“It’s subtle, but the last stone is slightly different in tone and texture, and look closely—the engraving is a bit different. The first three we found are virtually the same, but this last one”—she pointed to the image in the lower-right corner—“the one found in Naomi’s hand, seems to have been engraved with a different tool. Whatever they use in rock carving. Probably a diamond-tipped bit or some sort of a laser? Don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“That’s not the only thing about the rocks,” he admitted, taking a sip, but staring over her shoulder at the images on the screen. “I was just at the lab.”
“They were working?” She pulled a face. “It’s not even four in the damned morning.”
“I know, but I pulled in a favor. One of the techs owes me. He wasn’t happy, but I met him there and got a rush job on blood analysis on the stone found in Naomi’s hand last night. It’s different from the others.”
“Not the same concoction of goat, cow, and human?”
“Not a combination at all,” he said. “The blood on the stone Naomi held in her hand was from a chicken.”
She arched a brow.
Not surprised.
“Lots easier to procure than human.”
“Unless you self-harvest,” he said. “Take your own blood.”
“Nah. Don’t think so. The blood we found on the other three stones? The human portion is female, according to the lab,” she reminded him. “And we think our killer is male.”
“It seems that way.” He couldn’t imagine a woman as the killer.
She added. “Not many people know that the blood we found on the stones from the previous homicides is a mixture,” she said. “We just found out ourselves, so even people in the department aren’t aware that our killer likes playing with platelets.”
Reed nodded. “And we’ve kept the stones out of the press.”
“Right. The public doesn’t know about them, nor the blood.” She said, “I think the concoction of blood is significant.”
“Me, too.”
“And the fact that the numbers on the rocks are soaked in it. Arabic numbers and Hebrew numbers. Like the Old Testament.”
“Where goats and calves and sometimes humans were sacrificed?” he asked, following her line of reasoning, one that had toyed with the fringes of his mind.
“Bingo.” Sol took a long sip from her cup, finishing her tea and nodding to herself. “But why go to all that trouble of procuring the blood and mixing it, leaving it at the scenes where he knew we would find it and analyze it, then all of a sudden use chicken blood?”
“Easier to procure.”
“And a lot lazier. Our killer, he’s precise. Pays attention to detail. Leaves us enigmatic clues. Goes to all the trouble of mixing up different blood and using the same etching tool, then thinks, ‘fuck it. I’m just gonna kill a chicken and use whatever tool I’ve got. And pick up a rock from the damned driveway.’ Does that make sense?”
“Does any of it?” he asked. “It’s not like we’re dealing with a rational person.”
“No, he’s def cray-cray. But precise cray-cray.”
Reed said, “Most likely some kind of religious nut. If we’re still going with the Old Testament theory.”
Again the arch of her brow, but she bit the edge of her lip.
“What?” he asked, then said, “You’ve got something else.”
He’d seen that look on her face before, when she was tossing an unsavory theory around in her head, one she couldn’t avoid.
He knew the feeling.
“Yeah. I do have something.” She finished her tea and set the cup down. “I was waiting for the autopsy report on Naomi Kittle, but it’ll be a while.”
“I’ve put a rush on it.”