by C. K. Raggio
“No, nothing,” Ryles said. “We’ve got half the force trying to keep people off the trail. There’s so many that intersect each other; it’s been a nightmare trying to keep the media away, never mind the bystanders. It’s easy for them to just stroll into the woods off Main Street.”
The group followed Ryles into the woods. It was early fall, but with the blustery wind leaves littered the hard-packed trails. Their footsteps were muffled with only an occasional crunch and crackle. A few songbirds chirped from the treetops, a vast improvement to the screaming herons.
After about a mile of weaving amongst the trees they reached the crime scene. Rick held the yellow caution tape up and they ducked under it.
“The young man who called it in thought it was just a dead dog,” Ryles started, “chewed up by a raccoon. Then he saw what looked to be drag marks in the dirt leading into the thick brush.” He pointed. “The kid followed them through that old deer trail and found the sneaker about twenty feet in. The dog’s carcass is over here.”
Fluorescent orange flags littered the ground, marking drops of blood and anything else that looked to be possible evidence. Crime scene tech’s cameras flashed, and they spoke in hushed tones, becoming silent and moving further down the trail as Ryles led the group toward the dog.
Rick studied the dead animal from every angle before squatting down next to its small, blood-crusted form. So much for his supervisors putting him on a dead-end case. He’d need the crime scene photos from Virginia to be sure, but the wounds on this dog looked a lot like the one’s he’d seen on the animals there.
“Looks like a mountain lion did this, not a raccoon,” Cassie said as she squatted down next to him. “It’s a single bite wound. Whatever grabbed onto him wrenched its head from side to side. That’s what caused the tearing.”
Rick glanced at her, impressed with her explanation of the bites.
She waved a few flies away and hovered a pen over the shredded areas of flesh, answering before he had a chance to question. “I worked on a few dog fighting cases.” She sat back on her heels. “These bites look too big for any dog I’ve ever seen. But the biggest wild animal we have around here are deer.”
“What do you think?” Hank stared at him, his brows furrowed.
Rick stood up and looked toward the impressions in the dirt leading off the trail. Sure looked like someone was dragged away. But it hadn’t rained in over a week. “I’m not sure. This could be a stray dog, maybe someone’s pet puma got loose and killed it.” He shook his head. The coincidence of him coming to Long Island just in time for his Virginia killer to strike seemed so far-fetched. But he didn’t believe in coincidences.
“But it is possible this could be your Virginia guy?” Cassie asked, standing up. “The crime scene photos of the dogs from Virginia, did they look like this?”
He wanted to talk to headquarters before admitting anything, but… “Yeah, they did.”
“Fuck me,” Izzy muttered.
Rick scowled at her and then at Hank who mumbled under his breath. Hank sure had his hands full with this group. He wouldn’t blame the poor guy if he retired within the first month of being promoted.
Ryles motioned for them to follow. “There’s one more thing.”
“Izzy, Phil,” Hank said. “Since you two loudmouths enjoy talking so much, go ask around. Start with the kid that called it in. I’ll check out the sneaker. Agent Sanders, can you and Cassie go with Ryles?”
Rick and Cassie followed Ryles a few feet away. He held a bush apart. Two orange flags flanked a red leash and collar speckled with dried blood. The collar was ripped in half, but clearly embroidered in bold green lettering was a name. Rooter.
A radio beeped and crackled to life on Ryles’ belt. “Go ahead,” he said.
“Sir, we’ve got a body,” a breathless female voice blurted. “We need you at the far south side of the park ASAP. It looks like a 187 and it’s a brutal one. Looks fresh and… well… we can’t tell if it’s male or female.”
Rick’s chest constricted. Maybe this wasn’t the same guy. They’d never found a body. But this park was much smaller than the ones hit down south. They could’ve missed them.
“We’re on our way. Over.”
Before anyone could move or reply, a noise rose above the trees. The haunting call of a blue heron. Those birds were supposed to be a good omen, but from the panicked sound of the female voice on the radio, the bird hadn’t brought anything worth feeling good about today.
