Byrd Man

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Yer so bad.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

I doubt many others aside from us would understand that reference without the use of Google.

@Nexus Prime

Good.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

You can't insult genius. Don't be petty.

@Nexus Prime

I'm so petty I'm mentioned on the liner notes of Full Moon Fever.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

It was actually meant for Nexus but through accident became a diss towards you. Either or works for me.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Green just isn't your color, friend.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Last Killer Standing
Part II:
Washed in the Blood of the Lamb

"There are no second acts in American lives."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jefferson City, Missouri
1873

Reverend Timothy Partlow looked up from the pulpit at the sound of an opening door. The reverend almost recoiled at the sight of a tall, lanky man with a horrible scarred face stumbling through the nave towards him. He seemed to sway with each step, grasping on to the wooden pews for balance as he walked.

"There's no service at the moment, friend," Partlow said, stepping away from the pulpit and cautiously walking towards the man. "We've got one coming up this evening you're welcome to attend."

"Ain't here for no service, rev," the scarred man said with a drunken slur to his voice. "Need someone to witness to me. I need to get right with God."

A drunken man stumbling into the church was nothing new to Partlow. With a rowdy saloon down the street and an even rowdier cathouse beside it, men regularly came in to repent their wickedness. In the reverend's experience, every man succumbed to temptation, himself included. As willing as the spirit may be, the flesh was always weak. The feat was not exactly in avoiding temptation, but in asking for forgiveness once it had happened. What happened more often than not was they would soon leave after getting sober, never fully embracing God and going right back to their sinning.

"Come sit next to me on the pew, son. We'll talk."

The man reeked of liquor. Not just on his breath, but seemingly his whole body had been doused in it. Partlow could barely stand to sit just a few feet away from him on the pew. He noticed for the first time the man wore the gray of the Rebels, even though the war had been over for nearly ten years.

"What have you exactly done?"

"What haven't I done? Name the sin, rev, and I've done it. I've fornicated, fought, cursed God, and even killed many men."

Partlow gingerly placed a hand on the man's back in order to comfort him. He seemed genuinely remorseful, but he was convinced that had to be the hooch talking. This man had the look of a real gun thug, almost like the men Partlow knew from his past. If the sins were true, then Partlow had more in common with the drunk than the man realized.

"What's past is past, my friend. Wickedness may have been in your heart, but that wickedness can be driven out and replaced with the Lord. I speak from experience. In my youth, I battled my own demons before I let Christ into my heart. I was once a wicked man, but through His grace I have repented my ways. I was washed in the blood of the lamb and I became a different man."

"Have you really, rev?"

The drunk fixed his eyes on Partlow. The reverend found it hard to maintain eye contact with the man, especially with the scarred side of his face that made the right eye look bigger and unblinking.

"Changed, I mean," said the drunk. "I don't think it works like that. I had a man explain it to me like this one time: Our lives are a series of doors that lock behind us. We walk through a door and we can't go back. Soon or later we run out of doors to go through and we're left in a little room with the person we've become. We make our choices and we have to live with them. Now, the guy who told me that was coming down off a three-week opium high and I had just recently kicked six of his teeth out with my boot... but I think he was on to something. We are who we are and no amount of praying and weeping and gnashing of teeth can change that."

Partlow recoiled backwards at the man's words and at the fact that, slowly, is drunken slur had seemed to disappear.

"Like how you may be doing good here in Jeff City as Reverend Partlow, but saving all the souls here won't change the fact that you're really Timothy Perkins, and you are an evil bastard."

The reverend's blood seemed to run cold at the mention of that name he thought he'd left behind. He started to back away from the man, but before he could get too far away the man's strong hand found itself wrapped around Partlow's wrist.

"You tell your flock about what you did in Abilene? All the men you and your gang killed when that bank got robbed? What about those fires outside Wichita? All them women and kids that got caught in them burning houses? I bet them old ladies love hearing about the smell of burning human flesh and the way a human being screams while their lungs on fire. That gets them going, don't it?"

"NO! NO! NO! NO! That ain't me!"

Partlow struggled against the man's iron grip before he was pushed to the floor by the scarred man. He thrashed and spat and tried to fight back, but the man was too strong. The stranger jerked the preacher's hands behind his back and tied them together with a short length of rope before knotting it tight.

"I'd kill your sorry ass right now if I could. Unfortunately, the bounty stipulates you're wanted alive. That judge out in Kansas really wants to see you at the end of a rope."

