Ohioans are you anyway? It’s the state tree.” Duffy blew a puff of air out of his lips, turned, and walked out the door.
Well, shit.
Reed squinted at the picture of the brand on the board. It still looked like a marijuana leaf to him, but that was the problem with making an assumption and sticking to it. Sometimes it took a fresh pair of eyes to see something new in old information or evidence. “All right,” Reed said, taking the phone Jennifer was passing around and looking at the picture of a buckeye leaf she’d found. He looked from the phone to the board and back again, comparing. “It could be,” he admitted. “But even so, what the hell does that mean?”
“That our killer has hometown pride?” Ransom asked. They all ignored him.
“It seems even more random than a marijuana leaf,” Jennifer noted, and Reed didn’t disagree. It still seemed more probable that it was a marijuana leaf, as there was already drug—albeit prescription medications—connections to the murder victims. But Duffy had been an important reminder not to get too attached to an assumption.
Reed approached the board and wrote the names of the two types of leaves under the picture of the brand.
He turned back to Jennifer and Ransom. “Okay, what else?”
Jennifer turned a page in her notebook. “You asked me to get the information on the person who called in Toby Resnick’s murder.”
“Right,” Reed said, picturing the man who’d been positioned on the pile of rancid trash in the alleyway.
“It was a sanitation worker,” Jennifer said. “He just showed up on his regular shift to pick up the trash in the alley.” She flipped the page. “He didn’t recognize the victim. He called it in and left the scene as it was.”
“Do you have his name and address?” He looked over at his partner. “It might be worth paying him a visit and interviewing him ourselves. Get as much information as possible.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ransom said.
Jennifer ripped a sheet of paper from her pad and handed it to Reed with the name Milo Ortiz and an address below that.
The door opened and their sergeant entered the room. His expression was grim. Reed’s heart sank. “Don’t tell me—”
“Another victim,” he said, nodding. “This one isn’t dead though.”
The three detectives looked back and forth between each other quickly. “Is he talking?” Ransom asked.
The sergeant shook his head. “The doctors are saying it doesn’t look good. The guy went splat from the top of the building that houses the adult parole offices.” Reed flinched, picturing the tall, gray-stone building on Broadway Street.
“Christ Almighty,” he murmured under his breath. Another falling victim? “He’s got the same brand?”
“Yup,” the sergeant said, pointing at the picture of the brand stuck on the board. “That one.”
“Which hospital?”
“UC Medical.”
“Any ID?”
“Not yet, but the guy had the name of a parole officer in the building in his pocket, so the officers first on scene were headed to see him when I got the call.”
Reed and Ransom started gathering their things. “I’ll start in on this,” Jennifer said, holding up her pad with the notes she’d taken on it. “Update me with anything.”
“Ditto,” Ransom said as he and Reed headed for the door, Reed saying a silent prayer that this guy, whoever he was, would pull through and help them catch this bastard.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Liza’s heels clicked on the tile floor as she speed-walked toward the nurses’ desk. Just before she reached it, the door on the other side opened. Her heart leapt. “Reed,” she said as he stepped through. She headed toward him. “What’s going on?”
When he’d called her half an hour before, he’d told her only that he needed her to meet him at UC Hospital and he’d tell her more when she arrived. She couldn’t imagine what it was about, but she had a sinking feeling it wasn’t good.
Reed took her gently by her arm and led her down the hall in the other direction from which she’d come. When they were several feet away from the nurses’ station, he stopped, looking into her eyes. His forehead furrowed as he glanced down the hall and then back to her. “We got a call a little while ago about another victim. Someone apparently jumped or was pushed off the top of a building downtown.”
Oh God. “Like the other victims on the news,” she said, blinking at him.
“Yes, like the other victims. These victims have a . . . mark on them. It hasn’t been released to the