by Lis Wiehl
Jeff Lowe imagined calling the owner on his cell phone. Carrying the dog back to his car. In his imagination, it lay quietly in his arms, grateful for the attention. And he wrapped it in a towel and laid it on the passenger seat and then drove to the owner’s home, and she—of course it was a she, this was his daydream—she—
The dog burst out of the bushes ahead of him. It turned and looked at him over its shoulder.
Jeff Lowe thought several things at once.
The dog wasn’t a dog. It was a wolf or something.
With yellow eyes.
And with something pale in its mouth.
And that something was a woman’s hand.
MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE
Fed Up
November 17
So I’m not sure how to deal with my life right now.
Pretty much, today sucked. Or just lately . . . everything sucks.
I’m sick of everything right now. Everything & everyone, as a matter of fact. I’m angry, too. With the entire world. The way some people act, the choices I make & the things people do because “it’s complicated.” Well, news flash—I’m done. I’m done with feeling miserable over some-one who doesn’t seem to care anymore.
I’ve done enough for everyone else. I deserve to be happy. And I’m sick of crying my eyes out because I’ve been lied to. Because I cared too much for everyone else. Including that one person who doesn’t care enough back.
FOREST PARK
January 4
Jeff Lowe’s hands were shaking so badly that he had trouble pulling his cell phone from the pocket of his rain jacket. Finally, he yanked it free, flipped it open, and pressed 9-1-1. His eyes went back to the thing lying ten feet in front of him. At the angle it was right now, he could almost pretend it was a piece of trash.
The wolf or coyote or whatever the hell it was had looked at him for a long time with its yellow eyes before letting that thing fall from its mouth. Then it had turned and run off.
Leaving him alone with it. The thing that might be a piece of trash. Or a paper bag. Or some kind of strange flower or fruit that only grew on the floor of the Oregon forest.
Except that didn’t explain the pink nail polish.
The phone was still pressed to his head, but he couldn’t hear a thing.
Jeff pulled it away to look at the display.
NO SIGNAL.
His teeth were chattering. The woods were absolutely silent except for the rain, which was beginning to taper off.
Okay, if that thing was a hand—and he had to admit that it must be one—then where was the rest of it? The rest of the body it had come from?
The thought jolted him like an electric shock. Frantic, he spun in a circle, his eyes darting from rocks to roots to dripping ferns. The hand was already more than he could deal with. He couldn’t deal with a whole body. He couldn’t deal with some dead woman. What if she was cut up? What if she was all in pieces scattered around him?
And what was that noise? It ratcheted up his fear to the point it was nearly unbearable.
And then Jeff realized it was moaning—and that it was coming from him.
Jeff wanted to be inside. He wanted to be warm and dry and with nothing around him that wasn’t man-made. No wild animals, no dead people, no parts of dead people, no dark wet shadows under bushes. Everything clean and neat and tidy.
But first he had to tell the police what he had found. Let them take care of it. That was their job, to deal with the things that weren’t clean and neat and tidy.
About twenty feet behind him lay a clearing. He hurried over to it, holding his phone in front of him but taking frequent glances back at the hand, as if it were capable of scurrying off on its own. He lifted the phone up to the clear spot of sky. For a second, the display flickered. But even as he felt a surge of hope, it went back to reading NO SIGNAL.
Jeff had to get out of here. Get out of the woods. Get back to civilization so that he could call the police. But if he left, could he bring the police back here? To this exact same spot? What if he couldn’t find this place again? What if the animal came back for its lunch?
With dawning horror, Jeff realized there was only one solution.
He would have to take the hand with him.
FOREST PARK
January 4
Allison got the news from Nicole. A hand had been found in Forest Park.
A woman’s hand.
The more time that had passed, the more Allison had known this was the only likely outcome. Katie dead, not off in some alternate universe. Not hidden away by Fairview. Not hitchhiking to San Francisco. Not wandering the streets of Seattle with no memory of how she got there or who she was. Forest Park was only a mile from Katie’s house, but it was five thousand acres, nearly all of it old-growth forest.