"Whoever you are, you're mistaken! I'm a preacher, for God's sake!"

"Keep denying it and I'll cut out your tongue. You'll bleed out plenty, but I'll stop it before it gets too bad."

The reverend was brought to his feet by the bounty hunter. The scarred man's face was in a permanent sneer, but he felt that the man's face would look like that if he could make the face by choice.

"What I want to know is why is Bill DeVery killing the rest of your gang?"

Partlow blinked in surprise and looked at the bounty hunter.

"Bill?... I mean, who... is Bill?"

"Nice save there, rev, but it ain't gonna make a bit of difference. The rest of your boys -- Migs Malone, Swede Harden, Wilbur Helms -- all got gunned down by someone before I could collect the bounty on them. You and DeVery are the only two members of the gang still alive. With you acting all pious I imagine it's Billy boy doing the killing."

The reverend's heart raced. He was on the verge of hyperventilating, but he licked his dried and cracked lips before nodding.

"I... yes, I am Tim Perkins. I was Tim Perkins. All those things you said I did, I did. I was a monster... but I have changed my ways. I know why Bill is after me. Let me tell you my story and, after I've finished, you can decide if you'd rather take me in for the bounty... or make ten times more than what you would if I hang."

The bounty hunter snorted loud and long before he spat a wad of mucus on the church floor.

"Talk fast, rev. You're using up what little bit of patience I got."

---

Rockford, Illinois
1868

A pitch black engine steadily chugged and poured smoke from its stack as it roared down the rails. Connected to it were six cars that swayed with each dip and divergence on the tracks. The town of Rockford began to rapidly disappear behind it, giving way to the open country of Illinois. It was headed north towards the Wisconsin state line, the towns of Janesville and Madison before the big city of Milwaukee. That was its planned destination, anyway. The five men following the train had other plans.

They watched the moving train from a close hilltop with their horses hitched and waiting. The five men looked every bit like the roughnecks that they were, scraggly facial hair and dressed in dark clothing with bandannas hanging around their necks. One of the men watched the train’s movements with a looking glass in his hands while another stood next to a dynamite plunger.

“Alright,” Timothy Perkins said to the other men. “Mount up. Swede, you got about a minute until the train gets close enough to blow it.”

Swede Harden nodded and prepared to pull the plunger’s handle down while the other four mounted their horses. Perkins pulled his looking glass back out and watched the train approaching a bend.

“Now!”

Swede pushed down on the detonator, sending a electrical impulse a quarter of a mile away where three sticks of dynamite were wedged against the train tracks. The dynamite exploded just as the engine passed over it, sending the engine up ten feet into the air in a fireball of burning coal and twisted steel.

The fiery engine landed on its side and slid off the rails, twisting and dragging the rest of the train with it in a heap of battered boxcars.

“Let’s go,” said Perkins, slipping the bandanna up across the lower half of his face.

The five masked outlaws charged towards the wrecked train with guns drawn. Their intended target was the mail car three spots behind the engine. Part of its delivery in Janesville was payroll to the workers of the various factories and industries in the town, a cash sum totaling nearly twenty thousand dollars. The gang approached the overturned train car, quickly dismounted their horses and pulling their revolvers.

The mail car’s door swung open with a loud clatter. Two hands reached through the door and began to pull someone up through the door. As soon as the burly and mustached face of a man appeared through the hole, he was blasted through the head by Wilbur Helms’ big Smith & Wesson and fell back into the car, dead. Somewhere, someone moaned and someone else cried.

“Spread out along the train,” Perkins told the others. “Anybody even looks a bit like the law, gun ‘em down. Billy, you’re with me. We’re going into the mail car. “

Perkins and Bill DeVery climbed up across the car towards the open door where the marshal had attempted to come through. They jumped down through the hole into the capsized boxcar. It was a mess of scattered mail and twisted bodies. There were a lot of men on the floor, either unconscious or too hurt to put up a fight thanks to the crash. Perkins narrowed his eyes at the men. There were nearly a dozen in here. That was way too many for a simple mail run. Perkins found a dead man’s body and rifled through his jacket. He found a badge announcing the dead man as an agent of the United States Treasury.

“Bill,” he called over to DeVery. “Something’s not right here.”

“I think I found out what it is.”

