New Orleans seemed to attract them. Go figure. Large service population that worked on a cash basis meant very few records. The huge tourism industry caused folks to wander in and out hourly. Rampant alcohol—explanation unnecessary.
Costumes. Masks. Voodoo.
Then there was the fact that the city was surrounded on three sides by water, and water was a great place to hide bodies—or at the least make them damn hard to recover evidence from. In truth, Bobby was surprised New Orleans wasn’t the serial-killer capital of the world. Although …
His gaze drifted over the photos on his desk. Maybe it was.
The killer Sullivan had been after had never been caught. Most folks in the department didn’t believe there’d ever been one. The manner of death for each victim had been as different as the victims themselves. Which wasn’t the usual serial killer MO.
Kind of like the case in front of Bobby now. Not only had his killer stopped killing—at least in New Orleans—but when he’d been doing so he’d offed his victims in all manner of ways. However, there was one thing they all had in common.
Bobby lifted the latest photo, a close up of a dead woman, where the brand of a snarling wolf was visible on her neck, despite all the blood. He offered it to Sullivan.
The big man accepted the picture, eyes narrowing on the image. “I never saw this one before.”
“Just came in.”
Sullivan stood. “Why aren’t we at the crime scene?”
“Because it’s in Podunk.”
“Where?”
“Wisconsin.”
“There’s actually a Podunk, Wisconsin?”
“No.” But Bobby thought that there should be. “It’s…” He shuffled through the crap on his desk and found the information. “New Bergin.”
Sullivan spread his hands. “Never heard of it.”
“You are not alone.”
The chair creaked a little closer to the floor when Sullivan sat back down. “When did it happen?”
“This morning.”
“How’d you find out about it so fast?”
“FBI.”
The detective’s lips twisted. When he’d contacted the FBI about his case, they had been less than helpful. They hadn’t been any more helpful when Bobby contacted them. However—
“The agent I spoke with about our cases was conveniently the one that…” Bobby glanced again at his cheat sheet. “Chief Johnson spoke with this morning.”
“How many dead, branded bodies do they have in Podunk?”
“Just the one.”
“Then why would they call the FBI?”
“Place hasn’t had a murder since 1867.”
“Good for them. Still don’t see why they called the feds.”
“They wanted help.”
Sullivan rubbed his forehead. “Murder isn’t a federal offense.”
“This one might be.”
The detective dropped his hand. “How?”
“The woman in that picture is the sister of a U.S. Marshal.”
Understanding blossomed across Sullivan’s face. “And the murder of an immediate family member of a law enforcement official jacks the charge into the big leagues.”
“Retaliatory murder,” Bobby corrected. “And this looks pretty retaliatory to me.”
He tossed the rest of the crime scene photos—which weren’t very good and made Bobby think they’d been taken with someone’s outdated cell phone—to Sullivan. Despite his having seen the same, or worse, before, the man grimaced.
“Missing body parts are usually a good clue,” Sullivan agreed.
Bobby had no idea why but gangsters—both the mob and the gangs—liked to hack people into pieces as a message. Usually they hacked them into more pieces than two, but the missing arm was both weird and worrisome.
“The police chief called the feds,” Bobby continued, “and the feds forwarded his pictures to me to compare the brand on the Wisconsin victim to the brands on ours.”
“And?”
“I think they match, but I want to take a closer look.”
“Me too. When do we leave?”
“We don’t.”
“Goddamn budget cuts.”
“Redundant,” Bobby murmured, gathering the photos and information then stuffing them into the file. He had just enough time to pack a bag and catch his plane.
Sullivan shifted his linebacker shoulders. “I’d hoped this guy was gone for good.”
They hadn’t found a body in nearly a year. Bobby’d kind of hoped the guy was gone for good too. In prison. Dead. Lobotomized. He wasn’t picky.
“I think he’s back,” Bobby said.
The spark of worry in his partner’s gaze deepened. “I think you’re right.”
Chapter 2
I reached my classroom only a minute or two after my class did. Still, David had already painted himself turquoise and Susan had picked the lock on the scissors drawer.
I was really going to have to keep my eye on Susan.
Their excuse?
“Stafford told us to.”
As Stafford was laughing his forever five-year-old butt off right behind them I believed it.