The Girl Buried in the Woods

by Robert Ellis

  Until now . . .

  The doctor must have been drooling as he researched his prey.

  According to Rogers, the methodology of the double murder showed that the doctor had been influenced by Andrew Penchant, the serial killer Matt brought down in Philadelphia just two weeks ago. Matt had to agree. With this double murder, Baylor no longer seemed to be going after the children of the greedy to inflict pain on their narcissistic parents. Instead, what first responders found when they’d entered the motel room demonstrated a far more direct approach.

  By all appearances, the man and woman had been stripped of their clothing and forced to have sex. Once the doctor was satisfied that they had been adequately humiliated, he injected them with a sedative, slashed their faces into full-blown Chelsea Grins, then woke them up to show them what he’d done.

  Matt buttoned his shirt and slipped on a pair of shoes as he played through the murder in his head. He had seen it himself so many times before.

  The Chelsea Grin. The Glasgow Smile.

  The idea of showing his victims how he’d mutilated their faces was the doctor’s particularly cruel way of getting them to scream. Seeing themselves as hideous and disfigured creatures beyond repair wouldn’t have taken much more than a quick look in the mirror. And that was his goal. To get them to scream, to see the dread in their eyes as their wounds burst open and they bled to death. The result was a gruesome clown-like smile that extended across the entire face from ear to lips and lips to ear. Something out of a horror movie, but far more vivid and far more grotesque.

  Matt took a moment to steady himself. He could see it in his mind. He could see every grisly detail.

  Apparently, the doctor selected a motel that had the reputation for being a hangout for local prostitutes. When the cleaning staff saw the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, they passed the room by for two days. On the third day, the smell of rotten flesh had become so toxic, the manager peeked inside and called 911.

  Dr. Baylor had three entire days to put distance between himself and the crime scene. Even so, his fingerprints were found in so many places in the room, it was clear to Rogers that the plastic surgeon no longer cared about hiding his identity. In fact, Matt imagined that he was more than pleased with what he’d done and wanted to be recognized for it. The choice of the motel was almost inspiring as a finishing touch, and Matt thought he could still hear the doctor laughing in the night.

  When Matt had asked Rogers if anything else stood out from the doctor’s past, the special agent only mentioned one thing. The male victim’s penis. At some point during the murder and while the man was still alive, the doctor had removed it with what state police investigators were calling a very sharp blade or scalpel. Though the crime scene had been processed and all evidence packed up and sent to the crime lab, investigators still hadn’t been able to locate the man’s penis.

  What stood out for Matt was that Baylor seemed to be evolving. Innocent people appeared to have become off limits, at least for now. The doctor had identified two horrible people, two narcissists who thought the world revolved around them and only them, two people who were hurting thousands of children and doing it willingly for the money. Once the doctor located them, they were removed from the face of the earth.

  Matt knew that if he were with the doctor, his uncle, his flesh and blood, he’d say the same thing he always said. And Matt also knew that he couldn’t argue the point.

  The world was a better place with these two people dead and gone. Never again would they be able to hurt children or jeopardize their lives because of the money the families of those children may or may not have had.

  Matt checked the time. It was 5:00 a.m.

  He had already traded text messages with Cabrera, and they agreed to meet at the station in half an hour, then drive over to the Denny’s at Sunset and Gower for breakfast. Although Matt had little experience attending autopsies, he guessed that he and his partner would be better off eating before the three-hour procedure took place. Last time, the experience of watching a medical examiner dissect a human body had been so traumatic, his appetite didn’t return for several days. And if his expectations held true, today would be far more harsh than that because the victim was so vulnerable—a fifteen-year-old child.

  He tried to put it out of his mind as he locked up the house, tossed his laptop case on the passenger seat, and climbed into the car.

  Traffic was light, and within thirty minutes he was pulling into the lot behind the Hollywood Station. He saw Cabrera waiting for him in their unmarked Crown Victoria. Grabbing his laptop, he slid into the passenger seat and they were off.

