Written in Blood

by Carter Chris

  ‘We also have the Polaroid photos,’ Dr. Slater offered.

  ‘Still,’ Garcia argued. ‘That won’t be enough to get Captain Blake to approve an excavating expedition somewhere in the woods. Not with the pressure she’s under because of these budget cuts. Those come at a high cost. We’d need to get an entire crew over to that location with a digger, lights, power generators, the works. The Captain will need more than matching dates and Polaroids.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But DNA analysis can take a while. You know that. Even with an urgent request.’ He checked his watch.

  Once again, Garcia recognized the look on his partner’s face.

  ‘You cannot be serious,’ he said, looking at Hunter sideways.

  ‘It’s coming up to two o’clock now,’ Hunter came back. ‘We can probably make it up there for about three, three-thirty at the latest. That’ll give us about one to one and a half hours of sunlight today, but if needed, we can go back tomorrow.’

  Garcia’s disbelief increased. ‘Have you lost your mind? The Doc just told us that those coordinates point to a location somewhere inside Deukmejian. You’ve been there before, right? It’s rugged terrain, Robert. Rocky in places, hard ground in others . . .’ He shrugged. ‘You probably know this, but by hand and in “optimum soil”, it takes an experienced gravedigger around six hours to dig a six-foot grave. How much experience do you have with a shovel?’

  ‘A little,’ Hunter replied.

  ‘Which is also known as – not enough,’ Garcia came back. ‘Well, me neither. It will probably take the two of us a full day of solid work to dig a grave. We’ll be up there for the rest of today, all of tonight and probably the whole of tomorrow as well. We need a pro digging team, Robert.’

  ‘You’re right, and I appreciate your argument,’ Hunter said. ‘But there are a couple of things that you’re forgetting.’

  ‘Really? Like what?’

  ‘It might not be optimum soil up there,’ Hunter began. ‘But we won’t be digging untouched ground. We’ll be re-digging pre-disturbed soil, which makes the job considerably easier. And we’ve been to a few sites where the perpetrator had dug a makeshift grave to hide a body, or remains of such, remember?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  ‘Then you’ll also remember that those graves were all shallow graves. Not once have we encountered any that were deeper than two, three feet at a push, and that fact repeats itself across the board for the exact same reason you’ve just mentioned – it takes an experienced gravedigger around six hours to dig a six-foot grave by hand in optimum soil. An inexperienced digger, in rugged terrain?’ Hunter shook his head. ‘It would take him a full day, if not longer.’

  Garcia scratched the underside of his chin.

  ‘If he was digging in his backyard then maybe,’ Hunter continued. ‘But we’re talking about a public park here. Yes, there are several very secluded areas up there, but it’s still a public park. No one would risk spending a full day digging a grave to hide a body in a public park. A few hours, sure, but not a full day. I’d be very surprised if we need to dig any deeper than two and a half feet.’

  Garcia couldn’t argue with his partner’s logic.

  ‘Where are we going to get shovels and everything else we need?’ he asked.

  Hunter looked at Dr. Slater.

  ‘We’ve got them,’ she said, nodding at Hunter. ‘We’ve got a couple of vans downstairs loaded with digging equipment. You can borrow whatever you need.’

  Garcia threw his head back and closed his eyes. This battle was already lost.

  Six

  From one of the forensics vans parked at the back of the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, Hunter and Garcia borrowed a couple of shovels, two heavy-duty pickaxes, two pairs of thick gardening gloves, two crowbars and two double-bulb headlamp units.

  With everything loaded into the trunk of his car, Garcia entered the coordinates cited in the notebook into his satnav system.

  The park itself occupied a rugged 709-acre site in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the northernmost extremity of Glendale. Though the park included a few isolated streamside woodlands, it was predominantly chaparral and sage scrub, not to mention all the rocks and hills.

  ‘Definitely not the best of terrains for digging,’ Garcia said, as they finally reached Dunsmore Canyon Trail, the road that took them through the park.

