“Why exactly are you exhuming the guy’s body?” Agent Pine asked.
“Because I need to demonstrate he’s actually dead.”
“You put him in the ground and now you’re digging him up?” Pine laughed. “No wonder people say the federal government is inefficient.”
Dominic didn’t smile. “As soon as the connection between Galveston and these other incidents become public there will be speculation about whether or not Galveston is really dead. He is. I checked for his pulse after the shooting. I witnessed the autopsy where his brain and black heart were weighed on the counter.”
“People will say he somehow faked it. Took some sort of poison to slow his heart. The guy was a multi-millionaire, he could buy off the Medical Examiner, buy off the cops…switch out a body,” Ava exclaimed. Conspiracy theorists could get seriously crazy.
“Or that you guys got the wrong person,” Agent Pine put in.
“Exactly.” Dominic pushed his glasses back up his nose. “And I’m gonna prove that cocksucker can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
Ava wondered if he needed to prove it to himself too. Van had told her there were cases that shaped your entire career. Her father’s murder and taking down the mob had been Van’s. Maybe this case was Dominic’s.
“How did the shooting go down?” she asked.
“We realized we had a serial killer after the decomposing bodies of three women were found in the woods either side of the Delaware River. The river divides New York and Pennsylvania so the FBI were immediately involved.” Dominic pursed his lips. “Who knows how many remains we didn’t find. DNA swabs from the cabin turned up forty different profiles, although we were never sure if they were all victims or not. Some might have been friends. According to Galveston’s video journals he liked to entertain, often with a girl tied up and incapacitated somewhere else in the house. He got off on that.”
Ava shuddered. The mob were vicious and brutal, but it was a different kind of evil to these types of murderers. Still reprehensible. But different.
“We knew the victims generally went missing on a Friday night off highways 178 or 97. We decided to use a female cop to pose as a hitchhiker along a mile stretch of road on a Friday evening. We had a surveillance unit hidden in the woods. We were about to call it a day on our fourth week when this shiny new pickup truck drove past and slammed the brakes for Sandy.
“She’d been told not to get in the car. We were simply taking names and license plates at that point. Next thing we know she’s on her knees on the side of the road, and the driver is getting out and starts manhandling her into the truck.”
“Everything happened fast after that. We drive out of the woods right in front of the truck and he almost T-bones us. We caught him by surprise. I jump out and tell him to get out of the truck. He doesn’t do it fast enough so I open his door and he’s reaching for a .356mm Magnum. Sandy manages to knock it out of his hand despite her being tasered. Once again, I order him out of the vehicle, but he lunges for the gun instead. So, I shot him twice in the chest. It was over in about five seconds but every moment felt like it lasted a century.”
Ava blew out a big breath. It sounded like solid ground work and blind luck had caught the serial killer. The razor-fine edge between success and failure was both gratifying and terrifying because sometimes the luck went to the other side. Sometimes the bad guys got away and kept on killing.
Agent Pine pulled into a rural cemetery with a beautiful, old brick church with a white-painted spire, topped with a cross. Old, weathered stones competed with fresh, white marble in the lush, green grounds. Ava got out of the car, trying to conceal the sudden chill that swept over her skin. Maybe it was the fog that had started to crawl in from the surrounding forest. Maybe it was the cool mountain breeze. Maybe it was the ghosts of all Peter Galveston’s victims. Whatever it was, her flesh crawled.
In the far corner of the graveyard, a small digger was building a steadily growing pile of soil at the side of a tall marble obelisk.
Ava followed Dominic out of the car and across the damp grass. Right now, Sheridan was very much the remote professional in command of this scene. It was hard to reconcile this man with the person who’d licked her naked body a few hours earlier, but Ava wasn’t expecting any PDAs. Didn’t want them. Even if they had been in a real relationship, she’d expect SSA Sheridan to behave as a federal law enforcement employee first and foremost. Later when they were alone, who knew what might happen, but she wasn’t going to beg like a dog for his affection. She hadn’t been needy for attention since her father had been murdered in front of her, and she’d discovered the safety of a strong man was an illusion.
She strode after Dominic, and Pine followed closely behind. She glanced around, checking the area for potential threats. A man and woman were tending a grave a hundred feet away. The woman on her hands and knees pulling weeds. Man filling a watering can. No press. Good.
Dominic walked up to a small group of men watching the excavation, shook hands and introduced himself.
“Where’s the tent?” Dominic asked.
Usually with an exhumation there would be a crime scene tent covering the proceedings from prying eyes. Usually they had a little more time to plan…
Pine answered, “ME’s office is on the way with a tent and some sampling equipment. ME told me to get the coffin out first as their tent isn’t large enough to contain the digger and the dirt too. Said he’d be here by the time we were ready for him.”
Ava watched Dominic’s jaw clench, but his expression remained neutral. He was skilled at hiding his emotions. Something she’d never mastered.
A man came towards them from the church and introduced himself as the local pastor, Robin Elgin. He looked to be in his early thirties, a handsome guy, wearing jeans and a green sweater and black trainers.