  Despite the coffeehouse on the corner, it was still early enough that they found a parking space at the Gower Gulch Plaza on their first pass through the lot. Matt checked his watch as they entered the diner and were seated by a window with a view of the corner and Sunset Gower Studios across the street. Pushing his menu aside, he glanced at Cabrera, then looked around at the other people chattering away in booths and at the counter. After a few minutes he decided that at five thirty in the morning, there were only three types of people who might walk into a diner in Hollywood. The first group had no doubt just come from the bars and needed food to deal with their high. The second group probably got some sleep, were headed in for work, and needed a big breakfast to start the new day. The third, like Matt, might not be able to explain whether they got to sleep or not. If they did, it wasn’t for much more than two or three hours, and they needed coffee and a light breakfast just to keep going.

  Matt smiled as he watched the waitress walk over with a fresh pot of coffee. She was wearing her red wig again and, as she filled their mugs, seemed to recognize them as regulars. Cabrera ordered his usual, the bacon and eggs French toast special. Matt handed over the menu and kept things simple: bacon and eggs, over medium, with home fries and two pieces of whole-wheat toast.

  When she left, Matt noticed three or four people beginning to check them out from the counter. Wondering what might have happened, he gazed up at the TVs hanging from the ceiling and noticed that every one of them was switched to the story on CNN. Cabrera was facing the window and couldn’t see the screens.

  “What’s with you?” Cabrera said. “What’s with the face? We’re about to have a real bad day.”

  Matt watched his partner take a first sip of coffee. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine. Just a little relieved maybe.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “You see the news?”

  Cabrera shook his head. “Didn’t have time.”

  “What about the radio?”

  “I got up late. I was in a rush.”

  Matt glanced at the people openly gazing at them from the counter now. He could see the recognition showing on their faces. Two or three people had begun to whisper. One even waved. Matt looked back at Cabrera, then pointed to the TV behind his partner’s back.

  “Take a look for yourself,” he said.

  Cabrera turned. The TV journalist was reporting from Washington, Pennsylvania, with the cheap motel in the background. Photographs of Dr. Baylor and his latest two victims were laid over the upper left side of the screen above the words DOUBLE MURDER AT THE SUNSHINE MOTEL. After several moments, they cut away to shots from other cities. Apparently, with news of the greedy woman’s murder out in the open, spontaneous celebrations were breaking out in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. But even more, the story was sweeping west with the sunrise. Chicago was up and running. People were making early-morning plans in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. On Wall Street they were already marching, raising their fists in the air and carrying banners that read: “The Wicked Witch Is Dead! The Wicked Witch Is Finally Dead! Thank You, Doctor B!”

  The screen cut back to the studio, and it looked like they were doing background on the doctor and the murders that had occurred in LA last fall. Beside the anchorman were photos of Baylor, then Matt and Cabrera.

  Matt watched Cabrera turn back, no
ting the hint of a smile.

  “He struck again,” Cabrera said in a low voice.

  Matt nodded. “The same day Sophia Ramirez was murdered.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside Pittsburgh.”

  Cabrera glanced at the TV, shifted his gaze to the people staring at them, then turned back and shook his head like he didn’t get it. Like he didn’t want to get it.

  “They love him,” he said finally.

  Matt narrowed his eyes. “They haven’t met him.”

  When the waitress with the bad wig walked up with their orders, Cabrera didn’t seem to notice. Matt lifted his coffee mug out of the way, and she set their plates on the table. Then she looked Matt over and pointed her pen behind her at a man by the cash register cleaning menus with a wet rag.

  “It’s your lucky day, boys. Manager’s special. Breakfast is on the house.”

  TWELVE

  Matt got into his disposable hazmat suit, wrapped the sleeves of the hood around his neck, and grabbed a respirator off the table. As he watched Cabrera getting into his suit, he noted his partner’s fingers trembling, his glassy eyes, and guessed that this wouldn’t be easy for him either.

