The core of all of these killings was sending a message.In the first example, the killer was an artist who believed his victims were unfairly praised and wanted them punished by the art medium they “butchered.”The dog trainer killer wanted to drive home how horrific the treatment of dogs by unscrupulous trainers was.The Messenger, of course, just wanted Faith’s attention and used shock value to get it.
So what message was this killer sending?A mockery of religion, certainly.Punishment?Probably, but why the random dog tags?Perhaps he was using the victims as a larger statement against religion in general, claiming that religious lies hurt all service members.
If so, then finding the killer could be difficult.Solving spree killings like this generally requires identifying some sort of connection between the victims and the killer.If these chaplains were just "canvases" the killer was using to make a general point, then their suspect pool could be impossibly large.
And this might not even be about art.Some killers just developed a ritual and followed it without regard for aesthetics.In fact, most highly organized killers did.
Faith was troubled as Jessica pulled into the parking lot of the VA office again.Each lead they were following was hard to come by, and after all of the work digging for an answer, that answer turned out to be unhelpful.Maybe they were looking in the wrong places.The art angle was only a hunch after all.Maybe it would be better for them to pull back and focus on the victims like they usually did.
Except that’s how they came up with their first lead, and Welling turned out to be a dead end.
She sighed and put her thoughts aside as they approached the Records desk.The man behind the desk was an older, mustachioed, heavyset man with a gravelly baritone voice and a stern face with surprisingly kind gray eyes.
Faith explained the situation, and the man heaved a heavy sigh."Well, I hate to be another burr in your backside, but Miss Belfort has a point.That art class is affiliated with our therapy program.I can contact Dr.Paulson and let her know, but unless one of her patients has met the threshold for legal reporting requirements, it's gonna fall under doctor-patient confidentiality."
“So, it doesn’t matter to people that chaplains are getting murdered?”Jessica said, exasperated.
“‘Course it does,” the desk agent replied, “but like I said, there’s not much we can do.We promise our veterans confidentiality when they sign up for our programs.”He chuckled.“We sort ofhaveto.It’s the law.”
“Call Dr.Paulson anyway,” Faith said.“Let her know that we believe our killer may be using these killings as a form of artistic expression.Tell her to share whatever information she can, even if it’s not much.”
“Surely.”
Faith thanked him and led Turk and Jessica away.“We’re not going to get anything,” she told Jessica.“This is going to be a war we don’t have time to fight.”
“It just pisses me off.What’s so bad about a five-minute conversation with a few people just to make sure we get a killer off the street?”
The answer to that fell under the different perspectives between civilians and law enforcement that Faith had talked about earlier, but she didn’t repeat herself.They had done all they could with this lead for now, so it was time to try something else.
“Let’s see if we can find a connection between the victims in the meantime.Cruz and Hayes served in different branches, but they might have been related in another way.”
Jessica nodded.Her brow was furrowed, and her shoulders were tense.Faith squeezed her arm and said, "It's not the end of the world.We'll find this guy."
“It’s going to be the end of the world to someone if we don’t find him soon.”
Faith nodded.“Yeah.I know.Don’t lose hope.”
Her comfort sounded weak in her own ears.
They looked up Cruz’s and Hayes’s service records while enjoying lunch in the VA office’s cafeteria.Jessica glanced around nervously at the clusters of veterans staring at them.“Are you sure I’m allowed to be here?I feel like I’m trespassing.”
“You’re fine,” Faith said.“We’re helping two of their own.They’re probably just staring because you’re pretty.”
“I know what those stares look like, and this isn’t that.”She sighed.“Sorry.I’m just jumpy.I feel like this is a lot more difficult than it should be.”
“It’s definitely not as easy as it could be,” Faith agreed, “but I think I found a connection.”
Jessica’s eyes instantly lit up.“Yeah?What is it?”
Faith showed Jessica her phone.“Hayes and Cruz both served in the Battle of Tarinkot.That was a campaign about eleven years ago that resulted in the deaths of over two hundred allied soldiers, most of them American.Aside from the death, it was known to be one of the most grueling campaigns of the war.Constant Taliban attacks on supply lines resulted in shortages of just about every important resource.People were miserable.It looks like Hayes was the Corps’ Chaplain-in-Chief for the theater at the time, and Cruz was chaplain for an Army company occupying an outpost near Towri, a town on the Tirin River that was a major front in the campaign.The whole US force got torn apart in that battle.Cruz’s unit in particular suffered heavy losses.”
“Okay.So, we’re looking probably for a killer who was involved in that campaign.”
“Probably,” Faith said, “In the meantime, I think we should bring this information to the head of the VA office and the three Chaplain Corps.Any chaplain in the Washington area who served during this campaign should be considered a target and warned to take precautions.We should let military police and local law enforcement know, too.They should be watching war memorials and offering protective services to the chaplains."
“That’s a big ask,” Jessica said.“I’m not arguing, I’m just worried.We tried the blanket approach when Kenneth Still was killing people in dog parks, and it didn’t work.”
“I know,” Faith said.“We do the best we can and hope it’s enough.”
