by Leslie Wolfe
“There are no defensive wounds,” he clarified, “at least not any new ones. It was as if she’d given up fighting. I’ve scraped, but I don’t anticipate the lab will find anything we can use.”
An out-of-town, apparently random victim; a killer who knew how to take forensic countermeasures; and tox screens that took more than five days to run. Not the trifecta Kay was hoping for.
“How was she found?” Kay asked.
Dr. Whitmore pulled up some crime scene photos on the large monitor hanging on the wall by their side. “She was buried face up, hands folded on her chest, completely naked and wrapped carefully in a new blanket,” he said. “I found pieces of maple leaves and a couple of seed samaras on the blanket, but they could’ve been picked up from the surface or the soil. Fibers and source of the blanket are still pending.”
The images on the screen showed Kendra’s body neatly wrapped in the blanket as if she were a newborn baby, then the position of her arms folded at her chest after the ME had unwrapped her body at the scene. There was something deeply disturbing about how she was laid to rest, something Kay couldn’t put her finger on.
“This looks ritualistic. Remorse?” she asked.
“Definitely,” he confirmed. “The grave was shallow, but it was sheer luck she was discovered. Just a tourist whose dog wouldn’t take no for a command.”
He flipped the images on the screen. A couple of closeups of Kendra’s head were displayed, showing her hair braided and tied with Native American hair ties.
She approached the screen and squinted. “Pomo,” she said, referring to a Native American tribe with roots in the region. The local population still held a couple of hundred Native families, most of them Pomoan, although the Shasta tribe was also represented.
Kay had grown up immersed in the remnants of the local Native American culture and she could distinguish between the various tribes’ cultural differences, no matter how minute.
“Not Shastan people?” Dr. Whitmore asked.
“I don’t believe so,” she replied. “See how the hair tie is braided from leather strips, my guess calf skin? That’s Pomoan. And the feathers are waterfowl, not raptor.”
Dr. Whitmore extracted a transparent evidence bag holding the hair ties. “I’m sending these to the San Francisco lab today, as a special request. Maybe it can find epithelials from the killer on the ties. Hopefully, he handled these with his bare hands, which means some skin cells might’ve adhered to the leather. I couldn’t see any skin cells under the ’scope, but I don’t have much of a lab here,” he added apologetically.
Elliot took a photo of the hair ties with his phone.
“How about her hair?” Kay asked. “In the photos I see it was braided, but now it’s not.”
“I combed carefully through every strand. If the killer had braided it himself, we might catch a break. Epithelials found in her hair are pending DNA, but don’t hold your breath; it could be all hers.”
Kay squinted at the headshots again. The pale figure with the braided hair tied with the Pomoan hair ties seemed oddly familiar. Where have I seen this before? she thought. Other than most powwows, that is.
“Were her braids started low, behind the ears?” she asked. The photos weren’t detailed enough to show. “Or here, above the ears, like Caucasian women would do it?”
“The braids started low,” Dr. Whitmore said, pointing behind Kendra’s right ear. “Then they were tucked behind the ears and drawn forward, to her chest, the feathers of the ties laid carefully, as they would hang naturally if the woman were standing.”
“Again, Pomoan,” Kay repeated her earlier finding. “This is his signature. Tell me about this blanket, the pattern on it, how dirt was laid out around her body, any boulders he might’ve used,” she asked. “I want to see everything you have on how she was found. Maybe there’s something in his signature I could use to generate a profile.”
“You’re thinking serial killer?” Dr. Whitmore asked.
“Yes. I know this is the only victim you have so far, but I’m willing to bet there are more out there. A serial killer isn’t necessarily defined by the number of victims; the pathology of the kill is the telltale evidence. You can see his pathology in the way he tortured Kendra, in how the bruises line up on her body. He was methodical, sadistic and prolonged the pleasure he derived from overpowering her.”
Dr. Whitmore exchanged a quick glance with Elliot.
“That’s why you’re the best,” Dr. Whitmore replied. “You’ve always had a nose for these killers and their handiwork. No one could mislead you.”
“What are you saying?” Kay asked, looking intently at the doctor.
“We found another woman’s body,” Elliot replied, “relatively close to where Kendra was found. But this vic had been dead for months. We have no identification yet.”
“Yes,” Dr. Whitmore said, pulling open a refrigerated drawer where he stored the bodies before and after the autopsies. The drawer held a woman’s corpse, covered with a blue sheet. “Meet Jane Doe. All I could determine so far was the manner of death, also manual strangulation, supported by a shattered hyoid bone.”
He exposed the victim’s almost entirely decomposed skull and stepped aside.
Kay studied the body for a moment, then looked at Elliot impatiently. “I need to see the burial site.”
Seven
Scream
He’d kept his word for exactly five minutes, not a second more.
He let her see Hazel, even allowed her to hug her little girl, while their tears mixed on their touching faces. He even had the decency to let her get dressed before bringing her daughter to see her.
“Mommy,” Hazel had said, touching Alison’s face with trembling fingers. “Don’t cry,” the girl had pleaded, while Alison folded her in her arms, afraid any moment he could yank Hazel away from her and lock her upstairs somewhere.
