Reed held both photos up next to each other and they took a moment to look back and forth between the two. There was only an edge that could be seen clearly on the neck of the jumper, but the longer Reed compared the two, the more certain he became.
“I think they’re the same,” he said, glancing at Ransom for his take.
“Agreed. Shame we can’t identify him.”
Dr. Westbrook shook his head. “Unfortunately, his hands were so mutilated, I couldn’t even get prints. And no one reported him missing. At the time I figured he was most likely homeless. But it was hard to tell from his clothing after what happened to him. His clothes didn’t fare much better than his body did on that highway.”
“The brand had to be premortem,” Reed mused aloud. “An officer would have been on scene in minutes for a call like that.”
“The only thing I can say for sure is that it was new,” Dr. Westbrook said. “His skin hadn’t begun healing when he died.”
Reed studied the photo for another moment, but nothing else struck him. “Can we get a copy of this?” he asked, holding up the photograph of John Doe’s neck area.
Dr. Westbrook pulled an identical photo out of the file. “I figured you’d want one.” He handed the copy to Reed. “Let me know if you come up with any questions.”
**********
“All right,” Ransom said, pinning the picture of the unnamed jumper up on the board next to the photograph of Margo Whiting. “For now, we’re separating these three victims”—he pointed to the board holding the photographs of the eyeless men—“with these two.” He tapped the board holding John Doe and Margo Whiting’s photos. “However, all five of them share the same leaf brand.”
Reed tapped his pen to his pad. Out of the team members currently working the case, they were the only ones in the office. They’d have to update the others about their visit to Dr. Westbrook later. “So, they’re two distinct groups, under some sort of umbrella,” he said, his eyes focused on the board and all the information they’d collected so far.
“They have to be, right?” Ransom asked.
“Maybe,” Reed answered. “Unless the two victims who died from a fall were mistakes. Maybe they ran from the suspect and fell, or maybe they ran from him and jumped before he had a chance to kill them and remove their eyes in the same manner as the others. We have to save that as a possibility. But it now seems more likely to me that their deaths were purposeful.”
“Why?” Ransom asked.
Reed looked at him. “Because there are two of them now. Two victims, same manner of death, same brand. Speaking of the brand, it had to be done beforehand. Dr. Westbrook could only say that it was new. But there’s no possibility the suspect had a chance to do it after John Doe’s fall.”
“True,” Ransom said. “So he brands these people when they’re alive, and then kills them in one of two ways afterward, either by pushing them to their death, or strangling them with a wire. And then the ones he strangles, he removes their eyes, sprays black paint into the sockets, and positions them.”
“Yes,” Reed answered. “The other question is, why brand these people when they’re alive?” When his partner furrowed his brow, he went on. “I mean, I see why with the victims who fell. There wasn’t opportunity to brand their body after death. But with these three”—he pointed to the three men with empty eye sockets—“it would have been easier to brand them at the same time he performed the enucleations. As it was, he’d have to have abducted them somehow—possibly at gunpoint—and then held them somewhere where he then branded them, and eventually strangled them to death.”
“So the strangulation wasn’t a surprise.”
“It might have been. But they were already being held somewhere. He branded them before they were killed.”
“Which means what?” Ransom asked.
Reed put his hands in his pockets, jangling the loose change he’d dropped in there after buying lunch, as he considered Ransom’s question. “That he wanted them to know they were being marked. He wanted them to know what it meant before they died. And why.”
“If only the dead could talk,” Ransom muttered.
“If only,” Reed agreed.
**********
“Hey, Zach,” Reed said, poking his head into his office.
Zach tossed the file he was looking through aside and smiled as Reed entered. “This is a surprise. What brings you to District Five?”