“Maybe.”
“Now…let me ask you something,” Rhodes said. “And please don’t take this the wrong way. This is just between the two of us, but I need to know. Is there anything I need to know about? Is there anything you’re afraid they might be looking into?”
“No,” Chloe said. She feared she’d answered too quickly, with a bit too much bite to her tone.
“I had to ask,” Rhodes said. “Working together in this capacity and all. I can’t claim to understand what you’re going through, so I won’t patronize you. But I just need to know you’re good to go. In hindsight, I should have maybe asked before you signed on to help with this case, but you know how it goes.”
“I’m good.”
This was mostly true, but now Chloe could not help but wonder if Rhodes’s prying had ulterior motives. Had Johnson spoken with Rhodes before they left DC, asking her to try to pry information out of her? It wasn’t like Rhodes to ask deep, personal questions. She typically remained above the surface, not going too deep. For her to pry so blatantly seemed a little out of character for her.
“Good,” Rhodes said. “And I hope you know that if you do ever need to talk it out or process through it or whatever, I’m a decent listener.”
“Thanks,” Chloe said, though the comment made her even more suspicious.
The two women fell silent as the GPS on Rhodes’s phone told them to turn in half a mile. And beyond that turn was their destination, the crime scene of the second victim.
***
There were two local cops waiting for them, as had been arranged with a phone call before leaving bureau headquarters. Their car was parked on the side of the road, a few feet away from a curb where two streets intersected. One of the cops, a very tall red-headed woman, smiled and pointed to the space directly behind their car. Rhodes pulled into the designated place and said: “This one already seems bossy.”
Chloe and Rhodes stepped out of the car and joined the two cops on the sidewalk. The tall woman greeted them first, her smile wide and strikingly beautiful. The second cop was an African American man who looked to be forty or so. He had the look of someone who knew full well he worked in the shadow of his partner. When he shook Chloe’s and Rhodes’s hands, introducing himself as Officer Benson, he did so with a lackluster smile.
The tall redhead was named Anderson, and she spoke with a slight southern drawl. “Good to meet you,” she said, the you coming out with a dragged out a on the end, the typical southern ya. It made Chloe wonder if she was the type who used the word y’all.
“So,” Anderson said, “it’s a pretty simple story. A guy named Viktor Bjurman was found on this curb last night. Two teenagers on bikes discovered him. The blood was still pouring out of him. He was pronounced dead right away when the ambulance got here. The latest report from this morning tells us that there are multiple causes: blunt force trauma to the head, a broken rib, which was shoved upwards and pierced his heart, nearly completely crushed chest and breastbone, or a collapsed lung. Take your pick.”
“Any clear idea on the weapon of choice?” Chloe asked.
“Everyone is assuming it was a bat,” Anderson said. “The coroner has all but agreed with this, but says if it was a bat, it was an aluminum one. Bjurman was struck with such force that a wooden bat would have left splinters.”
“Is there any connection to Bjurman and the first victim?” Rhodes asked.
“None that we can find,” Benson said. “Victim one—a guy by the name of Steven Fielding—was found in his home. His wife discovered him sprawled out on the living room floor.”
“At first, it looked like a botched burglary,” Anderson said. “Someone broke in, beat the hell out of the guy who just happened to be home, and took some stuff. But as of right now, the wife can’t come up with a single thing that appears to be missing. So it looks like if it was a break-in, it was only to kill Fielding.”
“The files indicate that the first murder wasn’t as brutal as this second one, right?” Chloe asked.
“Depends on your definition of brutal,” Anderson said. “He was struck in the head and face with something hard—something that may or may not have also been an aluminum bat. Fielding’s nose was crushed to oblivion. Grossest damned thing I’ve ever seen.”
“But on the other hand,” Benson said, “Bjurman’s face appeared to have never been struck, though there was a single blow to the top of the head that left a slight indentation.”
Chloe walked a few steps forward, looking to the area on the sidewalk that had clearly been Viktor Bjurman’s final resting place. The dried blood was still visible, though it was clear that the city maintenance crew had done its best to clean it up.
“Is there anything at all remarkable about this intersection?” she asked.
“Nothing at all,” Benson said. “It’s just like any other corner in this town.”
Chloe walked to the end of the corner and looked to the right. If Bjurman was indeed attacked here on the street, this would be where the attacker had been hiding. It would have been easy enough, she supposed. There was no stoplight, just a stop sign. Before the sign, though, there was a monstrous oak tree that had deposited acorns all over the ground. The oak was bordered by withering shrubs. Still, even without their foliage, they would provide more than enough room for someone to remain hidden, so long as they were crouching down.
“The files state that Bjurman was some sort of athletic trainer,” Chloe said. “Any idea what kind?”
“Yeah, he was more of a fitness guy, not a trainer per se,” Anderson said. “Worked down at a private gym, but he did house calls, too.”
“What gym might that be?”
“Fulbright Fitness. This super pricey place that pushes yoga, sweat rooms, things like that.”
“And what about Fielding?” Rhodes asked. “What did he do?”
“Car detailer by day, bartender by night,” Anderson said.
Chloe did her best to not let her own personal issues cloud her mind, but so far she was having trouble finding a link between the two men and the way they were killed. She was quickly coming to the conclusion that this was not a serial case at all. But even if that was the case, the fact remained that two men had been brutally killed.
“Victim one didn’t live here in Pine Point, right?” Chloe asked.
“May as well,” Benson said. “He lived just a few miles outside of town, closer to Winchester. Little town called Colin.”
Another mark against it being an obvious serial, Chloe thought.
“Has anyone spoken to Bjurman’s wife yet?” Rhodes asked.
“Yeah, that would be me,” Anderson said. “Weird situation there. She was very sad, of course, but not as upset as you’d expect.”
“Any idea why?” Chloe asked.
“None that she shared. You’re welcome to speak to her yourself. Maybe you can get more out of her than I did.”
There was no scorn or judgment in the statement. It seemed Anderson and Benson might be glad the bureau had arrived to take this mess off of their hands. They both stood idly by as Chloe and Rhodes snapped a few quick pictures of the scene, as if waiting impatiently for them to make the case magically disappear.