Sudden Death Read Free

Thanks.”
    “His hamstrings weren’t cut here. Not enough blood. No spray or cast-off.”
    Megan glanced around, but there was no blood on the brick wall or in the alleyway. Where had he been attacked?
    Without touching the filthily clad victim, she inspected the deep gash in the back of his legs. She mimicked a slicing motion with her hand and then said, “I’ll need the coroner’s report, but it appears that the killer sliced right to left, cutting both legs with an even, fluid motion.” She stood and said, “Turn around.”
    Black did, looking over his shoulder. She said, “You’re much taller than the victim. If the victim was walking, the killer would have had to have walked up behind him and— slice— cut the hamstrings.” She mimicked the motion against the back of Black’s knees. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. If the vic was lying down, why would the killer slice his legs across?”
    “It would help if we could locate where he was attacked.”
    Megan agreed. “If the vic went down on his knees, that should be obvious at the autopsy with bruising or evidence on his pants. But why shoot him here? Why did the killer move him at all after the inital attack?”
    Wearing latex gloves and plastic booties over her shoes, an attractive, well-dressed woman who may have been thirty on her last birthday approached. “Nice theory, but maybe you should wait for crime scene analysis.”
    Black’s lips twitched. “Simone, FBI Supervisory Agent Megan Elliott. Agent Elliott, Simone Charles, CSU Supervisor.”
    Megan nodded. She’d worked with the prickly perfectionist before. “We’ve met. So, what does the evidence show, Simone?”
    “My team just came off a triple murder in the Pocket. Sorry for being late.” She didn’t sound sorry, but Megan noticed the red eyes and tight expression. She’d heard about the murder-suicide before she’d left FBI headquarters. A man came home early in the morning, drunk, and shot his wife and two kids while they slept, then blew his own brains out.
    “You’re not late,” Megan said.
    Simone motioned for one of her team to photograph the scene and the body. “I’ll walk the area and be right back. You have a wide perimeter,” she noted to Detective Black. “Any reason?”
    “To keep the vultures at bay.” He nodded toward the KCRA-3 van parked at the edge of the crime scene tape.
    She grinned and walked away, dropping markers at specific spots.
    Black said, “So was he killed here or not?”
    Megan clarified. “He was definitely shot right here, small-caliber handgun is my guess, twenty-two caliber, behind the left ear. A twenty-two is very effective at close range.”
    Megan had seen far too many execution-style murder victims when she was part of the national Evidence Response Team that went to Kosovo ten years ago. Which led to the question of why disable the victim first if only to shoot him?
    If the evidence held true compared with the first two known victims, Megan already had the answer: between the time the victim’s hamstrings were cut and when he was shot, someone had received sick pleasure from torturing him. Handicapping the victim was to keep him from escaping.
    “We need to find out where he was attacked and tortured,” Megan said.
    The two previous victims had no visible marks until their clothing was removed. Then dozens of tiny pinpricks were obvious. “He plays before he kills.”
    “Excuse me?”
    Megan had forgotten that she wasn’t alone. The members of Squad Eight—the Violent Crimes/Major Offender Squad that she headed—were used to her talking to herself; she had to remember she was out of her element here, assisting SPD.
    “Just thinking out loud.”
    Megan itched to inspect the victim’s feet, but she didn’t want to touch the body until the coroner’s unit arrived.
    First Austin, Texas, then Las Vegas, Nevada. Now Sacramento, California. The only thing those three places had in common, on the surface, was that they