After checking Allison’s ID, a police officer waved her into the parking lot at the base of Forest Park. It was already nearly full. Nicole’s car was near the entrance. A mobile command post—which looked more like an extra-large RV or a tour bus—took up one corner of the lot. Allison nosed into a spot at the far end. Most of the cars in the lot belonged to the FBI.
Agents were clustered in small groups, all dressed alike in khaki cargo pants and blue long-sleeved shirts with yellow lettering on the back that read FBI EVIDENCE RESPONSE TEAM. Allison knew that the entire sixteen-member ERT was always called out when there was a body scene.
Only so far there wasn’t a body. Just a hand.
Until now, Allison hadn’t realized how much she wanted one of her half-imagined alternatives for Katie to be true. She put one hand on her cross and the other on her belly and sent up a wordless prayer for Katie’s parents. Their hearts would be broken tonight. Allison knew that God still offered a peace that surpassed all understanding. She prayed that Wayne and Valerie could find that peace, at least in time.
Finally, Allison sighed and got out of her car, her eyes on the towering centuries-old cedars and Douglas firs that covered the hills ahead of her. Katie must be somewhere up there, but it wasn’t surprising she hadn’t been found until now. There were parts of Forest Park where no one ventured, isolated and inaccessible areas that held bobcats, elk, great blue herons, and black-tailed deer. There were even reports of black bear sightings.
As she looked up, a slight breeze rattled the last of the season’s brittle leaves from the hardwoods scattered among the evergreens. With a little imagination, this could be the forest of a thousand fairy tales. A fairy-tale forest where evil lurked and witches lured young girls. Where wolves hunted their prey.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Nicole said from behind her. “You look lost in thought.”
Allison turned. “Just feeling a little sad. I knew this was how it would end, but I still kind of hoped it wouldn’t, you know?”
“You and me both. Once we locate the body and get some idea of what happened, I’ll have to tell the Converses.”
Allison looked past Nicole at a man in his early twenties who was leaning against the back bumper of the mobile command post. He was wearing workout gear but no jacket, even though the temperature felt like it was dropping below freezing.
She jerked her chin in his direction. “Is that the guy who found it?”
The young man clutched a paper cup, the steam rising in the air. A dark gray blanket was wrapped around his shoulders, but Allison could hear his teeth chattering thirty feet away.
“The citizen’s pretty upset,” Nicole said. “He’s not certain where he was on the trail when he found the hand. Or maybe I should say where he was when he found the coyote that found the hand. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave it there. Since he was having trouble getting a cell signal, he wrapped it up in his jacket and brought it back here.”
“And you’re sure it’s a woman’s hand?”
“It’s smaller, with no calluses, no age spots—and it’s got pink nail polish. The only missing person we have that matches it is Katie. A couple of the fingertips are intact. If we’re lucky she scr
atched whoever did this.”
Allison’s stomach rose up and pressed against the bottom of her throat. “So was it cut off? Is this a dismemberment?” With difficulty she managed to swallow, bile bitter on her tongue.
“No. The medical examiner has already said that it looks consistent with animal predation. Now our goal is to find the body as fast as we can and get the crime scene roped off. All we need is to have the media show up and muck up the evidence worse than it’s already going to be.” Nicole looked past Allison. “That’s why we brought in a cadaver dog.”
A plump woman in her midfifties was coming out of the mobile command post. A tan dog with dark ears and a muzzle scrambled down the steps behind her. They walked over to a man Allison recognized as Leif Larson, the ERT team leader. He was solidly built, over six-foot-two, with reddish-blonde hair that always reminded Allison of a Viking. He was a quiet man who kept his own counsel, but when he said something it was worth listening to.
Allison followed Nicole over to the two of them, and Nicole introduced her to Belinda, the trainer.