CHAPTER 4
Cassie followed Izzy down the narrow hallway of the Medical Examiner’s Building. Mrs. Benton, the ME’s wife, waddled toward them, pushing her glasses up higher on her pudgy face. Cassie flattened up against the wall so she could get by.
“Mrs. Benton, you guys done already?” Izzy asked.
The woman smiled, showing off her bleached teeth. “Not much for us to do in there. I usually would’ve weighed the internal organs, checked the stomach contents and such. But, of course, most of that isn’t present. I’ll let Doc fill you in on the rest.”
“Sounds like a hoot,” Izzy said. “Where you off to?”
“I have to babysit the grandkids and I’m a bit late.” She waved a manicured hand at them and hurried down the hall.
Izzy shuddered. “How can that woman be so chipper after seeing what was left of our victim? Then go and play patty-cake with her grandkids no less?”
Cassie shrugged. “Guess if you do it long enough, you become immune. Even if the cadaver you’re working on is missing their hands, headless, and gutted like a prized stag.”
They continued past three white doors but slowed when the glass viewing area came up on their left. Dr. Benton hovered inches away from jutting bones and cartilage glinting in the harsh artificial lights. He peeled back a flap of skinless flesh.
Cassie took a deep breath and shifted her weight. For some reason, the autopsies always affected her more than the crime scenes did. She looked through the glass at the bare white walls and floor. Bloody water and what looked like canned cat food clogged the drain under the gurney.
Doc Benton reached for a pair of forceps on the tray next to him. The various tools of his trade shined in silvery contrast to the desolate room around him. He wiped his face against the shoulder of his pale yellow scrubs. His stringy white hair poked through the cap covering his head as he bent over the body and plucked something from the neck wound. Doc brought the small fragment up to the light, pursed his lips, and placed it into an evidence bag.
Cassie tilted her head toward the door. “Ready?”
Face pale, Izzy gulped. “I guess.”
Cassie rapped on the door and waited. The elderly man continued picking and prodding at the flesh. She knocked a second time, a little louder. The sound startled him and his enormous glasses almost fell into the puddle of muck in the floor drain. He caught them in midair and arranged them back on the bridge of his nose.
He gestured them in. Cassie opened the door, let Izzy step through first, then pulled it shut behind them.
“Hey, Doc. How’s it going?” Izzy asked, as they each pulled on a pair of latex gloves.
He placed a scalpel back on the tray. “It’s been better. I don’t have much to work with here.”
Cassie stepped beside him. Once a body is brought in, it’s x-rayed and searched for any forensic evidence, then it’s washed down for dissection. The pale, pasty body was what normally gave Cassie the creeps.
This one was worse. Strips of skin had been peeled off. The sections along the legs and arms were grayish-blue and looked like month old raw sausage. Cassie leaned closer and held her breath. The rancid odor seemed to seep into every pore in her face. Izzy, who’d come up alongside of her, staggered back. She turned toward the wall, gagging into her open hand.
Doc frowned. “I know the smell is quite bad. When your guy sliced her from sternum to pelvis he cut into her intestines. The waste can have a foul smell. I just bagged what was left, should get better in a minut
e or two.”
Cassie reached for a jar beside the door and dabbed mentholated cream under each nostril and handed it to Izzy. Cassie held a finger up to Doc and he waited for them to recover.
“What I’ve got so far,” Doc began, “is a twenty-five to thirty-five-year-old female. And what has been done to her is the sickest thing I’ve seen in my forty years on the job.”
“I think it may be the sickest thing anyone has ever seen around here,” Cassie said, not able to take her eyes from the slab of meat on the table. Its missing skin, jagged bones for hands, gutted abdomen and exposed ribs made it look like something that should’ve been hanging from a meat locker ceiling.
Doc leaned against the table. “Detectives, the only things I have found thus far to be sent to the labs are twenty dog hairs. Fifteen of them do not look as though they match the hairs of the deceased dog you found at the park. Jane Doe’s cause of death seems to be from blood loss. Her hands were chopped off, skin removed in various places, including most of her back, and then she was gutted. All while still alive."
