be a lie.”
“Keep them away from the scene,” Faith repeated.“I get that they’re going to buzz, just make sure they buzz somewhere they’re not going to trample all of my evidence.”
“Fair enough.I can do that.”
He hung up, and Faith dropped her phone on the table and pressed her palms to her eyes.Jessica sighed heavily and folded her arms across her chest.“Shit.’
“Yeah,” Faith agreed.
Turk whined, and Faith scoffed.“Yeah, I know.Okay.Let’s go check this out.”
“I’ll call the officers watching Welling on the way,” Jessica said.“Looks like he’s off the hook.”
