Within Plain Sight

by Bruce Robert Coffin

  Dedication

  For Mom and Dad.

  Epigraph

  Truth only reveals itself when one gives up all preconceived ideas.

  —gido shoseki

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  By Bruce Robert Coffin

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday, 3:07 a.m.,

  July 11, 2017

  Erwin Glantz sat inside the dumpster, staring wide-eyed into the garbage bag, his heart hammering. He struggled to comprehend what he was seeing. His vision was focused, despite the large quantity of alcohol flowing through his veins. The drinking had gotten bad as of late, and along with it came hallucinations. But he knew that this was no figment of his imagination. The contents of the bag were very real, a nightmare in vignette. After a moment, he cinched both sides of the plastic bag together, closing it, successfully removing the macabre image from his sight, but not from his memory.

  The trash receptacle, which had previously afforded him shelter from noise and inclement weather, now seemed much too small. The filthy grease-stained walls felt like they were closing in. The stench of rotting waste he’d previously been oblivious to was suddenly overpowering. His insides were roiling, threatening to revolt. He scrambled out of the dumpster and onto the pavement, careful to avoid the bag and its contents. Dropping to his knees, he retched up the sour contents of his stomach. When he had finished, Glantz rolled onto his backside and leaned against the metal waste receptacle to catch his breath.

  Hidden from the alley, in the shadow of the dumpster, he wiped the debris and spittle from his wiry beard with the back of one calloused hand. Despite the warm night air, a shiver ran through him. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, rocking back and forth. He closed his eyes, while his brain struggled to process what it had just witnessed, and why. He could simply leave what he’d found, he reasoned. Place some other garbage on top of it to make sure that nobody else discovered the bag or its contents and then just walk away. Sure. His alcohol-muddled brain couldn’t find any flaw in that plan.

  He stopped rocking and opened his eyes wide. He held both hands up in front of his face as if studying them. Fingerprints. His prints were now all over the bag. And not just prints. Probably hair and fibers. He turned to look at the puddle of vomit he’d left on the ground. DNA. With his history it was likely the cops would think he’d done this horrible thing. He could hear their questions. Where have you been? Why did you do it? Tell us where it happened.

  Glantz struggled to get his thoughts together. The sun would be up soon, and he needed a cohesive plan. One that didn’t involve his incarceration. He couldn’t leave the bag and its awful contents, that much was obvious. But if he took it with him and was stopped by the police, how would he ever explain it? A no-win scenario for old Erwin. He closed his eyes and began to rock again. The rhythmic motion temporarily soothed him, carried him away.

  Chapter 2

  Wednesday, 5:17 a.m.,

  July 12, 2017

  The flies buzzing around the body were a telltale sign that death had not occurred overnight. Perhaps a day or two at most, Portland Police Detective Sergeant John Byron thought as he scribbled onto a fresh notepad. The bound paper tablet, removed from the glove box of his unmarked Taurus moments before, would serve as a case diary of sorts. Times, dates, names, facts, every detail would be documented. As the department’s lead homicide investigator, Byron was responsible for overseeing every aspect of the investigation. As always, depending upon case complexity, one notebook might easily become ten, or even twenty. Byron paused a moment to survey the body. A light breeze carried with it the foul note of decay, causing Byron to revise his earlier estimate. Maybe more, he wrote.

  The corpse was female, partially dressed in matching teal-colored bikini style underwear and bra. She was thin but not scrawny. Athletic. Her tan skin was shifting toward blue/gray. Lividity was clearly present where it shouldn’t have been, around the front of her torso and extremities. After death blood pools to the lowest points of the body due to the effect of gravity. Whoever this woman was, she had died facedown. Her fingernails, recently manicured in a French style, were lacquered a bright tangerine color with white tips. A delicate-patterned silver band encircled the ring finger of the right hand. Her left hand was unadorned.

  Byron wordlessly studied the scene, the silence broken only by an occasional passing vehicle, the incessant shrill whine of cicadas, and the rhythmic click of Gabriel Pelligrosso’s digital camera.

  “Any guess on age?” the flat-topped evidence technician inquired.

  “Tough to tell,” Byron said as he jotted another entry into the book. “Her hands look young.”

  Pelligrosso nodded in agreement, then returned to his photographic documentation of the scene.

  The body had been posed in an almost natural-looking position, seated on the ground among the scrub brush and weeds, legs together, knees up, arms crossed in front of the calves, like one might sit on a beach looking out at the waves. Byron wondered if there was something symbolic about the setup.

  Pelligrosso looked up from his camera once again. “Think this might be related to those others, Sarge?”

  The question, and what it might mean, was already occupying a large chunk of Byron’s thoughts. Impossible not to consider, given the recent media coverage, but also much too early to be jumping to any conclusions.

  “Time will tell, Gabe.”

