Spider's Web

by Mike Omer

  Mitchell circled the grave, then turned to Jacob once more.

  “Looks like she was wearing running clothes,” he said.

  “So she was probably jogging,” Jacob said.

  “Probably.”

  “She went jogging in the park, and the killer waited for her here.”

  “I’m guessing it was very early in the morning, or late in the evening,” Mitchell said. “There weren’t many people in the park.”

  “And after she was killed, he buried her in the same spot,” Jacob said.

  “Right.”

  They stayed on the scene while Annie collected the body, placing it in a black body bag. Matt bagged a car key found in the body’s back pocket and gathered some additional samples. The two detectives and two crime scene technicians canvassed the crime scene. In addition to the beer bottles and the condom, they found an old dry pen, a cigarette stub and a candy bar wrap, all within fifty feet of the grave.

  There was no ID on the body.

  There was no reason to rush the investigation. The crime wasn’t fresh—Annie had quickly determined it was committed at least a week before—and there was no easy way to identify the body, no family to notify. In short, there was no excuse for paid overtime. The chief was quick to inform Captain Bailey that his squad could wait and start working the case on Monday.

  Unsurprisingly, no one argued.

  What was left of the weekend passed uneventfully. Though they had seen the dead, buried, decaying body, the detectives and the crime scene crew refused to let the incident mar their weekend plans.

  But death can trickle in during quiet, thoughtful moments. It doesn’t ask for permission, often sneaking into people’s minds before they notice it is there.

  During Saturday dinner, Jacob’s daughter Amy asked him to pass the salad bowl. She repeated the request three times; each time her father stared through her, as if she had turned invisible. Finally, he cleared his throat and passed over the salt shaker. Amy exchanged a look with Marissa, Jacob’s wife. The rest of the dinner was a silent affair.

  Matt was driving down the highway when a huge surge of loneliness hit him. He got off at the next exit, and stopped at the side of the road, tears springing from his eyes. He took out his phone and thought about calling someone. He scrolled down the contact list, seeing only one name he really wanted to call. But he didn’t. Instead he opened Twitter, tried to think of something witty or thoughtful to say, found nothing, and eventually retweeted a tweet from the Oatmeal. For some reason, this made him feel better, and he got back on the road.

  Mitchell and Pauline were kissing, naked in bed. Pauline’s hand snaked along the back of his leg, her fingers lightly touching his thigh, and suddenly he moved away.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, unable to explain that her body suddenly reminded him of the dead body he had seen earlier, the remnants of the sports bra failing to cover the girl’s decomposing flesh. He kissed her lightly on the lips and she smiled, her eyes concerned.

  She fell asleep with Mitchell hugging her from behind, listening intently to her deep breaths, wondering if the dead girl had someone who missed her body, her warmth, her love.

  Annie, who had seen more death than any of the others, was mostly undisturbed. But there was a moment, just a tiny moment while she was in the shower, that a flashing memory of the girl’s face invaded her thoughts.

  She brushed it aside, got out of the shower, dressed, and went to see a movie.

  On Monday morning she autopsied the dead woman’s body. She did it by herself, preferring the solitude. She didn’t like using assistants for murder autopsies, though she couldn’t say why. Once she was done, she called Jacob and informed him that she had some conclusions she wanted to share.

  Chapter Two

  To avoid any embarrassing moments in the morgue, Mitchell decided to smear some VapoRub under his nostrils to mask the body’s smell. As he stood by the metal gurney on which their Jane Doe lay, it occurred to him that VapoRub was supposed to open up his nasal passageways even more, and that it might have not been the best idea he ever had. The smell was overpowering, and his stomach turned.

  He tried to push the feeling away and pay attention to what Annie was telling him and Jacob. She gestured at the body as she talked, the harsh white light in the morgue emphasizing the corpse’s discolored skin.

  “The deceased was twenty-one years old,” Annie said. “She was Caucasian, five foot seven, red hair. It’s difficult to determine exact weight, but she was quite thin. I can’t really give you an accurate time of death yet. The ground at the burial site was moist, and summer temperatures fluctuate wildly. However, Matt extracted several larvae from her cavities and from the surrounding dirt, and we’re consulting a forensic entomologist this afternoon. I think we’ll be able to give you an approximate time of death this evening.”

  “Okay,” Jacob said.

  “The stomach and intestines were already liquefied when we uncovered the body, so I can’t really tell you anything about their contents. However, I did find some interesting samples in the body’s sinuses.” She walked over to a shelf which held several jars and picked one of them up to show them.

  “What is it?” Mitchell asked, squinting at the small patch of black matter.

  “It’s some sort of vegetation,” Annie said.

  “She inhaled it?” Jacob asked.

  “So it appears,” Annie said. “This could have happened for several reasons, but one of the most likely possibilities is drowning. Victims of drowning sometimes inhale aquatic vegetation when they are trying to breathe. She also had some sand particles in her mouth that didn’t match the soil she was buried in, which I collected in the jar over there.” She indicated a different container. “But that doesn’t tell us much, since she would have inhaled the particles if she was running during a windy day with some dust in the air. I also checked her bone marrow and found some diatoms there—”

  “What’s that?” Mitchell asked.

