Consumed by Wrath: An FBI/Romance Thriller (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 8) (67 page)

“Is anyone on staff back at FBI West capable of pulling of
f the job?”

Doctor Leonard thought about it. “I don’t think so. We have pretty big shoes to fill. Christina
ran Ethan’s show for ten years. She was invaluable.”

“Yeah, well that was one of the complaints. That and Elizabeth is impossible to work for.”

Tony snickered from across the room.

“Laugh it up, bone boy. You’ll find yourself locked in some little room back
home doing a mountain of paperwork.” She tried to keep a straight face.

“This team is pretty resourceful. We’ll get through it,” Chris added, positively. There was nothing that they could do about it for now. Until they could begin interviews, it was just going to have to wait.

“I hate being short staffed,” Elizabeth said. “That’s when we make mistakes.”

“Is this a bad time to tell you that Cyra and I are taking a month long honeymoon?” Chris threw out.

“Yeah, it would be a terrible time, and it would make the pregnant woman cranky.”

“Care to share who the baby daddy is, so we can get a jump
in on the baby pool?” Tony said.

Yeah, she wasn’t even going to let them have fun with this one. “Ethan is, so you can tell the happy gamblers that I admitted it right off the top. It’s also a boy.”

Both men lifted a brow. Yeah, she was screwing with them, but by the time they figured it out, it would be too late.

“Man, someone’s in a bad mood today.”

“Tony, I have a cannibal that is eating people in my hometown, and one of them was my extended family. I have a very short suspect list and only a bunch of heads. That’s the definition of cranky in my book. Someone better tell me something, and fast.”

“Okay, I can tell you how half the victims died. The first three died when their heads were cut off with a very sharp instrument. The cuts on the spine indicate the same knife that was used to disarticulate them.”

“So, the meat cleaver, and they were alive at the time?”

“Yes. The only thing that’s different is with Doctor Trudeaux and Marjorie
Willard, you can tell by the tissue surrounding the cut on their necks that they didn't bleed profusely from being decapitated. That signifies to me that they bled out elsewhere on their bodies.”

Blackhawk added his opinion. “I’ll say that you’re probably right. If he’s escalating, he’ll want to watch them die. Again, like the profile, the hunt and kill are just as important as the eating.”

Chris moved towards the table where the heads were located. He had arranged them in order of their abduction and death. The only one missing was Doctor Trudeaux.

While Elizabeth appreciated it, she needed to see them all in order. “Put him in the lineup, Chris.”

No one was sure that was a good idea, but they gave her the benefit of the doubt.

The man nodded at the lab tech standing there. “Harry, pull back the sheet.” He wasn’t going to make the man pick up the head of his boss, so he did it for him. “Okay, you can tell by the first three that they all were attacked from behind,” he said, placing Samuel Trudeaux with the others. “They had blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. None of it was what killed them.”

“So if you were going to guess, Chris, how did he do them in?”

He was about to
break his big rule of guessing, yet again. “I think that one, two, and three,” he said, pointing at the first victims, “were decapitated. The cuts to their necks aren’t clean through. It looks like he tried to sever the skull, and didn't realize that it wasn’t that easy. The force to do it in one strike had to be pretty strong.”

“Okay, so that takes us back to Ethan’s profile. So far what you gave me, Ethan, fits.”

He nodded. 

Just then, Harper Stanton walked into the morgue and quietly took her place beside her partner.

“Morning, Agent,” she said.

The woman simply nodded at her boss.

“Doctor Trudeaux had been struck twice. It appears that it was twice to the skull. Neither killed him. I’m going to say that the man possibly came up behind him and he heard him. The first strike was to his forehead and to the side.”

“Show and tell?” Tony asked.

“Yeah, it’s time to kill someone.”

Everyone groaned.

Cyra raised her hand to volunteer.

“No way
! I’m not killing my wife,” Chris objected. “That’s morbid.”

Both Callen and Ethan objected
as he finally got what they had been saying all along.

“Oh, but you’ll kill ours?” Callen said. “That seems
like a whole lot of hypocrisy to me.”

Tony was laughing. “I say we kill the newbie.
It’s always more fun when they don’t expect it and can’t put up a fight.”

Harper Stanton stood there staring at them.

“Works for me,” Elizabeth said. She was just glad that it wasn’t her getting onto a morgue table for once.

“Okay, so, here’s what I think happened.” Chris picked up the stapler. “The wound looks to be that of a dull blunt object, like a rock.”

That made sense, since there was one thrown through Doc’s car window from his landscaping.

“He sneaks up behind the man,” he said, turning Harper to face them. “At the last minute,
Doc turns.”

Harper took the cue and did just that.

“He puts his hands up to protect his face. It’s the natural instinct when you see something coming at you.”

The agent complied
.

“He gets clocked here in the forehead.” Chris touched Harper on the head where he found the bone distress on the skull. “Then, when he has him back at
his lair…”

Elizabeth
stopped him. “Lair, Christopher?”

“What do serial killer cannibals call their workspaces?” he asked, waiting for her reply.

Their ME had her there. “Point taken. Please continue.”

He helped Harper up
onto the table and laid her flat. “He had to restrain them. So, put your arms at your sides and don’t move them, Agent.”

The woman did what she was told.

“There was this rage and wrath in him. Because, the second hit was in the same spot and twice as hard.”

“What did he use?” Elizabeth asked, blocking out that it was her friend they were talking about.
She knew that the men were taking it easy on her as it was, so she held on the best she could.

