He offers no interpretations. Not yet. Not about the mention of lewdness. Not about the date, 1979-which sort of puts the skull back in the disco days with the ears and nose we already found. Ceepak never conjectures right away. First he examines all the evidence. That means tweezering and unfolding the other piece of paper tucked into the baggie because it's only halfway visible behind the index card.
“Map,” he says. “Hand-drawn. Permanent black marker on foolscap paper.”
It looks like a treasure map drawn on that old-fashioned parchment stuff you always see in souvenir shops with the Declaration of Independence printed on it.
I see there is a big X on the map.
And a dotted line-like footprints.
And, in the corner, one of those orientating compass deals: N, E, S, W.
“Ten paces due north,” says Ceepak as he studies the map.
Then he turns to me.
“Danny, I believe we're going to need the field shovel.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
We keep an Army-issue field shovel stowed in the back of our cop car with the flares and rolls of POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape.
The sun glints off the tinted glass and I can already tell: this day's going to be a scorcher. Probably hit 90, maybe 95 degrees. And the wind has shifted. It's blowing across the island from the bay to the ocean. West to east. That means the greenhead flies will be blowing this way, too.
The greenheads are vicious little devils, our local locusts, the shore's summertime plague. Their heads aren't really green. They take their name from their big buggy eyes. Huge green peepers popping out of humongous black bodies. These suckers fly slow-maybe because their eyeballs are so huge. They sort of lumber through the air like one of those C-130 military cargo planes that shouldn't even be able to fly. You swat at a greenhead, it'll stare at you, ask if you've got some kind of problem, then loop back to take a snap at your ankles.
Ouch. All this, and greenheads, too.
• • •
Ceepak is waiting for me-standing on a clump of sea grass ten feet north of the first hole.
I hand him the shovel. He looks like he's ready to play some serious Whack-A-Mole. Like he's there to bop anything that dares pop up out of a hole in the sand.
“I radioed the chief,” he says.
“And? Is he calling the FBI?”
“Not yet.”
“I think we should.”
“As do I. However, the chief reminded me that we retain primary jurisdiction in the case for investigative purposes unless and until we determine that these individuals were killed elsewhere and transported across state lines.”
Chief Baines never does like the FBI dropping by Sea Haven. They scare away more cash-carrying tourists than all the sharks in Jaws I, II, and III combined.
“Record my location,” says Ceepak, ready to shoulder the grim responsibility of moving forward.
I pull out the digital camera and snap a frame. I check the viewfinder. The shot looks like one of those groundbreaking ceremonies for a new bank.
“Got it.”
Ceepak nods.
Digs.
Shovels up several buckets of sand, making a tidy pile to the left of his hole.
“Approximate depth: one foot.”
He keeps digging. The sand is soft.
“Two feet.”
The pile of powder next to his hole grows taller. Sugary sand slides off the peak, trickles down along the sides.
“Three feet.”
I hear steel tap plastic. Ceepak stops. Steps away from the hole. Lays down his shovel and drops to his knees.
“Danny? Will you please bring me a paintbrush?”
“On it.”
I slap one into his open palm and say, “Paintbrush.”
“Thank you.”
I crouch down and watch Ceepak start to dust off what we both know is going to be the lid to another Tupperware bowl. Ceepak whisks away the sand with his brush, an umpire cleaning off home plate for the next batter up.
I see a translucent top with the raised ridge of a lip. The famous, vacuum-sealed lid designed to keep the bowl's contents fresh and crisp. Even if you store your head of lettuce-make that a human head-in the hot sand.
Of course, it's another skull.
A small oblong ball, really. Maybe five inches wide, eight inches tall, six inches deep. Wrapped in another newspaper.
“Again, a Friday edition of the Sandpaper. July 12, 1980.”
There's another baggie in the bottom of the bowl. Inside the baggie, another note card and another little folded map.
“‘Miriam,’” Ceepak says, reading the index card. “‘Monday. 7-8-80.’”