  “I’m getting there,” Annie said testily. “Diatoms are one-celled phytoplankton that sometimes live in water. When people drown, they inhale these organisms, which later collect in the bone marrow.”

  “But wouldn’t a drowning victim have water in her lungs?” Mitchell asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Annie said. “About fifteen percent of drowning cases are dry drownings, which leave the lungs completely dry.”

  “So she drowned?” Jacob asked.

  “Well…” Annie hesitated. “The diatom test is not exactly conclusive. But it does indicate a likely possibility of drowning. Couple that with the plant I found in her sinuses, and we have high likelihood for drowning.”

  “How high?”

  Annie shrugged.

  “Could the vegetation and the dust have come from the pond water in the park?”

  “Absolutely,” Annie said.

  “Can you check if they match?”

  “I think so. I’ll contact an expert I know.”

  “Okay,” Jacob said. “A twenty-one-year old female who probably died from drowning. What else do you have for us?”

  “I sent DNA samples to the lab to check in CODIS.” Annie said. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t recover any fingerprints. I did find a root canal which seems to be quite old. Probably from childhood. If we do have a suspicion for a match, we can check against dental records.”

  Jacob and Mitchell both nodded. This was helpful, though they had hoped for more.

  “Anything else?” Mitchell asked.

  “I think she was abused as a child,” Annie said.

  “What makes you say that?” Jacob asked.

  “See here?” Annie said, and walked toward one of the walls where some X-ray images hung. “Two old fractures on the third left rib, and one additional fracture on the fourth. Her left hand was broken twice, and there were several fractures in the fingers as well.”

  “Maybe she was involved in some sort of acciden
t,” Mitchell suggested.

  Annie shook her head. “The fractures occurred at different times. No, this was a case of someone who for some reason got her bones broken over and over. I see this sometimes with people who do extreme sports, but these are really old fractures, so she had to be about ten or eleven when some of them occurred. This makes me doubt the extreme sports theory.”

  “Okay,” Jacob nodded.

  “Is there a way to know if she was sexually assaulted before she was killed?” Mitchell asked.

  Annie shook her head. “No way to know for sure, but I didn’t find any traces to indicate she was. And her shorts and underwear were mostly intact.”

  “Okay,” Jacob nodded, “Thanks, Annie.”

  So far their Jane Doe remained anonymous.

  As soon as they returned to the squad room, Mitchell made his way to the filing cabinet. He was not interested in anything inside; these days almost all their files could be accessed digitally. But the file cabinet held the important position of pedestal for the coffee maker. He made a pot of strong, black coffee and poured two cups, handing one to Jacob, who was already typing furiously on his keyboard. The coffee maker, a ridiculously expensive model bought a year before by Captain Fred Bailey, was the squad’s most treasured possession. As far as Mitchell was concerned, it was more important than any of the detectives.

  He leaned against Jacob’s desk, one of four desks in the room. The Glenmore Park police department had four detectives and a captain. They’d once had a lieutenant as well but, due to budget problems, the chief had decided they could do without, a decision that still inspired controversy and criticism.

  “Once you’re done writing the report, send it over to me and I’ll submit it to the system,” Mitchell said.

  Jacob sent him a look overcome with gratitude. His relationship with the department’s internal report program was fraught with distrust and downright hatred. He sometimes reminded Mitchell of his mother, who called him regularly with complaints like, “The internet won’t play the song I clicked on the desktop,” or “I wrote an e-mail but then the computer made it disappear, and now I can’t find my pictures.”

  Mitchell crossed the room to one of the whiteboards. The room had two of them, used for brainstorm sessions or to collect info on major cases. Both were currently covered with doodles, mostly of ducks. He erased all of it, ducks included, and wrote at the top: Jane Doe Murder - Buttermere Park. Then he headed to the captain’s office, to see if he was in and give him an update.

  The captain’s office was adjacent to the squad room, separated by a rickety wooden door that was always on the verge of collapsing, due to the captain’s tendency to slam it when irritated. Mitchell knocked on the door several times, then went to sit by his computer. They could update Captain Bailey later.

  Mitchell opened NAMUS, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, on his computer. He searched for missing females in Massachusetts, and received five results from the past year. Two of those were aged forty six and eighty nine. Mitchell ignored those and focused on the rest. Of the three left, one was African-American, so he could ignore her as well. That left only two. Their descriptions didn’t exactly match the dead girl’s, but Mitchell had seen descriptions that ended up being wildly different from the actual person’s appearance. He preferred to check for himself.

  He picked up the phone, then hesitated. After a second, he put down the phone, took out his mobile, and called Pauline instead. The call went unanswered, as it usually did. Pauline hardly ever answered calls during work, but he’d been hoping she’d answer anyway. It seemed as if they rarely had time together lately, with him working at all hours, and her going to night classes in the evening and working during the day. He missed talking to her. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how much happier he was in those few minutes they managed to occasionally steal together. He was determined to try harder to find extra time to be with her, or at the very least talk to her.

