As it turned out, each bag contained a floating body part, surrounded by chunks of fat and dark blood.
“Handy, huh?” Frank said, holding up a bag. Inside, the shiny white strip read KIDNEY. “Laminated for your legibility.”
I flipped open the freezer compartment. Another twelve bags, these with ice crystals shining amidst frozen red chunks.
But no head. No hands. No feet.
I moved back to the fridge, pushing around the other twenty-four bags laid out on the three plastic shelves.
Experts in physiology will tell you there are seventy-eight organs in the human body. But what constitutes an organ is not a cut-and-dried scientific fact. Some doctors will argue that tissue groups “are in,” bringing the total closer to a hundred. As I glanced at the labels floating in each bag, I saw the mainstays: Gallbladder. Kidney. Brain. Pancreas. Lung.
Frank pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of a smaller bag.
“This one had an index finger in it,” he said. “I sent it to the Albuquerque office last night for identification.”
I inspected the photo.
“Results should be in within the hour,” Frank said. “But at first blush … guy leaves a finger to print? You got a game player on your hands, Gardner.”
The compressor on the fridge kicked on, and a rattling noise vibrated off the kitchen walls. I had taken apart home appliances as a child. Either the compressor piston was jostling loose or one of the rubber feet at the bottom of the unit had come free.
“The killer had a vacuum sealer with him,” I said. “And a label maker.” I pointed toward the bathroom. “Cleaning supplies. Bleach. I don’t see any skin. Where’s the rest of Fisher? Where’s the murderer’s equipment?”
Shooter walked into the kitchen, and her eyes took in the bags. “Jesus, is that him?”
“We’re checking on that,” Frank said.
Cassie walked in behind her, with Richie in tow.
Shooter pointed at the fridge. “Our vic.”
“Wow.” Cassie examined the bags. “A little extra, don’t you think?”
“It’s a small detail”—Shooter motioned back toward the bedroom—“but there’s a blood smear on the dust ruffle of the master bed. Two reddish paw prints on the carpet.”
Frank nodded. “I had the local cops take a puppy out of there. White shih tzu, mouth covered in blood. I figure the little guy hid under the bed with a piece of Fisher. Maybe during the cutting.”
As Frank spoke, I made a mental composite of the organs I’d seen so far, searching for a pattern. But they came from multiple systems, from circulatory to digestive to respiratory.
“I guess the killer didn’t give a shit tzu about who was gonna take care of the puppy,” Shooter said.
“Doggone right.” Frank chuckled.
Being funny, I thought.
A hard task for me. Still, I could try.
“At this point,” I said, “with organs in bags, anything is poss-ible.” I pronounced the last word slowly, in parts.
“True,” Shooter said.
“Paws-ible?” I repeated.
Frank and Shooter glanced at me, but didn’t laugh.
“I need ten minutes to get organized,” I said, moving past my failed attempt at humor. “Then I’ll have assignments for each of you.”
I circled back to the front door, then walked slowly from room to room.
The master bedroom barely looked lived in. Unsurprising, for a man who had been out of prison just two days. Three outfits in the top dresser drawer. Two more, dirty, in a white plastic laundry basket in the corner. The bed was made with a perfect hospital tuck. You could bounce a quarter off the top sheet.
The rest of the house lacked any mementos or personalization. The spare room contained a twin bed and one dresser, but nothing was in it.
Moving back to the kitchen, I opened every cupboard but found them all bare, except for two containers of salt, one of pepper, and a box of Safeway-brand coffee filters. Off the kitchen, a sliding glass door led out to a back lawn made of white rocks. Exactly six diminutive dog turds lay among the stones.
I turned to Richie and Shooter, the latter of whom was using a gloved hand to move the bags on the top shelf around. The others were elsewhere in the house.
“You took anatomy, right, Richie?” I asked.
“It’s Rich,” Shooter said without looking up.
I ignored her remark. “Take an Uber to the closest hardware store. Pick up some five mil plastic sheeting and the heaviest folding table they sell.”
“Got it,” Richie said.
“Video every bag as you take it out.” I motioned at the refrigerator. “Then set up the table right here.” I pointed at the middle of the kitchen. “Tape your sheeting down and start laying out the organs relative to where they’d be in the body. I want to find out what’s here, what our suspect took with him, and what the dog ate.” I turned to Shooter. “That dog…”
“You want his stool?” Her eyes glimmered. “I know how you feel about stool.”
