I followed behind him, tracing the walls with my hands. My heart palpitated. I ducked to miss the bulbs just as I knew I’d have to and worked at focusing on the positive. Above ground, the humidity sucked air from the lungs; in the tunnels, the air was cool but still suffocating.
I counted my paces—five, six. The further we went, the heavier my chest became, making the next breath less taken for granted.
Despite my extreme discomfort, this was my first case, and I had to be strong. The rumor was you either survived Jack and the two years of probationary service and became a certified special agent or your next job would be security detail at a mall.
Five more paces and we entered an offshoot from the main tunnel. According to Royster, three burial chambers were in this tunnel. He described these as branches on a tree. Each branch came off the main trunk for the length of about ten feet and ended in a circular space of about eleven feet in diameter. The idea of more space seemed welcoming until we reached it.
A circular grave took up most of the space and was a couple of feet deep. Chicken wire rimmed the grave to help it retain its shape. With her wrists and ankles tied to metal stakes, her arms and legs formed the human equivalent of a star. As her body had dried from decomposition, the constraints had kept her positioned in the manner the killer had intended.
“And what made them dig?” Jack asked the CSI.
Jack was searching for specifics. We knew Bingham had entrusted his financials to his sister, but when she passed away a year ago, the back taxes had built up, and the county had come to reclaim the property.
Royster answered, “X marked the spot.” Neither Jack nor I displayed any amusement. The CSI continued. “He etched into the dirt, probably with a stick.”
“Why assume a stick?” Jack asked the question, and it resulted in an awkward silence.
My eyes settled on the body of the female who was estimated to be in her early twenties. It’s not that I had an aversion to a dead body, but looking at her made my stomach toss. She still had flesh on her bones. As the CSI had said, Preserved by the soil.
Her torso had eleven incisions. They were marked in the linear way to keep count. Two sets of four vertical cuts with one diagonal slash through each of them. The eleventh cut was the largest and was above the belly button.
“You realize the number eleven is believed to be a sign of purity?” Zach’s voice seemed to strike me from thin air, and my chest compressed further, knowing another person was going to share the limited space.
Zachery Miles was a member of our team, but unlike Jack’s reputation, Zach’s hadn’t preceded him. Any information I had, I’d gathered from his file that showed a flawless service record and the IQ of a genius. It also disclosed that he was thirty-seven, eight years older than I was.
Jack stuck the cigarette he had been sucking on back into his shirt pocket. “Purity, huh?”
I looked down at the body of the woman in the shallow grave beside me. Nothing seemed too pure about any of this.
“I’m going to go,” Royster excused himself.
“That’s if you really dig into the numerology and spiritualistic meaning of the number,” Zachery said, disregarding the CSI entirely.
Jack stretched his neck side to side and looked at me. “I hate it when he gets into that shit.” He pointed a bony index finger at me. “Don’t let me catch you talking about it either.”
I just nodded. I felt I had just been admonished as if I were his child—not that he needed to zero in on me like that. Sure, I believed in the existence of God and angels, despite the evil in the world, but I didn’t have any avid interest in the unseen.
Zachery continued, “The primary understanding is the number one is that of new beginnings and purity. This is emphasized with the existence of two ones.”
My eyes scanned Zachery’s face. While his intelligence scoring revealed a genius, physically, he was of average looks. If anything, he was slightly taller than Jack and I, probably coming in at about six foot four. His hair was dark and trimmed short. He had a high brow line and brown eyes.
“Zachery here reads something once—” Jack tapped his head “—it’s there.”
Jack and I spent the next few hours making our way to every room where Jack insisted on standing beside all the bodies. He studied each of them carefully, even if only part of their remains had been uncovered. I’d pass him glances, but he seemed oblivious to my presence. We ended up back beside the most recent victim where we stayed for twenty minutes, not moving, not talking, just standing.
I understood what he saw. There was a different feel to this room, nothing quantifiable, but it was discernible. The killer had a lot to say. He was organized and immaculate. He was precise and disciplined. He acted with a purpose, and, like most killers, he had a message to relay. We were looking for a controlled, highly intelligent unsub.
The intestines had been removed from nine of the victims, but Harold Jones, the coroner—who also came backed with a doctorate unlike most of his profession—wouldn’t conclude it as the cause of death before conducting more tests. The last victim’s intestines were intact, and, even though the cause of death needed confirmation, the talk that permeated the corridors of the bunker was that the men who did this were scary sons of bitches.
Zachery entered the room. “I find it fascinating he would bury his victims in circular graves.”
Fascinating?
I looked up at Jack, and he flicked his lighter.
He held out his hands as if to say he wouldn’t light up inside the burial chamber. His craving was getting desperate, though, which meant he’d be getting cranky. He said, “Continue, Zachery, by all means. The kid wants to hear.”
“By combining both the number eleven and the circle, it makes me think of the coinherence symbol. Even the way the victims are laid out.”
“Elaborate,” Jack directed.
“It’s a circle which combines a total of eleven inner points to complete it. As eleven means purity, so the coinherence symbol is related to religious traditions—at minimum thirteen, but some people can discern more, and each symbol is understood in different ways. The circle itself stands for completion and can symbolize eternity.”