“Oh, man,” I whisper, even though I feel like screaming. “Miriam.”
Ceepak just nods.
We have to assume it's the same Miriam whose nose we found with the local souvenirs back at The Treasure Chest.
Ceepak holds up the card and reads what's typed along the bottom: “‘Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease.’”
“He's repeating himself.”
“They usually do.”
Ceepak puts the index card into an evidence bag, and then uses his tweezers to unfold the little map. I study it over his shoulder: it's dotted with dashes of footprints leading to another X. Ten feet due west this time.
“Of course!” says Ceepak. He's having one of his eureka moments. “It was near the pirate chests.”
“Pirate chests?” I'm a little behind him, somewhere south of Eureka! “What pirate chests?”
“At the souvenir shop. Remember? The jar was on a shelf surrounded by snow globes depicting pirate chests filled with gold doubloons. The killer was being cute. Alluding to his private necropolis filled with treasure chests.”
“So you think this Miriam is the same Miriam who, you know….”
“I do.”
Usually, he says, “It's a possibility.” Not today. Today, he's definite.
“The nose, most likely, was the souvenir the killer kept for himself during the totem stage of his cyclical spree. During or after the murder, the killer performs a ritualistic taking of trophies, often involving mutilation of his dead victim's corpse. He needs a souvenir, something to help him perpetuate the erotic pleasure sparked during the actual killing.”
“Jesus.”
“It's no wonder he placed his formaldehyde jars in a museum and, later, The Treasure Chest. One building storehouses trophies, the other contains nothing but souvenirs. This man is taunting us.”
“Why?”
“He wants us to know he's back in town. Perhaps to complete another killing cycle. A serial killer is very similar to a drug addict, Danny. Sooner or later he will give in to his cravings and return to the one thing in the world that gives him pleasure.”
Ceepak pulls a pair of latex gloves out of his hip pocket, snaps them onto his hands. Next, he finds his magnifying lens. Finally, he uses his free hand to hold the skull. He looks like Hamlet crossed with Sherlock Holmes. I make sure no one's watching.
It's amazing. The beach is still empty.
“Can you see it, Danny?”
I lean over his shoulder, try to look through the lens, but all I'm getting is a rubbery, funhouse-mirror close-up of white.
“See what?”
“Between the eye sockets. Where the nasal bone is joined to the frontal bone.”
I see an upside-down Valentine-heart-shaped hole between the skull's two eye sockets. Not much else.
“Definitely nicked,” says Ceepak. “Slightly notched. There are noticeable groove marks where a blade sawed too close to the bone when severing the cartilage forming the support structure for the nose.”
He flips the skull around in his hand and zooms in for a look at the ear canal.
“Here, too. I note chipping near the exterior auditory meatus. A cut line crossing into the adjoining temporal bone.”
“He cut off Miriam's ears?”
“Yes, Danny.”
“Not yet. Most likely, those were the souvenirs he chose to keep for himself, in his personal museum.”
Ceepak slips the skull back into its paper sack.
“I believe we may have just isolated the killer's signature.”
Ceepak hikes back across the sand to Hole Number One and the ring of evidence bags circling it-everything we found with “Delilah's” skull.
Ceepak reaches into the bag, pulls out the skull, and examines it with his magnifying glass. First the front, then both sides.
“Again. The nose and both ears were chopped off. The cuts in this instance were much cruder, less skilled. I note a false start with a serrated blade high up on the nasal bone, along an imaginary line running between the girl's pupils.”
I don't want to imagine that line. I don't want to imagine some lunatic drawing it in with a stubby carpenter's pencil or snapping a blue chalk line across the girl's face so he could saw off her nose with a serrated steak knife.
“He kills his victims, decapitates them, then cuts off their nose and their ears. This is his signature.”
“Why?”
“Unclear.”
He puts away Skull Number One and marches over to Hole Number Two.