“German shepherd?” Allison hazarded. She hadn’t grown up around dogs.
“Belgian Malinois,” Belinda said with pride. “AKC registered. And certified cadaver dog.”
She leaned down to stroke the dog’s head. It whined, low and eager.
“Most dogs can only stick with an odor on the ground. So for a tracking dog to find your missing young lady, she would have to have walked up here on her own power, leaving traces on the bushes and the ground. But Toby’s different. Cadaver dogs can scent in the air, too. So if that girl’s body is up here, no matter how she got here, Toby will find her. Even if someone carried her or brought her by car.” She stroked the dog again. “Are your people ready?” she asked Leif.
“Yeah. We want to be able to find her while there is still some light.”
Belinda leaned over and unclipped the leash. “Find, Toby. Find!”
With an eager whine, Toby raced up the path. In a few seconds he was out of sight.
“How do we know when he’s found something?” Allison asked.
“You’ll hear it.” Belinda tucked the leash into her jacket pocket. “The more excited his bark, the stronger the odor. Cadaver dogs are like good hunting dogs. A big bird excites the dog more than a small one. And for a cadaver dog, a good strong smell is more exciting than a weak one. Dogs are honest. They can’t contain their excitement if the smell’s really good.”
“If he finds her, he won’t disturb her, will he?” Allison had her own disturbing thought. Animals had already been eating at Katie. “The dog would still know Katie is a person, right?” She swallowed, trying to push down a sudden rush of nausea. “Toby wouldn’t see her as a meal, would he?”
Belinda shook her head sharply. “Don’t worry. Toby’s trained. He knows he can only possess the scent, not the object. As soon as he’s located the body, he’ll go down well away from it. By going prone, he controls himself. And he’ll wait for us to come.”
They waited, mostly in silence. Five minutes passed. Ten. Twenty.
In the distance, a bark. Allison froze. The ERT members raised their heads, listening with all their beings. A minute later, there was another bark. Triumphant.
FOREST PARK
January 4
Standing about twenty feet away from Katie Converse’s body, Leif Larson was making a list of everything that needed to be done to process the scene. Half hidden by a rhododendron, the body lay sprawled on its belly, head turned to one side. The right arm stretched overhead. The right hand was gone. The left hand, which still wore a black knit glove, was curled near what was left of her face. The glove had saved the hand from predation, but it also meant there would likely be nothing under the nails. Leif just had to hope they had better luck with the scavenged hand.
And around the neck, looped tight, was a bright red dog’s leash, with ten feet of lead lying on the ground next to the body.
He returned to where his team waited, taking care to step from stone to root so he wouldn’t leave any footprints. His team members were putting on shoe coverings, hairnets, and white Tyvek suits. The suits served a twofold purpose: to keep them from accidentally leaving trace evidence at the scene and to protect them from any biohazards they might encounter.
Leif assigned some of his team to set up the high-tech lighting system and others to mark a way in and out with pin flags. To the rest, he pointed out four trees that would serve as the rough square for the interior perimeter. Leif’s back-pocket rule was to rope off at least one hundred feet from the farthest item of visible evidence.
He settled for setting the first boundary two hundred and fifty feet from the body. It was easier to decrease the size of an area than to increase it, and he didn’t need the press and onlookers destroying any evidence.
Because this was such a high-profile case, he also asked them to set up a second perimeter about a hundred feet back from the first. The nearer one would still not contaminate the crime scene—if that was what this was—but it could be offered to any VIPs who wanted closer access than the general public. The second perimeter was for everyone else. Along it, Leif stationed local officers and special agents who weren’t part of the ERT to make sure no one trespassed. Privately, the ERT called the yellow crime scene tape “flypaper” for its ability to attract gawkers. But for the moment the only people on-site belonged here. Portland police had stationed officers at all the formal entrances to the park, but that wouldn’t keep the media and the simply curious out for long. Not once they heard that Katie Converse had been found.