I cocked my head to the side. Zachery noticed.
“We have a skeptic here, Jack.”
Jack faced me and spoke with the unlit cigarette having resumed its perch between his lips. “What do you make of it?”
Is this a trap? “You want to know what I think?”
“By all means, Slingshot.”
There it was, the other dreaded nickname, no doubt his way of reminding me that I didn’t score perfectly on handguns at the academy. “Makes me think of the medical symbol. Maybe our guy has a background in medicine. It could explain the incisions being deep enough to inflict pain but not deep enough to cause them to bleed out. It would explain how he managed to take out their intestines.”
Was this what I signed up for?
“Hmm,” Jack mumbled. Zachery remained silent. Seconds later, Jack said, “You’re assuming they didn’t bleed out. Continue.”
“The murders happened over a period of time. This one—” I gestured to the woman, and for a moment, realized how this job transformed the life of a person into an object “—she’s recent. Bingham’s been in prison for about three years now.”
Jack flicked the lighter again. “So you’re saying he had an apprentice?”
Zachery’s lips lifted upward, and his eyes read, Like Star Wars.
I got it. I was the youngest on the team, twenty-nine this August, next month, and I was the new guy, but I didn’t make it through four years of university studying mechanics and endure twenty weeks of the academy, coming out at the top of the class, to be treated like a child. “Not like an apprentice.”
“Like what then—”
“Jack, the sheriff
wants to speak with you.” Paige Dawson, another member of our team, came into the burial chamber. She had come to Quantico from the New York field office claiming she wanted out of the big city. I met her when she was an instructor at the FBI Academy.
I pulled on my collar. Four of us were in here now. Dust caused me to cough and warranted a judgmental glare from Jack.
“How did you make out with the guy who discovered everything?”
“He’s clean. I mean we had his background already, and he lives up to it. I really don’t think he’s involved at all.”
Jack nodded and left the room.
I turned to Zachery. “I think he hates me.”
“If he hated you, you’d know it.” Zachery followed behind Jack.
-
Two
Salt Lick, Kentucky was right in the middle of nowhere and had a population shy of three hundred and fifty. Just as the town’s name implied, underground mineral deposits were the craving of livestock, and due to this, it had originally attracted farmers to the area. I was surprised the village was large enough to boast a Journey’s End Lodge and a Frosty Freeze.
I stepped into the main hub to see Jack in a heated conversation with Sheriff Harris. From an earlier meeting with him, I knew he covered all of Bath County which included three municipalities and a combined population of about twelve thousand.
“Ah, I’m doing the best I can, Agent, but, um, we’ve never seen the likes of this before.” A born and raised Kentucky man, the sheriff was in his mid-fifties, had a bald head and carried about an extra sixty pounds that came to rest on his front. Both of his hands were braced on his hips, a stance of confidence, but the flicking up and down of his right index finger gave his insecurities away.
“It has nothing to do with what you’ve seen before, Sheriff. What matters is catching the unsub.”
“Well, the property owner is in p-pri-prison,” the Kentucky accent broke through.
“The bodies date back two to three decades with the newest one being within the last few years.”
Harris’s face brightened a reddish hue as he took a deep breath and exhaled loud enough to be heard.
Jack had the ability to make a lot of people nervous. His dark hair, which was dusted with silver at the sideburns, gave him a look of distinction, but deeply-etched creases in his face exposed his trying past.
Harris shook his head. “So much violence, and it’s tourist season ’round here.” Harris paused. His eyes said, You city folks wouldn’t understand. “Cave Run Lake is manmade but set in the middle of nature. People love coming here to get away. Word gets out about this, there go the tourists.”
“Ten people have been murdered, and you’re worried about tourists?”
“Course not, but—”
“It sounds like you were.”
“Then you misunderstood, Agent. Besides, the counties around here are peaceful, law-abidin’ citizens.”
“Churchgoers?” Zachery came up from a tunnel.
“Well, ah, I wouldn’t necessarily say that. There are probably about thirty churches or so throughout the county, and right here in Salt Lick there are three.”
“That’s quite a few considering the population here.”
“S’pose so.”
“Sheriff.” A deputy came up to the group of them and pulled up his pants.
“Yes, White.”
The deputy’s face was the shade of his name. “The in-investigators found somethin’ you should see.” He passed glances among all of us.
Jack held out a hand as if to say, By all means.
We followed the deputy up the ramp that led to the cellar. With each step taking me closer to the surface, my chest allowed for more satisfying breaths. Jack glanced over at me. I guessed he was wondering if I was going to make it.
“This way, sir.”
The deputy spoke from the front of the line, as he kept moving. His boots hit the wooden stairs that joined the cellar to the first floor.
I inhaled deeply as I came through the opening into the confined space Bingham had at one time called home. Sunlight made its way through tattered sheets that served as curtains, even though the time of day was now seven, and the sun would be sinking in the sky.
The deputy led us to Bingham’s bedroom where there were two CSIs. I heard footsteps behind me: Paige. She smiled at me, but it quickly faded.