“We need to call Officer Diego. Have her run down the Bible quote.”
“Diego doesn't come in until nine.”
“Let's radio the house. Have Dispatch call her at home and instruct her to report for duty ASAP.”
“It's only like a half hour until….”
“Danny? Time is of the essence.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We should also request uniformed backup to help us secure this crime scene and work crowd control. The beach will be filling up soon. We should contact the municipal garage. See if we can procure some privacy screens. You know, the type of tarps the Highway Patrol puts up around serious accident scenes on the Interstate.”
“Right.”
“I will once again urge the chief to request county, state, and/or federal assistance. He should also contact the Chamber of Commerce. Postponement of the Sand Castle Competition would seem the most prudent course of action.”
“Yeah.”
“Danny, if you had any plans for this evening, please cancel them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We need to move fast. This killer may not wait for Chief Baines to call the FBI before striking again.”
And I was worried about the greenheads.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
One hour later, we have two more holes, two more plastic containers, two more skulls pulled up from the sand.
Hole Number Three: Rebecca. Tuesday, August 13, 1980.
Hole Number Four: Deborah. Tuesday, July 29, 1981.
Each skull was wrapped in the local newspaper from the following Friday. Each was stored in Tupperware-type bins slightly different from each other and the ones we found earlier, but big enough to handle the job. All four plastic containers held sandwich bags with neatly typed index cards identifying the victim and proclaiming, “Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease.”
Each find also contained a map leading us gruesomely onward.
One hour later, we have company. Lots of it. First came the lifeguards. Now the beach is almost full, fed by a steady parade of sun worshippers. They march across the sand and claim their territory, planting the family umbrella. They haul lawn chairs, ice chests, boogie boards, and rolling laundry carts stuffed with towels, paddle-ball paddles, and brightly-colored sponge toys. They wear bathing suits, sarongs, sun visors, and the occasional unfortunate Speedo. Children squeal and splash at the foamy edge of the shallow water, down where the sand sucks at your toes. Parents lounge in low-slung chairs. Every now and then, the lifeguard up on his platform blows a whistle, calling foul on some hotshot boldly venturing beyond the safety flags staked fifty feet out from his chair. The flags tell you where it's safe to swim.
Today I wonder if any place on this particular beach is safe. There are dangerous, hidden spots nobody can see. Deep black holes where young girls disappear. Young girls nobody was watching out for. The invisible dead. What Ceepak, only yesterday, called the “less dead.”
You dig up four skulls in under an hour, you start thinking creepy stuff like that.
Ceepak decides we should stop digging even though we are in possession of Map Number Four, which indicates that if we venture seven paces to the east we will unearth Skull Number Five.
The four female skulls already excavated sit in grocery bags over near Hole Number One. From a distance, it looks like Ceepak, me, and two extremely hungry lumberjacks brought huge sack lunches with us to work today.
About ten feet down from the brown bags, I see the recently erected FIRST ANNUAL SEA HAVEN SAND CASTLE KINGDOM banner snapping in the breeze near the entrance to a rolled-out rectangle of bright orange construction fencing. The banner's got half-moon wind vents cut into it, so it won't roll up on itself. Behind the fence, I see guys climbing aboard backhoes, finishing their coffee and rolls and Little Debbie Honey Buns.
“We need to wait for backup,” says Ceepak. “Lock down this primary area of interest. Set up a secure perimeter. We may need to seal off the Sand Castle site as well.”
I nod because I know we can't have tourists and backhoes traipsing all over what might be the east wing of Sea Haven's beach-front boneyard.
When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me it was a sin to walk across somebody's grave. Sacrilegious. You don't want to step on their souls, she'd say. Made me wonder how cemetery groundskeepers mowed their lawns if it's against the rules to walk on top of anybody's coffin.
Who knew that the unintentionally irreverent have been playing hacky-sack for years on top of our secret cemetery: Oak Beach.