  ‘That’s for sure,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But there are several pretty secluded areas off the main trail, some of them small woodlands with softer soil, and those are scattered all throughout the park. I have no doubt that was why this place was chosen.’

  Garcia tilted his head to one side ever so slightly in a ‘maybe’ gesture.

  ‘If this craziness turns out to be real, Robert,’ he said. ‘If somebody did actually deliver that . . .’ Garcia paused for a second, trying to choose his words. ‘ . . . “Diary of Death” to Dr. Slater, then I’ve got two questions swimming around in my head.’

  ‘Who delivered that package to her mailbox?’ Hunter beat him to the punch. He was thinking about the same thing.

  ‘That’s definitely question number one,’ Garcia agreed. ‘Was it the person who made those entries to that notebook? In that case – the killer himself. Was it someone who was working with the killer and decided to jump ship? Was it some pour soul who came across that diary somewhere? Who?’

  Hunter’s stare focused on the flora outside his window.

  ‘And then there’s prize question number two,’ Garcia continued. ‘Why deliver it to the Doc?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Hunter finally replied, not wanting to speculate.

  ‘Well, I can think of only two possible scenarios,’ Garcia proceeded. ‘Either, for some reason, whoever delivered that notebook to her mailbox really wants her to be involved in whatever madness this might turn out to be, or the person knows her. Maybe the person in question doesn’t know her personally,’ Garcia admitted. ‘Maybe they only know what the Doc does for a living – this person could’ve seen the Doc on TV, on an interview. He or she could’ve attended one of her lectures, or read one of her papers or studies . . . I don’t know.’ He checked his satnav again. They were almost there. ‘But the person probably somehow knows that she is a great forensic scientist and that she’s part of the LAPD FSD. If that person wanted the notebook to be looked at and examined straight away, dropping it in her mailbox would certainly do the job a lot faster than sending it over to the LAPD or the FBI.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But what bothers me is – why deliver it to her house? Why not send it to the FSD Criminalistics Lab? If the person wanted Susan to look at that notebook ASAP, all they needed to do was address the package to her and write the word “urgent” on it. That would’ve done the trick. Why was it delivered to her house?’

  Still on Dunsmore Canyon Trail, Garcia geared down. On his screen, the checkered flag that marked the destination was off-road directly to their left, about thirty-five yards into the chaparral. There was no turning, no road or track that would lead them there. The only way to get to the location shown on the satnav’s screen was to leave the car by the side of the road and carry on the rest of the way on foot – and even then, there was no visible footpath. They would have to create their own trail through the shrubs and the heavy rocky terrain.

  And that was exactly what they did.

  In places the vegetation was so dense that both detectives were forced to use their shovels as improvised machetes. Though their eyes searched the ground as they walked, neither Hunter nor Garcia were really expecting to find any real signs of anyone having been through there before. First: whoever had written that entry could’ve used a number of different paths to reach the location shown on Garcia’s screen. Second: the date mentioned in the entry took them back to over two years ago. Any marks or signs that might’ve been left behind would’ve been completely erased by the elements by now.

  It wasn’
t exactly what Angelenos would consider a warm day. The weak sun above their heads made it a very comfortable fourteen degrees Celsius, but still, the rough terrain coupled with the heavy tools they were carrying was already making them sweat.

  ‘According to this thing,’ Garcia said, wiping his forehead and nodding at his smartphone, ‘the spot we’re looking for should be just past these trees here.’ He indicated a cluster of trees just ahead of them.

  They circled around the trees to get to the other side.

  ‘This is supposed to be it,’ Garcia said, checking his smart-phone screen and looking around the area they were in. ‘Please excuse my ignorance on this subject, but how accurate are these longitude and latitude coordinates?’

  ‘That really depends on two main factors,’ Hunter explained. ‘The position on the Earth’s surface or, more specifically, the latitude at which the measurement took place, and the data referenced to represent the Earth.’