Perkins looked over where DeVery had a very large trunk opened at his feet. The trunk was easily four feet across and two feet tall. The trunk had been knocked around in the crash, flying open and spilling large amounts of United States greenbacks across the floor. DeVery looked up from the cash and grinned at Perkins.

“It’s all twenties and hundreds. I think there’s at least three more of ‘em in the train.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Perkins said under his breath. “To hell with that payroll. Get that money back in the trunk and let’s find the others.”

---

“The Great Rockford Train Robbery,” Jonah Hex said mostly to himself. “That was y’all?”

“It was,” Timothy Perkins replied. “We found out later that all that money was on the train because it was being put into circulation and the old bills being brought back to the Mint. They had just dropped off one of those trunks at the Treasury field office in Chicago and were headed to Milwaukee to do the same. All told we took at least three million. We eventually gave up counting.”

“You got scared, didn’t you? That was a hell of a lot of money to take, nowhere near what you had planned.”

“We got spooked, yeah. This time we ripped off the federal government, not some wildcat bank or some penny-ante factory owner. It was a big crime that they wouldn’t stop trying to find the money or the robbers. Three million dollars. More money than anybody could spend in ten lifetimes. We took a small share of the haul and split it up, hid it, and went our separate ways.”

Perkins reached into his tunic and pulled out a scrap of paper. He held tightly to it as he looked at it.

“This—“ he held out the paper before pulling it back close to him. “—is part of a map to find the money. Upon our death, we would pass on our part of the map to the others. Last one left alive gets all the piece of the map and gets the money. In theory, it was a good plan…”

“But Bill got tired of waiting,” said Hex. “After just, what? Five years? Surprised y’all took this long to turn on each other.”

“I don’t want the money any longer, Mr. Hex,” said Perkins. “That is part of a past I wish to forget, it was a version of myself that no longer exists that did those things.”

“Well, tell that to DeVery when he shows up.”

“That will not stop Bill from killing me, if only to prevent me from coming back one day and killing him for the money… but what if I give my part of the map to you? You take out Bill, you get all five parts of the map, and get the money and I get to live in peace.”

Hex looked at the preacher. A line of perspiration ran across his hairline and beaded down his forehead. He looked at Hex with an almost fevered sense of optimism. Hex was about to reply when the doors to the church burst open.

The two men turned and saw the tall, meaty frame of Bill DeVery with a shotgun in his hands.

“Tim,” he called in a thick southern twang. “I come for ya!”

“Get down,” Hex growled, pushing Perkins to the floor and drawing one of his Colts from its hip holster.

The outlaw and bounty hunter opened fire upon each other simultaneously.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Part IV
Bad Boys

"No Justice, No Peace"
-- Traditional

Parker saw Grofield coming out the airport terminal and honked the horn of his car. He was dressed in jeans and a jacket. His straw blonde hair was styled in a thick mop over his head and he had a thick mustache the same shade as the hair on his head. Alan Grofield and Parker had worked together on many jobs over the years. Among the many recurring partners Parker had, Grofield was among the most frequent.

Unlike Parker, who considered thief as the closest thing he had to a job, Grofield was an actor first and a thief second. All the money he made from heists went to fund a theater troupe he and his wife ran somewhere out in the Midwest. The fact that Grofield kept having to come back to pull jobs was a pretty good indication of how successful the troupe was.

Next to Handy McKay, Parker worked with nobody better than Grofield. They complimented each other almost perfectly. Parker was rough around the edges while Grofield was all charm. Grofield could talk his way into a locked room while Parker would just opt to kick the lock in. Even in the looks department they were a ying and yang, Parker with his stern looks and Grofield looking like a young Robert Redford. Some wiseass working with the two of them on a job once called them Butch and Sundance in honor of the old western outlaws. Against Parker's wises, the nickname stuck.

"Parker," Grofield said as he got into the car with his bag. "What's it been, three years?"

Parker looked at him for a second before nodding. "You need to cut your hair."

"Wow... nice to see you too, buddy. Do you know that you're the closest thing to a best friend I have in the criminal underworld?"

Parker turned back at Grofield and looked at him silence for a moment before nodding again.

"Keep the mustache. It plays with what we're going to do."

---

Parker's hotel room served as the command center for the job. The far wall had the blueprints of the Finger Homes pinned to it. Alongside it were notations and observations written on sticky notes and attached to the wall. Along with Parker, Handy, and Grofield was another pro from out of state. Parker had never worked with Luis Ortega, but Handy vouched for him. In the few days he'd been part of their crew he seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders and that's all that mattered to Parker.

