At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(21)

“Meaning his throat was slashed. Was there directionality?”

“Left to right. Suggesting our killer is right-handed. Along with ninety percent of the population of Illinois. It’s also likely the killer removed an eye. The Kendall County coroner noted cut marks in Desser’s right zygomatic and right lacrimal bones.”

“Fascinating.” Evan thumbed through the photos as he walked. Even mostly decomposed, the remains were remarkably like those of James Talfour—a clear example of posing. “Was Desser a Black man?”

“No.” She reeled up short and gave him a sharp look. “Why? Do you know more than you did this morning?”

“I’m just doing what you pay me to do. Thinking.”

“Okay. Good.” She strode forward again. “We’re looking into Talfour’s background. Six months ago, he had a run-in with some racist punks who targeted him as he was walking from his store to catch an Uber. He escaped with scrapes and bruises thanks to a passerby who intervened. The whole thing was caught on CCTV. But none of the attackers was ever identified.”

He closed the file folder. “You think there’s a link?”

“Thinking is also what I get paid to do.”

“Back to Desser. That’s a Jewish name,” Evan said. “You mentioned a noose and a slit throat. Was there also a blow to the head? I can’t tell from these photos.”

“In a manner of speaking. He took a .22-caliber bullet to the back of the skull.”

It was Evan’s turn to stop walking. Addie took two more strides before she realized she’d lost him and turned back.

Evan frowned. “He was shot?”

His vision of Vikings and bog bodies vanished, replaced by the image of a thrill killer who was into the weird stuff but maybe not consciously.

Addie nodded. “From about ten feet away. Some killers prefer a .22 because it’s so effective at close range. Plus, it’s easy to hide. Maybe Desser got away, and the killer had to take him down.”

Evan thought of Diana. “He could have done that with an ax. If he was good.”

“So maybe he’s not that good. Either way, it doesn’t eliminate the possibility of the same perpetrator. Sometimes killers change their MO.”

“Still. You’re trampling on my nascent theories.”

She started walking again. “I’m confident you’ll reconnect the dots.”

A pair of coeds strolled by. Their laughter rang like bells in the cold air, giving Evan pause. Their world was the one he preferred to occupy—one of innocent pastimes. Of open futures. Of hope. It was why he enjoyed teaching.

He hated murder. Death should be a dry and dusty thing. A thing of old tombs and archaeological digs. Not a mess of blood and mud and a man’s open throat.

Addie disappeared around the corner of Cobb Hall. He hurried after her. “What about runes?”

“Crap,” she said.

He rounded the corner after her. A parking ticket fluttered under the windshield wiper of her SUV. She snatched it and thrust it into Evan’s hand.

“You can do something about this, right?”

“I’ll see.” He took the ticket and stuffed it in his coat pocket. “Back to the runes.”

“No runes. Now, where are my keys?” She hunted in her purse. Frowned and kept hunting. “No wooden slats. But maybe they were scattered sometime in the two months between when Scott Desser was killed and when his body was found.”

“That’s why you want me there?”

She raised her keys with a cry of triumph and turned on him with a smile.

“Exactly right, Professor. We’re going hunting.”



“Scott Desser,” said Deputy Templeton, his breath hanging in the cold air. “Age fifty-two, an accountant from the Loop.”

Evan and Addie followed the deputy along a rutted track in open pasture toward a distant patch of trees. The deputy was an older man—late fifties, maybe—with a slight build and a tendency to run his index finger between his upper lip and his nose as if to make sure his mustache was still present and accounted for.

“We figure Desser was into something weird,” Templeton went on. “Why else would he be all the way out here? Nothing for outsiders unless you’re looking to buy chicken feed. Or opioids.”

“You have a problem in your county with drugs?” Addie asked.

“Does a cow have teats?”

Addie kept her pace slow, forcing the deputy to slow as well. Evan, as always, appreciated her kindness. Templeton’s reaction to him had been exactly like that of many people. A widening of the eyes and then a studious determination to ignore him. Which was fine by Evan. He had a lot of thinking to do.

Starting with why the killer had struck in two such different locations. A rural community and the decaying, industrialized heart of Chicago. Both locations suggested the killer’s nocturnal need for privacy. And if Evan was right about the bog bodies, the killer required water as part of his tableau. But there were plenty of watery places closer to the city.

Images of the runes scrolled like a slideshow through his head. The single rune set apart from the rest. And the poetic imagery he’d managed to pick out.

All of it was too complicated for a man with his limited experience in runic writing. Interpretation was critical. For however much some of the lines looked like gibberish, Evan knew they weren’t. All they needed was a proper runologist.