The Girl from Silent Lake

by Leslie Wolfe

  He stood and walked over to the first table, and beckoned them to follow.

  “I have all our guests ready for your visit,” he said, offering Kay a small jar of Vicks VapoRub. She rubbed a little ointment under her nostrils, then passed the jar over to Elliot, who took it with a grateful nod.

  “I thought you didn’t use this stuff, Doc,” she said, returning the jar with a lopsided smile.

  “I finished the part of my exam where my sense of smell is critical,” he replied. “But you two shouldn’t have to put up with this. These poor girls have been in the ground for a while.”

  Dr. Whitmore pulled back the sheet from the remains lying on the first table. “This is Shannon Hendricks—you met her Wednesday, right?”

  “Uh-huh, yes,” Kay replied, reluctant to open her mouth at first. Elliot had pulled back a couple of steps.

  “I was able to confirm a few things since the last time we spoke,” he said, sitting on a four-legged stool on casters, then he rolled closer to the exam table. “Her tox screen was clean; she wasn’t poisoned or drugged, not in the last few days of her life, anyway. I have a few strands of her hair at the San Francisco lab for a detailed tox history. Her hair being so long, we have a great deal of information built into each fiber, a history of all the chemicals she was exposed to. It might help you pin down a location.”

  “When can you expect the results?” Kay asked.

  “Not before the end of next week,” he replied. “I have revised the time of death to the end of May—”

  “This year?” Elliot asked, covering his mouth with his hand as he spoke, probably as reluctant as she was to inhale the air filled with the miasma of human decay.

  “Yes, this year,” Dr. Whitmore replied, furrowing his brow slightly. “She was reported missing on November twenty-seventh last year, you said, and that means she spent at least six months in captivity.”

  “It confirms your theory,” Elliot said, “that he keeps them until the ground is soft enough to dig the grave.”

  “Maybe,” Kay replied, studying the remains closely. Her throat still bore the signs of the brutal strangulation that had brought her demise. “How about the others?” she asked.

  She pressed her lips together, swallowing a curse. She should’ve been at the scene when they dug up the other bodies. But she hadn’t, and that was it. She had to rely on crime scene photos again, instead of all her senses.

  Dr. Whitmore exposed both bodies. The state of decomposition was visibly more advanced.

  “We don’t have an ID yet; fingerprints didn’t return any result,” he said. “I had to rehydrate the remaining skin to take an impression of their prints, and I was hoping, by now, we’d know who they are. I rarely find skin on the fingers after so much time in the ground. I was surprised.”

  “How did they die?” Elliot asked.

  “We’ll get there,” Dr. Whitmore said. “I’m not finished with who they are. About the same age as the other two, but that’s where the commonalities stop.”

  Great, Kay thought. She was hoping for more commonalities, not fewer.

  “Based on bone structure, this one was Black,” he pointed at the middle table, “and the other one Asian. My guess, Chinese, but that speaks to race, not nationality. Her teeth are impeccable, speaking to an affluent life lived here in the US. That goes for both women, actually.”

  His first two victims had been white, and so was Alison. One more piece of the victimology puzzle was falling apart; the unsub was crossing racial lines. Only a small percentage of serial killers did. If he didn’t kill substitutes for the object of his rage—women who reminded him of that someone in his past who had inflamed him, that had done him wrong—why did he kill these particular women? What made him choose them? She had to rethink the entire profile.

  “This one, Jane Doe One,” Dr. Whitmore said, pointing at the table on the far right, “the Asian, had given birth, but not recently. Jane Doe Two was nulliparous.” He noticed Elliot’s glance, and explained. “She’d never given birth.”

  “How were they found?” Kay asked. “Was the signature similar?”

  “No,” he replied, “it was identical.” He displayed some photos on the wall screen, and she approached as close as she could to see the details in each photo. “They were wrapped in the same type of blanket, also new, in the same Native design. I’d venture to say, same provenance. Their hair had been braided and tied with the same leather and feather hair ties. And there were enough samara leaves to indicate these two women might’ve also been given a tree burial first, at a time in the year when seeds were prevalent.” He cleared his throat and smiled with sadness in his eyes. “What an interesting idea, Kay, to look for burial trees. I’m happy I’m not in your shoes, trying to think like these killers do. I would lose my mind.”

  Kay smiled back just as grimly. She might’ve lost hers already, a long time ago. Maybe that’s why she understood killers so well. Because she was one of them. Yes, she’d defended her mother’s life, her own and Jacob’s, but she’d taken the life of her father. She still remembered how she didn’t hesitate, nor did she feel any remorse, not for a long time after the shots had stopped echoing in her mind. She still recalled the coldness of the trigger under her finger, the loud bang of each shot, and how she had to fight to control the urge to unload the entire magazine into the lifeless heap bleeding on the floor.

  “Cause of death the same, Doc?” she asked, feeling her throat parchment dry.

  “Yes, forceful manual strangulation in both victims, with shattered hyoid and crushed trachea. Due to the advanced stage of decomposition, sexual assault is likely, but not forensically bulletproof.”

  “When did they die?” Elliot asked.

