Page 4 of So Savage (Faith Bold #21)
The US Army Reserve Center was a small property on the shores of Lake Superior. It contained two central collections of buildings and a one-acre grass field with a dirt track encircling it. Marcus parked the truck next to that field and led Faith into the nearest building. "Staff Sergeant Walsh was found in that field along with his dog this morning. His body was frozen solid, and the dog was nearly there."
“So he would have had to be dead for several hours,” Faith surmised.
Marcus chuckled. “No, not in this cold. He could have frozen within thirty minutes. The real miracle is that his dog didn’t freeze.”
The two of them walked inside and found a young female officer who couldn’t be more than twenty-five talking to a desk sergeant who appeared about five years older. Both of them looked exhausted and stressed, an understandable state of mind given what had happened to them only the night before.
The officer looked up at them and told the desk sergeant, “I’ll be unavailable for a little while unless it’s General Hollis. Then I’ll try to be unavailable, but you know how it goes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the desk sergeant replied.
The officer approached the two investigators and extended her hand. “Good evening. I’m First Lieutenant Rebecca Torres. I was Walsh’s platoon commander.”
"Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant Torres," Faith replied. "I'm sorry for your platoon's loss."
Torres’s lip trembled slightly. Maybe this was more than a professional loss for her. She maintained her composure well, though, and gestured for them to follow her outside.
“It was his turn for night security,” she explained. “He elected to bring Rooster with him on patrol. I left for home at nine p.m. and returned at six a.m. There were coyotes in the field, so I figured they’d brought a deer down, but when I walked over to chase them off, I discovered…” Her breath hitched. “I discovered his body.”
“Where was Rooster?” Marcus asked. “I’m assuming that was his dog?”
"Yes. Is his dog. He survived. Rooster was ten yards away, hidden in some thick grass. I'm not sure why the coyotes didn't notice him. Kevin—Sergeant Walsh—was so frozen that the coyotes couldn't even bite into him. They would have made a good meal of Rooster. Not that I'm upset that they didn't eat him. I just wasn't sure why they picked him. I don't know if it matters or not."
“It’s possible they were just getting started when you arrived,” Marcus offered. “They might have made their way to Rooser if you hadn’t shooed them off.”
Turk trotted toward the crime scene. The snow had been cleared away, leaving a crater behind that looked like the remnant of a small meteor landing. “The snow was cleared because of the blood, I’m assuming?” Faith asked.
“Yes,” Torres confirmed. “From what I understand, there was no blood besides Sergeant Walsh’s and no DNA from the killer.”
“What about footprints?” Marcus asked.
“It was snowing when Sergeant Walsh was killed,” Torres replied, “so there were no footprints here, but there were some left behind when Master Sergeant Reeves was killed. You’re looking for a man wearing a size twelve standard-issue Army combat boot.”
“Does that fit anyone in your unit, Lieutenant?”
“Sure does. Seven of my soldiers wear a size twelve. All seven of them have confirmed alibis. It was my platoon sergeant’s birthday last night. I saw all of them there.”
Turk trotted over to the clump of taller grass that poked through the snow. He lowered his nose and sniffed, but Faith didn’t catch a reaction that suggested he had found anything useful. She wondered if the killer had used something to mask his scent. Presumably the K9s would have detected him from a distance if he hadn’t, unless he managed to stay downwind of them the entire time.
“Did you notice any changes in Sergeant Walsh’s behavior recently?” Faith asked.
“No, nothing new. He was the same serious, dedicated man I knew him to be when I met him.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt him. He was strict, but he had his soldiers’ backs. He had everyone’s back. He was the man who was first in and last out in any combat situation.”
“Did your unit deploy recently?”
“No, but Sergeant Walsh was a recent addition. He was active duty up until last year, He came to us with a silver star that he’d earned by saving his company commander’s life and carrying him under fire to an evac helicopter at great risk to his own life.”
“He sounds like a good man,” Marcus replied.
“He was. The best man I ever knew.”
Turk snorted in irritation and trotted back to the three of them. “Nothing, huh?” Faith asked.
He snorted and whined irritably. She bent low and ruffled his fur. "That's all right, boy. We'll get him." She straightened and asked Torres, "Do you mind if we head inside to talk? I'm not quite used to this cold."
“You don’t get used to this kind of cold,” Torres replied.
She led them back into the building. The desk sergeant greeted them with three cups of coffee. Torres nodded to her. “You’re a lifesaver, Kent.”
Kent returned a half-smile that didn’t last long. Faith recognized that look. She was thinking about the life she hadn’t been able to save.
Torres took them into a small office that contained a particle board desk and two metal-frame chairs with vinyl cushions. Faith smiled wryly. Trust Uncle Sam to spare no expense for its platoon commanders. Actually, this office was fairly luxurious compared to the offices of most LTs Faith had known. Maybe the Reserves got better equipment.