  The door opened.

  Art Madina entered the changing room already suited up and sat down on the opposite bench. “I’m gonna guess that observing an autopsy isn’t part of your everyday, so let’s go over the rules.”

  Matt and Cabrera shot each other a look.

  Madina flashed a short, dry smile. “I wish I could give you something to mask the foul odor. If there was anything that worked the way it does in the movies, I’d use it myself. But here’s what I want you guys to keep in mind. Between what you’re about to see and smell from the corpse, we’ll be using formaldehyde, so there’s a good chance you’ll become light-headed. Most people, even first-year med students, feel faint. Believe me when I say that you don’t want to collapse in the operating room. What spills on the floor from the corpse is something you never want to touch or have any contact with. You guys understand what I’m saying? I don’t want you to tough it out. If you start to feel faint, if you think you’re gonna puke, get yourself out of there. You’re not gonna miss anything. A staff photographer will be taking pictures and shooting video. Everything that happens will be recorded and in my report.”

  Madina let it settle in. “You guys ready?”

  Cabrera shrugged like he wasn’t sure.

  Madina laughed out loud as he slipped the respirator over his head and got to his feet. “I didn’t think so,” he said. “Now let’s get to work.”

  Matt followed Madina and Cabrera through the door into the operating room, surprised that six other autopsies were underway. He tried not to look at anything as they passed table after table, tried not to hear the second ME on the line working his skull saw or the sound of body fluids splashing onto the floor. But then his eyes skipped ahead to Sophia, laid out so helplessly on the stainless-steel gurney at the very end. He looked at her battered face as he stepped closer, her flat breasts and all the bruises ringing her neck. As he eyed her body and the wounds from falling off her skateboard that peppered her thin arms and legs, everything seemed to stop when he reached the massive wound at the base of her skull.

  Sophia had been decimated, the attack on her life overwhelming.

  He touched her fingers with his gloved hand, so unnaturally cold and lifeless. The smells venting from her body and hovering below the tiled ceiling were staggering, but Matt knew that he could handle it because he wanted to. Because he needed to. As he watched Madina select a scalpel to make the Y cut across her torso, he stepped back, pulled out his notebook and pen, and just let things happen. The truth was that he found the smell of formaldehyde helpful. That in some fundamental way the harsh reality of what he was experiencing had become surreal and almost went by like a drug-induced nightmare. Over the next three hours he checked on Cabrera once or twice and found him staring at the ceiling tiles rather than Madina’s dissection of the girl.

  But that was okay, too.

  When Madina readjusted the body’s rib cage and sewed the chest back together with heavy black twine, they’d made it and the autopsy was finally over.

  Prior to their arrival and the autopsy, Madina had given Sophia a complete visual exam that included photographs and X-rays of her entire body. Now the medical examiner was walking over to the flat-panel monitor mounted on the wall and gazing at the images the staff photographer had made. Matt paged through the notes he’d taken during the procedure and looked up.

  But then Madina turned and gave both Matt and Cabrera an odd look. “Why don’t we go into the changing room,” he said. “I can pull these images up on the monitor in there, and we’ll have a chance to talk.”

  Matt began to wonder if something might be wrong. He nodded slowly and followed the medical examiner down the line of autopsies still underway. When they reached the door to the changing room, Matt entered behind Cabrera and pulled off his respirator and hood.

  “What is it?” he said. “What’s happened?”

  Madina shook his head and removed his mask. When Matt checked on his partner, Cabrera appeared drained and maybe still a bit groggy from the formaldehyde. He turned back and watched Madina switch on the monitor and pull up Sophia’s file. Using a pen, the medical examiner pointed to a close-up photograph of her battered face and cleared his throat.

  “We spoke about this during the procedure,” he said. “We have hemorrhaging around her eyes and beneath the eyelids, which would seem to indicate that she died from strangulation. When we opened her up, we found that her hyoid bone had been snapped, which backs up our initial findings.”

