Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [624]
“Amazingly it had not traveled far in almost six hundred years,” she told him.
“Joan of Arc, huh? I guess it makes sense that you’d like to collect pieces that belonged to saints and heroes.”
“Oh, Gilles de Rais, the baron, was hardly either, though many believed him to be. He led what you might say was a secret double life.” She set the sword down now with what Nick would call almost a reverence. She gently rubbed her fingertips over the wide flat blade that was pointed and sharp on both edges. “It’s believed that he used this very horseman’s sword to slice open the bellies of over a hundred and forty boys, sometimes beheading them, too. That is, after he choked and hanged them and masturbated over them. No, he was hardly a saint or a hero.”
CHAPTER 36
Reagan National Airport
Washington, D.C.
Maggie had barely settled into her newly assigned first-class seat when the flight attendant named Cassy brought her the Diet Pepsi she had requested. She included a glass of ice and several bags of “premium” mixed nuts. They were giving her the royal treatment. Earlier Cassy had tapped her on the shoulder and whispered that the captain had insisted she be moved to first class, upgrading her from her coach window seat almost at the back of the plane.
Well, Maggie wasn’t going to argue. Coach was full, first class half-empty. She knew it was because somewhere on the passenger docket the captain had discovered he had an FBI agent on board and wanted her close to his cockpit door. Her weapon had been confiscated for the flight, but she didn’t blame them for wanting as many reinforcements as was available and close by. These unexpected upgrades had happened to her several times on other flights since 9/11. And each time she avoided telling them that she might be worthless at thirty-eight thousand feet. She hated flying. Each time was an effort just to get on the plane.
As soon as she was able to, she’d bring out anything and everything that might distract her. This time she pulled out both tray tables—since the first-class seat next to her was unoccupied—and began sorting through files and notes, including those Cunningham, her boss, had e-mailed her early that morning. One of his e-mail attachments had an assortment of crime scene and autopsy photos. She kept those in a folder even when she looked at them. No sense in tipping off anyone else about what she did for a living. The photos were not quite as disturbing as the decapitation ones. In fact, other than a single stab wound to each of the bodies there appeared to be no other injuries. No mutilation. No grotesque display of the dead bodies. No bite marks. No signs of torture.
There were supposedly three cases: two priests, one former priest, all stabbed to death in very public places. Maggie’s job was to figure out if the cases were related, to determine if they were the work of one killer, or perhaps two working together, and then to come up with a profile.
She found the police report and scanned the details on the case in Omaha. Fifty-seven-year-old Monsignor William O’Sullivan had been stabbed once in the chest while using an airport restroom on a busy Friday afternoon. Not only a busy Friday afternoon, but a holiday weekend. There were no witnesses with the exception of a Scott Linquist who allegedly may have bumped into the killer on his way into the restroom. Linquist’s description was brief: a young man in a baseball cap. He mentioned no weapon, no blood.
The autopsy report presented little evidence, as did the toxicology and the crime lab reports. Maggie stopped and flipped back to something that caught her attention in the autopsy report. This was interesting. The weapon, according to the M.E., was a double-edged, nine-to ten-inch blade that appeared to have been wider in the center and thin at the edges, with an unusually large hilt that may include possible engravings. The M.E. had drawn a sketch in the margin of what looked like an antique dagger.
A dagger. The last time Maggie was in Nebraska,