“Shit.” Izzy gave Cassie a wide-eyed glance.
Doc stooped over the table, scalpel in steady hands. “These bites near the base of her neck were made by a very large dog, the same dog that butchered the yorkie found on the trail. The bites on our female victim are not as deep, because their purpose was not to kill her.”
“Then what were they used for?” Cassie asked, moving closer.
“The bruising on either side here lead me to believe she was probably held to the ground by her throat.” Doc pointed to the tooth marks, which seemed to surround Jane Doe’s jugular. “Maybe so the killer could gain better control over her, or maybe to keep her from screaming.”
Cassie leaned in. “That’s a well-trained dog.” The punctures weren’t deep, or half as large as the ones she’d seen on Rooter. No tearing of the skin at all. They were perfect, round holes. How could a dog maul another animal like it did and have a surgeon’s accuracy here?
“What did he use to decapitate her?” Cassie asked.
Doc used forceps to pull away at the flesh of the neck until bone was exposed. “I’m thinking he used some sort of hand ax. He was precise. As you can see the wound is quite clean.”
Cassie’s stomach gurgled and she stepped back. She craved fresh air, needed to escape the room and fill her lungs with something other than the smell of disinfected death. “Anything else, Doc?”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m hoping that we can get something once the samples come back, but a few dog hairs are only going to get you so far. The most we can hope for is to find out who she is, and that will only happen if her DNA is in the system.”
“This sick SOB,” Izzy said from behind Cassie. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this chick’s head is hanging over his mantel.”
Cassie sighed. “It’s obvious we don’t have dental records, or even scars or tattoos to ID the body. All we can do is wait for a missing person’s report to be filed."
She bit the inside of her cheek. They had no leads. Not one person saw or heard anything at the park. “Did the vet do a necropsy on the dog yet?”
“Yes. The dog’s neck was broken in four places, that’s what killed him.”
“Was the dog microchipped?”
Doc shook his head. “That would be too easy.”
“At least we can start calling around to local vets and see if they have a yorkie named Rooter in their computers.” Cassie removed her gloves and dropped them in the trash. “How long till the hair samples and tests come back?”
“I called in a favor on the dog hairs,” Doc said as he leaned over the corpse. “They’ll be ready Friday morning, but the DNA from the victim could take a week, probably two.”
Cassie looked at Izzy to see if she wanted to add anything. She almost burst out laughing at the sight of her tough-as-nails partner holding the jar of menthol under her nose as if it were a bouquet of roses. Talk about dramatic.
“Looks like Jane Doe walked to the park since no car was found,” Cassie continued. “Hank has officers patrolling there to keep an eye out for anyone looking for her and others going door-to-door.”
Izzy inhaled, keeping the container under her nose as she spoke. “Yeah, and the FBI guy asked that we keep the details of the dog bites and victim’s wounds out of the media until we know more. Should be interesting to see how long that lasts in this town.” Izzy grinned. “That means no talking to Peggy at the diner, Doc.”
He looked up from the table and winked.
Izzy pulled the jar from her face, her eyes tearing and turning red from the cream. “The agent thinks this is the same guy from the case the FBI’s looking into in Virginia. Hank has already asked him to stay and help out. You saw the crime photos of the dogs in Virginia, Doc. What do you think?”
Doc adjusted his glasses. “From the measurements we took on the puncture wounds on Rooter and the measurements taken from those cases, I’d have to agree with him. They seemed to be exactly the same, right down to the tearing. It would sure be some coincidence if it wasn’t related.”
“Even though this is the first human body found?” Izzy asked. “How does that make any sense? These guys usually stick to one MO.”
Cassie stared at the mutilated body, a ball of tension rolling in her gut. Would there be more bodies? “Well, maybe the killer’s getting comfortable with what he’s doing.” Maybe everything else he’s done thus far was just for practice and now he’s looking to put on a show. But why move from Virginia to Long Island? Why Heron Park?