"Our intel comes courtesy of one Lil' Peanut," Handy said as he stood in front of the blueprint.

All four men were in the room. Parker and Ortega stood while Grofield sat on the bed. Three black uniforms were on the bed beside him. They weren't perfect copies of GCPD uniforms, but they would hold up for what they needed to do.

"Lil' Peanut is a dealer who works out the high-rise tower," said Handy. "And in exchange for a cut -- or so he thinks -- he laid out how Skeevers' system works. The man himself lives in an apartment on the top floor. 12D. His money is close by in apartment 12F, 12F is the clearinghouse for the whole projects. Skeevers has a crew in there counting all the money before it gets redistributed to him, the other dealers, and their supplier for more drugs. According to Peanut, someone from the high-rise goes through the projects and the drug corners twice at noon and midnight to collect the proceeds for the day. Most of these operations are damn near 24/7, so they get a nice chunk of change from every stop along the day."

Parker was glad for the daytime collection. The job was always planned as a daytime one for several reasons, the Bat among them, so it helped them out that if they hit in the middle of the afternoon the counting room would most likely be flush with the profits of the previous twelve hours.

"Where's the drugs?" Parker asked.

"That's a little bit different. They're still in the high-rise, but the stash is moved on a regular basis. The cash is up top and Skeevers knows nobody in Gotham would be crazy enough to take his money, but you can't trust a junkie so he moves it every few days to another location in the high-rise. According to Peanut, they just moved it to 5B. If we're going on this soon then 5B is still going to be the location."

"How are they going to react when we make our play?" Ortega asked. "Are they used to cops coming into the high-rise."

"Nope," said Parker. "Cops are always harassing the corners outside the projects, but they rarely go in. Which makes me think they might have someone on the payroll. That might be trouble if we don't move fast enough."

"So the action is this," said Handy. "We go in fast, get up to the twelfth floor, grab Skeevers and the cash, ride the elevator down to five and get the stash. Throw the cash and stash in the trunk with Skeevers in the backseat. And we deliver all three to our employer."

With a slight gift to Skeevers, Parker thought to himself. It was something that he hadn't discussed with anyone, but he was going to make the move himself just before the hand off to Segel and his heavies. The man had blackmailed and threatened Parker into doing this job. If Parker didn't put a stop to him, he would almost certainly try to do it again.

"Get a good night's sleep," Parker said. "We're meeting back here at ten sharp to get ready to go."

---

Parker looked at himself in the mirror. He wore a gray suit with a white shirt and black tie. His shoes and belt matched the color of his tie. The suit was off the rack, decent quality but something that a detective could afford. He had a glock in a holster on his hip and a fake badge tucked into the breast pocket of his sports coat.

A knock at the door drew him to it. When he opened it, Grofield was standing there. His hair was now in a buzzcut, but he had that thick mustache still. He wore the uniform of a GCPD patrol officer along with aviator sunglasses.

"Sir," he said evenly. "I need you to come with me downtown."

Parker smirked and looked over his shoulder. A replica GCPD patrol car was parked beside Parker's car. Again, it was a fake but high quality. With Segel bankrolling them they could afford the best of almost everything. The only way to get more authentic would have been to go out and steal a cop car.

Handy's van pulled up and he got out with Ortega. Both were wearing the same uniform as Grofield. The four men quickly got into the car. Grofield got behind the wheel while Parker took the shotgun seat. They pulled out of the hotel parking lot and drove towards the projects.

"The shotgun's in the trunk," said Grofield. "Handy, do you want to do the honors?"

"I certainly will," he said with a grin.

When they got two blocks away, Parker nodded.

"Grofield, light it up."

"With pleasure."

He flicked the lights and sirens and sped up. The car announced its presence to everyone as it sped into the housing project. Grofield came to a skidding stop right in front of the high-rise. The dealers and musclemen always hanging around the front entrance scattered as the four robbers jumped out the cop car. Parker, Grofield, and Ortega pulled their glocks while Handy pulled the shotgun out from the trunk.

"Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do," Grofield sang as the four men went through the door into the high-rise.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Jonah Hex

^{"There is no God and we are his prophets." -- Cormac McCarthy}

^{Jonah Woodson Hex ♦ 1/9/1838 - 10/5/1904 (66) ♦ Male ♦ Chaotic Neutral}

C O N C E P T A B S T R A C T:

I want to tell western stories set during the life of Jonah Hex. I've already got a few ideas I can use and run with.

