He was being nonchalant, almost flippant despite his clear frustration.Hecouldjust be hiding his rage, but if so, he was hiding itverywell.
Faith’s concerns that they were talking to the wrong guy grew.
“That’s fine,” Jessica replied drily.
Thomas chuckled and ordered his sandwich.Despite the name Sammie’s Subs clearly written on the façade of the kitchen making the sandwiches, Thomas stubbornly referred to the sandwich as a hoagie.Faith recognized the Philadelphia accent and tried to build some rapport.“You from Philly?”
“Yeah.You?”
“Yep.Most of my life.I moved down here a little over a year ago for work.”
“Hmm.How you like it?”
“Kinda miss the winters.”
Thomas chuckled.“Yeah, it doesn’t snow the same here as it does in Philly.And people drive like freaking morons too.It’s like they forget how cars work the moment the weather changes.”
“Good thing the traffic makes speeds over twenty impossibles.”
Thomas laughed again.He didn’t appear any more relaxed as he grabbed his completed order and shuffled to a table, but Faith wasn’t sure if that was tension in his mind or his muscles.
He grimaced and grabbed the edge of the table, then slowly lowered himself into the seat.Faith’s confidence ebbed.He could be faking this, but if he really was in this much pain, then the chances of him accomplishing these murders were very thin.
“Ooh,” he groaned.“Dr.Forrest is a peach, but she works my ass off.”He glanced at Turk and held up his sandwich.“Want some?”
Turk tilted his head, confused.
“He’s fine,” Faith said.She took the seat across from Thomas and folded her hands on the table.“I’ll get straight to the point, Mr.Garrett.We’re investigating the murders of two chaplains over the past two days: Richard Hayes and Daniel Cruz.Both were strangled with a garrote, injected with an epoxy, and left in a prayer position with twenty dog tags hung around their necks.”
“Jesus.No pun intended.”He took a bite of his sandwich, and despite the exclamation, didn’t seem all that shocked or concerned by the deaths of those chaplains.
“You’ve written letters to chaplains in the past,” Faith said.“I’d be willing to bet that two of those letters went to our victims.”
Thomas swallowed and met Faith’s eyes.“Yep.Wrote to both of them.Bunch of others too.Stupid stuff.I expected answers, but there are none.Got some responses praying for me, got another with links to some commentary that was supposed to help me understand the Bible better, got one response imploring me to pray to Allah for guidance and a few telling me to please stop writing them.Got a chuckle out of those.Didn’t even pretend to give a shit.”
“You also searched for all forty names on the dog tags found with the victims,” Jessica said.
Thomas stopped with his hand halfway to his mouth.“What?”
“Yep,” Jessica said.“Within the past three weeks too.Apparently, those were theonlynames you searched for.Care to talk to us about that?”
Thomas set his sandwich down.His hands were trembling again.“Um… Hmm…”
Faith waited patiently.Turk switched his tail back and forth, watching Thomas closely.
“Well… shit.I didn’t know the killer was puttingthosetags on the victims.”
Faith raised an eyebrow.“But you knew he was putting dog tags around their necks?”
“Sure.It’s all over the news.”
Goddamn the press,Faith thought.“And they just happen to be names you searched for?”
Thomas blinked and swallowed.“Well, I… Shit.I don’t know if I can tell you why that is.I can tell you I didn’t kill them, but I have no idea how those people ended up on the dog tags.”
“Can you tell us who requested the tags?”
“I mean… Forty different people.More if you consider some of the requestors as spokespeople for their families.They were just ordinary requests.One at a time.Not some bulk draw.”
