Already Dead (Laura Frost FBI)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Back at the precinct, Laura settled down in front of the desk she had been given and loaded up the computer, almost rolling her eyes at how slow it was. Why did it always seem like local police departments had the oldest, least functioning equipment in the entire world? At least in a backwater like this she had expected it; but then again, given the wealth of the town itself, it was still disappointing.

She started in a very simple way: she searched for ‘candles,’ and started reading the information that came up.

It quickly became apparent that there were a lot of rabbit holes that this research could take her down. She wasn’t entirely surprised: like she’d said to Eric, candles had a lot of meaning to them. They’d been used for so long as the only means of illumination, meaning that they had a practical history as well as all of the layers of symbolism that had fallen on them over the centuries. Unpicking that wasn’t going to be easy, particularly as she had no idea whether the killer was suffering from some kind of psychosis or reading them the way that they had always been read.

She started down a pathway that was somewhat interesting: the use of candles in ritual sacrifice. Almost any kind of so-called ‘demonic rite’ or Satanic ritual had the use of candles incorporated in some way. Sometimes they were blood-red or coal-black, and other times had to give off a particular scent. Sometimes, though, plain white candles of the kind used in church would be just fine. Of course, most of the research she found on the subject was heavily wrapped into pop culture and fiction. There was no such thing as real Satanism, at least not in the way the media sometimes portrayed it.

That didn’t mean it couldn’t count. There were killers in the past who had been inspired by movies or by books to commit their murders. At least, the method in which they committed them. Laura had come across enough killers to not believe in the story that violent movies and video games could create violent people. It was the violent people in the first place who were drawn to that kind of thing. People who either didn’t develop a moral code to understand that killing or hurting others was wrong – or understood it and enjoyed it for precisely that reason.

This was the problem she was dealing with, the thorny briars she had to cut through: did the killer believe in what he’d been told, or was he capable of distinguishing the difference between fact and fiction? Was he perfectly rational and logical and yet also a killer, or was he suffering from psychosis? And without knowing more about his motivation, how could she even tell?

Laura doubled down, emerging from her rabbit hole about sacrifice and going back to the more pure and factual roots of candle use. They had been used to light the way for centuries – the same thought that had occurred to her earlier. But today? The largest use of candles was in religious ceremonies, most notably in churches of various Christian denominations.

Laura rubbed her lower lip, thinking. The dominant religion of the population around here would match that, of course, and she had seen a couple of churches around town as they were driving. In a cultural sense, Caucasians living in the US were far more likely to be influenced by Christian symbology than by that of any other religion, since most of them would have grown up learning about or even being raised in that faith. It stood to reason, then, that anything done by a killer living locally was most likely to be influenced in some way by that symbology.

Unless their killer was a minority, of course, which would throw everything off. But killers, especially the kind who earned the moniker ‘serial,’ were usually white men. If she was following the statistics, she should logically focus on this area of research.

Laura checked her phone, seeing no messages from anyone – no reply from Chris, no call back from Nate, no indication of what Eric was up to out there. She tried not to worry about any of it. She had to get on with this, now, and get back home so at least one of her worries would be taken care of. Three more days and she needed to be picking up Lacey for another weekend together. Christ. Her life seemed to be a rush these days, always a dead sprint from one thing to the other, always worried she wouldn’t make it in time.

“Religion,” Laura muttered under her breath, trying to keep herself on track. What did candles mean in religion, especially in connection with death? She thought about people filing into a church, lighting a candle in prayer. They were a way to send a message to God, to have your prayer heard.

She thought, too, about a memorial service. An image came to her head, probably something she’d seen on television or in a movie, of a misty scene, mourners around a coffin. A large-printed portrait of the deceased propped up in front of it and surrounded by white flowers. All around and among the scene, white candles burning, fat bodies and strong flames. Memorial.

Didn’t that kind of feel like what the killer was doing? The way the women were found, it was almost as though their hands were crossed over their chests in prayer. Like they were posing for that open coffin service.

She had something here, she thought. They were placed down carefully, almost reverentially, and then a candle was lit for them. A candle that would burn brightly in the night and lead to their discovery. There was something, now that she connected the thought, about the funeral service in it.