  Matt stepped closer, Madina’s use of the word initial leaving a bad taste in his mouth. “What are you trying to say?”

  Madina turned to him. “Cause of death, Jones. Take a seat. Let’s talk about it.”

  Matt could still sense that Madina was holding something back and imagined that whatever it was couldn’t be good. He glanced over at Cabrera sitting on the bench by the lockers, then turned to Madina and took a wild guess.

  “It’s the soil you found in her nostrils,” he said. “It shouldn’t have been there.”

  Madina nodded and took a seat on the opposite bench. “And in her throat and lungs, Jones. This was a brutal death. When she went in the ground, she wasn’t conscious—she couldn’t have been—but she was still breathing. She was still alive.”

  It hung there . . .

  The thought that the girl had been buried alive. He wasn’t sure why it felt so personal. Why it felt as though he had been wronged by the madman himself.

  Cabrera removed his gloves, wiped his hands over his face, and still appeared weary. “So it’s not the strangulation,” he said.

  Madina turned back to the monitor. “I don’t think so. Her leg is fractured just above her left knee. She may have been skinny, but she was strong and in terrific shape. I’m guessing the fracture came early in the struggle and that she was incapacitated.”

  “You mean that she couldn’t get up,” Matt said quietly. “She couldn’t get away.”

  Madina lowered his voice. “I think that’s probably the way it turned out, Detectives. This was a rage killing. A rage killing by someone who either lost control of himself in the moment or never had it to begin with. What I’m trying to say is that the man who murdered this girl couldn’t stop. That’s the problem with madness. Once they get started, very few of them can stop.”

  The air in the room seemed to double in weight. Matt took it in for a moment—the sheer scope of their mission, their case.

  “What about rape?” he said finally. “We saw the semen on her clothing. There was a lot of it. It came up in the UV light.”

  “That’s why this case is so singular, Jones. So strange. I can’t speak about what was found on her clothing, but her body’s clean. There’s no evidence that would indicate she was raped or sexually abused in any way. Her genitals are completel
y intact and completely normal. You saw for yourself. No vaginal rips or tears. No bruising or even reddening. No evidence of vaginal or anal penetration. No cuts or bite marks found on her body. No semen or saliva on her skin, her face, or lips. There’s nothing here that points to a sex killing.”

  Matt was dumbfounded. “Then you’re saying it was the trauma to the back of her head?”

  “Yes and no,” Madina said. “This guy grabbed her by the neck and beat the back of her head against the ground with as much force as he could. At some point during the struggle, or after that, he broke her neck. But like I said before, she was still breathing when he put her in the ground.”

  Matt shot his partner a hard look but didn’t say anything. Neither did Cabrera. The man they were looking for was an animal.

  THIRTEEN

  Cabrera still appeared numb and didn’t say anything as Matt took the wheel and drove the Crown Vic back to the station. Matt couldn’t tell if his partner was reacting to the autopsy itself or Madina’s results but guessed that it was a combination of the two. He didn’t mind really, preferring the din of the freeway while he chewed over what was happening to their investigation. Although it may have only been a couple of days old, every move forward seemed more like they were being pushed five miles back. Matt had to admit to himself that this was only his third murder case. That he didn’t have the experience of knowing what it felt like when a case never lit up but just seemed to stop breathing and die.

  He didn’t know what to make of it. All he knew was that he felt guilty. Like he was letting a fifteen-year-old girl down when she needed him most.

  He turned into the lot behind the station and found an open space along the far wall. Cabrera remained silent as he got out of the car and started walking toward the building. Matt shrugged it off and grabbed his laptop but kept his eyes on his partner as they entered through the rear door. When Cabrera ducked into the conference room, Matt followed him in and closed the door thinking he wanted to talk. But Cabrera still didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a seat at the table, eyeballing those photographs Matt had taped to the glass last night. The five girls who had gone missing over the past six months. The girls no one had heard from and, Matt guessed, never would.