Sudden Death Read Free Page B

heard it.
    She stared at the body and saw a distinct chain pattern around the victim’s neck.
    A veteran.
    The prongs were so familiar she knew they were attached to dog tags even before she saw the tags themselves. She’d been raised in a military family, had buried her father with his dog tags, and she would never forget the sight of the chain or the sound the tags made as they slid up and down the metal chain.
    Megan had always prided herself on her even temper and logical approach to problems, but suddenly her vision blurred and she wanted blood—the blood of the killer, the blood of a society that didn’t value those who fought for them. Men like her dad . . .
    She pushed him from her mind and focused on the homeless veteran. “John,” she said, wanting an I.D. as quickly as possible. Wanting to know how this soldier had ended up homeless and dead.
    Black looked at her quizzically. “Something wrong?”
    “He’s a veteran. The dog tags.” She gestured. “We might be able to get a quick I.D.”
    “That’d be nice,” Stieger said. “We have a few dozen unidentified homeless filling the deep freeze right now.”
    While Stieger pulled the chain out, Black asked, “So how do you want to handle the investigation?”
    “It’s your case, but I’d like to be involved. I’m fairly confident this is connected to the hot sheet cases.”
    Black agreed. “We’ll need to have your boss and my boss talk, but I’m game. Joint task force?”
    They both cracked a wry grin. There were so many “joint task forces” between local and federal law enforcement agencies that it was impossible to keep all of them straight. As a supervisory special agent, Megan herself sat on more than a dozen.
    Stieger pulled out the chain. “Price, George L.,” he read. “This looks like U.S. Army. No medical restrictions, blood type A negative. Christian. Have the Social as well.”
    Both Megan and Black wrote down the information. One of Simone Charles’s crime techs snapped pictures. Stieger put the chain down and Megan didn’t hear anything. “Wait,” she said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “There’s only one tag.”
    Stieger held up the chain again and felt along the chain. “Right. One.”
    Megan said, “There should be two tags. Either attached and separable, or the second tag on its own small loop.”
    “There’s only one tag,” Stieger repeated. “Maybe he lost it.”
    “Not likely,” Black said. Megan glanced at him, and he added, “My girlfriend is a veteran. She still sleeps with hers.”
    He got it, and Megan didn’t have to explain.
    “Maybe the killer took it for a souvenir,” she said.
    Or maybe the victim did lose it. Or maybe he’d been injured or there was some other reason the second tag had been removed while he was a soldier. The missing tag felt odd to Megan, but she didn’t have any facts to back up her instincts, so she kept her mouth shut.
    “How long has he been dead?” Black asked Stieger.
    “Decomp is telling me about twenty-four hours, but with this heat, could be as few as five or six.”
    It was eleven in the morning; Megan had been on scene for over an hour. The body had been discovered just after seven a.m.
    “I’ll have to do some calculations,” Stieger added. “Factor in his clothing, the position of the body—fortunately, he’s not in direct sunlight. I’ll take a wild stab—and I mean a not to put in your report guess—at six to ten hours. I know, he looks and smells like twenty-four plus, but he’s not. He’s still in rigor, and heat speeds up that process instead of slowing it down.”
    Simone Charles, the CSU supervisor, approached and said to Black, “I found something you need to see.”
    Megan tagged along, though she felt as if Simone was antagonistic. Megan was used to it. It surprised her that in law enforcement, some of her biggest hurdles were fellow female cops and staff.
    Black said, “So what did you find?”
    “Follow me.”
    Megan and John Black followed