~~~
Rick shut the door to Hank’s office and rested his back against the wall. Cassie had just finished going over the autopsy report. When she told them about the measurements of the punctures on this case, compared to the dog in the Virginia case, Rick knew it had to be the same guy.
The body they found either meant the killer was getting better and braver, or cockier and dumber. He hoped for the latter.
Hank raised the blind on the window and peered out. “The news crews are starting to swarm, blocking up the entrances. I need to make a statement.”
The man’s face was pale, sweat stains spread across the back of his shirt. Had he ever done a press conference? This was probably the biggest case of the guy’s life and he’d only been in charge for a week. “If you want I’ll be more than happy to speak to them for you. I – ”
“Fine with me.” Hank collapsed into his chair, it squeaked under his weight. “How much are we gonna tell them?”
Rick paused, gathering his thoughts. “Only the bare details. We’ll admit a body was found and explain nobody should be walking in any parks, or secluded areas alone until further notice. It’s pointless to close Heron Park because of all the entrances off the roads and people’s residences. But we can still recommend people go only during the day.” He ran his thumb along his jaw. “How much manpower do you have? Enough to patrol throughout the day and night?”
“I’ll reach out to other precincts and the state if I have to,” Hank said. “What about you? Are you going to tell them why you came? About the case in Virginia?”
“No. Just that I’ve been brought in to advise on this case, nothing more.”
Hank chuckled. “Good luck keeping it that basic. Don’t forget New Yorkers love to haggle and question everything.”
Rick smiled at him. He’d worked with a few New Yorkers, they could be very persistent when they wanted to be. “I won’t.”
“Better you than me.” Hank glanced back out the window and closed the blind. “I have three undercovers that will be working the crowds, taking video and still photos like you suggested. Is that enough, or do you need more?”
“That should be fine. Any more and they could be spotted.” Rick hoped the cameramen were good at blending in. He thought about asking Hank about their experiences, but realized he’d be undermining the man’s intelligence if he did. Hank had been open to everything Rick put out there, no reason to break that mutua
l respect. “Let’s put one on each side of the crowd and one near the back, toward the middle.”
Hank tapped a pen against the desk. “You think he’ll come?”
“With a public conference all about him, I know he will.”
CHAPTER 5
In front of Town Hall, he stood and listened as FBI Agent Rick Sanders spoke about him to the reporters and townspeople. The agent’s voice was strong, clear and confident. He promised to catch the killer. Next, the agent mentioned using the ‘buddy system’ when walking at any parks on the Island.
They’re so naïve. Like that would stop me. He smirked and worked hard not to laugh, knowing undercovers could possibly be lurking around him.
“Questions?” Agent Sanders asked.
Ah, yes. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Let’s see how collected he’ll be when he finds out how much the media knows.
A short, stocky woman in a gray suit elbowed her way to the front. “Sir, we’ve been informed the killer used a dog to assist him in torturing his victim. Is there any truth to this?”
“That’s ridiculous,” a man shouted from the back. “You’re saying the person who killed that woman is like what? A twisted Timmy, and instead of Lassie, he’s got a trained Cujo?”
Timmy, huh. Wasn’t expecting that. Has a nice ring to it, an innocence. Can’t use it here since everyone knows me, but maybe out of town. A smile touched his lips. Yes. When people don’t know my face, that’s what I’ll go by. Timmy.
The woman in the gray suit held her hand up. “Sir, I didn’t hear your answer.”
The agent’s lip curled. “No comment.”
Timmy covered his mouth with his hand, hiding his growing grin. Guess that little tidbit about the dog wasn’t supposed to be released. Don’t you just hate when that happens. Sucks for you, Agent Man.
“Sir,” a tall bald man said. “Is the killer linked to the two women who have gone missing from Heron Park last year? And what about the women in Virginia and elsewhere? We have sources saying you have evidence tying all of these cases together.”