She forced herself to break the embrace and studied her baby’s face, her hands, her arms and her legs. There was only one bruise on her forearm, but Hazel seemed shocked, staring into emptiness when she wasn’t crying.
She’d wiped her tears and smiled, looking at Hazel’s red, swollen eyes. “I won’t cry, baby, I promise.” She hugged her again, so tightly she tried to wriggle free. “What do you do all day, sweetheart?”
“Nothing,” she replied, and Alison felt a wave of relief hearing her reply. “There’s a boy here too.”
Alison felt a pang of fear. “How old is that boy, baby?”
“He’s little,” Hazel replied, holding her hand at her shoulder level.
Alison let out a breath.
“When we go home, can we take him with us, Mommy?”
“Of course.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “He could be your little brother.”
“When can we go home, Mommy? Can we go home now?”
There were no words, only tears springing from her eyes. She hugged her daughter again and buried her face in the girl’s hair, just as the man returned and yanked her away.
“No, no, please don’t take her,” Alison begged, “give me one more minute, I’m begging you.”
But he didn’t even bother to respond. He dragged Hazel out of there kicking and screaming. She could hear her fighting him all the way upstairs, punching him with her little fists.
“Don’t fight him, baby,” she whispered, although Hazel couldn’t hear her. “It will only be worse.”
Hazel’s sobs slowly faded until she couldn’t hear them anymore, and regardless of how intently she listened, she couldn’t hear the man’s steps coming back downstairs.
What was he doing up there, alone with her daughter?
Was he touching her? Was he doing to Hazel what he’d been doing to her? Fear drove a hot knife through her gut.
“Oh, God, please, no… please don’t let that be true. I’m begging you, watch over my baby.”
She stood and started pacing the room, oblivious to the pain each step was causing her. She lim
ped slightly and her belly hurt badly, but at least she wasn’t bleeding anymore.
But where was he? Why wasn’t he coming downstairs already?
She wanted him to come back to the basement, although she knew exactly what to expect from his presence. But she would do anything to keep that monster away from her daughter, even if for a minute.
Was he hurting her, and she couldn’t hear it because he was gagging her, like he’d done on the first day? What if she’s—
No… she couldn’t think like that. Obsessive thoughts circled in her mind, running over the same terrifying scenario in wide, incessant loops of pure horror. No. Her daughter had to be fine. They both would be fine, and they would soon go home. They’d both escape, any moment now.
But what about that boy? Where did he come from? Was his mother like her, a prisoner in the basement? Since she’d been there, hers were the only screams she’d heard. Her own and Hazel’s.
Out of her mind with despair, she paced the room like a caged animal, mumbling prayers and senseless words, conjuring a future where Hazel and she would be back home again, safe and secure together. Eating dinner. Watching cartoons on TV. Doing all those things they’d done together that she’d taken for granted so many times before.
Finally, the lock turned, and the door opened, letting the man enter. Whimpering, she rushed to the opposite corner of the room and crouched on the floor, her back against the cold concrete bricks, watching him standing there, staring at her.
He wasn’t some crazy mountain man she couldn’t hope to communicate with. With an immense effort, she willed herself to study him, to try to understand him. He was dressed cleanly, in slacks and a blue shirt, starched and pressed. His shoes looked new and expensive. His skin seemed soft except for his bruised knuckles, acquired when he’d pounded on her. Swallowing some rising bile, she admitted he seemed almost attractive if it weren’t for that sickening blood lust in his terrifying eyes.
She forced her lungs to fill with air and stood, unsure on her feet and shaking badly, to be closer to his eye level.
“It’s a shame this is happening,” she managed to articulate, then ventured a timid smile. “If you’d asked me on a date, I would’ve said yes.”
He laughed heartily, the echoes of his voice reverberating eerily against the basement walls.
Blinking away her tears, she continued, her voice breaking as she spoke. “We could’ve had dinner, talked, and—”
“You think I want a date?” he asked between cackles. “You think I want to hear you speak?” He took a step closer and she flinched, ready to run back to her corner, but he was faster. He grabbed her and whispered in her ear, “All I want is to hear you scream.”
Eight
Site
It was a relatively short drive from the morgue to the northeast tip of Cuwar Lake, and Kay immersed herself in her thoughts, absently looking at the stunning landscape. The road to the lake, a narrow and winding strip of asphalt bordered by tall firs and the occasional oak or maple, used to be her favorite road trip before she moved away. It seemed like a lifetime ago, the last time she’d visited the lake without looking for a body dump site; a different age, an innocent age, although at the time she would’ve vehemently objected to that label. She’d stopped being innocent a long time ago.
Elliot chewed on a piece of straw he’d picked from the front lawn of the morgue and stared a little too intently at the road ahead, as if trying to avoid her scrutiny. Maybe it was time for him to get a taste of his own medicine.
“So, what was that all about in there?” she asked.
“I sure don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied morosely.
She didn’t back down. “You, acting like you’ve never seen a corpse before?”
