Tattooed

by Pamela Callow

  5

  Sweat trickled behind Detective Sergeant Ethan Drake’s ear. It was one of those glorious May days, a chimera of summer’s arrival. He wiped his forehead, impressed with the pace set by forensic anthropologist Darcie Hughes, Ph.D., as they followed the worn footpath to Chebucto Head.

  He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Dr. “Darcie” Hughes was a woman. Judging by her indifference to his double take when she jumped out of her four-wheel drive, he guessed she was used to it.

  Dr. Hughes swatted a blackfly on the back of her neck. Her ginger-colored ponytail got in the way and she missed. He was tempted to slap it away but sensed whacking the back of her neck could be misinterpreted. She was all business, Dr. Hughes. From the top of her ball-capped head to the bottom of her rubber boots. Over her long-sleeved plaid shirt, she wore a vest in a hideous shade of green, covered in pockets. He couldn’t wait to see what she pulled out from them. He guessed that the kit bags they carried contained the usual excavation equipment: bags, markers, labels, tape, rubber gloves, string, stakes, notebooks and cameras.

  Usually, if unidentifiable bones were found, the medical examiner sent them to Dr. Hughes’ lab. But very occasionally, the province’s forensic anthropologist was called to the scene. When Dr. Hughes learned that the body had not yet been removed from the site, she told Dr. Guthro that she wanted to see the remains in their untouched state. And given the challenge of excavating a peat bog, Dr. Guthro was more than happy to have her attend the scene.

  Her excitement was palpable when they set off down the track toward the crime scene. “Haven’t excavated a bog before,” she said, swinging her mud-encrusted spade.

  Ethan tore his gaze from the blood that welled from the bug bite on Dr. Hughes’ densely freckled neck and studied the terrain. The place was full of scrubby bushes and stunted trees, a living testament to the bleak ocean winds. No question that the first rule of survival for flora on this headland was to hunker low to the ground. Trench warfare for plants.

  “So, Detective, do you have any missing-persons cases that fit this scenario?” Dr. Hughes asked, wiping the back of her neck with her sleeve and falling into step beside him. No easy task on the trail they followed.

  He shifted the strap of his duffel bag. It held a bottle of water, some protein bars that he’d snagged from the station’s kitchenette, a camera, notepad and two missing-persons files. “I brought the most relevant files with me. One is for a fifty-three-year-old male, last seen in October of 2003. He had refused to take his antipsychotic meds.”

  She gave him a thoughtful look. “You think it’s him?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No. I think it’s someone else.”

  A girl. Whom he had once known. “Her name was Heather Rigby. She went missing on the night of Halifax’s final Mardi Gras. In 1995.”

  Dr. Hughes shot him a look. “God. I went to those Mardi Gras parties.”

  He raised a brow. “Who didn’t?”

  Mardi Gras. Halifax’s wildest street party. So wild, it eventually was banned from the streets. Held on the Halloween weekend, it attracted twenty to thirty thousand partiers—mainly university students—all in costume. And amongst those drunken revelers were the criminals, who took advantage of the costumed chaos to exact revenge and settle scores.

  She threw a glance at his duffel bag. “So, what are the details on the missing girl’s file?”

  Spill the dirt, Detective, her eyes said.

  He dug out the file from his bag and flipped it open, although in truth, he had long ago memorized every word on the page. “‘Status—missing. Last seen—Mardi Gras, 1995.’” He stepped around a root. “‘Age—eighteen.’” He glanced at Dr. Hughes. “She was a student at Hollis University.” She had been a sweet, ordinary girl in his criminology class whom he had barely noticed until her disappearance became a headline story. He often wondered if it was Heather’s case that had sparked his desire to become a homicide investigator.

  “What were her physical attributes?” Dr. Hughes asked.

  Of course, for an anthropologist it was all about the body.

  Heather had a cute smile. He glanced at his notes. “Five foot four, one hundred and fifteen pounds, shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, birthmark on lower back.”

  “And the night she went missing—” Dr. Hughes brushed a blackfly away from her face. “What was she wearing?”

  He skimmed the page. “A black minidress, boots, fishnet tights and a green wig.” He closed the folder, stuffing it back into his bag. “No one saw her leave the bar. The crowds were too heavy and everyone was drunk.”

  “And if everyone was costumed, it would be difficult to recognize anyone. Especially a witch—” Dr. Hughes slapped his arm. “Sorry. You were about to get bitten.”

  “Thanks.” He flicked the dead fly from his sleeve. “If I recall correctly, the sexy witch costume was very popular.” He caught Dr. Hughes’ eye. I bet you probably went as a skeleton.

  “And what about the other missing guy? The psychotic one?” Dr. Hughes asked. “Was he the same size as Heather?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No. He was a big guy, at least six feet tall.”

