“Oh great, what the hell does that mean?” asked Sophie.
“I don’t get your question,” said Manny.
She flipped her black hair from her face then put her hands on her hips.
“I mean, who goes around digging graves for the hell of it? And don’t give me that dumb-face thing, Williams. It doesn’t fit you.”
Manny exhaled. Sophie was progressing into a topnotch agent. With each case they worked, he saw her wheels turn faster than her typically sharp tongue. Yet sometimes her emotions, which played off the deep hurts of her past—as they did for most people—rose up and obliterated her logic. He wondered if her lack of beauty sleep was really the culprit or if she felt the same uneasiness about the situation at the graveyard.
He’d bet on the latter.
“Sophie. Take a deep breath and you tell me what it means. If it were you . . . why would you do it?” he said softly, his eyes scanning her face for the reaction he was hoping to see.
It didn’t take long.
“Good God, Williams, I wouldn’t do it. I’d rather have a great dinner or watch porn. But since you asked, you must mean other than the obvious intent to mess with us, or more likely, you.”
“Yep, I do.”
That’s my girl.
She hesitated. Her expression of confusion appeared, and then disappeared.
“Well, I could do a few things with an extra grave in the mix. I could switch bodies, sort of like a shell game, and see if you could figure out who was where and why I did it. But that would take a lot of time, and no matter how good I was or how late I worked in this cemetery, somebody would be bound to see me switching bodies, I’d guess.”
She shivered.
He didn’t blame her. They’d seen a bizarre display of body parts in San Juan, thanks to Josh’s adopted and insane brother, Caleb, yet the idea of defiling graves—as opposed to degrading bodies in a morgue—was way up the creep scale. Although both could cause nightmares of untold qualities, Manny believed.
“It wouldn’t be as noticeable if you’re just digging one grave. Normal course of business, right?” said Manny.
“Yeah. Not to mention the time it would take to do more than one, even with that backhoe Corner’s determined to kill himself with.”
“Hey, I ran that beast quite well,” defended Josh.
“Keep telling yourself that, big dog,” said Alex.
Manny ignored them and moved closer to Sophie.
“So what else?” he asked.
“Okay. When someone does something like this they could be looking for something,” said Sophie.
“Maybe, or, given the personality of our quasi-Argyle theory, he might be . . . ”
“. . . giving something, right?” finished Sophie.
Manny’s full-bodied profiler persona kicked in. He actually felt it. The way his brain worked disguised itself under the cover of a hate-love relationship. But he loved the way it worked in his mind today. At least most of it. It was like watching a movie in slow motion.
At the same time, he hated how the “gift” invaded his thinking process at the most private of moments. And there was no denying what his chosen profession had done to him personally, extracting a price that no one should have to pay.
Louise’s face passed over his mind.
No one should have to pay.
“Manny?” nudged Sophie.
“I’m here, just collecting my thoughts,” he answered.
Pity party later, Williams. Get your crap together.
“This kind of psychopath isn’t like the CEO of a company or even the manager of a fast-food store. Those people want to wield their authority directly, and they get their rise from ordering people to do what they don’t really like to do. They want to make sure people know who’s in charge,” said Manny.
“Which is a major power trip, but they don’t really play games, as a whole,” said Sophie, her eyes bright.
“You got it, Special Agent, so—”
“Are you saying this freak is screwing around and wants to tell us something? Really? ’Cause if that’s true, I’m not going to be happy and I’m going to have to beat the shit out of someone.”
“We’ll get you a sparring partner or a punching bag . . . because that’s exactly what I’m saying. What else could really be going on? We’ve just debunked the most likely scenario, at least in my mind, so whatever’s left is probably the truth,” said Manny. “I know. It’s another way to say what we’ve seen a few times. But these people can’t help themselves and remember what I said regarding the Ripper copycat. He has his own mark to make.”
“So that’s why Alex and I got the backhoe,” said Josh. “So we could test Manny’s theory.”
“Wait. You’ve already dug up the fifth grave? And you didn’t wait until Dean and I got here?” said Sophie.
Manny shook his head. “They’ve only dug to the point that a few more loads of dirt will get us to the coffin. You didn’t have to be here for the surface digging.” He grinned. “See? I’m sensitive to your sleep needs.”
“Whatever, Manny. I told you before that bullshitters can’t bullshit bullshitters.”
Her mouth twitched into a quick smile, one of his favorite traits about his long-time partner. She was fully aboard, and he needed her to be.
“Why yes, you have. At any rate, I do want all eyes on this part of the process. We have to make sure we don’t miss anything. You and Dean are as good as anyone with that.”
Glancing at Dean, he realized how quiet he’d been throughout the conversation. “Dean? Are you breathing?”
The forensics expert was scowling. “Breathing, yes. Trying to get my mind around this situation is a bit more difficult. If someone had checked out of reality like you suggest and had the intellect to match your Good Doctor, whom I’ve not met, then I anticipate there will be minimal physical evidence to provide us a clue as to who the gravedigger might be.”
“That’s a fair assumption, but—”
“Let me finish, Manny. The fact that they had someone dig these graves would help with that possibility, but if I understand this psycho type, that person would most certainly want to be here to put the final touches on the game, or whatever this is.” Dean stroked his beard, frowning harder than before.
Manny stayed silent.
“No matter how much information I could find on Argyle by Internet searches, I couldn’t find details that would be specific to his Bureau files anywhere. The fact that this person is duplicating some of those very actions can only mean that he or she had access to our confidential files.”
“That’s a remote possibility. We’ve been hacked a time or two. I think it more likely that this killer’s profile is similar to Argyle’s, like we’ve been discussing.”
“Copycat, almost?” asked Sophie. “So in the end, he’ll still be a wannabe?”
“Something like that,” answered Manny, feeling less confident than he sounded. What if Dean was right? Manny had dismissed the idea that Argyle had gotten further than Max Tucker in his endeavors to recruit converts at the Bureau. Argyle didn’t have his claws in that deep, right?
“Okay, enough of this talk. Let’s go see what this last hole in the ground has to show us,” said Josh.
Without another word, he and Alex climbed into the backhoe and headed south. Manny jumped into the SUV with Dean and Sophie. Ten minutes later, he watched a silver casket rise ever so slowly from the black Michigan soil.
Josh swung the oblong box to his right and, just as he began to ease it down, the chain slipped and the rear of the casket hit the ground with a loud thud. He watched as Josh frantically worked the levers to avoid a complete crash.
Whatever he did, it worked, and Manny felt the group’s collective sigh of relief as the front of the casket gently kissed the ground.
Alex jumped from the tractor’s cab, Josh right behind, much happier than the first time he’d exited the machine.
“Not bad, huh? That could have been way worse.”
“Yeah. I’ll give you that. The last thing we needed was whatever is inside that box to be scattered all over the ground.”
“You mean whomever,” said Josh softly, changing his demeanor as quickly as the Michigan weather.
“How do you know that someone’s in there?” asked Sophie, looking like she didn’t want to know the answer.
Manny knew what she meant.
“Because it felt heavy. Too heavy for just a coffin,” said Josh.
Manny moved toward the box.
“Only one way to find out for sure. Alex, grab that crowbar out of the tractor, and let’s see what we have.”
A minute later, Manny shoved the business end of the three-foot bar under the edge of the casket’s cover near the midway point and lifted. The top slid easily and fell to the ground.
He stepped closer and peered inside.