So, was that it? Memorial? A way for him to remember them?

She glanced out of the window at the slowly darkening sky, realizing that it was getting on for the evening now. She didn’t have long to get this figured out. She would go to each of the churches in town, she thought, speak to the staff there, try to get a fix on –

“Agent Frost!”

Laura turned her head sharply to see Eric entering the room, a wide grin plastered on his face. He was slightly out of breath, his hair a little damp around the temples, as though he’d recently engaged in some kind of exertion. And behind him, he was dragging a young man in handcuffs – a young man with a wide-eyed look and a conspicuously muddy rip in his blue jeans.

“Agent Won?” she responded, frowning.

“I have our killer!” he exclaimed triumphantly, his chest practically swelling up as he said it.

Laura blinked.

“Excuse me?” she said, getting up from the desk with a rattle, not minding the fact that she’d bumped her thigh into it as she stood with haste. She started to rush towards him, as did most of the other few cops in the room.

“Let’s get him processed,” Eric said, turning to one of the cops who always seemed to be at the precinct – a desk sergeant who was perfectly placed to go through the paperwork. “I want to start questioning as soon as possible.” Handing the kid over, he stood with his hands on his hips in a self-satisfied pose as he watched a cabal of the locals taking him over to a relevant desk.

Laura grabbed his outstretched elbow and steered him away quickly, pulling him to the furthest side of the room. It wasn’t as far as she would have liked, but in a precinct of this size, that couldn’t exactly be helped.

“What’s going on?” she hissed at him, trying not to be overheard by anyone else.

“I found him,” Eric said, with that same self-satisfied air. He was clearly riding high, impressed with himself and on top of the world. “Our killer. It’s him.”

Laura shook her head impatiently, feeling like she needed a diagram of some kind at this point to figure out exactly what he was thinking. “Do you care to explain any of this to me?”

“Sure,” Eric said, breezily, clearly not picking up on her annoyance. “I found him while going through the records of local crimes, like we said. He’s a bit of a petty criminal with a small record, but it didn’t show up on our first search because of his age. He’s only twenty-one, and the majority of his crimes happened before he was eighteen, so they were juvenile records.”

Laura nodded; she was with him so far. At least, she understood. It might have been nice if she’d literally been with him, given that he’d seemingly acted on all this discovery without his senior agent present. “And what were those records?”

“Vandalism, for the most part,” Eric said. “He was known for setting small fires. It only came up because I was talking with Detective Waters, and he remembered this little kid that got in trouble for setting a fire in the school gym. Turns out it wasn’t his first or his last offense.”

“Okay,” Laura said slowly. “And his connection to our victims?”

“He was at school with Cici Powers,” Eric said, his grin only getting wider. He really was impressed with himself on this one. “And as for the other two, he was a frequent customer at both the diner and the coffee shop. I know we pointed out already that a lot of the locals are, but given his age, he’d be more likely to interact with them on a closer level.”

Laura glanced across the other side of the room, to where this suspect was still talking to the other cops. She saw one of them push a fingerprint pad towards him. “Who is this kid?”

“Jonas Mendez,” Eric supplied readily. “He was at home when we went and knocked on the door. He seemed surprised to see us at first, and everything was fine. But when I tried to arrest him, that’s when he ran.”

“And fell,” Laura said, raising an eyebrow at that muddy tear in his pants.

“Yeah, he tripped over himself,” Eric said with a chuckle. “Can you believe that? Anyway, it wasn’t hard to bring him in.”

“What has he said so far?” Laura asked, wishing she wasn’t playing catchup. She trusted her own instincts far more than anyone else’s. If she had seen things first-hand, she could make much better judgement calls about them.

“He just babbled some things about being innocent and having no idea why we were taking him in,” Eric shrugged. “Just like you’d expect a murderer to say, really.”

“Alright,” Laura said, glancing over. The local cops were finishing up processing the kid’s details. “I need you to show me everything you have on him right away – records, proof of interaction, all of it. Then I’ll go and talk to him.”

Eric frowned slightly. “You mean, we’ll go talk to him, right?”