by Leslie Wolfe
“Take off your belt,” she asked Elliot, while removing hers with quick moves.
“Whoa,” he said, laughing, his eyebrows raised above his amused eyes. “Really?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, cowboy,” she replied. “I need to climb up there,” she said, pointing a finger at the tree’s massive crown.
“Oh,” he replied, all amusement gone from his face, replaced readily with embarrassment and a bit of gloom. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
“Because the only thing that doesn’t add up is the burial,” she explained. “Many Native tribes use a burial tree and place the bodies of the deceased at the fork of that tree.”
He sized up the tall trunk and frowned. “Are you sure? Putting a body up there would take some serious doing,” he added. “Above average strength, or maybe a rope system with pulleys. But she was buried, right? We dug her out of there,” he added, gesturing with his hand toward the open grave that gaped wide and dark only a few feet away.
“Yes, and that burial is the only piece that doesn’t fit.”
He took off his wide-brimmed hat and scratched his head, then put it back on. “Fit what?”
“The old Native burial rituals,” she replied calmly.
Many Native tribes believed that contact with the deceased’s body could bring sickness, misfortune, or even death, so burial was a simple, quick process, attended by very few. Some tribes burned the possessions of the deceased; other tribes, like the Seminole, would throw all the deceased’s possessions into a swamp, then relocate their entire settlements to move away from the place touched by death. But there were also tribes who buried their dead in burial mounds, mostly the Ohio River Valley peoples.
“I’ll do it.” Elliot hesitated, considering the best way to climb to the tree fork, and then took the leather belt she was offering. He removed his, then attached the two belts together. He then looped the extended belt around the tree trunk and his body, securing the end through the buckle, and trying it with a couple of vigorous tugs.
“What am I looking for, up there? ’Cause the view don’t interest me worth a truckload of manure on fire.”
She turned away to hide her smile. He was as colorful as he was smart, that was for sure. “Fibers. Evidence that she was laid to rest there, for any length of time. Better take these with you,” she added, offering several small evidence bags and tweezers from his field kit.
He took them and shoved them into his shirt pocket, then started climbing the tree, testing the resistance of the belts only a couple of feet off the ground, leaning heavily against them. They held.
Nevertheless, Kay held her breath all the time it took him to get to the fork. When he was safely there she breathed, while memories flooded her mind. The first time she’d seen a Native burial. How the tribe selected burial trees, and where they were usually located. How she’d cried at the root of one, looking up through the branches at Grandma Aiyana’s body and calling her name until Grandpa Old Bear had covered her mouth with his warm, withered hand and taught her to never call the dead, to let the spirit be on its way, undisturbed by the grief of the living. They weren’t her grandparents, they were Judy’s, but they’d raised her just as much as her own parents had, maybe even more.
“You were right,” she heard Elliot’s voice above her head. It startled her, tearing her away from fond memories and immersing her into the cold reality. She looked up and saw him waving an evidence pouch in the air. “I found blanket fibers.”
“You can come down now,” she shouted. “If we need more, we can borrow a platform truck from the power company and get a crime scene technician up there to pore over every branch.”
“Hate to disappoint you, but here in the boonies we do our own evidence collection,” he said, starting to climb back down carefully. “There is no crime scene technician.”
“Wait,” she said, and thought she heard a muffled oath. “Take a look around, see if you can spot another burial tree nearby. They’re large, have a wide fork where the body can be placed, and they’re deciduous.” He stared at her without a word, but she understood his unspoken question. “The only trees fit to be chosen as burial trees are ones that shed their leaves every fall, mimicking the cycle of life, death, and being reborn, resonating with the sacred ritual in every aspect.”
He looked around, shifting carefully to get a 360-degree view of the area. Then he climbed down and found her near Kendra’s grave, studying the access road, the tire tracks in the soil.
“There might be other burial trees,” he said apologetically. “It’s hard to tell with all the foliage. We’d have to walk the ground looking up, I guess. But I found where he roped her up to the tree fork, if that’s helpful.”
“What did you see?”
He waved a couple of evidence pouches in front of her eyes, smiling. “Right next to the fork, the bark was torn off a branch, and fibers from a rope still clung to it. I got us some samples.”
Everything was helpful in an investigation, every tiny sliver of evidence could become a piece of the puzzle that, when completed at least in some significant measure, could help her visualize who the killer was. Because everything he chose to do or not do spoke about the processes in his mind, about his obsessions, his compulsions, his fantasies.
“He brought her here by truck,” she said, “and the earth was disturbed around both burial sites. Was it like this when she was found? Or did the crime unit disturb the ground like this?”
“The ground was disturbed when we found her,” he confirmed, “but here the climate is tough, and any ground disturbance disappears in a week or two at the most. We have rain, sleet, snow, wildlife, the works.”
“Gee, I didn’t know that,” she replied sarcastically. “I’m new to the area, you know.”
He shook his head, mumbling something she didn’t hear and probably didn’t want to. She walked quickly to the other gravesite, and, looking up, found what could’ve well been the other burial tree. This time an old oak, with the fork much larger and much closer to the ground, but a thicker trunk that would’ve made climbing more difficult.
