I stared at a small mark between the numbers 5 and 0 on Tignon's chest. A cut? A sharp but tiny slice?
Using a gloved finger, I pressed on the area. A bead of pus bubbled up through the hole, forming a small dot between the numbers. Blood may have come earlier, but now the body was drained of nearly every liquid.
"Five-oh," Cassie said. "Like cops?"
I took out my phone. Frank had sent us here because I was the lead on the case seven years ago. The FBI wanted someone to visually verify if this was Tignon.
But these days I work for a unit in the FBI called PAR, for Patterns and Recognition. There are four of us in the group, and we are brought onto cases only after others in law enforcement have hit an impasse.
Our job is to identify peculiarities in cases that have stalled. To solve puzzles and highlight new theories. Then we hand the cases off, either to a team in Virginia or to a field office. We do not travel. And we do not interact with local law enforcement or the public. Making this morning's trip unusual.
I brought up the messaging app on my phone to text Frank.
It's Tignon
I hesitated, staring at the 5.0 on his chest, my mind itching at some thread that I couldn't grab. Something was wrong with this scene. I felt it. But I kept typing.
Back from the dead. And now dead again.
What do you want us to do?
CHAPTER THREE
FRANK TOLD US THAT AGENTS FROM THE DALLAS OFFICE would arrive to take over, so we focused on the four primary considerations in solving a homicide: preserving the scene, inspecting the body, securing evidence, and identifying persons of interest.
By 10:30 p.m., two Bureau investigators and a coroner's assistant had shown up. We handed off the body and said goodbye to Deputy Hollings.
"You two wanna grab a drink on the way out of town?" he asked.
"Talk a little shop?"
"No," I said, answering quickly.
Cassie jumped in, her eyes on me. "We have somewhere to be."
"Next time we're in Ashland, though," I said, forcing my lips into a smile.
"Rain check for next time." Hollings pointed at me.
Outside, Cassie and I got in our rental and headed northwest for thirty miles. To Woodrell, Texas. Population 12,100.
I parked in a visitor's lot beside a brown three-story building downtown, but left the car running.
"You sure you don't mind waiting?"
Cassie shook her head, her wavy brown hair loose around her shoulders. "TikTok." She held up her phone.
In the lobby, a man in his fifties looked up from a security desk. His face settled into a gentle smile.
"Agent Camden."
The man was Black and wore a gray uniform with two red angled bars on each shoulder. More white hair was in his sideburns than the last time I'd visited.
I pulled a carton of Marlboro Reds from my work bag. Placed it onto his desk.
"You're a class act," he said.
I glanced around the empty nursing home. A pair of couches faced an interior garden that let in natural light during the day.
Talk about regular things.
"Your wife is well?" I said. "Glenda?"
"Glenda is just fine." He waved his hand. "Go on now. Visiting hours don't apply to you."
I took the stairs to the third floor and emerged into a carpeted hallway. Opened the door to number 302.
My mother looked up. Her adjustable bed was in TV mode, her body upright.
"Well, for crying in a bucket," she said, using a remote to flick off the TV. "I would've put on makeup."
"For your son?" I smiled. "C'mon, Mom. I was in the area."
My mother rolled her steel-blue eyes. She was tall like me, but her hair, once dyed weekly by a stylist in Charleston, had gone bright white. "You were just passing through Texas?"
My mother has a South Carolina accent. It is different than the drawl you hear in Georgia or Alabama, formed by a mixture of dialects—African and European—all jumbled together.
"You come unexpected, baby, and I know something bad happened around here. Sit down. Tell Momma about your case."
"It's not my case," I said.