“I can’t tell you. There was too much bone damage,” stated Tony, taking over. “
But it looks to be large and flat.”

Cyra went with it. “Meat mallet? He’s killing them with a meat cleaver and eating them. Wouldn’t he use something that he has easy access to?”

They all looked around.

“That’s logical, Agent. Good work,” stated Elizabeth.

“Doctor Trudeaux bled out from another source on his body too,” Chris added. “I don’t believe that it was the carotid artery that was cut. I examined his neck thoroughly.”

“Okay, if you were a killer, what would you do next?” she asked Chris.

He thought about it. “I would go for the femoral artery.  It’s easy to access and you really just need to slice across the leg.” He drew an imaginary line across his thigh, showing them where.

“How long to bleed out?” she asked.

“It would depend on the cut, the tool used, and also if it was completely severed.”

She thought about it. “Okay, so our killer is bleeding them out after he kills them.”

Ethan added his opinion, “When someone kills an animal, they often do the same thing. You slice its throat and let the blood drain. Our killer may not be escalating, but just doing what he thinks is the proper procedure for prepping his food.”

She thought about it.

“I’m worried about the part where he was incredibly angry with Doc.”

“Well, he was investigating,” Callen said. “The profile we worked up said that he’ll be aggressive if someone is trying to take away his meal and the high.”

“Doc was doing that,” she stated. “He was researching it.” Elizabeth looked over at Tony. “What can you tell us about the teeth on the bones?”

“We made castings. When you find the killer, we’re good to go. I will tell you that they all match one set, so we don’t have a cult of cannibals. It’s only one. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s not killing, harvesting
, and feeding others.”

“Ewww,” stated Harper from the morgue table.

Elizabeth agreed. “Yeah, that’s a sick thought. I’m with the newbie on this one.”

“This all had to be very messy, Elizabeth,” stated Chris. “You don’t cut a
femoral or carotid artery and have a trickle. We all have seen the aftermath of that,” he said, alluding to the last case in Circle Rock. “We’re talking gusher.”

“Okay, so he’s doing this someplace private. Are we finding any particulates?”

Chris pulled up the report that Veronica was working on and he sighed. “Well, our ex-lab tech has a partial report done.”

Harry interjected. “I can help out. I have a degree and know my way around a lab.”

They all looked at him. Last time, the killer was right under their nose.

“Open your mouth,” she said, and then focused on Tony. “Check his teeth.”

“For what?” the man said, trying to talk with his mouth open.

“I want to know if you’ve been gnawing on our victims. If your teeth don’t match, then you can help out. If they do, I’m going to shoot you and put you down
like a rabid, crazy dog.”

Chris snickered at the look on the man’s face. Unless you were used to Elizabeth, you could be caught off guard
to her general comments.

It wasn’t like she’d actually do it.

Yeah, then again…

Tony had him bite down on a piece of castings clay. He took it over to the table and the one bone and stared at the scrapings.

“Is Harry our killer?” she asked, unclipping her firearm.

The man looked nervous as hell, as he watched Elizabeth stand there waiting
for a definitive answer.

Tony shook his head.
“The teeth don’t match. His canines don’t have the same width, and the spacing is different. He’s good.”

She clipped her gun holster and smiled at him. “Looks like you get to help, and not get shot. Congrats.”

The man stared at her like she was certifiably insane. “What do you want me to do?”

Chris printed out a list of particulates. “The tech team is in the lab. Grab one of them and begin working on these. You can help them process
the data. We found samples on Doctor Trudeaux and the bones of the unknown woman.”

“Okay, I want all your attention on that and the woman whose head we didn't find. See what you can do.”

“Where will you be if we need you?” Chris asked.

“We have six victims. One we can’t ID yet, so we don’t need to worry about a notify. Then there is
Marjorie Willard and Duke Williams.” She nodded at Cyra. “You and Harper get those. Head on out and break the bad news.”

“Yes, boss.”

“We’re going to do the notify for Jefferson Harris, since his wife is a bitch, and rubs me the wrong way. I think she’s sketchy, and I want to see her reaction to the news.”

“Doctor Trudeaux had no next of kin,” Chris stated. “What should we do…” he began and was cut off.

“We will be handling Doctor Trudeaux’s body,” stated Blackhawk. “You just have him ready when this is over. I’m working on his final interment. You’ll be receiving the paperwork and just need to follow the instructions.”

It was clear that Ethan didn't want to discuss it more than need be.
Both men placed their hands on Elizabeth’s shoulders in support.

“Herman Peterson didn't have a family, so there’s no notify to worry about. We also have to head to the council building. I need to update the mayor and talk to the two council members that had issues with two of our victims. Right now, we’re pretty thin on guilty parties. We just have speculation and petty shit that won’t sit with a jury.”

As if on cue, her phone rang, and she stepped away to answer it.

Blackhawk moved towards their ME. “I need you to reconstruct as much of Doc as possible. I want to have him cremated and released as soon as possible. I know that it’s not procedure, but in this case, I’m making an exception.”

Chris understood. “I’ll get it done. Do you want me to handle the cremation? I can do the research to free you up to work on the case.”

He appreciated that. “Thank you, Chris,” he said, patting him on the shoulder.

“Well,” Elizabeth said, hanging up her cell. “We had something come up.”

Everyone looked at her.

“It looks like we have another missing person report. The staff at the café just called it in. It seems that their boss has been MIA since Saturday night. She didn't show at the Spring Fling last night or work this morning. Cyra, I need you to hit that first, and then do the notifies.”