Faith shook her head.“I don’t know yet.”She sipped her coffee and asked, “Have we determined a connection between Craig Daniels and Raelynn Hayes yet?”
“Shit,” Jessica said.“I got caught up arranging protection for the other K9 supervisors in the area.Let me look into that.”
While Jessica pulled up Craig Daniels’s records, Faith unwrapped her sandwich and ate slowly, her mind poring over the problem.She knew the bombs were the key to understanding these murders, but without a frame of reference, she couldn’t know what each bomb meant.The gasoline bomb that was actually explosive, but whose explosiveness was unusable due to a design flaw.The plastic bomb that looked like a real bomb but was just a brick of clay.Was that a statement about each victim’s personality or a personal history with the killer?Was it just a specific event where they acted in a way that harmed the killer in some perceived or actual way?
She couldn’t draw any conclusions about that with the information they had now, so she pulled back and tried to think about who the killer was as a person.Their last killer was artistic.He staged his victims in a mockery of Christianity by posing them in prayer positions and hanging dog tags around their necks.It was cold and brutal but also showy, like shouting “Sic Temper Tyrannus” after shooting a President or carving a smile onto a dead aristocrat’s chest.
This was showy and symbolic, but it didn’t strike Faith as artistic.She got more of a sense of craftsmanship than artistry.The pieces were constructed with attention to detail, and the small components—the bombs—were given more attention than the larger components—the bodies.
She was reaching, she knew, but it felt right.This killer wanted to be appreciated for their precision, not the overall grandeur of their work.As the saying went, the devil was in the details in this case.
“Okay,” Jessica said.“It looks like Hayes used to work with the TSA at Thurgood Marshall.She was only there for a little while, but she would have served with Daniels for a bit before she left and went to ATF.”
Faith nodded.“Good.We can follow up on that.Address?”
“Apartment in Port Covington.Not a nice neighborhood.Situated close to a lot of ritzy places close to shore but has poor access to the freeway and a lot of vacant properties and failed businesses.It’s become a kind of refuge for the down-and-out.He works at a warehouse a mile up the peninsula that offloads textiles from ships and loads them onto trucks for shipment across the country.”
“Got it,” Faith said.“Do we know what shift he works?”
“Not the night one.I called the warehouse.Its business hours are from nine to seven.”
Faith frowned.“Seriously?Most distribution centers I know are twenty-four-hour affairs these days.”
“Well, like I said, it’s not a successful neighborhood.”
“Right.His home it is.”
She finished the last of her sandwich and got to her feet.“Turk, come on, boy.We’ve got a bad guy to catch.”
Turk barked and got to his feet, tail wagging.He cast a final glance at the television, where the villain was indeed revealed as the primary guest character of the week, snorted, and followed the two humans out the door.
***
It was a fifteen-minute drive north from their motel to reach Port Covington.As Jessica described, the neighborhoods they drove through were pristine and beautiful, with well-built rowhouses and colonials set in tastefully landscaped neighborhoods sprinkled liberally with historical monuments and small but well-appointed parks and green spaces.The cars parked in the driveways and along the streets were all late-model luxury vehicles, with the occasional Ferrari or Porsche tossed in to add a little flavor.
Then, almost immediately, the atmosphere changed.Gorgeous houses became rundown apartment complexes.Luxury SUVs became old, beat-up sedans and pickups.Green was almost completely gone save for a single park with a wan attempt at a lawn and a rickety play area that Faith wouldn’t have trusted her kids on if she had any.
It didn’t appear particularly dangerous despite Jessica’s description of the place as a refuge for the down-on-their-luck.More than anything else, it appeared empty.A lot of the houses were boarded up.Many of the businesses sported broken windows and graffiti.Trash littered the sidewalk sporadically, but there were no sleeping bags, tents, or cardboard boxes, nothing that indicated a permanent homeless population, though Faith supposed they could be squatting in the empty buildings.Billboards advertised products that had gone out of style years before.It was like a post-apocalyptic scene from a zombie movie.
Craig Daniels had indeed fallen on hard luck.Hard luck, in Faith’s experience, was a strong motivator for murder.
The apartment building where Craig Daniels lived was a step up from most of the properties in the neighborhood.Enough people lived there that management considered it worthwhile to keep the sidewalk free of trash and the façade relatively clean.Inside, the building was also decently clean.Cheap, with linoleum floors, a particle board staircase and floral wallpaper, but clean.
Faith and Jessica climbed the stairs to the fourth floor where Craig’s one-bedroom was located.Turk’s tail switched back and forth, and his nose dipped side to side as he scanned for anything that reminded him of the crime scenes.Faith watched his reaction as they approached the apartment but other than a slight increase in tension, he gave no sign that he detected anything suspicious.
Faith knocked on the door.There was no answer.She shared a look with Jessica and tried again.“Craig Daniels?FBI.Come talk to us, please.”
Still no answer.She looked at Turk.He was watching the door warily, but he didn’t growl or bare his teeth.
“Does he smell anything?”Jessica asked.
“I’m not sure.Turk?You have anything?”
Turk snorted and dipped his head.That was a no.
Faith frowned.If Turk wasn’t picking anything up, did that make this a false lead too?He’d gotten the killer’s scent from the previous scenes.If Craig Daniels was their killer, then Turk should have the scent whether he was home or not.
Turk’s nose wasn’t infallible, though.He was almost never fooled, but almost was a big word.They still needed to talk to Daniels.She tried a final time.“Craig Daniels?This is the FBI.We need to talk to you.Come out, or we’re coming in.”