by H. B. Rae
I arrived at the crime scene: it was an empty field in the middle of nowhere, seemingly. There was nothing else around except Nature. There were no houses and no public facilities. It was just an empty field. A few hundred feet away, in the distance, I could see several small hills which were clumped together, but that was literally all there was to see. There were no roads around, as the field was connected to other abandoned fields. It was only then that the local forest could be seen.
I approached the forensics team, knowing that the body would still be there. As a matter of fact, what the boss said was right – it was not actually a body, only bones. However, there was something on the body that I noticed quite quickly: a pink dress. The person who was killed obviously wore a pink dress that night, so anybody could deduce that they were out at a social event of some sort.
"Have you got any DNA on this person?" I asked a forensic scientist.
"Unfortunately, we've looked around the area, and there are no fingerprints on the victim's dress, and obviously, any fingerprints that would have been on the victim are gone now, and there are no hairs anywhere on the body, aside from her own. So no, there is no DNA evidence, I'm afraid," he replied.
That was a huge drawback for me. DNA was the easy way out, but it looked to me as though this case was going to be a tough one.
"Do you know how the victim was killed?" I asked the forensic scientist.
"The scratch marks on the bones suggest that the victim was stabbed at least nine times," he replied. "But it is possible that they were stabbed many more times than that."
Inside, I felt sick. How could somebody do this to another human being? I asked myself, although it was no more horrific than any other case I’d worked on.
I took another look at the bones, especially the facial expression. Although there was nothing left except bones, I could clearly see that the victim died in pain. The mouth was open, but there were no teeth.
"There's no teeth!" I cried.
"Yes. That's one of the most horrific parts. The person who did this probably pulled this woman's teeth out, from what I can tell by looking at the mouth," replied the forensic scientist.
I thought I was going to throw up. Why would somebody do that? Perhaps it was to make sure the body was not identified. That was the only explanation I could think of right now. Other than that, torture. Now that the victim had no teeth, I could not even compare the victim's teeth with any dental records. This was going to be a very hard case for me, but I felt a strong connection with the victim, for some reason. I made it my new personal goal to make sure that the person who did this would be caught, dead or alive.
Chapter 3
My first step was to conduct some door-to-door research around the area, to see if anyone knew anything about this mysterious unidentified woman. I hoped and prayed there would be someone old enough to remember the disappearance of a woman in the area. I was not completely certain that the dumping ground was in fact anywhere near the place where this woman lived, but the killer obviously knew the area well, or else they would not be able to find this place, since it was in the middle of nowhere, and it would be virtually impossible to discover this place by accident when looking for a place to dump a body. This murder was planned, and I was sure of that. Somebody wanted this woman dead for whatever reason, and so I desperately needed to establish the woman's name or identity, and I could work from there.
I started with the door-to-door enquiries, but, to my great misfortune, no-one knew a thing about it. For years people had been walking their dogs through this field, completely ignorant of the fact that they were walking over a dead body. It was a shame that no-one had tried to regenerate the field, because if a farmer had found her years before, we would have had perhaps half a chance of identifying this woman. Since the door-to-door enquiries did no good at all, I decided to return to the station, to wait for the post-mortem.
Later that day, the post-mortem came back, and inside it, it revealed that the woman probably died somewhere between the years of 1980 and 1990. That was useful to a certain extent, because if I were to find a lead, I could relate back to this to help identify the woman. However, it did not help me get any closer to identifying the woman at the moment, which was the most important thing. All I needed was one person to come forward and say that they knew this mystery woman. Someone did. I was certain of that. Someone had to know the details about this woman's disappearance. The report also said that she was probably between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. That narrowed it down slightly, but it still did not help much. I was going to go and use the missing person's database to see if I could get a lead on this, but I asked Mitchell (not the boss, the other Mitchell) to go instead, as I was too busy analyzing the report.
The report also contained the grisly details of the woman's death: where on the body she was stabbed, how deep the wounds were, what type of instrument was used, and so on. It proved to be of little use, even though I now knew exactly how she died. I had previously deduced that the person who killed her was a psychopath, though a very clever one, as they had gotten away with it – up until now, at least. I hoped this person was still alive so that they could be punished for what they did. No-one at all deserved to die that way.
Mitchell returned with several files full of details of women between the ages of twenty and thirty-five who went missing between the years of 1980 and 1990 in North Dakota. Finally things were narrowed down a bit, as there were only thirteen reported missing people. For the first time I was beginning to get quite excited, since I now had pictures of people and different pieces of information to go on. Sadly, none of the files gave any details about a woman in a pink dress – some had been out at parties the night they vanished, and others were at home, so I was able to narrow things down even further, but I still had seven women who were on the suspect list for being this woman. I was close, but sadly, not close enough, as I could not come up with a convincing argument, with evidence, that any of the women in the files was actually the dead woman. I assumed that most of these women were dead themselves, but I knew deep down that one of these women was the woman we had found. Although it was possible that the woman was not reported missing, it was improbable, as there was likely to be someone who noticed her disappearance and reported it.