  A moment later, the inevitable message blinked on his phone screen. Can’t talk now, sry. She almost never shortened any word while texting except Sorry and Goodnight, which invariably turned to sry and gnight. He sighed and put the phone back in his pocket, then picked up his office phone and called the number on the first missing female.

  A female voice answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” Mitchell said. “I’m Detective Lonnie from the Glenmore Park police. Is this Mrs. Brody?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Mrs. Brody, I’m calling about your daughter, Patricia.”

  “Why?” the woman asked. “What happened to Patricia?”

  “I understand you reported her missing two months ago?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, we’ve had some recent developments and we think that we may have new leads—”

  “My daughter returned two days after she went missing,” the woman said.

  “Oh.” Mitchell drummed his fingers on the table. “Why didn’t you inform us?”

  “We didn’t think about it.”

  “I see. When was the last time you saw your daughter?”

  “Fifteen minutes ago. She went to her boyfriend’s house.”

  “Uh-huh. Okay, thanks Mrs. Brody. Next time, please—”

  “It’s the same boyfriend she ran off with last time.”

  “Yes, I see. Well, next time, please let us know if—”

  “He’s up to no good, that one.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Brody,” Mitchell said, and hung up.

  He called the second number. A gruff, impatient voice answered the call.

  “This is Bob Vern.”

  “Hello, Mr. Vern, this is Detective Lonnie from the Glenmore Park police department. I understand that your daughter went missing three months ago.”

  A moment’s pause. “Yeah?”

  “Well, we’ve had some recent developments, and we wanted to check if they were relevant to your daughter’s case.”

  “What kind of leads?” The voice became soft, more urgent. “Do you know where she is?”

  “I would like to ask you some questions about your daughter.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Her height, according to the missing person’s report, is—”

  “Five foot six. She has red hair—kind of strawberry-blonde—and green eyes. A scar behind her right knee. Do you know where she is?”

  Annie hadn’t mentioned a scar, and the Jane Doe’s hair was a dark red, not even close to blonde. Still, Mitchell had to ask: “Did she have a root canal at some point?”

  “No.”

  “You might not remember; it might have been when she was a small child. I—”

  “I’m a dentist, Detective. I do all of my children’s dental procedures.”

  “I see.”

  “I take it that the new developments are no longer relevant?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I should have learned by now.” The man’s voice became bitter. “I should never get my hopes up when you people call. But I still do it, every time.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mr. Vern.”

  The man hung up.

  “Missing persons is a dead end,” Mitchell told Jacob.

  “Okay then,” Jacob said. “We’ll have to go with the car key.”

  “Right,” Mitchell said. “If she lived near the park, she wouldn’t have taken the car key with her. She probably parked her car in the vicinity.”

  “Sounds likely,” Jacob said, nodding. “Since there was no apartment key on the body, or anything else for that matter, she probably left whatever she was carrying in the car and went for a jog.”

  “Okay, then,” Mitchell said, and opened a map of the city on his browser. “Here’s Buttermere Park. If she parked on the southern side, on Valley Vista Road, it would have been in one of those parking lots.” He pointed at two parking lots on the map. “There are no other parking spots on Vista Road.”

  “Oka
y,” Jacob looked over Mitchell’s shoulder. “If she parked east of the park, she would have had to run through some unpleasant terrain to get there, so for now let’s assume her car’s not there. But she could have parked anywhere on Firestone Drive. It’s a quiet street, and there’s lots of parking space there.”

  “If she did, and her car was left there for a week or more, it might have been towed.”

  “Good point,” Jacob said. “Let’s start with that.”

  He stood up and put on his hat.

  “Where are you going?” Mitchell asked.

  “To Traffic,” Jacob said.

  “The Traffic division is inside the building,” Mitchell pointed out. “Why are you taking your hat?”

  “It’s my hat,” Jacob said. He looked offended. “It’s part of my uniform. Do you go down to Traffic without your pants?”

  “Sometimes,” Mitchell said. “When I want them to take me seriously.”

  “Okay. Keep your pants on, please, I’ll be right back. That report is waiting on my computer to be submitted.”

  When Jacob walked into the Traffic division, it was empty except for Sergeant Wallace. Jacob had known Wallace for a very long time. They’d joined the force the same year, and had been at the police academy together.

  Though they were on friendly terms, Jacob secretly thought Wallace was one of the most useless cops in the station. He’d been useless at the academy, always one step from being discharged, and he continued to be useless once he became a cop. During their academy days, their entire room disliked Wallace because he snored at night. Each snore was a long, ever-changing buzzing sound, rising high, then dropping low, only to suddenly stop completely. Anyone nearby would feel himself tense up, certain Wallace’s breathing had finally stopped altogether, and he was about to choke to death. Seconds would tick by—one… two… three—and then another buzzing snore would emerge from the man’s twisted sinuses. It was a sound that was impossible to ignore, impossible to get used to, and it kept them awake at night when every second of sleep was precious. In the morning, when Wallace woke up, his bed was surrounded by shoes that had been lobbed at him during the night by his irate roommates.