“So maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought. Maybe he could also be a killer. There are PTSD incidents like that all the time. Soldiers come home and kill their families.”
“No.” Allison spoke softly but with finality. Then she started sobbing and wrapped her arms around herself awkwardly until Cheryl Beth hugged her. She said, “I don’t believe he did it. I’ve seen how Noah reacted to things, loud noises, things like that, and he was never violent. He was scared.”
“He was Special Forces?”
“No, he was a combat medic. He was assigned to a Special Forces base once. But he was there to help people. He watched his friends get blown up by I.E.D.s. He saw a lot. Too much.”
“Why didn’t he call you from the jail?”
Another sob, and then: “Would you call your lover after getting caught like that?”
“I guess not.”
***
The men and women who built Cincinnati were under the sod of Spring Grove Cemetery. Like so much else in town, it was a National Historic Landmark. Amid the trees, flowers, ponds, and chapels were the monuments and mausoleums carved with names such as Kroger, Procter, Gamble, Chase, Lytle, Fleischmann, and Taft. This morning, beyond the oxidizing statue of a Civil War soldier with a bayonet attached to his rifle, there were also five CPD patrol cars. Will parked behind the last one and they walked up the sloping drive.
Dodds, who had a solid sense of dignity, straightened his dress uniform and precisely placed his cap. He uncharacteristically slowed his pace to match Will’s.
“Detectives.” A female sergeant met them. “Thanks for getting out here. There’s something you should see. Over here.”
A body was sitting against a large marker overseen by a statue of a weeping angel. It was a male in his twenties, completely nude, with bloody wounds between his legs, his clothes neatly folded in the grass, and more gore around his mouth. The sudden knowledge about what was in his mouth made another observation secondary. A piece of paper was attached to his chest.
“Fuck me…” Dodds whispered.
The newly dead was leaned precisely against the monument, so it appeared as if the angel, its head down and wings drooped in grief, had discovered him that moment.
His penis had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth.
His hands were cuffed behind him.
A sheet of white paper was attached to his chest by the large safety pin run through his right nipple. It was encased in a clear plastic sheet and looked like ordinary printer paper, with large typed letters in a single paragraph.
Both Will and Dodds were slipping on latex gloves.