With the deputies rustling across the field behind them, and only the three of them left with the body, the atmosphere was even more eerie. “Anything unusual?” Zoe asked, referring to the time Shelley had already had to examine the victim and the scene.
“Same story,” Shelley said. “She was probably lured out here by some noise, given that her tracks lead right from her car. It looks as though she was knocked to the ground, here, and flattened these stalks when she tried to roll away. Then he took her head.”
The grim statement was still no match for the reality of it. The headless corpse lay prostate on the ground, the soil and the trampled stalks and leaves of corn under it stained a sickly red. The gore was splattered across the stalks all around it, except in one place: the spot from where the killer’s footprints led back.
If he was still around, he would be easy to spot. The blood would have splashed over him, littering his clothes with tell-tale signs. Even so, Zoe couldn’t even bring herself to hope that it would be that easy. Whoever he was, he was smart enough to be long gone by now.
“I agree with that assessment,” Zoe said. It was true: the body could tell her nothing else that Shelley had not already pointed out. Even if she couldn’t see the numbers, she was getting good at reading the signs. Noticing correlation. The way that this crime scene held just the same clues as the others.
“What about the prints?” Shelley asked. The sheriff was still nearby, staring grimly down at the body with his hands on his hips, and Zoe didn’t want to give too much away. Not until he was no longer listening.
“Looks like an able-bodied male, to me,” Zoe said. She could share the precise calculations for weight and height later, and then they could work on putting together evidence which explained these conclusions for those who couldn’t see what she could. “He did not run—just walked, calmly, as if nothing was wrong in the world. I noted a trail of blood drips alongside his steps, most likely from the machete and the head. The prints led towards the back of the fields. I wouldn’t be surprised if the deputies traced them to some small road back there, one with fresh indentations from a vehicle parked at the side of it for a while.”
“He hid his presence well,” Sheriff Hawthorne spoke up at last. “The family didn’t notice a thing until it was too late. I’ve got Miranda sitting with them for now. We could go speak to them.”
His deference was both refreshing and a little concerning. There was something in the pallor of his skin under that gray hair that worried Zoe. He must never have dealt with anything like this before, not out here where the living was often so slow you wouldn’t see a really serious case for months. Now a string of gruesome beheadings of young women, all right on his doorstep. Zoe only hoped he wasn’t about to give up on the investigation or start putting roadblocks in their way. So long as he was cooperative, nothing else mattered.
“This is bold, so close to the house,” Shelley said, as they pushed their way back through the rustling stalks.
Zoe winced as the edge of one of the leaves drew a faint slash across her forearm, leaving a raised red mark. “It feels like he’s getting more confident as time goes on. He never quite takes the risk of killing in front of witnesses, but he takes risks all the same.”
“It’s a thrill.” Shelley was slightly breathless as they pushed out of the last of the stalks and into open space again. “He gets a thrill out of taking their lives, and each time the stakes get higher, that adrenaline rush is bigger. He’ll only continue to be bolder, more provocative. That thrill has to get bigger and bigger every time, or he won’t be satisfied.”
It was textbook stuff—the kind of thing they taught you at the Academy in Quantico. Escalation, rapidity, all the hallmark traits of a serial killer on a destructive cycle. Eventually their hubris would get them caught, though you really aimed to stop them from killing before it became inevitable. Zoe knew all of this information, all of the data about human behavior, but she often still needed Shelley to translate it for her and remind her that it had a human face.
There was another set of faces they would have to be confronted with, however, before they could go back to their base at the sheriff’s station and put the data to good use. Zoe’s least favorite part of any investigation: the grieving family.
“Marle,” Sheriff Hawthorne said at the door to the cheery, red-brick farmhouse, taking off his hat respectfully as he stepped inside and greeted an older woman sitting in a cluttered living area. As Zoe filed in after him, she took in literally hundreds of tchotchkes scattered around every visible surface of the room, surrounding the female deputy and an older couple. Sitting just apart from them on a low armchair was a younger woman, with dark hair and generous sweepings of mascara and kohl now smudged helplessly around her eyes. Even without being introduced, Zoe could see the family resemblance: parents and daughter.
“This is Special Agents Zoe Prime and Shelley Rose, from the FBI,” Hawthorne was saying gently, as he sunk down onto an embroidered stool opposite the family. “They’re here to get to the bottom of whoever is doing this.”
“They’ll find who did this to our Ivy?” the older woman, who Hawthorne had addressed as Marle, half-sobbed.
“We hope so. Agents, let me introduce you to Marlene and Danny Griffiths. This is their daughter, Scarlet. Ivy’s younger sister.”
Ivy Griffiths. Zoe realized with a start that she had not even asked for the victim’s name until now. She was getting too deep into this one, starting to see the victims only as numbers and data rather than real people. She had to bring herself back down, keep trying to see things the way that Shelley saw them. Glancing to her side as she edged into the room, seeing nowhere to sit and hovering awkwardly behind Hawthorne, she noticed Shelley’s eyes gleaming with bright compassion.
“We appreciate that this is a very difficult time for you all, and we’re sorry for your loss,” Shelley said warmly, lifting the eyes of the family to her. “But if we can ask you a few questions now and get it all over with, we might be able to find a crucial lead which helps us crack this case.”
The father seemed numb to whatever was going on around him, simply staring ahead with a blank pallor. Marlene and Scarlet, however, nodded their assent, in varying degrees of tearfulness.
“All right.” Shelley moved a half-step forward. She kept her shoulders relaxed, her hands clasped lightly in front of her. A non-threatening pose that exuded calm. Zoe, lagging that half step behind, felt it fill the room as she watched. “Let’s start with what you saw or heard before you realized what had happened.”
“Nothing,” Marlene said, shaking her head, distress written plain across her face. “I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t even know Ivy was home.”
“I heard her car pull in,” Scarlet said. Her voice was quieter than her mother’s, more subdued. “I didn’t think anything of it. It’s a familiar sound. When she didn’t come in right away I thought she must be with the cows or something.”
“Did you hear anything from the cows?” Zoe cut in, trying to keep her voice as measured and light as Shelley’s was. “Anything that might have made you think someone was over there?”