N O T E S:

Nothing to add at the moment.

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Last Killer Standing
Part I:
Missoura

"An aged man is but a paltry thing.
--W.B. Yeats

Missouri
March, 1873

Wilbur Helms gasped for air. He was running as fast as he could through the thickets and underbrush around him. A painful stitch in his right side felt like a knife to the ribs every time he moved. He was too old and too fat to keep running like this, but it was a matter of life and death that he get as far away as possible.

They came for him in the middle of the night, knocking in the rickety door of his small house. A wayward shot clipped Wilbur's ear and took a chunk of it off. He went for the derringer under his pillow and took enough potshots at his assailant to send them back out the door. Wilbur grabbed his bigger Colt, along with the scrap of paper he always had with him, and managed to slip out the back door and into the woods behind the house.

He tried to slow down his breathing. His rampant wheezing could be easily heard out here, making him an easy target for the man after him. Wilbur reached into his shirt and held the scrap of paper in his pudgy hands. The paper was why they were after him. For nearly ten years Wilbur had been living his life in fear of this moment, and now it was here. Based on his own estimates he had another quarter of a mile to get to the river that ran through his property. If he could ford it and get to the Samuelson's farm house a few miles after the river, then he could be safe. He just had to make himself move.

With a deep breath, Wilbur broke out of the underbrush and straight into the double barrel of a shotgun. He let out a small sound of surprise as the shotgun disintegrated his face and his dead body flopped to the ground. Spitting a wad of tobacco at his feet, the killer rifled trough the dead man's clothes until he pulled the scrap of paper from Wilbur's shirt. Tucking it into his own pocket, the killer stepped over Wilbur's dead body and whistled under his breath as he headed back to the house.

Central City, Missouri
April, 1873

Max Steiss snarled and raged against the bars of his jail cell. He cursed and spat through the bars at the two men impassively watching him from ten feet away. Jonah Hex had a smoldering cigar clamped between his teeth and a mocking smirk on his face. Beside him, US Marshal Jason Garrick shouted Steiss down with promises of violence upon his person. Steiss fumed and collapsed on the cell's small cot, his back to the two men.

"Thank you for bringing him in, Mr. Hex," said Garrick.

"Don't thank me," replied hex. "Just pay me."

"You'll have to see the US Attorney about that. The bounty on Steiss is what? Five thousand? An amount of money that size, I can't pay out for."

Hex looked at the marshal and sized him up. He was at least ten years older than Garrick. He knew the reason why a man as young as Garrick was the head marshal for this part of Missouri. He had the job forced upon him after a bushwhacker killed Garrick's boss six months earlier. Hex was in on chasing after the man for the bounty, but Garrick beat him to the draw and came back to Central City with the murderer tied to the back of his horse. It pissed Hex off something fierce to be denied that bounty, but he was okay with it in the end. Justice was something that Garrick needed to get for the dead marshal and the town and for himself. Hex never brought justice into his dealings. No, death and violence were enough for him.

"How far a ride is it to Jefferson City from here, a few days right?"

"Jeff City?" Garrick asked, scratching his chin. "Two days ride if you push it, why?"

Without a word, Hex ambled over to the office's far wall. Hanging on it were wanted posters of Missouri's and the country's most wanted. Hex dug through the different pictures until he found the one he wanted. It was a yellowing piece of paper that curled at the corners. On it was a drawing of a fat man with a double chin and a hook nose. Underneath the photo was the name Wilbur Helms and a price of two thousand dollars.

"Helms here was part of a gang of rough boys that operated out of Kansas. He and four other men have been on the lam for at least five years now. A federal judge in Lawrence is willing to pay full price on Helms and the rest of them. Only problem is I found Helms dead a week ago in Independence, least I think it was Helms. Shotgun blast to the face ruined what looks he had."

Reaching into his jacket, Hex produced wanted posters of two other men with black x's drawn across their faces with charcoal.

"Two other members of his gang I tracked last year in Kansas were both dead, both of them murdered by persons unknown."

Garrick let out a low whistle and walked to his desk. He leaned against it and looked at the scarred bounty hunter.

"Someone scooping you on the haul?"

