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“You still believe he was guilty?”
Sasha’s bushy brows lifted. He had large features to match the rest of his build, and they were extremely expressive. She wondered how heever bluffed sources, then thought that maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was just honest with them and that’s why they trusted him.
“The perpetrator was found guilty,” Sasha said, like he was reminding her. “Should I have my recorder out?”
Raisa sidestepped that one. “Can I ask you about two of the victims in particular?”
He nodded once.
“Jason Stahl and Tyler Marchand,” she said, and he nodded again.
“The first two men,” he said.
“Yes,” Raisa said. “Agent Kilkenny remembered you taking an interest in them.”
His eyes crinkled. “Did he? Yes, yes, I did. I thought it a curious path, one that became even more curious when it was shot down by the task force.”
“Was it something other than the fact that they were men?” Raisa asked.
“You have to picture what it was like at the time,” Sasha said. “The city was on fire with all of this. Everyone terrified they would be next. And then a young man shows up dead. He fits the profile released by the FBI. He has a job where he drove by at least half of the body dump sites. What do you think? Just immediately.”
“Someone thought he was the Alphabet Man,” Raisa said, almost surprising herself with the answer. Though, of course, she must have been thinking it. Even Kilkenny had noted the similarities in their childhoods. “And they took matters into their own hands.”
“Da,” Sasha said. “I thought we might have a vigilante trying to chase down our serial killer. Nowthat’san interesting story. Then the second victim turned up. Similar situation.”
“Though he didn’t have a connection to the body drops.”
“No, but he had a connection to three of the victims,” Sasha said.
“What?” Raisa asked, sitting back.
“Because he worked with the department of social services,” Sasha said. “As did Conrad, so it made sense later. But at the time, there wassome low-level chatter that this was the vigilante again. Only on the most off-the-record basis, of course.”
“How did you explain the fact that the supposed vigilante covered up the murders by framing the Alphabet Man?” Raisa asked. “That doesn’t make sense, if they thought the person they killedwasthe Alphabet Man.”
“You think vigilantes always make sense?” Sasha asked. “You’re not from Russia.”
Raisa laughed and he shook his head.
“The vigilante realized he got it wrong,” he answered, seriously this time. “But he was already committed. Or the men saw his face. He gets it wrong once, he feels bad. War has its casualties, though. He gets it wrong twice, he worries he’s becoming the monster he’s hunting and stops.”
And the next time, he’d simply offered the suspect up on a silver platter. He’d learned his lesson. It didn’t completely fit, but it wasn’t ridiculous, either. Grief or rage did strange things to people.
What it didn’t explain was Shay, though.
Unless ... unless Shay had figured out who the vigilante was.
It was still hard for Raisa to wrap her head around someone killing three innocent people when they were trying to, in theory, stop it from happening. But, again ... people went mad with strong emotions sometimes.
“Was there anything else about Marchand and Stahl that stuck out to you?” Raisa asked.
“Mmm, well.” Sasha looked around, but the place was empty. “Stahl killed the mother’s boyfriend. Self-defense, yes, but he did it.”
“Right,” Raisa said.
“And then with Marchand,” Sasha continued. “Cigarette and a drunk. And somehow he made it out alive?”
Raisa blinked at him. “You think he did it?”