She looked at the path he’d taken to reach the site. As in the other location, many tire tracks could be seen, turning the forest trail into a two-rutted path that would’ve been difficult to travel after rainfall.
If she remembered correctly, many of these paths cut through Cuwar Lake Forest, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the area during summertime. Young couples looking for solitude, families camping and fishing by the lakeshore, tourists looking to spend an afternoon in the gentle sun, all drove from the main road toward the lake, seeking such unpaved roads or creating them in their large, off-road vehicles, cutting new trails through the forest.
That’s how he got to the oak tree fork. He’d driven his truck all the way to the tree, then climbed on the cab holding her body in his arms. From there, he could’ve easily lifted her and set her on the fork. Even an SUV would’ve worked, not as easily as a truck, but still.
She walked slowly, looking at the base of the tree, searching for a tire track that almost brushed against the trunk. The weather had already taken its toll, heavy rainfall dumping fresh leaves and washing away dirt.
“He took a different path for each girl,” Kay said, frowning. It was almost dark now, and a strong chill dropped from the mountains, making her shiver. “Can we get cadaver dogs, here in the boonies?” The moment she’d voiced the request, a shiver traveled down her spine, triggered by the smell of damp, leaf-covered earth.
“We sure can,” he replied, sounding almost proud, as if the K9 unit was his own accomplishment. “Do you think there are more?”
“I’m willing to bet there are,” she replied, hints of her grim thoughts coming across clearly in her voice. There was no way of knowing how many without help. Walking the forest looking for burial trees and disturbed ground made no sense; some of his victims could’ve been laid to rest a long time ago.
Leaning
against a large Douglas fir, Elliot adjusted the brim of his hat. “You didn’t tell me, why bury them in the ground, if the ritual called for this tree burial instead, and he’d done that already?”
She’d wondered that herself. “The spirit should be able to escape easily, that’s the main reason why the bodies are placed up in the trees, to be closer to the stars. But after the spirit escapes the confines of its human form, the body can be buried in the ground. It rarely was, back in the old days.” She sighed as she cleaned the dirt off her hands as best as she could, then ran her hands against her arms a few times, to warm herself. “But I believe he did it as a forensic countermeasure. He didn’t want the bodies to be found, and so he buried them. He couldn’t risk tourists looking up and seeing the bodies up there, above their heads.”
“Smart guy, this one. I wonder what he does with them during winter, when the ground is frozen like a desert boulder,” Elliot said. He’d been silent, not offering much in terms of dialogue, but she could tell his wheels were turning.
“That is, if he really killed more than the two we’ve found, but I guess we would’ve heard something by now,” he continued. “What does he do? Stops killing for the season?”
“I’ll tell you what he does,” she replied calmly. “Remember how the autopsy showed new and healed wounds? He keeps them hostage and tortures them until the ground thaws enough to bury them. How long has Kendra been missing?”
Nine
Sheriff
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Franklin County Sheriff Stephen Logan rarely shouted, but Elliot had probably pushed one of his buttons without even knowing it. Logan stood behind his desk in the posture he usually assumed for video conferences or interviews, against a backdrop of the stars and stripes and the California Republic bear, his native state’s colors.
Logan leaned forward, planting his palms flat on the surface of his desk. Elliot maintained eye contact and cleared his voice.
“Boss, I thought she’d be useful, that’s all. Being she is who she is.”
“And who is she, exactly? A civilian. You coopted a civilian into the investigation and didn’t think I needed to at least know about it ahead of time?”
“Sorry, boss,” Elliot replied, lowering his gaze for a moment. “She’s done this a lot, and she can help us get ahead of this guy. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“If I wanted the FBI’s behavioral analysts involved, I would’ve given them a call. Why do we need one of them, and not even an active one, to help us catch a killer? Can’t you do your job?”
Elliot asked himself the same question. What was it, really, that had led him to visit Kay Sharp the day before? He was a good cop, with a decent case-solving record, who knew how to catch a killer. It wasn’t as if he needed handholding or anything.
He raised his eyes, meeting his boss’s glare. “Damn sure I can,” he replied. “But none of us has dealt with a serial killer before, and she has,” he added.
“What serial killer?” Logan asked, his voice a little quieter, as if afraid the words might leave the confines of his office and spread like wildfire in the community. “We have two bodies, last time I heard. Not more.”
“She said it’s about the pathology of the kill, not the number. It used to be five kills, before, then three. That’s what I knew. But she said—”
“Drop it with what she said, already,” Logan snapped, then sat in his leather chair with a groan of frustration. “This place has never seen a serial killer. Hell, we haven’t even seen a murder since nineteen eighty-nine, when Dick Joshua came home drunk and found his wife in bed with the plumber. Are you sure it’s a serial killer?”
Elliot nodded, the brim of his hat accentuating the movement of his head. “That’s why I thought she could help, FBI badge or not.”