“Have Animal Control quarantine the dog and get it for you,” I said. “I want you out at Otero.” The prison that had been Fisher’s home for the last decade. “See who visited this old guy in the last year. Relatives. Parents of victims—”
“It’s been almost four decades since the murders,” Shooter said. “Most of his victims’ parents have gotta be dead or elderly.”
“Statistically, that sounds accurate,” I said. “But I’m sure he got visitors. Maybe it was the kids of victims. Brothers and sisters. Murder groupies.”
“Got it,” she said, turning to grab her stuff.
I found Cassie in the living room. “Can we talk outside?”
“Sure,” she said, following me out to a spot on the unkempt lawn.
“When’s the last time you read up on Barry Fisher?”
“Not since the Academy.”
For Cassie, that was nearly six years ago. She’d logged two years in data science at Quantico, then worked two in the field in Denver before something went awry with a supervisor. She had never told us what happened.
“You never checked the file out as a side project?” I asked, knowing her proclivities for research. “Perused it when you were bored?”
“No,” she said.
“Me neither. So that’s a circle of two. That’s our trust circle.”
Cassie squinted at me. “You want to know every agent who checked out Tignon and Fisher?”
“I do.”
“Have you proven the two are connected?”
“We’ve proven nothing,” I said.
“Pffft.” She blew air up toward her bangs. “You think it’s someone at the FBI?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” I said. “Coordinate with the EAD for Tech and use my name.” This was Marly Dureaux, the executive assistant director for Science and Technology in Quantico. “I want a list of every agent who looked into Tignon and Fisher in the last two years. And that information is for you and me only.”
“Gardner,” Cassie said, “Barry Fisher’s file is one of the go-to projects for NATs at BFTC. There’s gonna be four hundred names on that list.”
BFTC, or basic field training course, was a nineteen-week testing period that every new agent trainee, or NAT, had to go through.
“I acknowledge it might be a long list,” I said. “I need it anyway.”
“Heard,” she said. “What else?”
I thought for a moment about my role in the investigation. Why the director had picked me to lead it. Was it as simple as what Frank had said?
“Fisher’s file.” I was sure Frank had it in his briefcase, but for reasons I could not explain, I did not want to ask him for it. “I need the full abstract on Fisher via email. And fast.”
“Easy,” Cassie replied. “But lemme clarify something on the search for who checked out both files. When you say ‘a trust circle of two’ … you mean three, right? You, me, and Frank?”
“Cassie, you’ve known me for two years,” I said. “We’ve been partners for one. So you know I always mean exactly what I say.”
“Gotch,” she said. “Just me and you.” Cassie pulled her hair back from her forehead and her lips grew thin and pale. I knew her well enough to see that my request had caused her anxiety. “You want me to set up a base camp?” she asked. “A hotel nearby? Somewhere I can actually do this work?”
“Can you?” I asked. “Get six rooms. One for each of us, and an adjoining one to mine as a meeting space for the team?”
“Donezo.”
“And interview Fisher’s brother.”
Cassie balked. “I thought Frank did that last night.”
“He did,” I said. But I wanted to leverage a particular persistence Cassie was famous for. “Do it again, please.”
Shooter came out of the house then, her work bag under her left arm. She was talking on her cell with Animal Control and headed for the SUV.
“I’m hitching a ride with you,” Cassie said, jumping in.
Shooter backed out, and they left. I turned to the rental home, three questions moving through my head.
First: how had someone located Tignon and Fisher, both of whom were living off the radar? Second: who wanted them dead? And third: were the cases really connected?
Inside, Frank loitered between the kitchen and the living room.
“Everyone else seems to have a job,” he said, raising one of his perfect eyebrows. “What about me, boss man?”
“You and I are going to brainstorm,” I said. “There are some holes here. For instance, until we get that ID, we’re not absolutely sure that’s Fisher in the refrigerator. Or that this crime and the one in Texas are connected.”
“What’s giving you pause?” Frank asked.
“The knife work,” I said. “Here, it’s precise. In Tignon’s murder, the cuts were messy. Amateurish. Hurried.”