  “Sometime last year. I’ll need more time to narrow down the window, but if I had to guess, and you know how much I hate guessing, I’d say that Jane Doe One was killed last summer, around July sometime, and Jane Doe Two, a few months later, but before winter. Let’s say, October.”

  Dr. Whitmore continued to walk them through his findings, displaying the slides he’d captured before, presenting samples of tissue that had been damaged by blunt force or sharp force, all in various stages of healing, showing the same pattern of continuous abuse. But Kay’s mind veered off, at what remained from the initial profile she’d started to sketch. Not much was left, as if she’d drawn her profile in pencil and the wave of evidence had rubbed most of it off, leaving the sheet almost entirely blank.

  But then a chill rushed through her blood, remembering what the doctor had said about Jane Doe Two’s time of death.

  October.

  Before the winter set in, and the ground was still soft.

  Her gaze landed on the wall calendar Dr. Whitmore still kept, although most modern devices showed the date. October 23.

  Would the unsub keep Alison until next spring? Or kill her now, quickly, before the earth froze? How about the children? What would he do with them over the winter?

  She looked out the window at the gray sky, remembering the chill she’d felt in the air that morning, the bite in the northerly winds, the tall weeds on her lawn stooped by overnight frost. Small, isolated flurries danced, setting down and clinging to the landscape for a minute or two before melting away.

  They were out of time.

  Twenty-Seven

  Evidence

  “You were right,” Elliot said the moment they’d climbed into his SUV and closed the doors. “I have to say I haven’t really bought your serial killer story, not one hundred percent, not until now. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  She chuckled, a quick, sad reaction to his words. “For what? For being a strong believer in the ‘five vics to make a serial’ rule? That used to be the norm, but it’s obsolete. It’s not wrong; only not very accurate anymore.” She rubbed her forehead for a split moment, her cold fingers bringing relief to the early signs of a migraine that had tightened a vise around her temples. “Even serial killers evolve,” she added, then immed
iately corrected herself. “Or, better said, our understanding of them.”

  Leaning her head against the cold window, she closed her eyes. What next? How could they find Alison and the kids, before their time ran out? In the distance, if she listened intently, she could hear the distinctive barks of bloodhounds at work, the experimental K9 team from UC Davis. They’d been searching since the break of dawn, and if anything had been found, any trace of evidence or any trail scent, Elliot would’ve received a call.

  Most likely, after taking Alison and her daughter, the killer had disposed of the Nissan, and the two victims had been transported somewhere by vehicle, probably the unsub’s, and that wasn’t something the bloodhounds could track.

  Elliot and Kay remained Alison and the children’s only hope, and the lives of all three weighed heavily on her shoulders.

  “Don’t hold back,” Elliot said. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Where do we go next? What do we do?”

  She pressed her lips together, while her brow furrowed. “The FBI will probably take over—”

  “Don’t give me that steaming pile of manure,” he reacted. “You know better than anyone that it’s up to you. By the time the feds get up to speed, he’ll kill them all, and we’ll find them who knows where.” He touched her frozen hand and spread warmth in her body. “You’ve done this before, Kay. Let’s nail the bastard, you and me, together.”

  She took a breath, having to concede certain arguments he’d made. She understood the unsub better than anyone new on the case would have the chance to before the time ran out. She felt she was close to figuring out his profile, and some of that profile seemed within her grasp, like a forgotten word that sits on the tip of one’s tongue, refusing to come into focus, but clearly there, used, known, familiar.

  “Usually, by victim number five I’d have a clear victim type, but I don’t,” she said, hesitant at first, but her voice caught speed as she entered the familiar territory of criminal profiling. “Some were Caucasians, while others were not. Physically, all they had in common was their age, and the length of their hair, long enough to allow this ritualistic braiding.”

  “Ritualistic?” he asked. “Why do you think it’s more than just a simple signature?”

  “Signatures are never simple,” she replied. “They’re the materialization of fantasies or yearnings the unsub has, and they’re almost always complex, layered, speaking to the hidden drivers of their compulsions. This is the only clear part of the profile, so far. There seems to be a strong connection between the unsub and Native American life, their customs, their beliefs.”

  “You said you think he’s local. Could he be Native, then?”

  “I don’t believe so,” she replied. “He’s definitely local, judging by the level of comfort with the surroundings, with the area in general. Something makes him kill here and bury his victims here. That something has to be a strong tie, either with the place he was born and maybe raised, or the place he still calls home. But he mixes various Native customs in his rituals; he’s not true to one single tribe, like a real Native would be.”

  “Then?”

  “He’s got close ties to the Native peoples of the region in a way that is significant to his rituals, to his fantasies,” she replied. “He has strong emotional ties with one or more tribes and their members.”

  She started thinking about the correlation between the victims’ races and his ties with the Native people. What if the victims were of random races because they were placeholders for Native women? He braided their hair as if they were Native, Pomoan to be exact, and maybe it didn’t matter to him what race they were, as long as they weren’t Pomoan.

  But then, why not hunt Pomoan women? Maybe because there weren’t that many left in the tribe, or because killing them would strike too close to home, would paint a target on his back. He was too smart for that. He’d known how to stay undiscovered for the longest time, and he would’ve continued to kill without anyone being the wiser, if not for one tourist’s curious dog.