Rubbing the root of his nose between the thumb and index of his right hand, Logan kept his eyes closed for a moment. Then he traced the lines flanking his mouth with the same two fingers, as if to wipe away the tension keeping his features frozen in a grimace of tiredness, despite the early morning hour and the almost-empty coffee mug on his desk.
“We can’t have a civilian involved in the investigation,” Logan said, his voice now back to the normal that Elliot knew well. “If this gets out, it will be hell to pay; the people and the media will be all over us. How much time do you need to sort through this mess?”
With how little he knew about catching serial killers, Elliot had no idea what to answer. He’d seen enough crime drama on TV, but the timelines of real-life crime policing were entirely different. About forty percent of murders remained unsolved, especially those with random victims who couldn’t be linked to their assailants. And if not solved in the first few days, a murder case stood a great chance of turning cold.
“I need a few days, four or five,” he said. “By then, we—”
“You have two days,” Logan replied coldly.
He knew it was pointless to argue.
“Yes, sir.” Elliot took two steps toward the door when Logan stopped him with a hand gesture.
“I hope you’re doing this for the right reasons, Detective. I’ve seen good people getting fired over less.”
Elliot nodded and left, then walked straight to his car, wondering if he was doing it for the right reasons. The woman drove him nuts anyway, with her questions, her assumptions, and the way her mind worked. What made it worse was she was right so darn often, and that made him think he maybe didn’t deserve to carry the gold-starred badge in his wallet, not when a serial killer was at large. The woman had a brain the size of a big ol’ pickup truck, and attitude to match.
Up a tree? Really? Not in a million years he would’ve thought to look there for probative evidence. That spoke to her abilities as a profiler, of which he was in absolute awe. It was the way she’d written her letters, addressed to “The lead detective investigating the Cuwar Lake murder,” that had drawn him to knock on her door the day before. She’d been articulate, to the point, offering a fresh perspective and some angles he hadn’t thought of before—and all that had been before he’d actually met Dr. Kay Sharp. Since then, since she’d opened her front door the morning before, in her paint-stained jeans and an oversized shirt that probably belonged to her brother, he’d been able to think of not much else but her.
And the last time he’d experienced that, it ended badly.
He’d just made detective in Travis County, Texas, and he’d been assigned a partner, a rookie he was to train on the job.
Charlene Sealy.
There had never been anyone more wrong for the job of detective in the entire history of the Lone Star State.
Or more fitting.
She was the stunning, twenty-five-year-old daughter of a Texas farmer. By farmer, Elliot understood someone raising cattle on a twenty-acre ranch, while she had meant the farmer who owned a large portion of central Texas and an entire vertical of food industry operations, from meat packaging plants to meat processing, food manufacturing and distribution.
At first, he didn’t correlate his new partner’s last name with the most expensive brand of T-bone or ribeye cuts on the shelves at local stores.
When he did, he tried to understand why a multimillion-dollar heiress would choose to chase perps in the scorching, dust-filled heat for a measly detective salary. It seemed, though, that her entire life, Charlene had dreamed of becoming a cop and had prepared for it, breaking the gilded hearts of her parents. She’d graduated cum laude from Texas University with a criminal justice degree, and she was smart. Brilliant. There was a cunning about her that enabled her to anticipate the moves of the most hardened criminals, and with looks like hers, their defenses dropped down enough for her to read right through them, then read them their rights.
It was impossible not to fall in love with Charlene Sealy, and Elliot had resisted for the longest time, knowing he had little in common with the Sealy empire heiress, other than a passion for the job. Soon though, he
could think of little else but her, and counted the hours before the start of a new shift.
When they were assigned a case involving drug trafficking over the Mexico border with ramifications on both sides, they jumped on the opportunity. A large drug bust would be a career maker, and they both believed they could make a difference in the war against the white death.
When their investigation took them to a distant relative of the powerful Sealy clan, they discussed it for a moment. Elliot, as the senior detective, had suggested they inform the sheriff and see if he wanted them reassigned. But Charlene was one hell of a cop who didn’t want to let go; she knew they were close to making a bust, and didn’t care that a distant uncle was using his family home as a coyote hub, charging them one kilo of cocaine per transit.
But the DA cared, and so did the Travis County sheriff, when the case against Charlene’s distant relative blew apart in court with the help of an expensive team of defense attorneys who exposed the family connection and claimed the investigation had been tainted by a vendetta dating back generations over a large piece of farmland.
The only thing that had saved their jobs was that they had worked the case by the book, in all aspects except for not disclosing Charlene’s personal connection to one of the main suspects. The other defendants in the case were all sentenced accordingly, which made little sense in the grand scheme of things, considering Charlene’s distant uncle walked.
In a meeting with the sheriff Elliot couldn’t forget, they were both given the terms under which they could continue to serve the county as detectives. Swallowing tears of frustration, Charlene stated that the moment her uncle ran a traffic light or rolled through a stop sign, she’d be there to bust him, but ended up signing a letter saying she was to keep her distance from all family members involved in criminal activities, and immediately report such activities to her sergeant. Elliot earned himself a letter of reprimand on his permanent record, and was assigned to the night shift for the foreseeable future.