"No. Whoever's killing 'em is leaving 'em behind. Can't claim a bounty without a body. The next member in their gang that's on my list is supposed to hang around Jeff City."

"Well, I'd hurry the hell up if I was you," Garrick said with a wink. "Get to Jeff City before you miss out on another payday."

Absolute Comics: A Brave New World

Part III

"Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule."
― Charles Dickens

US Federal Penitentiary
Fishkill, NY
2005

The cacophony was near-deafening as the gate opened and Frank Castle was led through general population. Two guards flanked him on either side as they walked into the open area where five hundred men watched the Punisher join their ranks.

"Fuck you!" someone yelled.

"Gonna fuck you up, old man!"

There were more threats, each one more lewd than the last one. From a guard station, FBI agent James McCaleb watched the chaos with a frown. For the past twenty years McCaleb had been the Bureau's preeminent Punisher hunter. Nobody had done more to get inside Castle's mindframe and try to plan his next move.

After decades on the run, Castle had walked into a police department in Rye, New York a week ago and turned himself in. The move caused national news and left the big question of why. After decades of avoiding the law, why did he turn himself in? A lot of people in Quantico didn't care about the why, they were just glad it was over. Over McCaleb's protests, Castle had been transferred to the prison here in Fishkill to await trial.

McCaleb knew Castle's play in the prison. The fifty-five year old was coming back to where it all began to end it. In the prison's infirmary ward was eighty-eight year old Dominic Scargetti, the man whose crime family created the Punisher. McCaleb argued with his bosses that the old man was Castle's target. For whatever reason, he was coming here to finally get revenge on the man who took his family away from him.

The concerns were brushed away. Castle was old, the prison was secure, he'd have to get through so much to even get close to the infirmary that it was impossible. They didn't get it. In the years since 9/11, Frank Castle had been put on the backburner in favor of counter terrorism. Radical Islam was the threat. Meanwhile, Castle had probably killed more people than all the terrorist attacks in America combined. He was one of the most dangerous men in America, and now the FBI was giving him what he wanted.

McCaleb looked on a monitor and watched as Castle was led to an open cell. The electronic door slid shut and the guards walked away. Castle gripped the bars of his cell and looked around. His eyes found the camera McCaleb was watching from and stayed locked on it. After several long seconds of looking, Frank Castle actually smiled at the camera and winked.

----

Boston
Now

Special Agent Rachel Cole always had lunch at the diner across from the FBI building. Most of the other agents always had lunch together, either in pairs and trios or in groups, but she was always by herself. She was new to the office, having come from the Alabama field office just a month earlier, and was still finding her place. She was in the bank robbery unit -- Massachusetts had a very high number of bank robberies per year -- but what she really wanted was work in the crimes against person section. They were busy with the Bunker Hill Butcher, working with Washington and the Behavioral Analysis Unit to catch the guy. Rachel didn't consider herself the next Clarice Starling, but she wanted to catch serial killers. It was part of the reason she joined the Bureau.

"Hello, Rachel."

And old man slid into the booth across from her. He wore a black jacket and black work pants. His hair was grey and he was big and burly. He looked like an old fighter. She started to protest, but then she saw his eyes. They were green, an unnatural shade of emerald, and bright. Those eyes kept her transfixed and seated right where she was while he spoke.

"When you get back from lunch, you're going to have an idea concerning the Bunker Hill Butcher. The Bureau already knows that he's killing his victims somewhere else and then dumping them at the monument, but you're going to go through a map of Charlestown. You're going to look through the homes and apartments within sight of the monument and find this address --" he gave her the number and street "-- and you're going to find that an apartment on the third floor is rented by a man with two names, the lease is one name and the utility bill is in another, both names are nondescript and sound like aliases. You're going to find this suspicious and check out the apartment yourself. That's when you're going to find DNA evidence that will tie the apartment to the killings. And you're not going to remember this conversation at all. Understand?"

"Yes," she said evenly.

"Good," he said. He stood. "Enjoy your lunch, Special Agent Cole."

He walked out and Rachel remained motionless for a few seconds before blinking rapidly. She looked down at her food. She'd lost her train of thought. The Bunker Hill Butcher, that's right. The killer had taken at least five lives, maybe more. Always dropping them off at the monument... she wondered.

"Can I get my check?" she asked a passing waitress.

She had a thought. Something had clicked in her head. She stood up and threw a twenty dollar bill on the table and walked out before she could get her check. She had to get back to work.