  Byron turned his head toward the sound of someone slamming a car door. He recognized his boss’s voice. Lieutenant Martin LeRoyer was speaking with the young uniformed officer standing post on Maple Street. The freshly minted officer was maintaining a crime scene log, standard procedure in any murder investigation. LeRoyer, commander of the police department’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), would be required to check in just as Byron and Pelligrosso had. Rank had its privileges but compromising a murder scene wasn’t one of them.

  Byron watched as LeRoyer stepped through a hole in the chain-link fence and approached on foot. He gestured for the lieutenant to keep to his right on the pavement. No need to trample the scene further. Crime scene 101. One route in, one route out.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” LeRoyer greeted.

  “Morning, Lieu,” Pelligrosso said.

  “Marty,” Byron said.

  “What do we have he—” LeRoyer stopped cold. Cupping a hand over his mouth, he appeared to be fighting back the urge to vomit. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”

  “If you’re thinking about losing your b
reakfast, I’d rather you didn’t do it inside my crime scene,” Byron said.

  LeRoyer staggered back a step, his face twisted up in disgust. “Where the hell is the rest of her?”

  Chapter 3

  Wednesday, 5:23 a.m.,

  July 12, 2017

  The killer, or killers, had chosen an abandoned lumberyard to dispose of the body. Forest City Lumber had been one of the largest building material suppliers in Greater Portland when Byron first donned a uniform as a beat cop for the Portland Police Department in the mid-nineties. Its proximity to the waterfront and rail lines, previously traversing the center of Commercial Street, had made shipping, in or out, quite convenient. But with the rise of the trucking industry the rail lines had been torn up and the family-owned lumber company eventually succumbed to the discount pricing and do-it-yourself branding of mega-stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot. Forest City Lumber had become a memory. And a place to discard bodies.

  The fenced-in two-and-a-half-acre lot was bordered by four different thoroughfares, Commercial, Maple, York, and High Street. A long stick-built office building, one large storage barn, and an industrial-sized steel Quonset hut, all vacant, crowded the west side of the property closest to High Street. Scattered about the remainder of the crumbling asphalt were long open-air drying sheds, nothing more than red sloping roofs mounted atop wooden pilings. Byron could still remember driving past and seeing stacks of freshly cut lumber. The victim had been discovered in one of the smallest sheds located at the back of the yard, tucked up against York Street.

  Byron continued to monitor his superior for signs that LeRoyer was about to contaminate the scene with breakfast.

  “Jesus, John,” LeRoyer said after taking a few deep breaths and regaining his composure. “You could have warned me.” The lieutenant pointed at the remains. “That might be the sickest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Byron, no longer shocked at the horrors people were capable of inflicting on each other, couldn’t argue with his boss’s assessment.

  “Who found the body?” LeRoyer asked.

  “Security guard named Hopkins called it in,” Byron said, flipping back a page in his notebook. “Said he was checking the grounds at quarter to five this morning. His dispatcher notified ours.”

  LeRoyer tore his eyes away from the gruesome scene and scanned the area. “Have we searched for the rest of her?”

  “Not yet,” Byron said. “We need more help, but I don’t want anyone else tramping through here if I can help it. Mike Nugent is on his way in.”

  “So is Bernie,” LeRoyer said. “I pulled him from George’s side.”

  George was Detective Sergeant George Peterson who supervised the Crimes Against Property side of CID. Detective Bernard “Bernie” Robbins was one of Peterson’s detectives. One of his least popular detectives.

  Pelligrosso stopped what he was doing and exchanged a quick glance with Byron.

  “Problem?” LeRoyer asked, directing both his question and an annoyed expression toward both investigators.

  Pelligrosso, who had wisely remained silent, returned to his picture taking.

  “I had hoped for Luke Gardiner,” Byron said, attempting to remain as politically correct as possible.

  “Gardiner’s unavailable,” LeRoyer said. “He’s the lead on those West End safe burglaries.”

  “Property crimes, Marty?” Byron said.

  “I’m not pulling Gardiner off that case. Besides, he just had another one. Look, you just said you needed more help and, as it turns out, Bernie’s available.”

  Detective Robbins was available, as Byron knew, for precisely the same reason he was always available. Robbins bitched so frequently, about every case he was assigned, that Sergeant Peterson, due to retire in several weeks, had pretty much given up on him. Robbins’s piss-poor attitude had been like a cancer within the Property Crimes Unit of CID, and Byron wasn’t keen on having it metastasize in his Violent Crimes Unit.

  “Besides,” LeRoyer continued, “Nugent is a phone call away from being out on paternity leave anyway.”

  Unconvinced, Byron continued to stare down the lieutenant, hoping to make him budge on the issue.

  “Pair Nuge and Bernie up on this, then when Nuge goes out Bernie will be up to speed. Relax, John. It’ll all work out.”

