Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

  “Who is that, Dad?” she whispered nervously.

  “He’s an Indian.”

  The man spoke, his face expressionless. “You can’t shoot here. This is reservation land.”

  “But I’m part Indian.”

  Her father took her by the hand. “Let’s go, Andie. That doesn’t matter.”

  She loved her parents, two hardworking white middle-class people who truly loved their half-Indian adopted daughter. To this day, however, those words stuck with her. Maybe it was the tone in her father’s voice. Maybe it was the way he had scowled at the old Muckleshoot Indian. But those three words—“That doesn’t matter”—seemed to sum up her past. Out of respect for her adoptive parents, she had never bucked their wishes and sought out her birth mother’s Indian heritage. That void in her own life had affected her in many ways. Ironically, it may well have fueled her fascination for this kind of police work—victimology and criminal profiling. There, everything mattered. Every little detail about a person’s life mattered so completely.

  She steered onto the side road, that thought in mind. Details. Intimate details, from the number of fillings in her teeth to the legs that had needed shaving. The scrapings beneath the fingernails. The search for semen in her pubic hair. The contents of her stomach. It made Andie feel guilty in a way. She, a perfect stranger, was about to learn more than anyone had ever known about a young woman in Lakewood Park.

  Victim number four.

  Twenty

  Andie parked in the lot and walked toward the squad car and two deputy sheriffs who were posted at the gated entrance. It wasn’t much of a gate, just a long metal pole that ran parallel to the ground and swung on a hinge. It kept vehicles out after dark, but vagrants on foot could simply duck under it and come and go as they pleased. Yellow police tape was strung across the entrance. Just inside the park, rows of police officers walked three feet apart, combing the grounds for clues, like a farmer plowing the field. Andie pulled her trench coat tight. It wasn’t quite cold enough to steam her breath, but the dampness made it feel colder than it was. She stopped at the gate and flashed her credentials to the deputy.

  “Agent Henning, FBI.”

  He checked it. A few raindrops gathered on the gold FBI shield. “Detective Kessler from Seattle is at the recovery site. He’s expecting you.”

  “Where is it, exactly?”

  “Straight down the path about a half mile. You’ll see public rest rooms on your right. Turn left, then just head down the hill. You’ll see the forensic team at work.”

  Andie thanked him and started down the path. She walked quickly, but not so quick that she couldn’t take in the surroundings. The walk was slightly uphill, she noticed. It would have taken one hell of a strong man to carry a dead body this far.

  At the top of the hill were the rest rooms the deputy had mentioned. Typical county park facilities made of cinder blocks. The largest wall had been hit by graffiti artists. DON’T CALIFORNICATE WASHINGTON, the spray-painted message read. Washingtonians certainly felt strongly about overdevelopment, but Andie was fairly sure it had nothing to do with the latest string of homicides.

  The footpath ended at the rest rooms. Beyond was a steep embankment. A thick stand of tall evergreens darkened the slope, leaving the moss-covered ground in almost perpetual darkness. The embankment was so steep that Andie stood at eye level with the pointed tops of forty-foot fir trees rising from the ravine. Lakewood Park was a long way from Washington Park Arboretum, where the other body had been found. The setting, however, was remarkably similar.

  Andie heard voices from below. She couldn’t see through the woods, but the forensic team was evidently at work. She headed down the hill toward the recovery site.

  At the foot of the hill, police tape marked off an area the size of a baseball diamond. Several deputies stood watch at various points, their hats covered in plastic, like shower caps, to protect the felt from the light rain. A forensic photographer circled the scene, covering every angle. Andie noticed the rope still hanging from a tree limb. A dark plastic bag lay atop the gurney on the ground. The fourth victim.

  She approached Kessler, who was jotting down a few notes for himself. A dark blue jacket shielded him from the misty rain. His hair was wet and matted to his head, though he seemed oblivious to the elements.

  “Thanks for the call, Dick.”

  “No problem. Like I said on the phone, outside the city of Seattle is more your jurisdiction than mine. I’m just looking for connections to Jane Doe.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think maybe you were right to cool my heels about Gus Wheatley. I think it’s a good thing the King County sheriff’s department is already part of our task force. And I think it just grew to include the city of Issaquah police.”

  He continued moving around the site, checking different angles, jotting down notes. Andie followed him, asking questions to fill in the blanks he’d left on the telephone.

  “Must have been a strong guy to carry the body all this way from the entrance.”

  “You’re assuming she was dead when they got here.”

  “Wasn’t she?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Tire tracks lead all the way up the footpath. He drove as far as the rest rooms, which suggests he was trying to shorten the carrying distance. Victim was dead or unconscious, I’d say.”

  “How’d he get his car past the gate? I only took a quick look, but the lock didn’t seem busted to me.”

  “Gate wasn’t locked.”

  “Why not?”