Seeing nowhere else to go, I decided to launch a public appeal in order to see if anyone knew this woman. This was probably (and hopefully) going to be the most challenging part of the case. The television and radio companies stormed in with this story, and they were eager to report the discovery of this mystery woman. They gave details of where she was found, and the pink dress that she was wearing. I was hoping that someone would be able to recall the pink dress, even though there was no mention of it in any of the missing person's files. I knew that it was a long shot, but worth a try, as I had nothing at all to lose.
I was extremely lucky, because the very next day a visitor arrived at the station wanting to talk to me about the missing woman.
"Hello," I said to her as she walked in.
She was a small woman, aged around fifty, and she wore cheap clothes and she was quite plump. Her hair was greasy, her face full of spots, but she approached me in a friendly manner.
"My name is Lesley Kurtis," she said, quite nervous about talking to me.
"I'm Tammy Williams," I said, eager to see what this woman knew. "I understand that you have some information about the woman we found?"
"Yes," Lesley replied, taking a seat. "And I think it might be very useful to you."
"Go on," I said.
"Well, I think the missing woman was Eve Roberts, if you don't know that already."
I remembered the name from one of the missing person's files. She had gone out for a party that night, but the person who reported her could not recall what she was wearing.
"And why do you think that?" I asked Lesley.
"Because she was wearing the pink dress the night she went missing. I remember it. I am...was a very
good friend of Eve’s, and when she went missing I knew she'd been murdered. It was just so unusual of her," Lesley replied in a fairly shaky voice.
I was beginning to get very excited now.
"And why did you not say any of this before?" I asked her.
"Because one of my other friends said she sorted it out. She said she told the police everything and that there was no need to speak to them. I've only just realized that she never mentioned the dress. I know it's Eve. It has to be," replied Lesley, getting fairly excited.
"Right, and can you tell me about the time she went missing?" I asked her.
"I can't really remember," she said.
"Can you remember the last time you saw her?"
"Well, we were at the party just a few miles away from here, in a club. A lot of people were quite drunk. Eve went out for a cigarette, and that was that. She never came back in."
Lesley started to cry now.
"It's O.k.," I said, reassuring her.
I thanked her for the help she gave me, and gave her the contact details should she ever think of anything else. I now had the name of the victim, because Eve went missing in 1988, and she was twenty-eight years old. In a way, come to think of it, she looked quite a lot like the skeleton. I now had the name of the victim, and I prepared for the rest of the journey ahead.
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Chapter 1
Tears rolled down her eyes that morning. The water inside the droplet of the tear was so peaceful – it was soon rubbed off by the woman who released that tear. Tammy Williams was standing in the bathroom one morning. It was a normal morning, as nothing else had changed since that day. Everything was back to normality – Tammy had been back at work for six weeks, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. As usual, she had gone back to investigating gang killings in the area. She was bored. She was sick of her job, and sick of life. It was fair to say that she had been feeling depressed since she was told the news that her boyfriend had suddenly died – she did love him, after all. Although no-one was to blame for the death other than Danny, Tammy could not help but feel angry, wanting justice for Danny, even though there was no justice to be served.
Tammy returned to the office, where everyone else was seated.
"Are you alright?" asked Miranda, who Tammy did not like very much.
"I'm fine," Tammy lied. She just wanted to heave herself through the day and wait until the next day.
She had tried to speak to her mother about it, but it was no use. Even her aunt, who was a vicar, could not help. It would take time for Tammy to get over his sudden death, although how long that would take was debatable.
As usual, Tammy was assigned her next task – to discover who had murdered a member of the top gang in town. It made her sick, how people could just go and kill others for no reason. Today, Tammy and the team were doing some desk research into the key suspects and witnesses.
During the day, they conversed, as usual, and then one topic came up that Tammy did not want to hear about.
"So," said Pam Kurtis. "I saw Barry Scott yesterday."
Even the mention of that name made Tammy feel sick. Barry Scott was a serial killer, and he just happened to be the only person who Tammy had not managed to bring justice to. She hated him, and the thought that he was still out there, living his life, while the relatives of his victims were devastated, their lives turned upside down, all because of him.
"Really?" said Miranda. "Where was he?"
Miranda knew that Tammy hated talking or even hearing about Barry Scott, but she continued to speak about him. She did not care for Tammy much, perhaps because she was jealous of her amazing sleuthing abilities.
