Sudden Death Read Free Page A

were large cities. The victims were single, male, between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, tortured and murdered in their homes. While most serial predators stayed within one race, the first victim was black and the second and third were white. The first vic owned his own business and, though divorced, was by all accounts a devoted father. The second vic had never married, had a rap sheet for minor drug charges, and worked as a mechanic. There was some indication that he had a gambling problem, which delayed the local police from reporting the crime to the national database, mistakenly believing it was payback for an uncollected debt. The hot sheet possibly linking the two had only been sent out late last week.
    As if reading her mind, or simply breathing too deeply, Black got on the radio and said to someone, “This body is cooking and it’s only going to get hotter. ETA of the coroner?”
    A gender-neutral voice replied, “On scene.”
    “Great.” Black looked around, frowned, and said to Megan, “I’ll find him.” He stalked off.
    It wasn’t standard procedure for an FBI agent to go out to crime scenes alone, even aiding the local P.D., but there had been no initial certainty that this homicide was connected to the two other murders. Because her squad was already spread extremely thin, Megan had opted to check the scene herself.
    But there was no doubt in her mind after viewing the body that the murder of this homeless man was connected somehow to the murders in Texas and Nevada. Why and how were the two big questions other than, of course, who.
    She would wait to call it in until she had more information.
    Megan frowned as she visually inspected the body again. Something else struck her as odd. Because the victim was homeless and had been living on the streets long enough to disappear into the backdrop of Sacramento, his age was indeterminate. At first glance, he could be as young as thirty, but the ravages of drugs and alcohol or simply the hard years living on the streets aged him. His clothes hadn’t been washed in weeks or longer, so his hands stood out.
    They were clean.
    She looked around for someone from the CSU or SPD, but all she saw were uniforms, and they eyed her apprehensively. Her boss, Bob Richardson, had made great inroads working with local law enforcement, but there were always a few who blamed the “Fibbies” for everything bad that happened on a call.
    She took out her BlackBerry and snapped a couple photographs. Not SOP, but she didn’t plan to use the photos as evidence. She wanted to remember to ask the CSU about the hands, and this was Megan’s reminder.
    Were clean hands part of the killer’s ritual? Or was this something new? Or special for this victim? Did this homeless man have some sort of hand-washing compulsion?
    Or maybe there had been evidence on his hands and the killer had cleaned them. Very little could destroy evidence if the lab and technicians were good enough. But bleach or another caustic cleanser could be a sign that the victim had fought back and the killer had tried to conceal the evidence.
    She knelt down and sniffed close to the hands.
    From behind, a man cleared his throat. Megan looked over her shoulder. The tall Detective Black stood next to a short, light-skinned black man with a medical kit in hand.
    She stood. “No bleach.”
    Black raised an eyebrow.
    “His hands are clean.” She was met with skepticism, so added, “He appears homeless. His face, his clothes, his hair—but his hands are clean.”
    Black said with a tone of self-recrimination, “I didn’t notice.”
    The deputy coroner mumbled an introduction—Roland Stieger—before squatting next to the corpse.
    They watched in silence as Stieger inspected the body. He made notes on a preprinted form.
    “Help me turn him,” he commanded.
    As Black helped Stieger flip the body, Megan heard a slight rattle of metal, but when Black and Stieger started talking, it was clear they hadn’t