  “Hardly ever is. The park director is on call twenty-four hours a day, but she’s afraid to come out after dark and lock the gate. Reduced security is probably what lured our killer out of Seattle. Ever since we found Jane Doe, we had every park on alert, extra patrol cars going through at night. Decent chance somebody would have spotted him had he tried to string up another body in our neck of the woods. No pun intended.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “Park director, on her rounds at sunrise.”

  He turned away and headed toward the tree. He was checking for hooks or nails, anything that would have helped the killer climb a massive trunk as straight up and down as a flagpole.

  Andie asked, “How long has she been dead?”

  “A day or so, I’d guess.”

  She surveyed the tree, top to bottom. “Scene sure looks a lot like the place we found Jane Doe.”

  “Yup.”

  “Does she?”

  “Does she what?”

  “Does the victim look like Jane Doe?”

  “If you’re asking whether it’s Beth Wheatley, the answer is no.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. No abdominal scar.”

  Andie knew exactly what he meant. When she’d asked Gus about distinctive scars or moles that might help identify his wife, he’d mentioned their daughter’s cesarean delivery.

  Kessler said, “But to give a complete answer to your question, she does look a lot like Jane Doe.”

  “How so?”

  “Brunette, brown eyes. Mid-thirties. Same height, build. Body left hanging in a tree, stark naked.”

  “Was she dead before he hung her?”

  “Can’t say till the autopsy comes in.”

  “You got a look at her neck, didn’t you? You heard what the medical examiner said about the bruise marks on Jane Doe. What do you think happened here?”

  “I think he strangled her someplace else, brought the body here, strung it up in the tree. This is a dumping site, not a murder scene. It’s just like the other one.”

  Andie nodded. “None of that surprises me.”

  “I think it does,” he said pointedly. “This shoots a huge hole in your bookend theory.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jane Doe is victim number three. Now you got number four, and she isn’t Beth Wheatley. But Beth Wheatley is still missing.”

  “And you think that kills my theory?”

>   “It does if we find Wheatley hanging from a tree. Who the hell ever heard of three bookends?”

  He snapped his notepad shut, then turned and headed toward the body, leaving Andie alone by the tree.

  Twenty-one

  Gus was alone in the waiting room. He wanted to stay at Morgan’s side while the dentist worked on her tooth, but his being there only seemed to make Morgan more upset that her mother wasn’t. At the dentist’s suggestion, he waited outside.

  He sat on the couch and flipped through the usual stack of stale periodicals. No place like a dentist’s office to catch up on People magazine’s most intriguing personalities of 1991. Gus was too sidetracked to read anyway. He was still thinking about that scream from Morgan that had jolted him out of bed this morning. Beth had been missing for three days, and he didn’t feel any closer to knowing what had happened than on the night she’d disappeared. The first reaction of everyone from his own sister Carla to homicide detective Kessler was that Beth had finally left him. The abuse allegations only fueled those suspicions. The lone dissident was Agent Henning. She was still clinging to the morbid possibility that Beth was the victim of a serial killer.

  Now there was a dilemma. Hope for a serial killer so your friends will stop calling you a wife beater.

  “Mr. Wheatley?”

  Dr. Shippee was standing in the open doorway. Gus shook off his thoughts, rose from the couch. From the smile on her face, it looked as though everything had gone well. But you never knew with a dentist, even someone as gentle as Dr. Shippee. That gray hair and sweet grand-motherly demeanor were just a cover. Deep down was a sadist.

  “Morgan’s okay?”

  “She’s doing great. Little anxiety attack, so I had to use gas instead of novocaine. If you want to come inside and wait, she’ll be clearheaded in about two minutes.”

  “Thanks.” Gus followed her down the hall. She stopped before they entered Morgan’s room. Her expression showed concern, as if something were on her mind.

  “About that anxiety attack,” she said. “She kept calling for Beth. Screaming, I should say. She wouldn’t let me touch her. That’s why I had to put her out.”

  “Since Beth disappeared it’s been a bit of a crisis at home.”

  “I can understand. But are you sure the crisis didn’t start before then?”

  Gus blinked, not sure what to say. “Why do you ask?”

  “Beth had two appointments last week, before she disappeared. Missed them both. Didn’t even call to cancel.”

  “Must have forgot.” He looked away, but her suspicious eye caught him. Lying to old Dr. Shippee was like lying to your mother. “What?”

  “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but you know why she was coming here, right?”

  “Something wrong with her teeth, I presume.”

  “She’s been coming twice a week for the past month. Four more visits to go.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m repairing the enamel. It was destroyed by digestive fluids. Stomach acids.”

  Gus checked her expression. She seemed to be telling him something. “I don’t understand.”

  “It comes from excessive regurgitation.”

  “You’re saying—what? She had a problem?”

  “Beth suffered from bulimia.”

  He rocked back on his heels. “I had no idea.”

  “I didn’t think you did. And as Beth’s dentist, I technically shouldn’t be telling you this. But now that she’s missing, doctor-patient confidentiality be damned. This is something you should know. Any eating disorder is a sign of low self-esteem. It’s not uncommon for someone with bulimia to engage in other forms of self-destructive behavior.”

  “Meaning what? You think she’d commit suicide or something?”

