“No, our boy likes to drink and drive. The state revoked his license in 2010.”
Dane looked back down at the plastic card. “Is the address current?”
“We’ve got local PD up in Cobb County sitting on it until our people can get out there. The GBI is heading that up. I figured you’d know that. And before you ask, that same wallet had nearly six hundred dollars in it—cash. It’s bagged and tagged already if you want to see it.”
“No, I don’t need to see it, but you’re assuming that means this wasn’t a robbery.”
“I never assume anything, Kirby. It just means that if he was robbed, all this had to be for something a lot more valuable than the fat wad of cash in his wallet.”
Dane handed the ID back to Roselita. “Is there a reason to think there was something more valuable in his possession?”
“The girl who works up front believes so.” Roselita checked the notebook again. “Abigail Boardman. She’s the one who called it in after the fire set off the smoke detector. She’s also the one who checked him in. She told the first officers on the scene that the deceased had a suitcase with him when he showed up this afternoon in the office. She said he seemed pretty protective of it. He didn’t even want to set it down when he paid for the room.”
“And I’m guessing there’s no suitcase to be found anywhere in here?”
“Nope.”
“Where is the girl now?”
“EMTs took her and another employee, a Cuban illegal named Mario Cruz, over to Northside Hospital.”
“Were they hurt as well?”
“Not like this.” She motioned to the body on the floor. “The girl was burned. She tried to put out the fire with that blanket you saw outside. She did a good job, too, but she took a few second-degree burns to her hands and wrists. Nothing too bad, but enough to get her checked out, and both kids were pretty shook up. The Mario kid especially.”
“How does he fit into this?”
“He claims to have seen one of the dirtbags who did this. Got a good look, too—up close. And yes, there’s a sketch artist at the hospital to get a description.”
“One of the dirt bags? As in plural killers?”
“Yeah, the kid said he was ninety-nine percent sure there was another man in the room, but he didn’t get a look at that one at all.”
“So how does he know?”
“The screaming.” Roselita stuck her notebook back into her jacket. “He heard the screaming. So unless Blackwell was in here doing this to himself, I think it’s safe to assume there was someone else in here carving him up while the kid was getting in some face time with the other one.”
“So what did the kid actually see?”
Roselita pulled in a deep breath, holding the air in her cheeks, and then slowly let it out.
“An Asian man, short, about five two, in his midthirties, with dark hair. The kid said, and I quote, ‘Dude’s hair was cut in one of those spiky punk-rock eighties dos.’”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it—oh, and he said the guy was wearing, and again I quote, ‘a butt-ugly homo-looking blue suit.’”
“Homo-looking?”
Roselita shrugged. “His words, not mine. Listen, the way the kid tells it, he was supposed to deliver some towels to the room for Blackwell and right before he could knock on the door, Long Duk Dong popped out. He said the guy looked right at him and took a towel out of his hands to wipe blood off his face. That’s when the kid heard the screaming inside. Oh, and get this, the guy even thanked him for the towel before the kid turned and hauled ass outta here.”
“So you are dealing with a polite Asian psychopath with a flair for the eighties?”
“Apparently. But that’s we.”
“Huh?”
“We are dealing with a polite Asian psychopath with a flair for the eighties. You’re in this, too, now.”
“Right.” Dane did not want any part of this. But Velasquez was right. He had to be here for a reason, so he stuck to what he knew and said, “But there were no signs of fire or smoke in the room before the kid took off?”
“No. He said he was positive about that. I think the fire was an afterthought just to cover up the mess.”
“So do I. That’s why they didn’t torch the whole room. Just the body.”
“How do you know they didn’t intend on burning the whole place?”
“Because they used an accelerant, and only used it on the body.” Dane pointed at the scorch marks on the carpet. “See those? See how the burns go all the way down to the carpet pad right next to the body but they taper off around it?”
Roselita bent over and leaned on her knees to get a better look at the carpet.
“That means whatever they poured on this guy burned fast and hot. Lighter fluid maybe, but you’re right. It was only insurance. If anything, they did it just to slow us down. It would have gotten out of control eventually, but look”—Dane pointed at the ceiling—“the sprinklers weren’t triggered, so this fire barely lasted a minute or so at the most before it was contained.”
“The girl did a good job.”
“Yeah, but it’s hard to believe a receptionist risked her life to come in here and put it out.”
“Well, she didn’t know she was trying to put out a burning disemboweled body at the time. If she did, she might not have been so quick to jump in.”
“She didn’t know?”
“Not until the smoke cleared. That’s when she ran, too. That was her vomit we stepped over outside.”
Dane wanted to scratch his nose, but he stopped himself. He had blood on his gloves. The nitrile was beginning to make his hands sweat, too. He wanted to take the gloves off, but he couldn’t do that, either. This was the FBI. There were people watching. The rules weren’t as easy to bend as they were back home. He carefully stepped over something wet and black—something still connected to Arnie’s flayed abdomen. He walked the room with surgical precision. He didn’t want to be the one to upset anything that might be vital to the investigation, but it was practically impossible to take a step in any direction without coming into contact with something that used to be alive.
Dane looked around the room at the blank faces of the forensic techs as they worked. He thought about everyone he’d met since he’d gotten into that helicopter back at McFalls Memorial. No one—not one person—seemed to find any of this shocking. He wondered if all of these other people had just become accustomed to dealing with nightmares for a living. Not one of them looked horrified or sick about it. Was it possible to grow so callous that this kind of thing was just another day at work? Dane felt sorry for all of them. Especially that August guy. His flippant attitude and apparent numbness to this bloodshed wasn’t something Dane envied, and it definitely wasn’t what Dane signed on with the GBI to become. He was way outside his element here. Seeing dead people came with the job. He knew that. Hell, he’d just seen one earlier that morning, but this was an entirely different beast. He could never get used to this. He didn’t want to. He was ready to get the hell out of that room and let that August O’Barr asshole, with his cheap menthol cigarettes and shitty Oldsmobile, know he’d made a mistake bringing him there. Dahmer and Velasquez were right. Dane shouldn’t be there.