  “Yes, he’s definitely local,” she affirmed, “and the object of his rage is a Native American woman of twenty-five to thirty-two years of age. I believe he’s white, based on the population makeup of the area, but it’s a statistical assertion, nothing more.”

  “Should I write this down?” Elliot asked, the smile in his voice unmistakable.

  “You might want to share this with your colleagues, so, yes, but I’ll be there to answer questions.”

  “That means you have a profile?”

  “A partial one,” she admitted. “This type of predator is a power or control killer, and these killers normally have a type. The absence of a type could speak to the fact that his desired type is unavailable or too risky for him to touch so close to home.”

  “That type being?”

  “Most likely a Pomoan woman,” she said. “Sometime in this unsub’s past, a Pomoan woman has done him wrong, defied him, or hurt him in a significant measure. But he won’t go near the tribe to hunt, because he’s also adept at avoiding being caught.”

  “Do you think he’s opportunistic?” Elliot asked. “Is he waiting for tourists to venture here, then he attacks?”

  “He’s highly organized, and organized killers rarely leave any detail of their process to chance. I believe there’s a precise method to his abductions, and that’s why he was able to abduct, torture and kill here, in this area, without getting caught.”

  “Then, if not here, where do you think he hunts for his victims?”

  She didn’t answer right away. First and foremost, power-motivated killers had a strong compulsion, even if that compulsion wasn’t lust. There’s an urge in them to satisfy their need for absolute power over another human being, usually a symbol or a stand-in for the object of their rage. But how did those people hunt?

  Some planned in detail their next abduction, choosing wisely and carefully victims who couldn’t lead the investigators back to them. Others chose from high-risk victim pools, like prostitutes or street children, people who usually weren’t missed. But she’d never before encountered an unsub with the level of cunning and of planning this one had. His victims came from all over the country, making correlations difficult when the victims were reported missing. He disposed of their vehicles in a place most likely to not raise any suspicion, and point only at the victim, not him. The only risks he really took were ritual driven, having to do with the burial of the women. It was as if he couldn’t avoid following his compulsion, no matter how much he risked, by elevating victims in trees, then revisiting the area to bury them, all of that in a place where tourists ventured quite often.

  “He can’t avoid following his compulsion,” Kay said, “no matter how smart he is, and he is very smart. I believe he has knowledge of forensics and criminology, given the level of concern with hiding his tracks and preventing us from profiling him.” She paused, realizing she hadn’t answered Elliot’s question. “I don’t believe we have enough information to figure out where he chooses his victims, but we know for sure he disables their vehicles and preys on them when they’re at their most vulnerable.” She thought for a moment about the missing children, and the power-motivated profile.

  She felt a shiver traveling down her spine. Having a child increased a mother’s vulnerability by an immeasurable factor. And yet, the unsub had let Tracy go. However, he’d held on to Matthew. Or had he? Where was Matthew Hendricks? Her head was spinning with all the possibilities, all the scenarios that stemmed from the killer’s unusual actions and twisted rituals, behind them an intricate maze of fantasies he’d built over time, getting lost deeper and deeper in the abyss of his compulsions.

  “This unsub is someone who has been, or believes he has been, abused, even tortured in his childhood. He carries with him the unhealed injury of that abuse and feels compelled to reassert his dominance over placeholder victims, over and over again, while nothing he does, no amount of suffering he inflicts on his victims will relieve the burning sense of
powerlessness, of inadequacy he endures on a daily basis.”

  “You’re telling me this unsub comes from an abusive family?” Elliot reacted with a scoff. “This area is one of the poorest areas in California; financial hardship and abuse go hand in hand.”

  “I know that,” she replied harshly, his statement cutting a little too close to home. “But this is the profile, and I need you to understand it. Especially when I’m going to say that the best lead we have is those cars, and how he got them back to San Francisco.”

  “What lead, the tow truck?” he asked, his raised eyebrows wrinkling his forehead. “Eggers had nothing to do with those cars; following your idea, Hobbs offered to overlook his cocaine possession charge completely, but Eggers still couldn’t tell us what we wanted to hear.”

  “I didn’t expect a man like Eggers to be part of the unsub’s plan,” she replied. “I’d hoped he was, but never really expected him to be.”

  “Why?”

  “This unsub is sophisticated, highly educated, knowledgeable of technology, of how to discreetly sabotage vehicles without your technician being able to figure it out on the spot, quick to act without leaving a single trace.” She stopped for a moment, letting her words sink in. “Now, with this image in your mind, put Eggers next to him and tell me what you think of the two of them working together.”

  Elliot bowed his head for a moment. “Yeah, not gonna happen,” he mumbled. “He’s not our guy.”

  She stared in the distance, at the tips of the windblown trees against the gray sky. There was no way of knowing where, in the vastness of several adjoining national forests, the unsub could’ve built his den. Millions of acres of forested slopes and rocky peaks expanding beyond the tip of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and not a trace of Alison and those two kids.

  But he’d always, somehow, taken their cars back to the San Francisco airport, without their GPS showing any evidence of that trip.