And they would hear, even though officials were keeping it off the scanners. With the amount of police presence alone, there was no hope of keeping it a secret. A few minutes earlier Leif had heard a helicopter buzz overhead, but the trees made too thick a canopy for them to see anything.
While they were getting ready, he saw Nicole Hedges taking a quick look at the body. She came back to Leif as he was pulling on a second pair of latex gloves. She wore a single pair, which she was already stripping off and stuffing into the pockets of her parka.
“It’s her. It’s Katie Converse,” she said grimly as Leif began to apply duct tape where his left glove and the suit met.
“The hair, the height, the build, the clothes—they all match. There’s even a gold bracelet we were told she owned, although now it’s just loose. Must have been on the hand the coyote took.” She pointed at the roll of tape. “Need help with your other hand?”
“Sure.”
Leif held out his wrists, and she began to wrap the duct tape where his suit and gloves met. He watched her without seeming to, her face intent as she carefully pressed it into place. Her slanted eyes, her comfort with silence, how she had looked on New Year’s Eve—it all intrigued him. Nicole was a cipher.
And Leif liked ciphers.
He had only gone on a couple of dates since he’d moved to Portland. Nice enough girls, he supposed, but neither of them had been the kind he could imagine discussing his day with. They liked that he was in the FBI, but didn’t want to know the details. Details like those that would consume him today.
When Nicole had finished, she gave his gloved hand a pat. “All done.” She sighed. “I’m going to go back and tell the parents.”
“How do you think they’ll take it?” Leif knew the question was stupid even as it left his mouth. Shoot, he knew Nicole had a kid. Could a parent even recover from such a thing?
“I’ll come back afterward and let you know.” She said it flatly, no sarcasm, and it was worse for that.
Pushing aside his embarrassment, Leif picked up his camera and re-entered the crime scene. Within the ERT he had a dual role: team leader and photographer. Before the team began work, he took entry photographs to show how the scene looked when they arrived. Next he would take evidence photos. And once his team was done processing the scene, he would take exit photographs to show what it looked like when they had finished.
&nbs
p; Being the ERT’s photographer meant you had to get up close and personal with the body in order to document exactly what had been done to it. It meant struggling to retain a clinical detachment as you photographed maggots on a corpse.
Or in this case, it meant documenting the evidence of what coyotes and crows and perhaps rats could do when presented with a nice fresh body. Only this one wasn’t so fresh anymore. The smell of death coated the inside of Leif’s nose and filled the back of his throat. It was sweet and rotten, acidic, like nothing else. No wonder the dog had found her so quickly.
Using a Canon SLR, Leif took establishing photographs of the body, then midrange photos, close-ups, and finally close-ups with a paper ruler laid down for scale. It was easier when he was focusing through the camera. It put some distance between him and what he was seeing, as if it were already two-dimensional. He took dozens of pictures, looking for abrasions, bruising, bite marks or impression evidence, bloodstain patterns, defensive wounds—and finding precious little.
Still, Leif had been taught to photograph everything. Evidence disappeared. Processing went awry. A photograph might offer the only clues they would ever have. How much evidence had already disappeared or degraded, washed away by the rain or dried up by the faint sun that had shown intermittently since Katie’s disappearance?
As the shutter opened and closed, Leif asked himself the four questions he did at every crime scene: What was the cause of death? Could the victim have caused her own death? Were there any signs of a struggle? And what object had caused the injuries?
So was this murder—or suicide? Leif wondered as he bent over the body and snapped another photo. Someone had fashioned a simple noose by threading the end of the leash through the hand loop, forming a second loop that was now buried in the swollen purpled flesh of the girl’s neck. The rest of the leash trailed on the ground next to her. Right now it looked like suicide, but looks could be deceiving. He remembered another case, a man’s body found in a crashed car. It had seemed open and shut: a single-car accident. Then the autopsy had turned up five stab wounds to the chest.