  “Well, if the skeleton is fairly intact, we should be able to at least rule out one of them in situ.”

  His step quickened. The case had been one of those that haunted everyone who heard of it. When he was transferred to Cold Case last year, Heather Rigby’s file was the first one he had pulled up. He had pored over the witness statements, reviewed the security footage from outside the bar and contacted police forces across the country to see if there were any new leads.

  Nothing.

  Now the question of where she had disappeared might finally be answered. And a slew of new questions would arise.

  He wanted to be the guy to help solve this case, bring closure to Heather’s family—if it is Heather lying in that bog, he reminded himself. He wanted to get his hands dirty every way possible and do some good, solid police work. He wanted a case to rekindle his passion for the job.

  Not only was he eager to get started, he was relieved that something had finally come his way that would force him to work 24/7. A case that would fill up those empty evenings and sleepless nights, when memories of Kate Lange drifted into his mind.

  Inevitably, he would jump on the treadmill and run. Despite the endless miles he clocked, he couldn’t chase her out of his thoughts.

  He was frustrated as hell. He hated to even admit that he was lovelorn a year later. What was it about Kate that kept him wanting her?

  He knew she’d had a thing for Randall Barrett—but the guy had upped and left town. He was crazy, leaving Kate all alone, after everything she’d been through.

  But if Randall was stupid enough to turn his back on a woman like Kate, it was his problem.

  Ethan had punished himself long enough for the mistakes he’d made with Kate.

  He was ready to take a chance.

  And try one more time.

  Ahead, yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the breeze, the water of the bog surprisingly blue and clear within its confines. Dr. Guthro stood in water up to his knees, the rolled-up cuffs of his khakis dark with wet, studying a hummock with his usual unflappability.

  “Ah, Dr. Hughes, Detective Drake,” he said, as if ushering them into his study rather than a bog. “This is quite a case we have here.”

  Dr. Hughes grinned. “Tell me about it.” The two doctors exchanged glances. Their excitement was palpable. “Is this the site of the remains?” Dr. Hughes nodded toward a thick, spongy hummock.

  “It’s been rather cleverly hidden.” Dr. Guthro pointed to the small hole that the high school student had dug to remove the plant.

  Dr. Hughes walked into the pool of water that was the center of the bog, and crouched down until she was eye-level with the hole. “Nice,” she said, when she saw the mask. “Someone had a sense of humor.”

  Detective Constable Lamond—Ethan’s former Ho
micide partner until he was switched to Cold Case last year—edged toward them, pacing in small circles by the yellow tape, his gaze glued to a three-inch radius in front of him.

  “Find anything, Lamond?” Ethan called over.

  He didn’t glance up. “Just test tubes.” Then he added, “The girl who found the body was collecting water samples for a science lab. When she discovered the body, she freaked and dropped all her samples.” He pointed at the flagged test tubes that were visible in the scrub. “The good news is that she says she didn’t remove anything from the bog except the bone she found. So far, I can’t see anything to disprove it.”

  Dr. Hughes opened her backpack and removed a DSLR camera with a massive lens. “Hopefully, she didn’t disturb any loose bones. I’m going to take some photos in situ. Then we’ll stake the area into a grid, and set up a datum point. And then,” she said, giving Dr. Guthro a conspiratorial grin, “it’s time to get our hands dirty.”

  Gridding, Ethan knew, was painstaking work. And he guessed that this particular grid would prove to be more challenging than most.

  He was right. Once the general area to be gridded was determined by Dr. Hughes, and the datum point had been established, they began the process of staking twelve-inch-by-twelve-inch sections and marking the grid with rope. The stakes had a nasty habit of either sinking into the hummock or being yanked out by a too-enthusiastic tightening of the rope.

  Sweat soon ran down their backs, attracting a cloud of persistent blackflies. Several hours later, Ethan figured he had personally supplied the local blackfly population with enough blood to keep them going for a week.

  As soon as the grid was complete, Dr. Hughes took more photos. Ethan rubbed the back of his neck, glancing upward. Over the time it had taken to lay out the grid, a massive bank of clouds had obliterated the blue sky. No sign of the sun now. It would be dark in about two hours. He hoped that the M.E. would be able to remove the body by tonight…but that was assuming there was an intact skeleton. It would all depend on what they found when they began the process of removing the layers of hummock covering the remains.

  “Clarence,” Dr. Hughes said, turning to Dr. Guthro, hands on her hips as she surveyed the gridded area. “We aren’t going to be able to sift through this. It’s too spongy and wet. Not to mention all the roots from the scrub.” She swiped a strand of hair from her forehead, leaving a streak of mucky water in its stead.

  Dr. Guthro offered her a handkerchief. “What do you propose?”

