by Elle Gray
“Well all right then. Let’s get out of here,” Morris says. “Hop on in.”
I slip on a pair of sunglasses and climb into his SUV as he gets behind the wheel, and he roars out of the motor court parking lot. Metallica is playing on the radio, which surprises me. I thought for sure he would have Kenny Chesney or Luke Bryan pumping through the speakers. He gives me a sideways glance and a grin, as if he’s reading my mind. But he’s good enough not to comment on my stereotyping him.
“So what can you tell me about the vic?” I ask.
“Not much yet, I’m afraid. I only got the call out half an hour ago,” he replies. “Woman in her mid-twenties. That’s about all I know right now.”
“And your deputies have cordoned off the crime scene?”
He gives me a sour look. “We ain’t rookies at this, Agent. Nor are we stupid.”
“Right. Sorry,” I reply, realizing how condescending that sounded. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Sheriff. I’m just used to－”
“Being in control of everything, from soup to nuts, huh?”
A rueful laugh escapes me. “Yeah. I suppose so. Sorry. It’s my nature.”
A wide grin stretches across his face. “I think the same is true of most of us who go into law enforcement. We’ve all got some control issues.”
It’s a surprising sentiment coming from him, given that just yesterday, he was railing on me for trying to bigfoot my way into his town. That he’s offering me a concession like that is an olive branch, and one I appreciate.
“I guess we do,” I say, offering him a smile.
We ride in silence for a couple of minutes and I take in the town around me as we pass through. There is something charming about it, I have to admit. If I were ever going to raise a family of my own, a place like Briar Glen－at least on the surface－seems like a quaint, ideal place.
“I appreciate you taking me out to the crime scene,” I say, breaking the silence between us.
He smirks to himself. “I’ll be the first to say I don’t know everything,” he says, never taking his eyes off the road. “And as long as you’re here, I figure I might as well lean on your expertise. Maybe we can start chippin’ away at that violent crime rate. Believe it or not, it’s somethin’ that bothers me every damn day. Some nights I can’t sleep because of it. I know you’re right. There shouldn’t be this many murders in a town this size. We’re like a small town with big city problems.”
A faint smile touches my lips. “I do believe it bothers you. And I have to admit that I don’t know everything either, Sheriff. But maybe between the two of us, we can figure this out.”
He finally looks over at me and gives me a nod. I feel like we’re finally on the same page here, and while he might still have some reservations about working with the Feds, I’m glad to see he’s willing to quash them for the greater good. Now I just need to justify his leap of faith by helping him here.
Morris pulls into a parking lot that sits on a small bluff overlooking the Pacific. The sun is just starting to begin its ascent, and the sky is cast in vivid hues of pink and purple. The ocean below looks blood red in the morning light, which somehow seems both ghastly and appropriate.
He shuts off the engine and looks at me. “Time to dazzle me, Agent Wilder.”
Right. No pressure or anything.
Eleven
Rhodes Beach; Briar Glen, WA
“Usually, the only people who come out to Rhodes are the surfers,” Morris says. “A small group of ‘em is who found the body this morning.”
I look over to where three young men, no more than nineteen or twenty years old, in wetsuits are standing with a couple of Morris’ deputies. They all look annoyed, as if resentful this whole thing is cutting into their time on the water. But underneath the irritation, I can see that they’re shaken to the core. I don’t blame them. It’s not every day you find a dead body. It can rattle you pretty hard.
Rhodes Beach is a small, secluded section of beach separated from the larger coastline of Briar Glen by a natural finger of land that reaches out into the Pacific on one side. The waves here seem to build larger than what I’ve seen from my bungalow window. It reminds me of a small beach down in Southern California called the Wedge that’s famous for its larger than average waves, as well as for its several deaths a year, thanks to the shallower than normal water. But I guess if you’re a surfer, it’s a risk you’re willing to take for the rush of riding a beast of a wave.
“It’s isolated out here,” I note.
Morris nods. “Yeah. This isn’t the first body we’ve found dumped out here.”
“No?”
He shakes his head. “We’ve put up cameras around here a few times, but they’re always busted within a week. I’ve upped the patrols in this area, but I can’t have men sitting here twenty-four/seven.”
“Yeah, I get that. Makes it the ideal dumping spot.”
“Exactly,” he says.
The crime scene is taped off in a large square, and a pair of deputies are stationed just outside the perimeter to keep people back. They both give me a curious look as I approach with the Sheriff but say nothing. I glance at them from behind my shades though and can see them staring at me. Given the sour looks on their faces, I figure they’ve made me as a Fed and are none too happy with my presence here. I expect that Sheriff Morris is going to have some explaining to do.
We duck under the tape and move to the body of the woman in the sand. She’s been wrapped in a thin robe that looks made from something like muslin, her arms crossed over her chest. She was pretty in life. Her raven black hair is splayed out around her like a dark halo, and she has naturally smooth and milky colored skin. She’s got eyes that are almost as dark as her hair, and are wide open, staring off into nothingness. I wouldn’t put her age at more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old, and that makes me not just sad, but angry for her. She had so much life yet to live.
