Page 18 of Dropping Like Flies

Brownlow shook his head. “Nothing of use. Lots of guilt and recrimination, but that’s nothing new.”

“Guilt about what?” Griffin asked.

“That they didn’t come round and find out what was going on when they heard the disturbance, that if they had, they might have stopped it from happening,” Brownlow said.

“What made them call it in?” I asked.

Brownlow gave a wry smile. “The bedroom light staying on, would you believe? They found it suspicious. Said he never slept with it on. It was enough for the husband to come knocking. At which point, he found the back door open.”

“Why does he leave doors open?” I mused aloud. “That’s three times out of the five that we discovered the body more quickly because he left the door open.”

“In a hurry to leave?” Griffin theorized.

I shook my head. “It just seems sloppy compared to everything else. He’s not leaving fingerprints. He’s not leaving any evidence behind except for the symbols and the body. It just seems unnecessary.”

Griffin rubbed his chin, stubble rasping beneath his fingertips. “You think he wants them to be discovered more quickly? Why? What would that achieve?”

“No idea.” It was worth thinking about, though. I might not have investigated a serial killer before, but like any other police officer, I’d done my fair share of reading up on them, both in terms of cases and psychological profiling. Sometimes they wanted to be stopped. Was that what was going on here? Did we have a killer who couldn’t control himself and wanted someone else to do it for him? It would fit with why there had been so many murders in such a short time. That fact alone screamed a lack of control.

Brownlow cleared his throat. “We’ll interview the neighbors again once things have calmed down a bit and they’re not operating on adrenaline. See if they can think of anything else useful.”

I nodded, various theories running through my head at lightning speed. Uniformed police would also canvas the neighborhood, just to put together a more complete picture of Rupert Shaw. Neighbors always noticed stuff, even if they pretended not to. Once Brownlow drifted away, the only thing left to do was take the few steps down the hallway to the bedroom. I wished I could say that this part got easier, but it never did, even when you could predict exactly what was waiting for you.

Chapter Seven

Griffin

I’d never been one to watch police shows or true crime documentaries, even when I’d had a detective as a fiancé, so this was proving to be quite the eye-opener. The house swarmed with people, all of them with a job to do, and managing it without hindering each other. It was like a well-choreographed dance that everyone knew the steps to apart from me.

Watching Ben at work was quite the revelation. Gone was the snarky man from the car who’d complained about the smell of alcohol just to piss me off, and in his place was a polished detective, efficient and professional to a T. Well, unless you counted that one flippant comment about where the murderer kept the dismembered fingers, but I guess everyone had to let off steam somehow.

I lifted my gaze to find another of the crime scene technicians staring at me. As soon as I met her gaze, she looked away. I guess I couldn’t blame them for their curiosity. Ben’s introduction as a specialist came without elaboration, leaving them wondering just what kind of specialist I was.

Ben paused to look back over his shoulder just shy of the bedroom doorway. “Are you ready for this?”

Was I? Probably not. I might have seen more dead bodies than most of the young police constables present tonight had had hot dinners as part of my role in the PPB. But they’d all died of natural causes, usually tucked up in bed beneath pastel sheets, or in the hospital. But this… this was something else.

Either my expression or my silence gave me away, Ben coming to a stop. “Listen, we can—”

“I’m fine.” If there was one thing I never did, it was show weakness, and I didn’t intend to start now. Ben gave a nod, and we both stepped inside the room.

My gaze went to the bed first, only to find it empty. For a split second, I imagined a scenario where there’d been a mistake and we could all go home. Wishful thinking at its finest. Then I saw the body. Not on the bed, but sprawled halfway across the threshold of an open door. Presumably an en suite bathroom. A man in full body coveralls crouched at the side of body, Ben and him exchanging a nod.

Just like many others had done, his gaze slid across to me. Unlike the others, his lingered, though, his eyes narrowing in a way that told me he was about three seconds from telling me to get the fuck away from his crime scene. Ben interjected before he could. “Patrick, this is Griffin Caldwell. He’s been assigned as a specialist to the case. Griffin, this is Patrick Holmes, the home office pathologist. He’s attended all of Satanic Romeo’s crime scenes and carried out the post mortems as well.”

Patrick’s scowl didn’t shift as he stood. “What sort of specialist? And why is this the first I’m hearing about it?”

A valid question. And not one I’d be attempting to answer. No, I’d leave that to Ben. Not that he seemed in a hurry to answer, the long pause and the study of his feet screaming of playing for time. “We’ll get to that,” he eventually said. “First things first, though. What have we got?”

Patrick subjected me to a few more seconds of scrutiny before returning to the job at hand. He jerked his head to the open door behind him. “Body isn’t on the bed, as you can see. Theory is he made a break for the bathroom. There’s a lock on the door, so he probably thought he could lock himself in and wait his attacker out.”

It was a shame the poor bastard hadn’t succeeded. If he had, I’d still be in bed and he could have told the police what they needed to know about his attacker without me ever needing to get involved. Job done. No more having Ben shoved in my face as a reminder of what could have been if things had worked out differently. I could have returned to my life of whiskey and avoiding work. None of that had happened, though. Which meant I needed to look at the body. I mean, I had looked at it, but I hadn’t looked at it.

I dropped my gaze to it, trying to study it with a dispassionate air. His position was awkward, half in and half out of the doorway, his torso propped up by the doorjamb, the dark head of hair lolling to one side. Naked. Young. Lean rather than muscular. Blood. Lots of blood. Presumably from the missing digits, the reality of seeing it first-hand far worse than the photos had been.

Patrick’s voice cut through the buzzing in my head. “Is your specialist going to be sick? Because if so, he needs to get out of here before he contaminates the scene.”

Ben’s gaze shot to me, alarm present in his eyes. “I’m fine,” I said before he could ask. “It’s just…” I let my gaze drift around the small bedroom. Or maybe it wasn’t small. Maybe it just seemed it because of all the people in it. Photographs—the camera flash going off at regular intervals. Discussions. “It’s just a lot,” I said.

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