  She dabbed the sweat on her forehead with the neatly pressed cotton square, which Ethan noted were monogrammed with the medical examiner’s initials. “We are going to have to remove the hummock in sections. We can take the sections back to the lab and try to break the peat down. If we can’t sift through it all, we will have to X-ray each piece.”

  Dr. Guthro’s brows rose. “I can just imagine how popular we would be with the X-ray techs. Hopefully, we won’t need to do that.”

  Dr. Hughes stuffed the handkerchief in one of her pockets. “I’ll give this a wash, Clarence,” she said with a grin, and picked up the spade that lay under an open kit bag. “I’m going to remove the first section. I’ll start with the one over the mask.”

  She climbed onto the hummock, and knelt next to the flagged section. “Clarence, can you help me on the other side? I need someone to take the section when I lift it up.” She groped in one of her many vest pockets and extracted a plastic bag, which she handed to Dr. Guthro.

  The Forensic Identification Services team, which had been searching the area, grouped behind Ethan, a wall of white bunny suits peering over Dr. Hughes’ shoulder as she sliced the edge of the spade into the hummock. Water squelched up its sides as she pushed the spade deeper. Then she slid it up, and repeated the process along the other three sides of the section. “I think I’ve loosened it enough,” she said.

  All eyes were fixed on the spade as she pushed it into the section, tipped the edge under and lifted the edge of the hummock up. It appeared about two feet deep. A mass of torn roots thatched the underside. A fresh, piney scent filled Ethan’s nose, undercut with a damp, mossy smell.

  Dr. Guthro held open the bag horizontally. The forensic anthropologist slid the hummock section into the bag, her movement quick and precise, avoiding the disturbance of any potential evidence caught in the tangle. Ethan studied the cross-section of the hummock. There were no obvious bones sticking out, which boded well for the prospects of finding an intact skeleton. It would make identification much easier. And if they could find some clothing or jewelry…or even a murder weapon…

  If the decedent had been murdered, he reminded

  himself.

  He bit down his impatience.

  The removal of the first section of the hummock left a perfectly square hole. Dr. Hughes gazed into it. “It’s definitely a rubber mask… .”

  “Do you see anything else?” asked Sergeant Deb Ferguson, head of the Major Crimes Unit, craning forward with a scowl of concentration on her milkmaid features as she peered into the hole.

  Dr. Hughes adjusted the camera lens. “No. I can only see a bit of the mask. It’s covered in soil.”

  “May I look?” Ethan asked.

  Dr. Hughes stepped back, handing him the flashlight. He directed the beam into the hole.

  Despite the many dead faces he had seen over the years, this one caused him to gasp. He realized, with a start, that he had been visualizing Heather’s face, postmortem, possibly decayed, most likely a skull.

  But not a witch’s face.

  It glared at him. The mask had lost its paint years ago, but it was almost creepier in monochromatic shades of brown. A few strands of hair were visible.

  Dr. Hughes caught his eye. “Did your missing girl have a rubber mask as part of her costume?”

  He shook his head. “No one reported it. But it doesn’t mean she didn’t.”

  “Looks like she was strangled,” Dr. Hughes pointed to the lower right quadrant of the exposed square. “See the rope?”

  It was covered in dirt, with roots growing around it. Good catch by the forensic anthropologist, Ethan thought. He stood. “Definitely looks like foul play.”

  He was itching to have a closer look at the mask, but there were still several hours of meticulous dusting and sifting of loose soil to be completed. There could be key evidence in the strata soil above and below the remains.

  He glanced at his watch—6:53 p.m. The light was changing, the landscape subtly hazed by twilight’s first encroachment.

  The next section of the grid came out a little more easily than the first. Dr. Hughes and Dr. Guthro followed the same procedure, bagging the section and placing it in a large plastic container. The forensic anthropologist peered into the hole. She threw Dr. Guthro a look of astonishment. “There’s a body.”

  “You mean a skeleton, right?” Ethan asked.

  Dr. Hughes shook her head, the expression of wonder in her eyes quickly replaced by excitement. “No, an actual body. I can see a corpse.”

  “So this is recent?” Ethan frowned.

  Dr. Hughes shook her head. “No. The body is mummified.” She flashed a grin at Dr. Guthro. “We have found ourselves, sir, a genuine bog body.”

  Dr. Guthro slowly shook his head. “Are you sure, Darcie?”

  “I can definitely see a mummified shoulder.”

  “How can you have mummified remains in water?” Ethan asked, trying to peer over Dr. Hughes’ head into the hole.

  Dr. Hughes still had a slightly dazed look on her face. “Bacteria cause decomposition in a body. But when there is a lack of oxygen in the environment—such as bogs, which are highly anaerobic—there is no bacteria. So the body will mummify, instead. I knew this was a possibility when I heard about the location, but I still didn’t really believe that we’d actually find a mummified corpse. I thought we’d just find skeletonized remains, since the high school student had discovered a bone.”