“So you’re not convinced it’s the same killer?”
I hesitated. It wasn’t about being convinced.
“I just ID’d a body in Texas that I declared dead seven years ago, Frank,” I said. “Until we’re a hundred percent, let’s keep an open mind. Call everything a working theory.”
“Sure,” Frank said.
“Fisher’s brother.” I cocked my head. “He tell anyone he was putting the ex-con up here?”
Frank shook his head. “Incognito. Why?”
“Something feels wrong.”
“Well, you pointed out the differences with the knife cuts,” Frank said. “But the two cases have other things in common. Both men’s whereabouts were unknown. Both were white, both were male, and most importantly, both were serial killers.”
I thought of Frank’s weekly speeches on assumptions and bias. Now that I was the lead, was the shoe on the other foot?
“You ever hear the story Nabokov told about coincidence?” I asked.
Frank shook his head.
“A man loses a cuff link in the ocean. Twenty years later, on the exact same day of the week, on a Friday, he’s eating this enormous fish. You know what he finds inside?”
“The cuff link?” Frank asked.
“Fish meat,” I said. “No cuff link.”
Frank stared at me.
“I’d put it at sixty-three percent,” I said, “that the cases are connected. But until that ID comes in—”
“Everything’s a working theory,” Frank finished. He shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning up. “I’m gonna use that story, Gardner. Maybe on Richie. Definitely on the wife.”
“Consider it yours.”
We heard the front door open, and Richie was back. He carried a folding table gripped in one hand, and a roll of plastic under the other arm. Ready to lay out the organs.
Frank’s phone buzzed.
“Albuquerque,” he said, holding it up. He made small talk before asking the question. Then hung up a moment later with a nod.
“The finger belonged to Barry Fisher?”
“DNA confirmed it,” he said.
“All right.” I gestured to the front of the house. “You ready to talk this through?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let’s start with Fisher,” I said. “But we’ll go through both crimes in parallel.”
We headed to the front, and I opened the door, turning so one way gave me a view out to the street, the other toward Richie in the kitchen.
“Someone comes to Fisher’s door,” I said. “Let’s say it’s a stranger.”
“Most likely scenario for a guy who’s been in prison for the last thirty-one years,” Frank said.
“‘What do you want?’ Fisher asks.”
“I’m selling something,” Frank said. “Candy. Pest Control. Cable TV.”
“I don’t want any of that. I’m old. An ex-con.”
“Something’s broken,” Frank offered. “TV antenna. Gas meter. Water pipe.”
I thought of Texas and Ross Tignon. Cassie and I had gone through the same exercise before the Dallas agents arrived. In Texas, we’d suspected the killer had come prepared with something in a needle to subdue Tignon.
I pointed at the front entrance. “Let’s say Barry invites the killer in. If he gets incapacitated right here, someone’s gotta move him twenty feet around that corner to the tub to cut him up.” I glanced at the path from the front door to the hall bath. “It takes size to drag size. How big was Fisher?”
Frank brought up a photo on his phone, taken at Otero on January 10, the Friday before Fisher’s release. The man in the photo had wavy white hair and a thick beard.
“Five foot six,” Frank said. “A hundred and fifty pounds.”
An easy drag.
“I’m going to collect a sample of the bleach in the tub,” I said, leading us into the bathroom. “Then let’s drain this.”
Frank grabbed my kit and handed me two gallon-size bags and a small cup. We filled one of the bags, sealed it, and placed it in the sink. Frank peeled back an evidence sticker and attached it to the bag’s side, writing a notation with the date, time, and his signature.
The tub held twenty or thirty gallons of bleach. Had no one seen a person going in and out with a few dozen bottles of Clorox? Had no neighbor heard a saw going as Fisher was being cut up?
Something heavy thudded in the kitchen.
“I’m okay!” Richie hollered.
I glanced at Frank with questioning eyes. Did we need a rookie?
“Be patient, Gardner.”
Getting on my knees, I leaned over the tub. Pulling the stopper, I drained the rest of the bleach. Ran two gloved fingers along the side of the porcelain, above and below the waterline.
I held them up. “If this was where someone chopped up Fisher, and this bleach is a countermeasure, they scrubbed the inside real well before dumping it in.” I thought of a UV test, to check for the telltale blood smears of a cleanup operation.
