him, brows raised, he said, “Yeah, just far enough away to be sure they weren’t destroyed in the flames. Whoever the son of a bitch is, he wants to make it easy on us.”
His jaw was clenched, and Risa suddenly realized there was more going on here than a killer choosing arbitrary targets.
“So you’ve established a pattern in the victimology?”
Nate’s face was a grim mask. “Pretty hard to miss. If this one follows the same pattern, we’ll discover the victim is either currently on the job or he used to be on the force.”
Chapter 2
Nate raised his brows at Risa’s shocked silence. “So if you have any ideas, I’m all ears. I figure Wessels is grabbing at any straws he can and that’s why you’re here. I don’t put a whole lot of stock in profilers—”
“I’ve got more experience than—”
“But you used to be a cop,” he went on grimly. “Maybe a more than decent one, if the chief is requesting you. So if your instincts haven’t been destroyed by all this profiling crap, maybe you have something to offer. I don’t mind admitting that so far we’ve got jack shit.”
He seemed to have a knack for igniting her temper and disarming it in the next moment. It’d be difficult to recall the last time she heard a cop confess to a lack of direction in a case. So in the end, she ignored the slam embedded in the invitation. “You do like off-the-cuff assumptions, don’t you?” He’d made a similar demand of the ME, with a discernible lack of result. “Fine. You’re likely looking for a male. They make up eighty percent of arsonists, and those odds jump significantly when you figure in the statistics for serial homicide. Since the victims don’t seem to be chosen at random, the offender may be motivated by revenge.”
Justice had been a long time coming. The snippet from the dream flashed across her mind. Ignoring it, she continued. “The manner of death will be specific to his signature, rather than his MO. The use of fire means something to him emotionally, something connected to his past experiences.”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I got most of that from Jett. He also says the vast majority of arson is targeted at property.”
She gave a small smile. “That’s right. You aren’t looking for an arsonist per se, which is lucky because profiling arsonists can be an iffy proposition. I’m willing to bet this guy has a lot of instances of fire setting in his background, however. And if the link between the victims hold, you aren’t necessarily looking for a typical serial offender either.”
He nodded in the direction of the burned corpse. “All appearances to the contrary.”
“If this victim also turns out to be on the force, it’s likely the killer is retaliating for some perceived offense. Maybe the individuals are chosen specifically, or perhaps their selection is merely symbolic. At any rate, you’ll have already started looking for intersections in their case files.”
He slanted a look at her before nodding. “Haven’t found anything that pans out yet. First victim, Roland Parker, was a detective sergeant who retired out of the northeast division last year. Second was Detective Sherman Tull, central division. Parker’s widow wasn’t sure whether he knew the second victim or not. Tull was divorced a decade ago, so we’re still tracking down his ex. Talking to his friends. We do know the two men were never assigned to the same division as detectives or the same district as officers.”
“Maybe a task force they both served on,” she suggested. She hadn’t known any of the other detectives on the task force where she’d met Morales.
He shook his head. “Not that I’ve discovered so far.”
“But they were both detectives, rather than uniforms,” she mused. That in itself was a link. Much more than coincidence, especially if it held true with this latest victim. It suggested the killer knew the men. It would be difficult for the average citizen to make plainclothes detectives as cops.
“Detective.”
They both turned at the CSU tech’s call. “You’re going to want to see this.” They both walked over to where the man squatted, near the thicket of overgrown bushes that separated the clearing from the denser growth of trees a few yards away.
She and McGuire flanked the man as they crouched on either side of him. Based on what Nate had told her about the first two bodies, she’d fully expected to be summoned over to look at