Murder in the Dell

by Bert Entwistle

  “Yeah. But there are no medical schools anywhere around here, so I never looked into it.”

  “I guess I must have been living in the woods too long,” said Vince, “because I just never thought much about something like that before. Anyway, people can donate their body to medical schools and to various tissue collection companies for use in modern surgery.”

  “Okay, go on with your thought.”

  “I know this sounds totally off the wall crazy, but what if the arm came from one of these cadaver companies? Maybe they were coming or going from a pickup or delivery run and somehow lost it?”

  “You think they could have lost it along the way? It does sound pretty crazy, but I guess it’s not impossible,” said Deacon. “Let’s keep on it, it’s the closest thing we’ve had to a lead since we found the damn thing.”

  “Now that the weather has warmed up, maybe we can get Rusty back out to that stretch of road and have his dogs look for more parts?” said Vince.

  “Yeah sure, it’s okay with me, but keep it to one day, unless we find something.”

  Deacon set the hook on the first fish of the season, a decent spring rainbow about four pounds. Within minutes he had caught and released several more about the same size. “What do you think Jason? Looks like a pretty good way to start the season.”

  “Yeah, sure, for you. I can’t get anything to even look at my line.”

  “That’s because you don’t have one of these top secret cosmic lures of mine,” said Deacon, as he pulled in another rainbow.

  “Well then, I’ll just sit right here and drink all the beer, what do you think of that?”

  He tossed him one of his special, handmade lures. “Here, quit your whining and leave some beer for me.” For several hours, they drifted no more than a few hundred yards off shore, catching plenty of fish and enjoying the first trip of the year.

  The ring of Deacon’s phone interrupted a good conversation about the Vikings rookie prospects for the new season. “Shit, I don’t like the sound of that ring,” said Deacon.

  Jason passed him the phone. “You can tell just from the ring that it might be bad?”

  “Anytime I get a call from the boss while I’m fishing it’s bad” he said. “Yes my dear, what can I do for you?”

  “Got it, we’ll be right in, Austin knows what to do.”

  “Something bad?”

  “We got another one . . .”

  The dead end road had two cars parked on the side, plus Austin’s cruiser. He had already secured the area and strung the tape. “Another one?” asked Deacon, as they walked into the woods.

  “Looks like the Black Plastic Killer again, boss.”

  “Can we not use that name please.”

  “Sorry, this one is not completely exposed yet. An old couple was out hiking and found part of it sticking out of a snow bank.”

  Twenty yards into the trees, a small dip in the ground still held snow. Poking out of the lower end was another body wrapped like the others. “Looks like this one’s been here a while,” said Deacon. After completely photographing the crime scene, he called Doctor Baker and all he said was his usual “I’ll be right there,” before hanging up. After calling Felix, he sat in the car with the old couple that found the body and started to question them. “What are your names?”

  “I’m Brian and this is my wife Emmelina, we walk down here almost every day when the weather is decent. I just noticed something that looked out of place and we went into the trees just a little way to see what it was.”

  “Emmelina, how are you doing?” asked Deacon. “I’m sure this must be a little upsetting for you.”

  “I’m fine, thank you, please call me Emma. We both knew not to touch it, because it looked like it could be one of the victims of the Black Plastic Killer.”

  “If you two could wait in the car for a few minutes I’d appreciate it. The FBI will want to question you when they get here.”

  “No problem Sheriff, we’ll stay right here.”

  The coroner’s van pulled up to the site and Doctor Baker walked directly into the woods. The FBI pulled in a few minutes later. “Are those the people that found her?” asked Felix, pointing to the cruiser.

  “Yessir, I held them here for you, just like you asked me to.”

  “Doc Baker’s with the body already?”

  “Yessir, the coroner is with the body.”

  “Then you can go, and send me a copy of your incident report.”

  “Yessir, I’ll send you a copy. Austin, we’re done here. When the FBI is done with these folks I’ll see you back at the office.”

  Angie wadded up a piece of paper and threw it toward Deacon, bouncing it off his terminal. “You gonna talk today Davis? Or just sit there and finish off your gum in silence?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Yes? Yes to what — the silence or the gum?”

  “Just yes, okay?”

  “I’m not gonna quit bugging you until you talk, you know that, right?”

  “Yeah, sadly, I do know that.”

  “So?”

  “All right already, let’s get something to eat, I’m hungry.”

  “Fine, but you’re buying. Vince, will you watch the phones for a while, I need to take the boss for a walk.”

  Deacon ordered a BLT and coffee and watched while she chose what she wanted on her salad. “You sure are a mysterious woman. I mean no cucumbers or onions on your salad but you bury it in green peppers and blue cheese?”

  “Davis, it helps me keep my girlish figure, you okay with that?”

  “Yes ma’am, I’m quite fine with that.”

  When the food came she couldn’t hold it any longer. “Goddamnit Davis, I’m tired of you moping around like you just lost your last friend — talk!”