He removed the straw from his mouth, studied it for a brief moment, then lowered the window and threw it out. The crisp fall air filled her nostrils with the scent of fallen leaves, of wet tree bark and moist earth.
“Not like that, I haven’t,” he admitted, visibly embarrassed.
“Ah,” she reacted. Things must’ve been peaceful in Austin. If she remembered correctly, Elliot’s hometown hadn’t seen a serial killer since the Servant Girl Annihilator, who preyed on the city of Austin between 1884 and 1885 and was never caught. Austin held the infamous honor of having been the city to produce the first serial killer in the history of the United States, but since the Annihilator, no other serial killer had called the emerging metropolis home. “It can be off-putting,” she added, choosing her words carefully. “But I thought you’d seen Kendra’s body before, at the lake?”
“Not, um, like that,” he mumbled.
He probably meant not naked under the cold, merciless neon lights, her body covered in cuts and bruises all over, each bearing testimony to her terrible ordeal.
“What do you think about the way she was buried?” she asked, satisfied to see his shoulders relaxing a little when she changed the subject. “Have you seen this before?”
“We found the other vic, and she was wrapped the same way.”
“I meant, outside of these two body finds,” she clarified.
“N—no, can’t say that I have.” He glanced at her quickly, enough for her to catch his raised eyebrow.
“I haven’t either,” she replied, speaking slowly, deeply immersed in thoughts. “It resembles old Native American burial customs, but mixed and matched, not like a single tribe’s custom. More like the killer took something from one tribe, something else from another, and so on.”
“You recognize them?” He made a vague gesture with his hand.
“Some of it, yes,” she replied, still thinking, gathering pieces of the ceremonial puzzle. “Some Native American tribes wrap their dead in blankets, together with jewelry or other possessions, things the spirits would need in the other world. Was anything else found with their bodies?”
“Nothing else, nope.”
“But they never wrap the bodies like that,” she added, continuing her previous chain of thought. “Not at an angle.”
Based on what she’d seen in Dr. Whitmore’s crime scene photos, the body had been laid on the blanket diagonally, head at one corner and feet at the opposite corner. One corner of the blanket had been folded above her feet, then the sides brought over the body, left side first, then the right side. Like swaddling a baby, except the head corner had been folded to cover the victim’s face.
To cover? Or to protect from dirt?
Guilt? Or shame?
“The braiding of the hair also speaks of Native American customs,” she added.
“That part I figured,” he replied. “What do you make of it? Neither victim was Native. Doc Whitmore said Jane Doe was Caucasian.”
She shrugged. “Looks familiar to me, but I can’t place it.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen women wear their hair like that before, haven’t you? This is Native country.”
She smiled, a distant childhood memory filling her heart with a swell of warmth. The smell of mutton on the spit, sage sprinkled and burned, eastern hemlock tea served in ceramic mugs against a backdrop of a lonely canyon flute invoking the spirits and asking for rain. She had the privilege of growing up close to the Native peoples of the region, many times thinking she belonged more to their tribe than to the white man’s. And in a Native household she’d found refuge and solace many times, which was lacking in her own home.
But this was different. Eerie almost, in the way it felt personal, for some reason that was not evident. As if Kendra’s hair was not hers, was someone else’s.
“I’ve seen braided hair before,” she replied, choosing to keep most of her thoughts to herself, and all of her memories. “But this particular style of braiding, and the hair ties he used, obviously handmade, remind me of something specific.”
He frowned, glancing at her quickly, then turning his attention to the road.
The forest was starting to clear; they were nearing the northeast corner of the lake, where
the road was closest to the water. Only two or three minutes to the burial site, which was off the North Shore Road, about one mile after passing the viewpoint, right on the southern limit of the national forest. She knew very well where that was, but didn’t feel like sharing that particular bit of information.
“Like what?” he asked, probably knowing he wasn’t going to get an answer.
“It will come to me at some point,” she replied, stretching her legs.
They had arrived.
The place looked different in broad daylight. Lengths of yellow police tape still clung to the trunks of several trees, moving gently in the evening breeze, although they’d been torn when the sheriff’s office released the scene. Two separate sections had been cordoned off, but she didn’t need to see that to know where the bodies had been buried. Park services hadn’t been by, apparently, to clean up and restore the illusion of normality to the area.
She’d seen Kendra’s grave the night before, when she’d visited by herself and crossed the police tape, then uncut, to study the open grave from up close. Back then, in the cone of her flashlight, she’d noticed the fallen maple leaves and samaras, but hadn’t thought much of it. She hadn’t noticed the large maple tree the night before, and she hadn’t seen Kendra’s body yet. She hadn’t seen her braided hair, and the leather and feathers hair ties. She hadn’t seen the pattern on the blankets, a Shastan geometrical motif on dark brown, framing a centered design featuring feathers tied together with a blood-red leather twine and carried by an arrow.
As if their bodies had been laid to rest on a bed of feathers, to shield and protect them from all evil.
Like in the old days, when a tribe mourned the death of a loved one.
Except for one tiny detail.
Kay took a few steps back and looked at the maple tree above Kendra’s grave. Its crown was wide enough, and the thick branches ramified low enough to create a natural platform.