A bookish-looking woman is kneeling down in the sand next to her, jotting some notes on a clipboard. She looks up and gets to her feet as we approach. Her long sandy brown hair is tied up into a knot on the top of her head, held there with a pair of pens. She’s in her mid to late forties, has a long, slender neck, high cheekbones, and is thin. She wears the ME’s office coveralls, hiding her frame from view. Like me, she’s not out here to impress anybody. She’s here to do a job and I instantly like her for that.
“Sheriff,” she says, then turns to me and extends her hand. “Dr. Sofia Carville. City medical examiner and crime scene tech.”
I take her hand and give her a firm shake. “You wear a lot of hats,” I say with a smile. “Blake Wilder. Nice to meet you, Dr. Carville.”
“Special Agent Blake Wilder,” Morris adds.
Sofia’s eyebrows rise as she looks at me. “Please, call me Sofia. FBI, huh? And what have we done to attract the attention of the Feds?”
“Numbers and patterns,” Morris explains, casting a mischievous grin at me.
“Huh?”
“I’ll explain it later,” Morris says. “Tell me what you got.”
“Cause of death seems obvious, but I’ll run some more tests back at the lab,” Sofia starts.
I nod, my eyes falling upon the long, clean slices across the throat. The cause of death is obvious, but there may be more to it than simply a woman having her throat cut. In fact, I kind of guarantee it based on the preliminary evidence I see. Sofia squats down and points to the bruising with the tip of her pen.
“I believe these bruises were inflicted antemortem,” she says. “The girl took a beating before she was killed.”
I point to her hands. “She put up a hell of a fight.”
Sofia turns the girl’s hands over and looks at the nails, which are chipped and broken, and her hands are covered in scratches that look like defensive wounds to me. I glance at the other hand, and notice that the middle finger of that hand has a clean, unbroken nail on it. And unlike all the others, which are coated with a dark nail po
lish, this one is white with a cross painted in red on it.
Fishing a pair of latex gloves out of my coat pocket, I snap them on, my eyes fixed on the girl’s hand.
“You carry latex gloves with you wherever you go?” Morris asks, his own eyebrows raised this time.
“Don’t you?”
He chuckles, his voice low and rumbling. “You must be a lot of fun at parties.”
“Actually… I am,” I reply and shoot him a grin.
Kneeling down next to the body, I lift the hand and look at the nail. I can tell right away that it’s an acrylic. The only acrylic on either of her hands.
“What do you see?” Morris asks.
“This nail. It’s not hers. It was put on her hand, I’m guessing after she’d been killed.”
“Why would somebody do that?” Sofia asks.
“It’s what we call a signature. In a sense, it’s the killer’s way of claiming his victim. Think of it like an artist who signs their work,” I explain. “And the fact that she’s been dressed in this robe and posed this way… it’s ritualistic. I can already more or less guarantee that when we find our offender, we’re going to find that this wasn’t his first kill.”
“That’s grim,” she says.
“How can you be sure that nail’s not hers though?” Morris asks.
I point to her hands as I get back to my feet. “Every other nail on both of her hands is broken. Or at least cracked,” I tell him. “Yet that one is pristine. It’s the only one that’s fake, and it’s a different color and pattern than the rest. What are the odds of that?”
He frowns. “Not very good, I suppose.”
I turn to Sofia. “Can you make sure you bag her hands? There could be trace evidence.”
“Absolutely.”
“Preliminary time of death?” Morris asks.
“She’s starting to come out of rigor, so I’d say she’s been dead for at least twelve hours, give or take,” Sofia says.
“What do you think?” Morris asks me.
“I think I want to take a closer look at her in the morgue. I’d like a controlled environment,” I tell him. “I’d also like a sweep of the area to see if there’s any evidence sitting around out here. Like an ID. That’d be nice.”
“Nothing’s ever that easy,” he chuckles. “But I can make sure the area’s swept anyway.”
I nod. “In that case, we’ll need to see if any missing persons reports came in overnight,” I say. “She’s definitely not a transient, so somebody is going to be missing this girl.”
“How do you know she’s not a transient? We don’t have many here, but we’ve got a small population. Junkies and the like.”
“She’s too clean. Too healthy looking,” I respond. “Also, despite their condition now, I’m pretty sure she gets regular manicures.”
“And how could you possibly know that?”
“Did you see her toes? They weren’t destroyed like her fingernails. Her toes were impeccable. How many transients do you know who get mani-pedis on the regular?”
A wry grin curls his lip, and Sofia is looking at me like I’ve sprouted a third eye. But they both look impressed, which to me, is a sad testament to policing here in Briar Glen. Those are basic observations any newbie recruit at the Academy would have spotted. But I pull that line of thought back. These people weren’t trained at the Academy, so they’re not going to automatically spot inconsistencies like that. They probably would have gotten there eventually, but it’s not second nature to them, like it is to me. I have to remind myself that it’s not their fault.