  “I’m sorry, there’s no moping here, it’s just the way my mind works, you know that. Things aren’t adding up, not on the serial killer and not on the arm. I’m convinced they aren’t connected, but right now I don’t know where to put everything in the scheme of things.”

  “What about the Crawford’s? You really think they’re involved?”

  “Same deal there, they could be, but I just can’t fit it all together yet.”

  Finishing her salad, she asked the waitress for more tea. “Deacon, I know you pretty well. Is there something else going on here? Do you have a different theory about this that you’re keeping to yourself?”

  “Maybe,” he said, draining his cup. “It’s more like a bunch of unanswered questions and random thoughts bouncing around in my head, some of them pretty wild, but right now none of them stick to anything else. Until they do, they have to stay up there.”

  “So who’s being mysterious now?”

  “I promise you, if I’m able to put any of this together, you will be the first person I tell, okay?”

  “Deacon, I’m just worried about you, that’s all. When you get in these moods, you can be so intense you kind of scare me.”

  “You know I love you for worrying about me, but I just have to figure this out on my own. How about we change the subject?”

  “Sure. Henrietta says she found a few more things you might be interested in.”

  “Great, I’d love to talk to my favorite librarian. In fact, I think I’ll head over there right now.”

  Chapter 14

  Austin and Curt slipped over the fence and headed for the camera pointed at the pond. Changing the disks, they stepped back into the trees and moved to the one overlooking the potato field. Curt climbed the tree, changed everything and dropped back to the ground. “Austin, check it out,” said Curt, pointing at the field. “The ground’s been freshly dug up, look at the muddy tracks coming from the barn.”

  “Something interesting is going on here for sure,” said Austin. They moved to the last camera focused on the house and barn and changed the disk.

  He finished with the cameras just in time to see the light come on in the house. “Time to get out of here, we’ll get the o
ne across from the gate later,” said Curt. When the light went out they made their way back to the truck and headed home. Stopping at the office they dropped the disks on Deacon’s desk.

  Plugging in the cards the next morning, the first two were full of the usual suspects, deer, squirrels, a fox and a flock of turkeys. The nighttime shots of the field and buildings were about the same. In the morning the camera had caught something new. It showed Sinclair Crawford carrying several large, black plastic bags out of the old milking shed and throwing them into the front bucket of the backhoe.

  Driving onto the edge of the potato field he stopped, switched to the backhoe and began to dig a hole. When it was deep enough, he turned around and dumped the front bucket full of bags into the fresh trench. He spent the next fifteen minutes filling it in and smoothing out the ground around it. Returning the tractor to the end of the barn, he shut it off and walked into the house.

  “Shit boss, what did we just see?” asked Austin.

  “Not exactly sure, but whatever it was, he wanted it buried deep. The boom of that hoe was down as deep as it could go.”

  “Whatever it was, I guess we’ll never know without a warrant.”

  Deacon nodded, and ran through the pictures again. “I don’t see us getting a chance to legally search the place anytime soon. Let’s do another couple of days, then if nothing else comes up we’ll pull the cameras.”

  “What about the one across the gate?” asked Austin. “That one’s on public ground, you want to pull it too?”

  “No, leave it for now. It will at least give us a record of when they come and go, it might prove to be important someday.”

  Knocking on his lab door, he waited for Baker to respond. When he heard the click, he noticed the new lock on the door. “Come in Davis. I suppose you’re here to look at the body?”

  “Yessir, I just want to learn everything I can.”

  “Still trying to piss off the FBI?”

  “It’s become my life’s mission.”

  “Good. Come in, have a seat for a minute. You drink coffee?” asked Baker, opening the lock on his office door.

  “I do.”

  “Good. I just made a pot, I drink it all day long. It might be a little strong for you.”

  “I’m good with strong, thanks.”

  After the second cup, Baker began to open up even more than last time. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I have done thousands of autopsies and funerals over the last fifty-years, and I’ve been thinking that it might be time to consider retiring.”

  Deacon was struck by how out of character this was for him. After knowing him and working with him for years, this was already the longest conversation they’d ever had.

  “So what would you do if you retired?”

  “That’s the gist of the problem right there — I have no idea.”

  “Do you have family to spend time with? Maybe you would like to travel?”

  “I have one brother, Donald, living in La Crosse, but we don’t talk much anymore, and I despise traveling. I’d rather listen to music and read, and I prefer to do my traveling by watching the shows on television than to actually go to the trouble of travelling there.”

  “Some people like to work and never retire,” said Deacon. “Maybe you could just cut back a little and see how it works out, you might find you like it.”

  “Maybe, let’s go check the body, I’ll show you what I found.”

  Pulling the sheet back, Baker switched on the overhead light. Deacon found himself looking at a small woman with thick, shoulder length black hair. Obviously Hispanic and very pretty, she looked to be about the same age as the others. Aside from the autopsy incisions, she didn’t show any obvious signs of massive trauma.

  “It’s taken all week to get her thawed properly, she has been frozen solid for several months. Her feet and arms were already starting to thaw, so I had to refreeze her evenly then thaw her slowly.”