  Garcia stared back at his partner, blank-faced. ‘And for those of us who do not speak nerd, what does that mean?’

  Hunter smiled. ‘Sorry. Well, in short, the more numbers you have to the right of the decimal point, the more accurate the location. It can be accurate down to a fraction of an inch if a person so wishes.’

  ‘Decimal point?’ Garcia queried, checking the coordinates that he had entered into his map application – 34°15’16.9”N 118°14’52.4”W. ‘Shit, there’s only one number to the right of the decimal point here. So this position is probably just a rough ballpark.’

  ‘Not that decimal point,’ Hunter came back. ‘It has to be converted into longitude and latitude decimal form.’

  Garcia paused. ‘Do you know how to do that?’

  ‘We don’t have to. The application you’re using on your phone has already done it for you, I’m sure. It should be either next to, or directly under the coordinates you entered into the search box.’

  Garcia checked his phone again. Hunter was right. Directly under the coordinates that Garcia had entered into the map application were two different numbers: 34.254694 and -18.247889.

  ‘OK,’ Garcia said. ‘So we have a figure with six numbers to the right of the decimal point here.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘That will probably guide us to the location with inch-perfect precision.’

  Garcia looked at the ground they were standing on. There wasn’t much vegetation, just turf and a few loose rocks. ‘So this is it, really. We are on it.’

  Hunter dropped the pickax and the headlamp he was carrying. ‘I guess we better start digging then.’ He readied the shovel in his hands.

  Garcia put the pickax and the crowbar to one side and used his shovel to push the loose rocks out of the way.

  The ground was hard, but wasn’t as solid as it looked or as they expected it to be. It had been patted down, which indicated that it had been disturbed before.

  Hunter and Garcia dug side by side. Even with the soil being a lot softer than they had expected, the work was laborious and progressed slowly.

  ‘I told you this wouldn’t be as easy as you thought it would,’ Garcia said, checking the sky. They hadn’t been digging for very long and the sun was already about to disappear behind the horizon. ‘It’s getting dark, and we forgot to bring water.’

  Both of their shirts were drenched in sweat.

  ‘Yes,’ Hunter agreed. ‘That was a mistake. My mouth is as dry as a bag of roasted peanuts.’ He paused and reached for his head-lamp. ‘Look, let’s carry on for another half an hour. If we don’t get anything, then in the morning we take it to the captain and see if we can get clearance for a digging expedition with what we have.’

  ‘Fine,’ Garcia said with a nod. ‘But if she declines, you’re going to come back here tomorrow and carry on anyway, aren’t you?’

  ‘Probably,’ Hunter admitted.

  Garcia shook his head as he picked up his headlamp. ‘Half an hour – that’s all.’

  ‘You can time it,’ Hunter said, switching his headlamp on.

  ‘I will,’ Garcia replied, setting the timer in his smartphone for thirty minutes and showing it to Hunter, who nodded and began digging again.

  Garcia turned on his headlamp and also went back to work.

  They didn’t need another half an hour. Twelve minutes later, Hunter’s shovel hit something that produced an odd sound – solid, but hollow at the same time.

  Both detectives stopped dead.

  ‘Whatever that is,’ Garcia said, ‘ . . . it’s not soil.’

  Hunter used the tip of his shovel to scrape away some dirt, before going down on his knees to use his hands.

  ‘Solid wood,’ he said, using his knuckles to knock against the new surface he had found.

  Hunter got back on his feet and, though visibility had deteriorated due to a moonless night sky, their headlamps were powerful enough to allow them to carry on shoveling for another hour, until they had revealed the top of a rectangular wooden box that looked to be about two feet wide by six feet in length. The wood used was light in color and very sturdy. The killer had used twelve nails to seal the box shut.

  ‘Shall I call it in?’ Garcia asked, putting down his shovel. ‘We’re going to need a full lineup here – forensics, a digging team, lights, everything. This entire area will need to be dug for other graves.’