Marcus started the interview. “You said you’d known Marcus for just about a year, Lieutenant Torres?”
“Yes, sir. He joined the platoon thirteen months ago.”
“And you’ve had no complaints about him from anyone?”
She shook her head and said firmly, “No. Everyone loved him.”
“And you haven’t noticed any suspicious behavior from Walsh or anyone else on your unit.”
“No. Everything was just the same as it was any other day.”
“How familiar are you with Walsh’s personal life?” Faith asked.
Torres smiled sadly. “I was most of that personal life.” She glanced at the window of her office door, probably to make sure that Sergeant Kent wasn’t listening. “The military frowns on relationships between officers and their subordinates for obvious reasons. Good reasons. But… that didn’t stop us.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “So you were romantically involved with Sergeant Kent?”
Torres nodded. “We started dating seven months ago. We’d been attracted to each other since we met, but we both tried to avoid an entanglement. Then we just so happened to end up stuck here one night during a thunderstorm, and… well, tale as old as time, I guess.”
“And you’re sure no one was aware of your relationship?”
“Oh, they knew. The Army Reserve isn’t as tightly run as the active Army. We’re only committed to one weekend a month here and two weeks of annual training when we’re not on deployment.”
“How often do you deploy?”
"Honestly, most of us never have. With the reduction in US military action, most of us will never see combat. I've been with the Reserve for three years, and I've never been deployed. Most of the unit hasn't either."
Faith sighed. She was trying to figure out who Sergeant Walsh might have interacted with who would want to kill him, but it seemed like she wasn’t going to get a good answer. She tried another tack. “What was Walsh’s job when he wasn’t fulfilling his duties to the Army?”
“He was a special case. He was a reservist whose day job was as a civilian contractor training K9 units.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Could he have met Master Sergeant Reeves through that work?”
She nodded. “Yes, actually. Walsh and Reeves were both part of a review board that assessed training and working standards for Army K9 units.”
“When?”
“Four months ago.”
“Can you get me a list of people present at that event?” Faith asked.
“I can try,” Torres replied. “I’ll let the brass know the severity of the situation and see if they’ll get me what I need.”
“Do it. It’s possible that our killer was present at that event.”
“Was anyone else here last night?” Marcus asked.
Torres shook her head. “No. We’re a small reserve center. We’ve never had any kind of trouble here at all. No trespassing, no thefts, no assault… nothing.”
Marcus nodded, clearly disappointed. He stood and Faith followed suit. “Thank you for your time, Lieutenant. If you can think of anything else, please let us know.”
He handed her a business card and started for the door. “Actually,” Faith interjected, “I have one more question. Do you know where Rooster is right now?”
“Yes. We have a contract with Dr. Joanna Parker to examine all of our K9 units here. Right now, that’s just Rooster. He’s at her office for observation.”
“Can you give me her office address?”
“Sure thing, but she won’t be in the office tonight.”
Faith considered calling the doctor to see if she’d meet her there, but it was getting late, and she could feel fatigue creeping in. It would be better for both her and Turk to get some rest and attack the case with fresh minds in the morning. “That’s all right. I’ll see her first thing in the morning.”
Torres wrote the address down and handed it to Faith. Tears welled in her eyes, and her voice shook a little. “I just can’t believe someone would do this. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Murders like this rarely made sense to anyone but killers and the people trained to catch them, but telling Torres that wouldn’t be helpful. So Faith only said, “We’ll do everything we can to find the person responsible and bring them to justice.”
Torres nodded. “I know. I’m just worried it won’t be enough.”
That’s every day of my life , Faith thought.
The three of them returned to the truck. The temperature had fallen by about ten degrees since Faith had arrived, and even the thick clothing she wore wasn’t enough to stop the chill that bit through to her bones.
She wondered what the last moments of Walsh’s and Reeves’s life were like. Had they stayed conscious long enough to realize what was happening to them? Had they felt the cold seeping through to their bones as their lifeblood drained away?
Maybe they’d gotten lucky. Maybe they had fallen asleep before they had a chance to feel what was happening. It was a thin and rather dull silver lining, but it was better than nothing.
Marcus drove them to a modest but comfortable hotel in Chester Park, a college community that served the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. Unlike most college towns Faith had visited, there were no raucous parties or reckless drivers present tonight. The cold kept everyone inside where they could be safe from the ravages of winter.
Meanwhile, a predator roamed the snow looking for those brave few who trusted in themselves and their dogs to protect them. This was truly a case where the hunters had become the hunted.
Faith was a hunter herself and confident that she and Turk could face any threat that came their way. But then again, so were Reeves and Walsh, and they had fallen easily.
Faith feared that the two of them might have met their match.