“Do you want to talk to the surfers?” Morris asks.
I shake my head. “Not yet. I’ll read the report and see if anything pops. I don’t think they’re guilty of anything other than stumbling upon her body. But I’ll talk to them later if needs be.”
“Fair enough.”
I duck back under the tape and walk to the shoreline, looking out at the ocean. The sun is climbing higher and the surface of the water is glittering like liquid gold. The waves hit the shore with a sound like thunder, and a gull overhead cries plaintively. It’s a lonely sound. A sound of sadness, which fits my current mood.
This girl, whoever she is, should still be alive. She should be planning for her life and her future. Not lying dead in the sand. But as I think about my observations, specifically that white nail with the red cross, it confirms my initial thoughts: there is definitely something bad happening in Briar Glen.
And I’m going to find out what.
Twelve
City Morgue; Briar Glen, WA
The morgue in the ME’s office in Briar Glen is the same as every other morgue I’ve been in. Done completely in tile－light blue and white here－with everything else done in stainless steel. For a city that boasts a police force of just over a hundred, it actually looks a lot more modern than I’d expected it to.
Part of me thinks it’s a sad testament to how often the morgue and the medical examiner are needed in cases. It’s actually kind of surprising Briar Glen has their own ME at all. I mean, I guess with a population of almost two hundred and fifty thousand, they’re big enough to justify it. But most smaller towns and cities usually farm out their ME work to a larger city with the capacity to handle the influx of bodies.
For a city that doesn’t have a detectives bureau or homicide squad, the fact that they’ve got a sleek, modern morgue is kind of telling. It’s also a source of curiosity for me as I stand next to Sheriff Morris at the window, watching Sofia do the autopsy. He looks distinctly uncomfortable.
“How many of these have you watched?” I ask.
“Including today? One.”
I laugh softly. “You don’t need to be here. I can handle this.”
“Kinda feel like I should be. Just in case you need something.”
I nod and fall silent again. It’s strange to me that just twenty-four hours ago, Morris was busy marking his territory and all but telling me to get out of town, and now he seems to be taking his cues from me. He wasn’t wrong. Most of us in law enforcement, at whatever level, have control issues. I won’t deny that about myself. So to see him ceding as much control to me as he has, tells me that he is worried and as desperate to figure out what’s happening in his town as I am.
It’s a heavy burden of responsibility, but it makes me all the more determined to find justice for this girl, and all of those who came before her and never got the justice they deserved, and to justify the faith Morris seems to be putting in me.
“How many autopsies have you watched?” he asks.
“More than I care to count.”
“It’s a grim business we’re in.”
I nod. “That it is. But it’s also a business that allows us to change the world around us for the better, I think. We can make a real difference in the lives of some people. We do good work for the people.”
“Huh. Didn’t have you pegged as an idealist.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m an idealist,” I admit. “I just try to not be a fatalist.”
“Fair enough.”
I watch Sofia going through the autopsy on the other side of the glass. She’s fastidious and precise. She really takes her time and doesn’t rush through anything, unlike other ME’s I’ve watched at their work before.
“You’ve got a good one in there,” I say.
He nods. “Yup. Just wish we had less work for her to do,” he says, then turns to me. “What are your initial thoughts?”
“Incomplete at the moment.”
He frowns. “I know they train you guys to assess everything, right from the jump. I’m not askin’ you for anything official just yet. All I want to know is, just based on initial observations, how big is our problem?”
“Well, I’m not going to know how big the problem is until I get through all the files. And that’s going to take a bit,” I tell him. “But just based on what I’ve seen so far, there’s a problem here.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“That girl was dumped there. That wasn’t the actual crime scene. There was no blood, no sign of a struggle in the sand around her. She was already dead when she was dumped on the beach,” I say.
He nods. “I figured that much.”
I let out a breath and turn my attention back to Sofia. The last thing I want is to alarm Sheriff Morris or give him reason to have some crazy knee-jerk reaction. The problem I’m having is that based on the case files I read last night, the problem is widespread. The only commonality between the cases I’ve found so far is that they resulted in a person being killed. There’s no consistent method, no signature, no correlation in the ages or occupations or social status of the victims. It doesn’t seem like the work of a serial killer at all.
But I can’t shake the feeling that there is something bigger at play here. There’s a picture I’m seeing broad shapes of but can’t make out just yet. It’s like I’ve turned over the box of puzzle pieces and now I have to figure out how they all go together to form that complete picture.
It’s unusual for cities that don’t have a gang problem－or some other situation where the violence is inherent, like organized crime or something－to see spikes of violence this high and this prolonged. Don’t get me wrong, as long as there are people, there is going to be violence. In any city. But to have bodies dropping like they do here, it’s… not normal.
I think Briar Glen’s problem is big, and I think it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. And it’s only going to get better if we can figure out what’s going on in this city and find a way to put a stop to it.
“My initial impression is that the girl in there on that table could be the victim of a serial. I say could be, simply because I don’t have enough data to say conclusively just yet,” I tell him.