  ‘We need to open this first,’ Hunter said, nodding at the wooden box.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s better to wait for forensics and reinforcements? They’ll be able to pull this whole casket out of the ground, and they’ll be much better equipped to preserve whatever needs to be preserved when that lid comes off.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Hunter said. ‘But all we’ve done here is find a box in the ground, Carlos. This isn’t an LAPD investigation. Not yet. For all we know, this box could be full of marshmallows. For us to call it in, we need a body.’

  Garcia blew into the palms of his hands, which were by then red-raw and hurting like crazy. He wanted to argue with Hunter, but he knew that his partner was right.

  ‘All we need to do here,’ Hunter said, ‘is use the crowbars to remove the nails and pry open the lid.’

  Lifting the nails from the lid wasn’t as easy as they hoped it would be. Whoever had nailed that lid shut had used heavy-duty round wire nails that were two inches long. It would’ve been easier to use the crowbars to smash open the lid instead of extracting the nails, but they wanted to keep the casket as intact as they possibly could.

  Being extra careful to keep the wood from even chipping was a painstaking job and it took Hunter and Garcia almost twenty-five minutes to extract all twelve nails. As the final one came off, the two detectives looked at each other, their foreheads wet with sweat, their faces smeared with dirt. With their headlamps on, they looked like a pair of coalminers.

  ‘You grab that end,’ Hunter said, ‘and I’ll grab this one. We lift it together.’

  They got down to their knees again and reached for the lid, which was about an inch thick, weighing somewhere in the region of twelve to fifteen pounds. The whole box looked to have been built with solid planks of wood that had been cut to size, all of them about an inch thick.

  Doing their best to keep the lid as level as possible to try to avoid any dirt slipping into the box, they carefully lifted it up and to one side until they were finally able to see what lay inside the makeshift casket.

  ‘OK.’ Garcia spoke first, after several silent seconds. ‘I sure as hell wasn’t expecting this.’

  Seven

  ‘What the hell?’ Dr. Slater gasped, as the extra-bright beam from her flashlight illuminated the open casket inside the shallow grave by her feet. She had driven up to the park ahead of the forensics circus that was about to descend on them.

  Lying inside the makeshift casket, still in the very early stages of decomposition, was a female body. Her eyes, nose and lips were completely gone, leaving her skull with three ominous black holes and two lines of exposed stained teeth, but a fair amount of dried s
kin and muscle tissue was still attached to her skeleton.

  The state of the body didn’t surprise Hunter, Garcia or Dr. Slater, as they all knew that without a coffin, in ordinary soil, an unembalmed adult body buried six feet under would take somewhere between eight and twelve years to fully decompose to a skeleton. Placed inside a coffin, the timeframe for the body’s decomposition would be considerably longer, depending on the type of wood used. Since the body Hunter and Garcia had uncovered had been placed inside a sturdy wooden box that had been tightly sealed and buried in a two-foot-deep shallow grave just over two years ago, its slow decomposition matched the expectation. No, what had surprised everyone had been the wedding dress.

  ‘Her killer dressed her up in a wedding dress?’ Dr. Slater asked. ‘Why?’

  She wasn’t really expecting an answer. Hunter and Garcia both knew that.

  ‘Was there any mention of a wedding dress in that notebook?’ Hunter asked.

  Dr. Slater angled her head to one side, shrugging. ‘I haven’t read much further than what the two of you have. We are running behind in so many cases, I just couldn’t find the time, but up to the point I got, there was no mention of it.’

  ‘Is the notebook still back in the lab?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘Not in the one you were in earlier today,’ she replied. ‘I sent it over to the DNA lab for testing, together with all the Polaroid photos.’

  The FSD Serology/DNA lab was the only FSD specialized unit lab that did not operate out of Cal State Alhambra. It was located four and a half miles away in the C. Erwin Piper Technical Center in Downtown Los Angeles, not that far from the Police Administration Building.