The Executioner

Six

Garcia tore his eyes away from the body and faced the forensic agent. ‘What do you mean?’

Brindle scratched his nose and faced him. ‘Well, you’re the ones who’ll have to figure out what all this means. The pattern of blood splatters up there-’ he shook his head, considering ‘-it doesn’t seem random.’

‘Human blood?’ Hunter asked.

‘As opposed to dog’s blood?’ Brindle countered, pointing to the dog’s head.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Can’t say for certain yet. Very hard to tell just by looking at it. Their properties are very similar.’

Hunter climbed up the altar steps in one smooth movement. Garcia and Brindle followed. The place was covered in blood, but Brindle was right – there was definitely a pattern. Some sort of symmetry. On the floor, a thin continuous crimson trail created a circle all around the altar. On the wall directly behind it, there was a long, uneven diagonal splash, as if someone had dipped a paintbrush in the blood and flicked it against the wall. Hundreds of smaller splatters littered the once-crisp white altar cloth.

‘Usually when the distribution of blood covers such a large area, it’s due to one of two types of struggle,’ Brindle explained. ‘A fight, where both parties involved run around punching each other and bleeding all over the place, or an injured victim struggling to get away from his attacker.’

‘The splatters aren’t consistent with a fight scenario or a runaway struggle,’ Hunter said, analyzing the pattern. ‘The distance between them – the shapes – it’s all too symmetric, almost calculated. This blood trail was intentionally created by the killer, not the victim,’ he added calmly.

‘I agree,’ Brindle said, folding his arms over his chest. ‘This wasn’t a fight, and Father Fabian didn’t get a chance to run away from anything.’

‘What gets me is, if the priest was killed down there-’ Garcia pointed to the body ‘-how did all this blood get up here?’

Brindle shrugged.

Hunter approached the altar and carefully walked around it, studying the thin blood trail on the floor. He stopped when he’d completed a full circle.

‘How tall are you, Mike?’

‘Six-four, why?’

‘How about you, Carlos?’

‘Six-two.’

‘Come here.’ Hunter motioned Garcia closer. ‘Walk with me slowly,’ he said as his partner joined him. ‘Stay about a foot away from the trail. Take one step at a time and walk naturally. Start from right here.’ He indicated a point on the floor directly behind the center of the altar.

The two other crime-lab agents stopped what they were doing and joined Mike Brindle by one of the powerlights.

Garcia had taken only four steps when Hunter asked him to stop. Bending over, he quickly checked Garcia’s foot position in relation to the trail before allowing him to continue. Four steps later, Hunter stopped Garcia once again. Four steps after that, the circle was completed.

‘Twelve steps in total,’ Garcia said with an intrigued look.

Hunter called Brindle over and asked him to do exactly the same as Garcia had just done.

‘Eleven steps from me,’ Brindle said when he reached his starting point after a full circle.

‘I’d say the killer’s Garcia’s height,’ Hunter concluded. ‘Six-two, give or take half an inch.’