The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(23)

“He’s kind of abrupt,” Curtis said as he watched Hurdle move off. He nodded at Vail. “Reminds me of you.”

Johnson chuckled.

“Hey,” Vail said, giving Johnson’s shoulder a shove. “Don’t encourage him. Besides, I’m nothing like Hurdle. I mean, he’s a deputy. I’m a special agent. He’s Marshals Service, I’m FBI. He’s a man. I’m a woman. See what I mean? We’re totally different.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.”

Vail continued walking toward the medical examiner. “I respect the guy. No nonsense. Knows what he needs to do and does it. Helps to have someone like that in charge.”

They stopped a few feet from the body and Vail took in the scene. The ME turned and watched them approach.

“First homicide, your second day on the job.” Curtis glanced at Johnson. “Welcome to Fairfax, partner.”

“Definitely not my first homicide,” Johnson said. “I worked in New York, remember?”

“Karen Vail, FBI,” she said to the ME, holding up her badge. “This is Erik—”

“I’m Lindy Dyson. I already know Detective Curtis. And Detective Johnson and I have met. Guess you want to hear about our victim. Time and cause of death?”

“That’d be a good place to start,” Vail said.

“TOD looks to be within the last four hours, consistent with what Jasmine Marcks said relative to when she last saw Officer Greeling. Cause boils down to a laceration of the carotid. Massive hemorrhage. Clean margins, so your killer used a very sharp knife.” She swung a hand around, gesturing off to her left. “As you can see from the amount of blood in the planter and the arterial spurt on the surrounding foliage, he was killed right here. And then there’s this.” Dyson moved the white canvas down to the officer’s waist.

Vail swallowed. She had seen it before—but always in photos. The abdomen featured deep parallel slice marks carved into the skin, down to the muscle layer. “Not deadly, and done postmortem. Right?”

Dyson nodded slowly. “Correct.”

“And I assume his penis and—” Vail cleared her throat. “The male genitalia have been excised?”

She drew back the sheet farther. “Right again.” Dyson rose from her crouch. “You’ve seen this before?”

“Not in the flesh.” She winced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean that. Only in photos. But yeah, I’m familiar with the mutilation pattern.”

Curtis licked his lips and turned away. “Okay, let’s cover that baby up. Please.”

Johnson was squinting, the back of her right hand covering her mouth. “That’s pretty goddamn disgusting,” she said, her palm rising and falling as her lips moved.

“Welcome to my world.” Vail gestured to Dyson to recover the body. “We’ve got a marshals task force set up.”

“Hurdle,” Dyson said. “Just met him.”

Vail gestured at Dyson. “You’ll make sure we get all the reports ASAP?”

“Soon as I can, yeah.”

“You think of anything, let us know. The guy who did this just escaped from Potter Correctional. Any detail could be crucial. You know the drill.”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

“LOOK,” JOHNSON SAID as they walked back down the street. “I just want you to know it wasn’t anything bad. The thing with the NYPD. You don’t have to worry about me not having your back. It wasn’t anything like that, nothing bad.”

“So you said.” Curtis continued on for a few steps. “No offense, but you lost your job. How can that be anything but ‘bad’?”

They stopped at Vail’s car. Johnson rested her hands on the roof and glanced around. Satisfied no one important was around, she said, “I got a good guy letter.”

Vail nodded. “I figured.”

Curtis looked from Vail to Johnson. “What’s a ‘good guy letter’?”

“A letter from the commissioner saying you’ve retired from the NYPD in good standing.” Vail shrugged. “It basically lets you get another job in law enforcement so you can carry a firearm.”

“So the good guy letter ain’t actually a bad thing. But it’s not sounding so good, either.”

“Because there’s more to it,” Johnson said.

There always is.

“Remember the Martinez shoot about ten years ago?”

Vail jutted her chin back. “Yeah. Good shoot. You were cleared, no one had a problem with it. So what?”

“I had another shoot I don’t think you knew about. No problems with that one, either.”

“So what am I missing?” Curtis asked.

“I had one last month that was …” Johnson squinted. “Questionable. I was off duty. Actually, I was an off duty lieutenant, out for a drink with a friend in Jamaica. On the way back to my car I see this *, looks like bad news. Acting like he’s high, carrying what I think is a handgun. He’s harassing a couple homeless people. It’s late, a few minutes before 1:00 AM. I follow him, call it in. He goes over to some woman trying to sleep in an alley and puts the gun to her head. I yell for him to stop, drop the weapon. He turns to me with the gun. I shoot him before he can shoot me. Only turns out it wasn’t a real gun. Some f*ckin’ toy pistol. No red tip.”