“So far,” Ceepak says, “it seems the killer only struck in the summer.”
“Yeah.”
He rattles off the facts. “One victim in the summer of 1979. Two in the summer of 1980….”
“And one in 1981.”
“So far.”
“Yeah. So far.”
“He also seems to kill early in the week. Monday. Tuesday.”
I nod. “And he always uses the Friday newspaper.”
“Indeed. However, the Sandpaper is a weekly. I believe it is only published on Fridays.”
“Yeah.”
“Still, you make a cogent observation, Danny. In all instances, the killer waits three or more days before wrapping up the skull, sealing it inside the plastic storage container.”
“Yeah,” I say. “The kill date always comes before the paper date….”
“Precisely. The perpetrator also premeditates his next kill-at least where he plans on burying the next skull. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to put the maps in the bag with the note card. Each kill is a prequel to the next.”
I nod again, then restate the most obvious fact we've uncovered thus far: “He also cuts off their ears and noses.”
We examined all four skulls. There were cut marks.
Ceepak checks his watch.
“What's keeping Diego?”
He's eager to pinpoint the lewdness quote, hoping it might give us a clue as to the perp's twisted motivation.
Unfortunately, Denise wasn't home when Dispatch called. They finally tagged her on her cell. She was at the 7-Eleven picking up breakfast. Cool Ranch Doritos and a Diet Pepsi would be my guess.
“Hey, Danny Boy!”
I squint. Some guy smoking a cigarette is waving at me from the wooden plank walkway cutting through the dunes.
“Friend of yours?” asks Ceepak.
“I'm not sure,” I say, because I don't recognize him. He saunters over toward us, takes one last drag, flicks his butt in the sand.
“Sir?” Ceepak calls out. “Kindly retrieve your refuse.”
The guy stops. Seems surprised.
Ceepak points to where the man tossed his cigarette.
“Please dep
osit your trash in a proper receptacle.”
Now the guy shrugs, bends down, searches in the sand. He finds his cigarette butt and picks it up.
“Sorry, man.” He coughs, rolls the stubbed-out filter between his finger and thumb. Tucks it in his shorts. He shambles over toward us.
It's Ralph. The angry bartender. I didn't recognize him at first because I've never seen the guy in direct sunlight-just under dim neons in the dark bar. He's also wearing a Phillies baseball cap pulled down tight to shade his bleary eyes.
“Hey, Ralph,” I say. “You're up early.”
“Yeah.” He hacks to clear out his lungs a little. “Excuse me. Think I'm catching a summer cold.” He catches sight of our grocery sacks. “What's in the bags?”
I answer because I don't want Ceepak blurting out the truth.
“Stuff.”
“Police stuff?”
“Roger that,” I say, sounding way official.
Ralph sticks a fresh smoke between his lips. But he doesn't light up. Something distracts him.
“Jesus, look at them, would ya,” he says, the cigarette bobbing up and down in the corner of his mouth. He motions toward a group of young girls giggling up the beach in their bikinis. I figure it's the first of many such trios that will strut their stuff on this particular stretch of sand today.
“Would you let your daughter dress that way in public?”
He shoots this one to Ceepak.
“I'm not married,” says Ceepak. “I have no children.”
“Yeah, well me neither, but fucking-a. Look at that. What are they? Fourteen? Fifteen? Why don't they just walk around naked?”
I have often asked myself the same question-but not in the same hypercritical tone Ralph's using. With me, it's more of a dream-cometrue type thing.
“What're you doing out of bed so early?” I ask Ralph, hoping to nudge him off his rant.
“It's Tuesday morning.”
“Unh-hunh.” I have no idea what he means.
“My last morning to wake up undisgusted. Tonight's Ladies’ Night. Means the so-called ladies will be packed in cheek to jowl, all boozed up on half-price drinks, throwing themselves at anything in pants. They ought to call it Whores’ Night.” He makes the word sound like the beer: “Hoors.”
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