"You with the feds?" said a man in a brown uniform standing next to a green and beige vehicle, with the word Sheriff written across the side.
Agent Sawyer frowned as he stepped out of the taxi he'd taken from the airport, pocketing his phone, and moving towards the scene of the crime.
He ignored the sheriff for second, his attention caught by the building behind him. "Thought we were meeting at the scene," he said, his frown deepening.
"This is it," the sheriff replied, waving towards the steps leading up to the high school doors. Caution tape blocked the entrance to the stairway, and a couple of other police officers stood near a sawhorse at the end of the parking lot, blocking access.
Agent Sawyer shivered for a moment, one foot on the street, the other on the curb. His eyes flicked to the Eugene public high school, then to the caution tape, and he swallowed back a sudden growl threatening to rise in his throat. The photos he'd surveyed on the plane had shown the stairs, but not the school itself. The review hadn't mentioned it. Ramsey's doing? The supervising agent knew how Sawyer got when kids were involved—was this payback?
He shook his head. He couldn't afford to let distractions in.
"Need a moment?" The sheriff asked.
"I'm fine. Just don't like cases that involve kids," he said, quickly. He could feel his stomach twisting, could feel his mind threatening to go back. Back to her. But if there was one place he had no interest in visiting, it was that particular set of memories, and so he shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, and peered out at the sheriff from beneath his baseball cap.
"You don't mind me saying, sir," said the sheriff, "I was told you'd look," he paused, considered his words, and said, "casual.” The sheriff shrugged, "Do you mind if I see identification?”
Tom sighed, use to this by now. He didn't exactly look agency official. Then again, he wasn't here to play dress-up. He fished his badge out of his pocket, flashed it quick and stowed it again. The sheriff looked hesitant, almost as if he wanted to ask for another peek at the thing, but Sawyer cut him off. "Body was found here?" He indicated the stairs.
"Just within the caution tape. Already cleaned up, at the coroner's." The sheriff blanched. "At least, the pieces we could find."
Sawyer glanced over. "There are missing pieces?"
"Not exactly. It was just messy. Very messy." The sheriff took a step towards the stairs, and lifted the caution tape, allowing Sawyer to duck under. The two men emerged at the bottom of the marble steps facing the front doors of the high school. There were no streaks of red, no stains at all. The only indication that something had happened was how clean the stairs were. Especially for a high school.
"Chopped them to bits in his office," the sheriff said, pointing towards the front of the school. "Then dragged the pieces out, far as I can tell, one at a time. Arranged them on the steps."
"Into a letter A," said Sawyer, quietly. "That right?"
The sheriff bobbed his head. He lowered his hat, fanning his face for a moment, revealing neat, combed hair, despite the headwear. Some men just managed to keep it like that.
“Anything else? They clean up the office, too?"
"Yeah. School's gonna be in session next week. Didn't feel right leaving it all scattered. We got pictures. Went through it, tooth and nail."
Sawyer and the sheriff both winced at the poorly chosen expression. "They're saying the guy got to him while Mr. Hubbard was still alive," Sawyer said, quietly.
The sheriff nodded. "Initial report from the coroner says so. If you give me your email, I can send it to you."
"Any chance I could get a printed file?"
The sheriff looked mildly approving. "Old school? Yeah, for sure. In fact, I can give you mine. Just in the backseat. I'll print another."
“Obliged."
"Right, well...” The sheriff trailed off, his voice quieting now. “This is the second one. We had another like it three days ago."
"Another letter. F, yeah?"
The sheriff nodded, wincing and rubbing a hand through his neat hair.
Both men stood near the marble steps, staring at the phantom corpse in their imaginations, examining the way it had been scattered on the stairs. Sawyer had already been through the initial crime scene photos on the plane. Now, though, facing the steps, reality seemed even stranger, more gruesome.
The fellow in question, the killer, was brazen in a way that made his skin crawl. The guy had stalked into a school, killed one of the teachers, and then chopped him to pieces. Not necessarily in that order. He then dragged the pieces out to the front steps where anyone could have seen in the parking lot or passing by on the road. He'd arranged the body parts into a big letter A, likely taking more than one trip. He'd done the same thing three days ago with another man, also a teacher, also in his fifties, nearing retirement. Two bodies in three days, cut to shreds.
Sawyer shivered. "He's bold," he said, murmuring. "Bold and cruel."
The sheriff fanned himself again. "Fa," he said. "Fa," he repeated, frowning and wrinkling his nose. "It's ghoulish but think anything about what he might be spelling?"
Sawyer scratched at his unshaved chin. His fingers still smelled like sawdust from work earlier that morning. He dusted his hands against his jeans. "Faith? Failure? Fate?"
"You don't know either?"
"Mhmm."
The two men stood facing the stairs, both of them drifting into silence for a moment. "Think I could see that room?"
The sheriff's head bobbed. "The office? Sure. Couldn't hurt. But like I said, it's cleaned up also. Not much to see."
"Any little bit helps."
The sheriff moved across the stairs, avoiding the cleanest portion of the steps. He lifted the caution tape on the other side of the stairs and together the two men ducked under, heading towards the doors. As they walked, slowly, the sheriff said, "If this guy is as brazen as you say he is, he's doubly twisted. It's sick. In all my years I've never seen anything like it. What sort of person would do something like this? I can't even imagine the sort of mind it would take."
Tom stopped for a moment, standing in front of the glass doors. He glanced towards the sheriff, frowning. He agreed in a way. He wasn't sure what sort of mind would chop bodies and form letters either. Then again, he did know someone who specialized exactly in that area. On a case like this, judging by the way it was affecting even someone like Supervisor Rawley, he wondered if perhaps a little bit of expertise might give him the leg up that he needed. The last case he worked with her, she'd managed to get into the killer's mind then, too; maybe she'd have a thought about this one. Everything else was sanitized, clean, documented as pictures and opinions.
But Ilse Beck? Maybe she'd be able to sniff out something the locals couldn't spot.
He glanced towards his phone. One of the two numbers he'd saved. He wasn't sure why. There was just something about her. Something in the quiet, intelligent way she listened, analyzed, then acted. He liked to move on instinct, following his gut. But Ilse, she had studied this stuff. Not just for crime solving purposes. She'd spent years, decades, delving deep into the minds of sadists and killers.
Maybe it was time he gave her a call. The last thing he wanted was to face Agent Rawley without a closure. And like he'd told the sheriff: every little bit helped.