“You got a theory yet?” Frank asked. “For all these interesting unknowns?”
I hesitated. With the body in bags, establishing a time of death would be challenging.
“Ross Tignon was killed between eleven a.m. and one p.m. on Sunday,” I said, standing up. “Six hundred and fifty-one miles from here.”
“Check,” Frank said.
“If the two crimes are committed by the same person, then the suspect either flew or drove here from Ashland, Texas. But you’d also imagine the killer would want to sit on this house for at least a half day after arriving in New Mexico. See if anyone’s coming or going.”
“Especially if he’s about to spend this much time inside, cutting Fisher up,” Frank said.
“So in a one-killer theory, let’s say our suspect left Texas immediately after killing Tignon.”
“Sunday afternoon?”
“By plane, it’s a short flight,” I said. “One hour and forty minutes to El Paso, plus the drive. You also pick up one hour going west. If you drive, it’s nine hours less the one.”
“So if he flies, he’s here by Sunday early evening. Call it six p.m.,” Frank said. “Monday morning at one a.m. if he drives.”
I pictured a horizontal timeline, with colored dots populating key moments. At the far right was Fisher’s brother Kenny discovering the body. Tuesday, 12:30 p.m. To the left was our estimated TOD for Tignon in Texas: Sunday, between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m.
Forty-eight hours in between.
“If it’s the same killer, and he flies, he has to procure equipment here in New Mexico,” I said. “Gear to cut up a body. To bag it. Clean up afterwards. That could take hours and produce a lot of receipts. A lot of witnesses.”
“You’re betting he drove?”
“If it’s one guy, yes,” I said. “Less paperwork. And easier to bring tools you’re familiar with.”
“With either method of transportation, we’re talking about someone being in here all day,” Frank said. “But if he drives, he’s cutting that time even shorter. Including time to case the house.”
“It’s a lot of risk,” I agreed. “Coming into a strange town. A house owned by a relative.”
Plus, the killer had moved quickly. Travel to arrival to bagging in under forty-eight hours.
“You thinking it’s too much for one person?” Frank asked.
I thought of the time frame, hour by hour. The killer had to sleep. Eat. Did he stop along the way from Texas? Did he get here later on Monday than we imagined?
“Breaking down the body is a six-hour job, minimum,” I said. “The cut, gut, and bleed-out is two hours. The skinning, two. And that’s if you’re experienced with animals. Quartering the body. Bone breaking. Grinding. The smaller cuts.”
“Don’t forget the bagging and labeling,” Frank said.
I glanced at the tub again. The pristine tub.
I was guessing I might already have the full abstract on Barry Fisher via email from Cassie. It would offer more background on the victim. Still, a theory was percolating.
“What is it?” Frank asked.
And for the first time in four years, I lied to Frank.
“Nothing,” I said. “I have to go through each room. One hour. Part of my process.”
Frank stared at me, leaning against the bathroom door. Was he reading my mind?
“Leading a case isn’t something small that you tack on to other work, Gardner,” he said. “Oversight and leadership take time.”
“I know.”
“So you assign process now. You check on Richie. You call my boss tomorrow morning and report in. So would you like me to spend an hour in each room?”
Frank was right. But he was also too skilled an agent to be inventorying a mostly empty house. A place that Fisher had only moved into two days ago. Especially when I had a theory rattling around my head.
“No,” I said. “Richie can do that. Why don’t you crawl under the house?” I grabbed a pair of coveralls from the kit and held them out. “Take apart the drain pipe beneath the tub. If this is our kill site, something’s down that trap.”
Frank glanced down at his two-thousand-dollar suit. Then at the coveralls.
“Of course,” he said. “Not a problem.”
“When you’re done under there, and there’s less natural light coming in these windows”—I motioned around the bathroom—“can you set up a UV light above the tub? See how clean this place really is.”
“You got it.”
I headed out to the back patio. Laid my laptop on the lawn chair by the white rocks. I closed the sliding glass door that led out from the kitchen, blocking out the noise of Richie arranging the bags that contained Fisher’s organs.
I sat down and opened the file Cassie had emailed me about Barry Fisher.
And I began reading about one of the most gruesome killers in FBI history.