“They found it in the closet,” the deputy said, pointing our focus in its direction.
The investigators moved aside, exposing an empty space. A shelf that ran the width of the closet sat perched at a forty-five-degree angle. The inside had been painted white at one time but now resembled an antiqued paint pattern the modern age went for. It was what I saw when my eyes followed the walls to the floor that held more interest.
Jack stepped in front of me; Zachery came up behind him and gave me a look that said, Pull up the rear, Pending. Pending being the nickname Zach had saddled me with to remind me of my twenty-four-month probationary period—as if I’d forget.
“We found it when we noticed the loose floorboard,” one of the CSIs said. He held a clipboard wedged between an arm and his chest. The other hand held a pen which he clicked repeatedly. Jack looked at it, and the man stopped. The CSI went on. “Really, it’s what’s inside that’s, well, what nightmares are made of.”
I didn’t know the man. In fact, I had never seen him before, but the reflection in his eyes told me he had witnessed something that even paled the gruesome find in the bunkers.
“You first, Kid.” Jack stepped back.
Floorboards were hinged back and exposed a hole about two and a half feet square. My stomach tossed thinking of the CSI’s words, what nightmares are made of.
“Come on, Brandon. I’ll follow behind you.” Paige’s soft voice of encouragement was accompanied by a strategically placed hand on my right shoulder.
I glanced at her. I could do this. God, I hated small spaces. But I had wanted to be an FBI special agent and, well, that wish had been granted. Maybe the saying, Be careful what you wish for, it might come true, held merit.
I hunched over and looked into the hole. A wooden ladder went down at least twenty feet. The space below was lit.
Maybe if I just took it one step at a time.
“What are you waiting for, Pending?” Zachery taunted me. I didn’t look at him but picked up on the amusement in his voice.
I took a deep breath and lowered myself down.
Jack never said a word, but I could feel his energy. He didn’t think I was ready for this, but I would prove him wrong—somehow. The claustrophobia I had experienced in the underground passageways was nothing compared to the anxiety squeezing my chest now. At least the tunnels were the width of three feet. Here, four sides of packed earth hugged me, as if a substantial inhale would expand me to the confines of the space.
“I’m coming.” Again, Paige’s soft voice had a way of soothing me despite the tight quarters threatening to take my last breath and smother me alive.
I looked up. Paige’s face filled the opening, and her red wavy hair framed her face. The vision was replaced by the bottom of her shoes.
I continued my descent, one rung at a time, slowly, methodically. I tried to place myself somewhere else, but no images came despite my best efforts to conjure them—and what did I have waiting for me at the bottom? What nightmares are made of.
Minutes passed before my shoes reached the soil. I took a deep breath when I realized the height down here was about seven feet and looked around. The room was about five by five, and there was a doorway at the backside.
One pigtail fixture with a light bulb dangled from an electrical wire. It must have fed to the same circuit as the underground passageways and been connected to the power generator as it cast dim light, creating darkened shadows in the corners.
I looked up the ladder. Paige was about halfway down. There was movement behind her, and it was likely Jack and Zachery following behind her.
“You’re almost there,” I coached them.
By the time the rest of the team made it to the bottom, along with the deputy and a CSI, I had my breathing and my nerves under control.
Paige was the first to head around the bend in the wall.
“The sheriff is going to stay up there an’ take care of things.” The deputy pointed in the direction Paige went. “What they found is in here.”
Jack and Zachery had already headed around the bend. I followed.
Inside the room, Paige raised her hand to cover her mouth. It dropped when she noticed us.
A stainless steel table measuring ten feet by three feet was placed against the back wall. A commercial meat grinder sat on the table. Everything was pristine, and light from a bulb reflected off the surfaces.
To the left of the table was a chest freezer, plain white, one owned by the average consumer. I had one similar, but it was the smaller version because it was only Deb and me.
My stomach tossed thinking about the contents of this one. Paige’s feet were planted to where she had first entered the room. Zachery’s eyes fixed on Jack, who moved toward the freezer and, with a gloved hand, opened the lid.
Paige gasped, and Jack turned to face her. Disappointment was manifested in the way his eyes narrowed. “It’s empty.” Jack patted his shirt pocket again.
“If you’re thinking we found people’s remains in there, we haven’t,” the CSI said, “but tests have shown positive for human blood.”
“So he chopped up his victim’s intestines? Put them in the freezer? But where are they?” Paige wrapped her arms around her torso and bent over to look into the opening of the grinder.
“There are many cultures, the Korowai tribe of Papua New Guinea, for example, who have been reported to practice cannibalism even in this modern day,” Zachery said. “It can also be involved in religious rituals.”
Maybe my eyes should have been fixed on the freezer, on the horror that transpired underground in Salt Lick of Bath County, Kentucky. Instead, I found my training allowing me to focus, analyze, and be objective. In order to benefit the investigation, it would demand these three things, and I wouldn’t disappoint. My attention was on the size of the table, the size of the meat grinder, and the size of the freezer. “Anyone think to ask how this all got down here in the first place?”
What We Bury Page 30