  “The last thing I want to do is scare you. I’m not her psychiatrist, but from the condition of her teeth, I’d say her disorder was prolonged and severe. In that kind of mental state, a young woman shouldn’t be out on the run. She should get help. I don’t know what you’re doing to find her. But if I were her husband, if she were someone I loved, I wouldn’t just sit around and wait for her to come home.”

  Her words hit like an accusation, as if he’d already wasted too much time. “Neither would I,” he said, looking her in the eye.

  “Good.” She turned and opened the door.

  Morgan was awake but groggy, still in the reclining chair. A dental assistant stood at the rail to make sure she didn’t fall out. From the hallway, looking through the doorway and into the room, it was like peering through a telescope. Morgan looked suddenly grown-up, perhaps because she was sitting higher than usual in the dentist’s chair. He didn’t focus on any single facial feature, the eyes or the nose. It was just an overall impression, a feeling that had never hit him so hard before.

  She looked incredibly like Beth.

  Dr. Shippee said, “There’s your beautiful daughter.”

  He felt numb for a moment, so reminded of his wife. “Our daughter,” he said softly as he entered the room.

  Andie was on the phone again. When Isaac Underwood had told her she would be working with Victoria Santos, she didn’t realize how much of the work would be by long-distance phone calls. Victoria was stretched thin. Seattle’s bookend killer was just one of several hot cases. She’d spent most of the week in San Francisco trying to profile a serial rapist who was targeting high school girls. She was also trying to peg an arsonist in Sacramento and a kidnapper in Spokane. Of necessity, profilers were skilled jugglers who somehow managed to keep a ridiculous number of files in the air. At any given time it was estimated that upward of fifty true serial killers were actively plying their trade across the United States. Although the ISU staff had grown since the early years when it was called the Behavioral Science Unit, criminals still far outnumbered criminal profilers. Some things never changed.

  It was late afternoon, and much had broken in the case since Andie had talked to Victoria yesterday. On the desk before her was a handwritten outline of specific points she needed to cover, just to make sure she didn’t leave anything out. The complete files were handy, right beside her desk, in case Victoria fired any obscure questions. Since this morning the files had expanded by a good ten inches to include victim number four. The expedited autopsy was complete, the police reports were filed. Colleen Easterbrook had been positively identified by a friend who normally car-pooled to work with her. Police now knew more about the fourth victim than the third; Jane Doe was still a Jane Doe.

  From her office in the Federal Building, Andie was finally able to track down Victoria at her hotel room in San Francisco. It was clear she was pressed for time. Andie tried to be as efficient as possible with her update. She was able to work smoothly through three of the eight items on her outline before Victoria took over with questions.

  “Go to the autopsy,” said Victoria. “Did Easterbrook have a ruptured eardrum?”

  “Yes. Both of them this time. Jane Doe was just the right.”

  “What do you think caused it?”

  Andie felt challenged. It sounded like a test, as if Victoria had already figured out the answer. “I doubt it’s from listening to a loud stereo. Maybe some kind of blunt trauma to the head?”

  “Don’t talk like you’re asking questions, Andie.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You raised your voice at the end of the sentence, as if you were asking a question. You have a habit of doing that. I noticed it in our task force meeting. Talk with more self-assurance. Your instincts are good. What kind of blunt trauma?”

  Andie glanced nervously at her outline in front of her. This wasn’t part of her prepared speech.

  “Come on, Andie. You’re right there with the killer. He sees Colleen. He’s going to strangle her. What does he need?”

  “Control. Control the victim.”

  “How does he get it?”

  “A weapon?”

  “No. His weapon is the rope. He needs control before he can use
his weapon of choice.”

  “He surprises her. Sneak attack.”

  “And then she gouges his eyes out, leaves traces of his flesh under her fingernails for our DNA analysts. No good. Get back to the blunt trauma. The broken eardrums.”

  Andie blinked, searching her mind for whatever image she could conjure. “He stuns her.”

  “How?”

  “Both hands. Has to be both hands. Both eardrums were broken. He slaps her on the ears, both hands simultaneously. Like those martial arts experts.”

  “Is he in front or behind?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Go back to Jane Doe. The left eardrum busted. Only the left. Now what do you see?”

  Andie squirmed, thinking. “He’s standing right in front of her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. Not for sure. If he’s right-handed, he’s stronger in his right hand, it lands with more force. Face to face, his right hand goes to Jane Doe’s left ear, the one that ruptured. If he’s standing behind her, his left hand goes to her left ear.”

  “Which means?”

  “We have a right-handed killer who attacks from the front, or a left-handed killer who attacks from the rear.”

  Victoria was silent. Andie waited nervously for a response—like a pupil waiting on her grade.

  “Well done, Andie. I had to talk to a martial-arts expert before I figured all that out.”

  “You led me exactly where I needed to go.”

  “Just take the compliment and shut up. There’s very little stroking in this business.”

  “Okay,” she said with a thin smile. “Thanks. Does that mean the quiz is over?”