"He was in the nearby shopping centre," replied Pam, "looking as happy as Larry, as always. He just makes me want to kill him!"
"I'm sure he'll get his comeuppance one day," said Graham Mitchell.
"He won't," Tammy replied. "He's too clever to be caught out."
"People know who he is," Pam said to her, reassuringly.
"But not enough people. This case had to be thrown out, even though he pretty much confessed to me that he was the killer, and that's what gets to me!" cried Tammy, beginning to get passionate.
Nothing else was said on that topic. Instead, they started to talk about the job they were currently working on, in order to try and distract Tammy.
"Anyway, does anyone fancy going out for a drink tonight?" said Pam.
The others agreed to go before Tammy did. Perhaps a drink was one easy way to forget about her troubles, she thought.
Chapter 2
They arrived at the bar, immediately after work. They needed a drink, all of them, because the week they were having was rather stressful and tiring; nothing ever changed much, and they were all getting extremely bored of the same routine. Tammy just wanted something dramatic to happen, as it had in Paris. Although that was a rather morbid thought, she wanted something to challenge her brain, for she feared the lack of exercise was slowly killing it, eating away at it so that she would not be able to use it like she used to. Times were changing, and Tammy had to accept that. Things were never as simple as they used to be.
As soon as Tammy entered the bar, she received the shock of her life when she noticed Barry Scott standing there! Time stood still at that moment, and Tammy's eyes widened. She just could not believe her luck. He was standing there with friends, laughing and joking, and there was nothing Tammy could do about that. Barry then noticed Tammy, and said to her, "Oh, hello, Tammy! How are you today!"
He winked at her. That made her feel physically sick. She just wanted to turn round and vomit on the floor, but she knew she had to face up to him sooner or later, to try and show that he had not defeated her, even though he had. She hated him for that. Tammy then turned her head and saw another group of people. They were staring at her, making snide remarks. Tammy wondered why they would do something like that – she had never seen them before, or at least she thought. She came across many people in the job, so she did not know whether she had seen them before or not.
The group got the drinks ordered and sat down in view of Barry.
"We can't let him get to us!" cried Miranda.
"How is that possible?" Tammy asked her, trying to resist the temptation to look in Barry's direction, to see if he was looking.
"Well, we’ll just show him that we’re happy. That might make him upset."
Tammy gave in to temptation. She turned around and, just as she felt, Barry was standing there, looking at her, as if he was waiting for her to turn round, knowing that she would. He winked at her for a second time, making her feel even more angry.
"So, anything interesting happen to anyone lately?" said Pam, trying to start the conversation.
Tammy turned her head slightly, but not in Barry's direction. Instead, she was looking at a woman in red clothing who stood sipping on a glass of red wine. She was eyeing Barry, and it was clear she was flirting with him, even though she did not speak a word to him. Tammy just felt like getting up and screaming, "Don't do it! Your life is at risk!" but she didn't. She knew that she could not accuse Barry Scott of murder because there was no official evidence implicating him, even though she knew for a fact that it was him.
Then, Tammy remembered the last thing that Barry had said to her: "Do you like to hunt?"
She then started to have sinister thoughts. Perhaps he was planning on killing her next? She knew that she could not think about it, because she just wanted to get out of there.
Then she felt a sudden urge to go to the toilet. It came on her suddenly, so she was not expecting the need to go. She started to look for the bathroom, and unfortunately, the door was right next to Barry Scott.
"Can you look after my keys?" she said.
Knowing there was no escaping it, she got up to walk to the toilets.
She knew that she needed to think fast about how to approach Barry Scott. Perhaps she would ignore him, but she knew he would talk to her, making some sort of smug comment about how she failed to solve the murders.
She was right. As Tammy walked past Barry and toward the restroom door, he said to her, "So, we still ready for that hunting trip?"
Tammy plainly ignored him. She went into the bathroom, and when she came out again, two minutes later, Barry was still there, laughing and joking with a bunch of half-drunken men.
"Are you alright?" Pam said, as Tammy sat down again.
It took Tammy about five seconds to answer that, but she lied when she replied.
"Yeah," she said, trying to put on a brave face.
Chapter 3
Tammy looked at the table where the five people were sitting. Tammy did not know them, but they knew Tammy. She tried her best to listen to their conversations, to see if she could work out who they were.
"I wish he was dead!" cried Linda Bell, a middle-aged woman who was sitting there. She then turned around and glared at Barry, although he did not see her, not caring to notice her.
"I can't believe he murders our relatives and gets away with it!" yelled an enraged Joseph Hart, who was an elderly man. He was the father of one of the victims.