  As if conjured by LeRoyer’s words, Nugent and Robbins arrived in their respective unmarked cars, adding to the number of police vehicles already choking Maple Street. Byron watched the two detectives check in with the uniformed rookie. Nugent’s shaved dome gleamed in sharp contrast to his new and hopefully temporary partner’s unkempt coif.

  “Sure, it will,” Byron said, his words dripping with the intended extra helping of sarcasm.

  “Where’s Mel?” LeRoyer said, referring to Detective Stevens, in a not-so-subtle attempt at changing the subject.

  Byron returned his focus to the body. “At 109, interviewing the guard.”

  Portland Police Headquarters was located at the northwest corner of Middle and Franklin, at 109 Middle Street, where it had stood since its grand opening in 1972. More commonly referred to by all who worked there as 109, the odd-shaped pile of brick and glass had replaced the original antiquated granite building that once stood on Federal Street between the county courthouse and jail. CID was housed on the top floor, along with a number of other administrative offices, including the chief’s.

  Detective Melissa Stevens sat at the scarred wooden table directly across from the uniformed security guard in CID Interview Room Three. The guard’s name was Craig Hopkins. He had wavy blond hair, blue eyes, and boyish good looks. According to his driver’s license he was twenty-nine years old. And based solely on his accent, Stevens guessed he was from the South.

  “Never seen anything like that,” Hopkins said, shaking his head to emphasize the point.

  Stevens studied the guard’s picture ID. “How long have you been employed by Secure Incorporated, Mr. Hopkins?”

  “You can call me Craig,” he said.

  Oh, please, she thought. “How long have you worked for Secure Incorporated, Craig?”

  “Let’s see, I started working for S.I. about a year and a half ago, right after I left the army. Work mostly overnights.”

  Stevens recorded every detail of their conversation in her notebook, even though the entire conversation was being videotaped by a remote digital system located in the CID conference room. She’d never known a notebook to malfunction. She couldn’t say the same about computers.

  “And what do you do for the company, specifically?” she asked.

  “Respond to alarms. Patrol the various commercial properties that S.I. oversees. I do a little bit of everything. Kinda like a cop.”

  Wannabe, Stevens thought as she fixed him with a halfhearted grin. “What time did your shift start last night, Craig? Or was it this morning?”

  “Last night, at twenty-one hundred hours. My shift ends at zero seven hundred.” He checked his watch. “Well, it was supposed to end at zero seven hundred.”

  “You wanna contact your boss? Let them know you’ll be late?”

  “Nah, I’m okay for now. They know I’m with you.”

  He’s flirting with me, she thought. What a tool. “Tell me again what time you discovered the body.”

  “0449 hours this morning.”

  “Exactly 4:49 a.m.?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. I wrote it on my clipboard and radioed it in to my dispatcher.”

  “I’ll need the document you wrote that note on.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll give it to you when I get back to my patrol car.”

  “Did you notice anyone else in the area?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “How did you happen to check the lot this morning? Were you responding to an alarm?”

  “No. The owners of that property contract with S.I. for security. They’re in the process of selling. Several out-of-state developers are bidding on it. It’s been on the news. I think they’re plann
ing to turn it into a hotel or something.”

  “Is it alarmed?”

  “The property? No. The buildings are, but the open-air structures aren’t. Neither is the yard.”

  “Cameras?”

  “Nope.”

  Stevens nodded her understanding. “How often do you check on that particular location? Every night?”

  Hopkins’s face reddened. “I’m supposed to, but to be totally honest it’s been a few days since I last checked.”

  Byron and Pelligrosso stood sweating near the body as they watched Doctor Ellis amble across the lot toward them. Ellis was whistling. Nugent and Robbins had already begun their visual search of the property looking for the rest of the victim and any of her belongings, with the understanding that if they discovered something they were to make a note of where it was and leave it for Pelligrosso to photograph and bag later.

  Ellis was toting his weathered black leather examination bag in one hand. Sporting Ray-Bans, tan cargo shorts, and an untucked black Iron Maiden T-shirt, he looked like a middle-aged tourist from a bygone era. No bystander would have guessed that this colorful character was the State of Maine’s deputy medical examiner.

  “Top o’ the morning, gentlemen,” Ellis said, greeting them in his signature theatrical way.

  “Doc,” both investigators said simultaneously.

  “The office said you had something a bit unusual for me. What have you—” Ellis stopped in his tracks and made a show out of removing his sunglasses.

  Neither detective said anything.

  “Well, this is a first for the good Doctor E,” Ellis said. Placing the leather bag on the pavement, he unzipped it and removed a pair of blue latex gloves. As Ellis worked his hands into the gloves, he turned to the evidence tech. “My boy, have you finished with your photos and all that?”

  “I have,” Pelligrosso said.

  “All right then,” Ellis said with an enthusiastic twinkle in his eyes. “Let’s have a closer look, shall we?”