  “You had to refreeze her? Why’s that?”

  “If you just leave a frozen body and wait for it to thaw naturally, the outside will start to decompose and the inside will stay frozen for a long time — it’s a good way to lose important forensic information.”

  “I always learn something new when I talk to you. So what do you think was the cause of death?” asked Deacon, snapping several photos.

  “Davis, I don’t think I know the cause of death — I know the cause of death.”

  “Sorry,” said Deacon, trying not to strain their new-found friendship.

  “The cause of death was kidney failure. This is the easiest of all the victims to determine. Help me roll her over and I’ll show you why.”

  The back showed a large scar on each side just below the ribs. “She had both her kidneys removed at the same time.”

  “Removed after death?”

  “No — removed pre-mortem. After they were taken, she was closed back up and kept alive until she died of renal failure.”

  “Jesus, that sounds like a horrible way to die.”

  “Renal failure is not particularly painful in itself, but knowing you are dying and you’re unable to do anything about it, that would be horrible.”

  Deacon took one last close-up of the woman’s face. “So the killer put her to sleep, removed the kidneys and then watched her until she expired?”

  “That’s exactly how it happened,” said Baker.

  “How long would it take for her to die this way?”

  “Eight days.”

  Deacon interrupted him. “Eight days? You know that exactly? How do you calculate such a thing?”

  “Goddamnit Davis, 45 years of experience tells me, that’s how.” He stared at him for another minute, then calmed down. “That and the calculation of her age, weight and body fat, as well as her general physical condition.”

  “Okay already, I didn’t mean to question your credentials. I’m just trying to learn.”

  “Fine, you done here? I have work to do.”

  “Do you have the full report?” asked Deacon, making a last note in his book. “I’d like to get a copy for my files.”

  “I haven’t printed it yet. I’ll send one over as soon as I do. Davis, what do you hear from the FBI? Are they getting any closer to finding this guy?”

  “I haven’t heard much lately. They’ve pretty well shut me out. I am on a need to know basis, and it appears they don’t need me to know anything. On this last one, they sent me packing the minute they got to the scene.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I still have the severed arm to work on. They can’t prove that it didn’t come from a possible victim of the serial killer, so they can’t completely exclude me from the investigation. Besides, Austin and I know every inch of Bayfield County better than we know our own back yard. Now and then they need someone to show them around.”

  “They’re not a very competent bunch. With all their resources, they still haven’t been able to identify the Rundle girl.”

  Deacon thought he misunderstood the old man, as far as he knew there was no girl by that name. “Say that again?”

  “Uh… Rund… er, Roth, isn’t that her name . . .?”

  “Jessica Roth was the victim just before this one.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, the one before this one was Jessica Roth. I’m sorry about that, maybe I do need to retire, my memory is fading fast,” said Baker, shaking his head. He flushed and sat down, trying to regain his composure. “Davis, I’m sorry about that. It appears you may have found out my secret. I was diagnosed with the early stages of dementia about a year ago, my memory is starting to fade. That’s why I have been thinking about retirement. If the world finds out about this, my career will be over.”

  Deacon began to understand why the old man had been acting so strange lately.

  “Doctor, I’m sincerely sorry to hear that, no one will find out from me, I promise. But I do think you should give some thought to setting a retirement date. Do you know what will happen if the wrong d
efense attorney finds out about this? He could have every one of his cases you ever worked on overturned on appeal.”

  “Thank you, Davis, but I know exactly what would happen. They would pick me and my findings apart in court. I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and I’m about ready to make a decision.”

  Deacon shook the old man’s hand and walked with him to the door. “Doctor Baker, you know that I can’t just let this go. I have a duty to inform the county, so please make your decision quickly. If there’s anything I can do to help you with this, just call.”

  “Thank you Sheriff Davis, I apologize for being so rude to you. You are a good man and Bayfield County is lucky to have you. It’s taken some time for me to come to terms with the diagnosis, please bear with me a little longer.”

  Angie handed him the report she had just received from the FBI office. “They have an ID on the latest victim. Her name is Carla Acosta Rivas, age 21. She’s from a family in Mankato, Minnesota. Her family says she was visiting friends in St. Paul for the Thanksgiving weekend and they’ve heard nothing since.”

  Deacon looked over the details of the report. “She must have been killed sometime around that first big snowstorm we had. She stayed covered until the last of the snow melted.”

  “What did he find as the cause of death?”

  “She had both of her kidneys removed, was sewed back up, then allowed to die of renal failure. It took about a week for her to die.”

  “Jesus Deacon, this guy’s like no serial killer I’ve ever heard of,” said Angie.

  Deacon shrugged. “Find a place for her picture on the board and we’ll keep looking. Not much else we can do.”

  Austin sat down in the war room and clicked on the computer. “Boss, I loaded the next batch of photos if you’re ready.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he said, motioning to Angie. “We have the newest wildlife pictures ready, want to check them out?”